More Than Just A Mark On My Sheets

Zack’s POV:

“Jason,” Taylor seemed to plead quietly with our son at seven in the morning as he began to cry. She sighed as he continued wailing, and I heard the bus door open and close.
I wanted to wake up, go outside and help her, but my body wouldn’t let me. When I tried to open my eyes, the fought me until I gave up. I couldn’t go fully back to sleep, but my body wouldn’t let me stay awake. I was asleep, but still aware of my surroundings, and I could faintly hear Taylor talking in a small voice to Jason outside of the bus.
I heard the door open and close again, and Taylor’s quiet voice filled the bus. I laid down in my bunk and watched as she set Jason on the floor and sat down with him.
“Does Jay want some milky?” She crooned. I decided to get out of bed, after I heard Jason start faintly crying.
“Morning,” I yawned, sitting down on the couch. She looked up at me from the floor, smiling. Jason made a weird noise, which sounded somewhat like a squeal.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” I shook my head, lying. I didn’t really care, though. “Liar, I saw you watching me like a creep,” She smirked, making me chuckle. Wow, Zack, good job embarrassing yourself.
She suppressed a laugh as he crawled over to her and pushed her down, crawling on top of her.
“Hi baby,” She smiled, kissing his nose. “Hi,” She repeated as he stared down at her. He kissed the tip of her nose and crawled off of her, sitting down on the floor and pointing up at me. “He wants you,”
I leaned down and picked him up, situating him in my lap. It was amazing how I had gotten so comfortable around him. I wasn’t too surprised, though. He was my son, and I could honestly tell you I loved him.
“I guess he doesn’t walk?” I asked stupidly. Of course he doesn’t walk.
“If I pull him up and hold both of his hands, he manages to shuffle his feet along a little,” She informed me. I nodded.
Jason made a cooing noise and squirmed in my arms, screaming out of nowhere. I flinched back at the sudden loudness and Taylor reacted immediately, knowing exactly what to do.
“Shh, baby, shh,” She took him from me, holding him against her hip and swinging back and forth. I looked her up and down, my eyes lingering on her chest for a few seconds before I tore my eyes off of her and put them on my son.
She set him down on the floor and set dug through her purse, pulling out a small mirror and handing it to him. He clapped his hand against the mirror and looked up adoringly at Taylor, his mouth in an ‘o’ shape.
It made me jealous at how easy it was for Taylor to take care of Jason. But I was also glad that my son hadn’t grown up with a completely clueless mother for the first five months of his life. Taylor really loved, him, and took care of him well.
“Aw, baby, why you crying?” She asked in a baby voice when Jason started crying out of the blue again. So this was what it was like to take care of a child. “Sorry,” She looked at me, resting Jason in her lap.
“He’s not bothering me, and the guys sleep like rocks. A gun shot could go off and they wouldn’t hear a thing,” I laughed.
“He woke Matt up around three last night. He was pretty pissed, and I felt bad,” She told me.
“Oh, forget about it, he’s not mad. It’s just Matt’s time of month, don’t worry,” I joked, making her laugh. Jason stopped playing with his small foot and copied laughed, too, even though he didn’t know why we were laughing.
“You’re cute, you’re so cute,” She tickled him and he giggled, pushing her away, his wide smile matching his mothers. They looked so much alike, except for the eyes.
“He has your eyes,” She murmured, as if she could read my mind.
“Does he?” She nodded.
“Look,” She handed Jason to me and pushed me to the mirror in the bathroom and I compared my eyes to his. She was right. If you took a picture of my eyes, and a picture of his eyes, and put them next to each other, you wouldn’t be able to tell whose eyes were whose.
“You’re right,” I said quietly.
“Aren’t I always?” She laughed, taking Jason from me when he started squirming again.
“Here, Jay,” She picked up a pacifier and stuck it in his mouth. He grabbed on her finger and pointed it in the direction of the window. She walked over and let him look outside at the rising sun.
“You’re a silly boy,” She giggled, beaming at Jason as he kissed the window. She set him down in his highchair and put a bottle on the table, and came and sat next to me on the couch. “He wears me out sometimes,” She sighed.
“I can see why,” I chuckled, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. I loved when she did this.
“I’m cold,” She said randomly, cuddling into my chest.
Jason exclaimed a random bunch of letters put together, as a failed attempt to say a word, and pointed at Taylor.
She got down on the floor and kissed his forehead. “I love you, baby,” She nuzzled her face into his small neck, making him giggle.
She was so good at this. She was like the perfect teenage mother. Perfect attitude, perfect patience, perfect looks…
“Zack, can you get the black bag out of the fridge and get the milk out of there and pour it into that bottle?” She pointed to the refrigerator, and then to the bottle on the counter. I nodded and did as she asked, screwing the cap on the bottle and handing it to her.
“There you go, baby,” She cooed, sitting Jason up and holding the bottle to his mouth, which he gladly accepted.
“You call him baby a lot,” I smiled.
“’Cause he’s my baby!” She was answering my question, but looking at Jason and saying it in that cute little baby voice she talks to him in. She looked at me and beckoned me down to the floor. “We don’t bite, come on,” She urged, smirking.
I sat down and sat next to her, crossing my legs. Jason dropped his bottle to the floor, crawling into my lap.
“You dropped it! Uh-oh!” She got in his face and he giggled, pulling on her hair.
“Do you always act this strange around him?” I asked, smirking.
She pretended to glare at me, and then her expression softened into a smile. “Yup. It makes him laugh, and it reminds me that I’m still a kid,”

