I'm With The Band

Taylor Reynolds opened a window and let the cool breeze wash over her. It was a perfect Sunday morning. The sun was bright, the breeze crisp and the birds singing cheerfully in unison. She sighed and smiled lightly to herself as a set of arms wrapped around her from behind. A face nuzzled into her hair and she felt content.

'It's lovely out. We should sit in the garden,' she suggested.

'We should,' agreed the voice behind her. Taylor turned in the arms that held her and looked up into Vinny's brown eyes, the eyes that were so different to a certain rock star's green ones.

'Think I'll hop in the shower quick,' said Vinny. He leant down and kissed her. Taylor smiled against his lips. It had taken her three months, but she finally felt like things were getting back to normal.

'I'm going to get a head start on that sun,' she smiled, slipping on her sunglasses.

'Be out in a bit,' Vinny said, disappearing out the room.

Taylor stepped into the garden and smiled as the warm sun beat down on her, surprisingly hot for mid-morning. She relaxed back into a sun lounger and contemplated what an easy life she now led.
After leaving the police force to go travelling across Europe for two months, she felt she had a relatively normal and strong head on her shoulders again. So, on her return, she'd contacted Vinny. He was more than delighted to meet with her. They went for that long awaited coffee and things escalated from there. It was like a new beginning, a clean slate. She was happy with Vinny.

She wanted to be happy with Vinny, yet there was always that distant part of her brain saying 'What would life be like if you were with him? If you picked him? If you didn't abandon him in the hospital?' and she'd probably always have that distant part. She'd told herself it wasn't doubt but guilt. Her brain was right. She'd abandoned him in the hospital. It was low and the guilt of her actions ate away at her for the first month in Europe.

She didn't usually allow herself the time to sit and dwell on the 'what if's of her life, especially the ones that involved the most famous man in the world, but, with Vinny currently busy, Taylor couldn't help but ponder those 'what if's. The thought had even crossed her mind as to whether Johnny would even take her back after what she did. All she knew was that if he had done that to her, she'd never speak to the bastard again.

It had been so long now. In the beginning it was hard. Vinny would hold her and she would imagine it was Johnny holding her instead. Sometimes she would forget it wasn't and startle herself when she looked up at him, or turned over in the night to face him. Everything was quiet on the State-Side front. Grace was still keeping up appearances though with regular Eden Edition updates on her pregnancy. She was five months now. It was a boy. There was still no comment from Johnny about the baby. Taylor tried to ignore it all. Look away when she saw him on a poster, turn the page when she saw him in a magazine, change the station when he came on the radio, but recently, she hadn't done a lot of avoiding. It was like he and his band had just vanished. Taylor didn't know how she felt about that, so she just didn't think of it.

She thought of Vinny instead. She thought of how he had confessed his love for her, a love she didn't think he had for her anymore.
She had loved him back, back when they were first together over a year ago, but he had hurt her and she'd grown a thicker skin since then. She wanted things to be how they used to be with Vinny. She was trying so hard to reciprocate the love he felt for her.
In a sense, she did love him and always would, but since then she had felt a love like none she had felt before. A love she had lost through her own misguided choice.

It was now, as she lay in the sun dwelling on her wasted love for Johnny, that she realised how very little she'd gotten over him over the passed three months. It made her chest ache, no, throb, with the thoughts of what her life could have been like if she followed her heart instead of her stupid head.

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and she blinked ferociously. She hadn't cried for him since that first month in Europe. She was in Berlin, Germany the last time she cried, recalling the infamous story of Johnny and his band crashing a German wedding whilst on tour, mistaking it for a fancy night club. Forgetting him was difficult when he'd left his imprint on nearly every country in the world.

Taylor swiped the tears away from under her sunglasses when she heard Vinny approach from the living room. He stood in the doorway of the glass patio doors and exhaled loudly.

'Enjoying the sun?' he smiled. Taylor nodded and smiled back, thankful for her large dark sunglasses that hid her puffy eyes. 'Life doesn't get much better than this, right?' sighed Vinny happily as he dropped into a lounger beside Taylor. A term that contridicted everything Taylor's busy mind had just brushed over. She didn't bother to say 'Well, actually, yeah it could. You could be Johnny Carolina.' She'd worked herself up into a state and hated herself for letting Johnny continue to have this effect on her. He was in the past. She needed to let the past go.
Taylor opened her mouth to answer but heard a sound coming from indoors.

'My phone's ringing,' she jumped up and dashed to the kitchen to retrieve her mobile, all the while shaking her head, trying to snap herself out of her well of self-pity before she drowned in it.
Just as she picked up her phone, the call went off. Taylor cursed under her breath and checked her recent calls log. It was an unknown number. Taylor locked her phone and thought nothing of it. If it was important, they would call back.

***

Vinny left early the next morning to put petrol in the car before work. Taylor often got up when he did. Just because she didn't have a job to get to, she didn't think she had no reason to get up at all. After Vinny had left, Taylor ate a small breakfast as she contemplated what to make for dinner that evening.

She was pulled from her thoughts when her phone started to ring again. Taylor swallowed her mouthful of cereal and rushing to her phone on the kitchen counter. She looked at the screen and saw it was the same number from yesterday. She was about to press accept when she thought fleetingly of Johnny. She hesitated. What if it was him? She wondered. Taylor stared at the phone as it rang shrilly and vibrated violently in her hand. She just didn't have the guts to answer it. Most likely, she knew, it wasn't Johnny. Most likely he hadn't given her a second thought, gotten a new strumpet and had never even gotten close to feeling an ounce of love for Taylor. She was just being paranoid. She decided if it really was that important, they'd ring back, and she'd answer it this time.

Taylor carried on eating her breakfast and washed up her bowl when she was done. Glancing out the window, she noticed it was yet another nice day. She hated being lazy, but with weather as temperamental as the British Summer, she had to make the most of it while she could.. August was normally a good month, but that meant nothing when the clouds rolled in in force.
As she was about to head to the garden, her phone went berserk again. With a deep breath, Taylor found courage to answer her phone. She was being silly. She wouldn't be scared to answer her own phone.

'Hello?' she asked. There was a brief pause.

'Is that . . Taylor Reynolds?' It was a man she didn't know and it sounded as though he didn't know her either. Taylor imagined the stranger pausing to read her name from where ever it had been scribbled down.

'Um . . yes. Who's this?' she enquired, not feeling quite as bold as she had when answering. The man on the other end hung up and Taylor listened for a confused moment to the dead line. She ended the call her end and stared at her phone as she placed it down. Anxiety washed over her and she didn't know why. She had nothing to be anxious about. She put the call down to prank callers and didn't question how the caller knew her name.