A Little Unexpected.

Taylor 3

Joe ran back to his bus, still trying to piece together just what he was feeling. He went from hating Taylor, to tolerating her, to really liking her all in one day. He busted through the bus doors and took a deep breath. He made his way to the mini fridge and searched around for the wine. When he found it he shoved it under his arm as he made his way to the junk drawer for the pack of cards. Once he found those he slid the pack into his pocket and looked around the bus one last time to see if there was anything he was forgetting. As he was walking out he fixed his hair in the mirror. He quickly stopped convincing himself that Taylor is just a friend.

Meanwhile Taylor sat in her bus still shocked at what just happened. The way Joe talked to her. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her knee. She was confused to say the least. Hundreds of thoughts ran through her head. She then realized Joe would be coming back any minute. She shot up from her couch and cleared off the table, shoving all the paper plates in the garbage. She rummaged through her cabinets and pulled out the best junk food she had. A bag of skittles, Cheese Doodles, Doritos, and her favorite sour patch kids. Then she cleaned out two wine glassed and placed them on the table gently. She ran to the bathroom and started fixing her hair. She pulled it into a loose pony tail letting pieces fall randomly around her face. She brushed the strays behind her ear and started cleaning up her makeup. For just getting out of a sob session, her makeup held up pretty well. She cleaned off the black streaks of mascara on her face and took a deep breath. Why was she doing this? Why did she care if her hair was a mess or her make up was done? What if Joe was just trying to fool her? Just as that last thought came into her head she heard his voice.

“Hello?” He yelled.

Taylor peeks her head out of the bathroom door. “Hey.” She smiles at him. She slowly backs her way out of the bathroom and makes her way back to the “living room/kitchen” area. Joe puts the wine and the cards on the table. He walks over to the counter and slowly surveys the junk food, while Taylor checks the label on the wine.

“NO WAY!” She hears Joe say. She turns around to see what he's so excited about. He's holding up the bag of sour patch kids. “Sour patch kids! These are my favorite.” He laughed.

“MINE TOO!” Taylor laughs back.

“Can I have some?” Joe asked.

“Go ahead.” Taylor says settling into the booth in the kitchen. Joe settles in across from her along with the bags of Soup Patch.

“Wine?” He asks Taylor as he pops open the top and fills his glass halfway.

“Yes please.” Taylor almost grunts holding her empty glass out to Joe. Joe and her laugh as he fills her glass a little more than his. “So what are we playing?” She asks taking the cards out of the deck.

“Rummy?” He asks.

“I can do that.” She laughed shuffling the deck in her hands. Joe is impressed but tries not to show it. He starts to wonder how it was he ever hated her. And he finds it amazing that if he wasn't here 10 minutes ago, when she was crying, he would have never known she was upset. Her eyes are no longer puffy or red, but shiny and a sparkly light blue. Her smile is genuine. Her laugh in sincere.

“So what are we watching here?” Joe asks shifting a little to face the TV.

Taylor moves her eyes past him to the TV. “Well you said no sappy movies, and that's all I had...” She giggles as she speaks. “So I just popped in a Law and Order SVU dvd. I hope that's cool with you.” She says as she deals Joe seven cards.

“Yeah totally.” He says bringing his eyes back to Taylor who is intensely examining her cards. Joe laughs under his breath at her and picks up his cards doing the same.

“So aren't your brothers wondering where you are? Weren't you suppose to have dinner with them?” Taylor asked placing down a card on the table.

“Nah.” Joe says picking up a card from the deck. He looks up at Taylor for a quick second and catches her looking at him. They both quickly look away. “I told em I wasn't ready to go out yet.” Joe sighs placing a card on the table. Taylor picks up his card and puts down a run.

They play one game of rummy but end up getting distracted by the conversation they're in and choose to take a break from the game.

“I was 15 when we moved. It was easy though I always liked Nashville more.” Taylor answered Joe when he asked about when she moved to Nashville. She took a sip of wine and sat with her back on the wall. She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them.

“That's cool.” Joe laughed. “I was about 16 when we moved to LA. I didn't love it but it's grown on me.” He smiled. “I start off hating most things but grow to love them most of the time.” He smiled up at Taylor. She blushed and turned her face away from Joe. “More wine?” He asked pouring himself a little more.

“Sure.” She answers holding her cup out to him. There was a gun shot on the TV that made her jump a little. “Sorry.” She giggled.

“Do you watch this a lot?” Joe laughed looking back at the TV. A bloody body was laying dead on the ground.

“Oh yeah.” She laughed. “It's my favorite. I've always loved those crime shows or any kind of mystery thing.” She giggled.

“Me too.” Joe said turning around to face Taylor again. Taylor and Joe spent the rest of the night comfortably talking. Taylor finally got to see Joe's goofy side that she had been waiting to see. Once he got more comfortable with her they were cracking jokes all night. Neither of them was paying attention to the time or their phones, which was a first.

“So then I take Nick and go to push him down the stairs but he jumps out of the way and I went flying forward. A broken leg and 6 stitches later I had this scar.”

Taylor was in tears as Joe and her shared old stories of growing up. Taylor's were sweet and Joe's were just funny. She let him talk most of the night because she was really enjoying it and he was really enjoying making her laugh. “Where's your bathroom?” Joe asked as he stood up from the table and stretched. They hadn't moved all night and his bones were almost sore but he didn't mind.

“Oh straight to the back and to the left right across from my room.” Taylor said pointing down the bus.

“Cool I'll be right back.” He said as her headed toward her bathroom. He snuck a glance into her room and saw her corkboard full of pictures and letters and post cards. He loved how homey just her little space felt. He moved quickly into the bathroom before Taylor stood back up. She stretched to but made her way over to the couch to get more comfortable. She pulled a pillow up to her chest as she watched them investigate a crime scene. Joe was just washing his hands in the bathroom when he heard something ringing. He stopped for a second and heard it again. He shut off the water and dried his hands but heard the ringing one last time before he heard Taylor's voice.

“Hello?” He could hear how shaky her voice was and right away he knew it was John. He sighed and let his head fall as he listened more to what Taylor was going to say. “You know I've been worried sick about you!” She yelled now. Joe was surprised at how she didn't wait. “Don't give me that bullshit John, 3 days! You've been busy for 3 days?! Do you know what I've been doing? I'm starting a tour, rehearsing, writing music, and when I'm not doing that I'm worrying about you.” Her voice was slowly going down. “But I still found time for you John.” Her voice was sounding more vulnerable now and Joe didn't like it. He didn't like how he could feel how soft she was getting just by the tone of her voice. There was a long pause and Joe thought maybe she hung up on him. He just had his hand on the door when he heard her “I know. I know. But that- I know.” She sighed. “Okay. Yeah I'm fine.” She said but Joe knows she is far from fine. She is hurting and John is the one doing it to her but he just couldn't understand why she was giving in so easily. “It was good. I thought I did pretty well, we still have some stuff to work out before out first show but we'll get it.” Joe sighed and listened one second longer till her heard her giggle. Then he realized he had to get out of there. Taylor looked up and saw Joe leaving the bathroom. But he moved so fast she barely had time to ask where he was going. He grabbed his jacket off the booth he was sitting at and started making his way out. “Where are you going?” She asked bringing her hand over the speaker.

“I'm getting tired. I'll see you tomorrow.” He said rushing out of the bus without even a glance back at her.