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Author's Chapter Notes:

I don't know what to say except that one of the main reasons that this update has taken so long is that I've been wavering on where I wanted to go with this story. After numerous rewrites, I realized that I wanted to stay the course and stick to what I was doing in the first place.

So, I'm sorry for the lateness of a chapter that might frustrate some, and thank you for sticking around.




Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


 

12

 

 

Taylor opened her front door with a heavy sigh, not noticing that the lights were on inside. She kicked off her shoes and walked down the hall stopping when she realized that she wasn’t alone.

“Mom?”

Her mom was in the kitchen. Two burners were going at the same time and the aroma of garlic and spices wafted towards her.

Her mom turned to her with a tense smile. “I wondered when you’d get home. It’s almost one am.”

“What are you doing—,”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come home so I thought I’d make dinner for tomorrow night,” she said as she waved a wooden spoon towards the stove.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in California?”

Her mother stirred a batch of pasta sauce for a moment, taking her time before she answered. “I decided not to go.” She put the spoon down and turned to face her.

“There were things said and done this morning that I don’t ever want to happen again. But I thought long and hard about what you said and I realized that you were right. I’ve been taking you for granted all this time.”

She paused and then took two steps towards her. “Oh, Taylor,” she said, reaching out to stroke the cheek she’d slapped hours earlier. “You’ve been my rock for so long. Like a husband, like a sister, like a friend. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I was the one who was supposed to take care of you.”

Taylor choked up, not wanting to cry for a second time that day, but the tears fell unchecked. They were words that she hadn’t realized she’d needed to hear until that very moment.

Her mother wrapped her arms around her as Taylor cried into her shoulder. “Things are going to be different, Taye. I called a few friends after you left and I have two interviews set up with agencies.  I’m not going to be your burden anymore. I’m going to do things right from now on.”

Taylor let those words comfort her, even though a small, sceptical part of her didn’t know if she believe them.

And she cried. She cried for the years of frustration she’d spent working, missing life, stressed about things no teenager should have to worry about.

She cried because it had been so long since she’d been able to lean on her mother and have her soothe away her worries.

And she cried for the friend who’d held her, let her cry in his arms just like this, and was now gone.

...

 

“Where have you been?”

Taylor stared with shock as Carson pushed past her and walked into her house.

“C-Carson, what are you doing here?” she asked, clutching the door as she watched his gaze wander around the room, taking stock of her home.

He looked her over, and lifted a brow. “You look pretty good for someone on their deathbed.”

Not meeting his eyes, she pushed the door closed.

“When are you coming back to work,” he demanded.

“Soon.”

“Soon?” He folded his arms in front of him. “You’ve missed three shifts already. Normally I wouldn’t care but Christian’s been an ass all week and everyone’s sick of his shit. You need to come back to work.”

Taylor looked down. “I don’t think me being there is going to help.”

“What did you do?” he asked and Taylor’s eyes widened.

 “Wh-what?”

“Come on, man,” he said with exasperation. “Christian’s moods are dictated by you. When he’s happy, it’s because of you, when he’s angry it’s because of you. So what did you do?”

“That’s not true and I didn’t do anything!” she said, pushing away from the door to clear the mug and plate she’d left on the coffee table. Anything to keep busy. Anything to avoid Carson’s watchful eyes.

“Did you tell him the truth?”

She stopped abruptly, her pulse picking up speed. “I don’t -- What are you talking about?”

Suddenly he was beside her, gripping her wrist to stop her hands from moving. “How long are you going to keep playing this game? How long are you going to keep doing this to him?”


Taylor gasped, the mug slipping from her fingers, hitting the rug with a thud. Her eyes flew to his and instantly she knew he knew the truth.

“How long have you...?” she whispered.

“Almost from the beginning,” he said dropping her hand. “I wasn’t sure at first because Christian seemed so sure about you but I’ve been modelling since I was sixteen. Dudes who look like chicks, chicks who look like dudes, that’s a regular Sunday afternoon for me. I figured it out pretty quickly.”

She slumped down on her sofa, suddenly feeling weak. “Does anyone—,”

“I don’t know about anyone else,” he said cutting her off. “I haven’t told Christian yet if that’s what you’re asking.”

“If you knew this whole time ... why?” She looked up to meet his dark eyes. This is was the first time she’d ever seen Carson so serious and it freaked her out. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it was free entertainment every day. Because I figured you had your reasons. I didn’t think that you would both...” He shook his head.

“Would what?” She jumped on the statement, desperate to know the rest.

He gave her a hard look. “It doesn’t matter.”

She opened her mouth to say that it did, but the look on his face deterred her. Instead, she asked the question that had been on her mind ever since the truth came out, “Now what?

He watched her for a moment, his dark eyes grave. “That’s up to you, Taylor,” he said heading towards the door. “But if you care about Christian like I think you do, you only have one option.”