- - -

“What’s up, doc?” Jack asked me, sitting down on the couch and stretching his legs across Alex’s, while Rian was seated on the floor. We were having one of those little guy meetings, where one of us got to rant about something, and the rest of them would listen.
“Taylor,” I sighed. She was out right now with The Maine, which made me insanely jealous because I knew that Kennedy would be checking her out all day, like I did. It still didn’t give him the right to do it, though. She’s the mother of my child; I’m the only one with rights to check her out.
“What about her?” Alex drummed his fingers on the armrest of the couch.
I went into a whole ten-minute explanation about how she acted around Jason this morning. I told them about how she would act all silly, and couldn’t stop smiling, and kept telling him that she loved him. I told them how I thought she was the picture of the perfect mother.
They all stared at me wide eyed once I finished. “Whoa,” Rian said finally.
“I know. She didn’t even seem annoyed that he woke her up super early,”
“Isn’t it her job to be like that with him, though? Like that’s how most mothers act around their babies, isn’t it?” I shrugged at Alex’s comment.
“Yeah, most mothers. Most of the mothers who are older, and weren’t forced to have a baby when they were still in their teen years.”
“What are you gonna do when somebody asks us why Taylor is staying with us, and whose baby it is?” Rian switched the subject.
I sighed. “I’m not sure,”
“Well, are you going to tell people he’s yours?” Alex questioned.
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure I want people to know just yet,” I admitted.
“Well, what are we gonna tell them? Because people are going to notice at some point,” Jack said.
“Maybe we could just-”
“Fuck!” Taylor interrupted me, bursting through the door. Alex and Jack snickered at what both mine and Taylor’s statements sounded like when they were put together, and I just rolled my eyes at their immaturity, even though if it were a different situation, I probably would have laughed at that, too.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, ignoring Jack and Alex.
She breathed in heavily and rubbed a hand soothingly over Jason’s head and began to talk. “I was out with John, Pat and Kennedy, and some girl from Buzznet came up to us and saw Jason and started assuming Jason was Kennedy’s, and then a bunch of other photographers and shit came over to us and started asking us questions, and the guys told me to run back here.” She explained.
“W-what did you say when they asked if he was Kennedy’s?” I stammered out, my hands secretly clenched in fits behind my back.
“I said that I wasn’t seeing Kennedy, and that the baby wasn’t his, but they kept pressing me, so then I ran, and here I am,”
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, opening the new text message I had just received.

From: Jack
At: 6:47 PM

You need to ask her out soon.