He glanced back at her as he pulled open the door.“Tell him the truth.”

...

It was an unseasonably cold April day, the kind that seeped into your bones, but Taylor walked up to the Brew House with a heavy step, more afraid of what was sheltering those four walls than the cold.

Through the big glass windows, she could see Harry wiping down a table and Stacey handing a newspaper to a man sitting in one of the leather wingback chairs.

She opened the door, feeling the welcome warmth of the cafe, and stepped inside with trepidation. She let out a pent up breath when she realized that Christian wasn’t inside.

Stacey noticed her first. “Taylor!” She rushed across the room to greet her and give her a hug. “Thank God you’re back! Christian has been an absolute bear! How are you feeling? Are you better? We were all really worried!”

Taylor waited for the bombardment of questions to subside before she answered, “Definitely better. Thanks. I’m going to change, okay?” She didn’t wait for Stacey to answer as she bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

She passed Christian’s office and noticed with relief that it was empty. She wouldn’t have to face him just yet.

“Tell him the truth.”

Carson’s words echoed in her brain and she dashed them away with a shake of her head.

She knew he was right. She knew that time, like a bomb, was ticking away and that every day she avoided telling Christian the truth was another day that she was misleading him and she hated that.

But their relationship was so precarious, how could she tell him the truth now? She needed time to clear the air, to make up for what she’d done so that they could be comfortable around each other again. Only then would she be able to tell him everything.

She just wondered how she was going to find the courage to do it.

After putting away her things and tying the bistro apron around her waist, she slowly headed downstairs.

George was making a drink behind the bar. When she stepped up beside him, he looked at her curiously. “You feeling better?”

“Great,” she said brightly, and then turned to take an order from a customer.

“You sure? You look tired,” he said when the orders had let up a bit. “You know you can talk to me if something’s bothering you, right?”

“Everything’s fine, George. Better than ever.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie. While things with Christian were as bad as they could be, things at home were better than they’d ever been. Her mother’s interview with the agency had gone well and they thought they’d be able to find something for her pretty soon.

It figured that now that her home life was on track, the rest of her life was going off the rails.

“Okay but if you ever need anything...”

“I know.” She smiled at him. “Thanks.” She appreciated George’s concern but her issues with Christian felt too private to share with him.

George left her to talk to one of the regulars while she continued to work. She was halfway through her shift, setting down a cup of coffee at one of the back tables, when Christian walked into the cafe.

His hair was dishevelled from the wind and he hadn’t shaved which made him look extra scruffy. It had been so long since she’d last seen him and she drank up the sight of him like water. He looked so good, even the scowl on his face didn’t deter from how attractive he was, and she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him and bury her face in his chest.

She bit her lip and looked away, hoping that no one had seen the way her eyes had devoured him. At least Christian hadn’t. He nodded a greeting to Harry, unzipped his leather jacket, and disappeared up the stairs.

She exhaled and moved back to the bar, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before she had to face him. Typically Christian spent fifteen minutes going over things in his office before he came down but it was a good forty-three minutes and twenty two seconds – not that she’d been counting –  before he came back down, looking even more handsome in a light blue oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

He was looking everywhere but at her and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose. He greeted customers he knew, made a comment to George and then she felt it. The moment when his eyes were on her, pinning her in place like an invisible force. She caught his eyes, unable to move under the cold scrutiny.

Then, just like that, he turned away and she could breathe again.

“You.”

She turned to see a customer waving at her from a nearby table. She plastered a stiff smile on her face and walked over to the woman who was drenched in some heavy French perfume that made Taylor want to choke. A little boy sat across from her playing on a tablet.

“Tall hot chocolate, shot of vanilla, no whip,” he ordered without looking up.

What a little brat, she thought, keeping the smile on her face.

“A medium vanilla hot chocolate without whip cream,” she stated, ignoring the Starbucks lingo. She turned to the woman. “And for yourself?”

The woman sniffed and pursed her lips in displeasure. “It’s quite hot in here. I’m practically sweltering.”

Taylor was sure the long fur coat she was wearing had nothing to do with it. “I’ll lower the heat for you,” she said pleasantly.

“Naturally,” the woman retorted snottily. “Now get me a medium cappuccino. Extra foam. 160 degrees. And make it fast.” She snapped her fingers at Taylor.

Taylor took a deep breath before she repeated, “A cappuccino and a hot chocolate coming up.” She gave the awful woman another stiff smile and marched over to the bar.

Christian was putting a customer through and her step stuttered slightly before she continued to the machines.

He didn’t say a word to her as she worked beside him. He didn’t jab her teasingly with his elbow. He didn’t smile at her. It was like she was invisible and it stung. She wished she could get him alone so they could talk but that would require pulling him aside and that was pretty hard to do when he was treating her like air.

George came over to her and asked if she needed any help.

“Uh, do you mind making a vanilla bean hot chocolate without whip cream while I finish up this capp?”

Christian lifted his head from the chocolate cake he was slicing and frowned at George. “He can handle two orders,” he said to George. “There’s a customer over there that needs help.”

George shot Christian a look and opened his mouth to say something but the expression on Christian’s face stopped him. He left to help the customer.

Taylor felt a spark of irritation. Christian had spoken right through her when addressing George. Was he going to be like this all day?

Ride it out, Taylor. Just ride it out.

She took a deep breath and got back to work. She quickly finished the orders and delivered the drinks to the woman and her son.

She was turning away when the woman shrieked, “Are you trying to kill me? I said a hundred and sixty degrees!”

Taylor took two calming breaths before she addressed the woman. “I made sure to check, ma’am. And it was at a hundred and sixty degrees exactly. Would you like me to check again?”

“What I want is for you to do your job properly!” She shoved the cup at Taylor, making some of the liquid slosh over the side and onto Taylor’s hand. Taylor clenched her teeth in pain as the woman snapped, “Make me another at the right temperature this time!”

For a brief moment, Taylor wondered what it would be like to smother the woman with her fur coat before she stiffly walked back to the bar.

“Incompetent idiot,” the woman said nastily from behind her.

She wiped the coffee off her hands, ignoring the stinging and tested the drink again. A hundred and fifty nine degrees. She took a clean cup from the shelf and poured the cappuccino inside, not intending to make a new batch for the horrible woman.

“What are you doing?” Christian barked from behind her.

She jumped in surprise. “I’m pouring—,”

“You’re about to give a customer something she sent back.” He folded his arms in front of him.

Taylor’s mood was darkening by the second. “It’s a perfectly good cappuccino,” she said. “Even if I make another one, she’s just going to find something wrong with it!”

“Do it right the first time and you won’t get any complaints,” he said icily.

He was so unyielding, so cold and unlike him, that part of her wanted to weep.

The other part of her wanted to punch him in the face.

“I always bust my butt and you know it,” she said through gritted teeth. “If you think you can do a better job, why don’t you give it a shot?” She banged the cup down on the counter and stared at him.

Christian’s eyes narrowed. “Stacey,” he barked.

Stacey, who had been making a beeline for the kitchen to avoid the two, winced when she heard his voice. “Yes, boss?” she squeaked.

“The woman at the window wants a medium cappuccino, extra foam, 160 degrees.”

Taylor pulled back in shock. He’d been paying close enough attention to know exactly what was going on and yet he hadn’t stepped in, hadn’t come to her defence at all. She knew that she’d made a mistake but did that one mistake mean that he couldn’t even be civil? Couldn’t even be kind?

“I’m pulling you off barista duty,” he sniped at her. “Go clean the bathrooms!”

She could feel her anger increasing by the second. She glared at him, not moving a muscle.

“You have a problem with that?” he spat out.

“Yeah, I do!”

His face darkened. “In my office. Now.”

He stomped up the stairs and she stomped up after him.

When she walked into the office, he slammed the door behind her before turning to confront her. “When I tell you to do something, you do it,” he said, voice raised. “If you think the customer’s wrong, too bad. Shut up and do your job. Got it?”

Taylor’s jaw clenched. “I did everything she wanted. She was being a bitch and you know it. You should’ve had my back down there!”

“If you didn’t think you could handle it, you should have passed her off to me or George.”

“Pass her off to you?” She laughed bitterly. “You haven’t said a damn thing to me all day. Is this how it’s gonna be? You’re going to pretend I don’t exist until I do something to piss you off?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you.” He looked at her as if she was gum underneath his shoe. “You think I owe you something because I was nice to you a couple times? I don’t owe you shit.”

Taylor gripped her arms, her nails sinking into her flesh at his words. Had she been fooling herself this whole time by thinking they were getting close? “I- I never—”

“What do you want from me?” he demanded.

“I don’t want anything from you!”

“Bullshit!” he said, his voice rising. “You want something from me that I can’t give.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said shaking her head.

“Don’t you?” he said sarcastically. “You think I don’t know?”

Taylor’s heart stuttered to a halt, her breath coming quickly as she processed his words. He knew. Had Carson told him everything not trusting that she would? Her hands started to shake and she curled them into fists to still them.

“You like me,” he said flatly.

The room went still as she stared at him, reeling from his words, her heart beating so fast and hard that she wondered if he could hear it.

She should have been relieved that he didn’t know her secret, but for some reason this felt even worse. She felt vulnerable, naked, like he could see inside her soul.

Before she could even stutter out a denial, he continued, “It’s never going to happen. So lower your expectations. I’m not interested.”

The words stung and tears started to form in her eyes. She blinked them back quickly, not wanting him to see how much his rejection hurt her.

Who did he think he was telling her to lower her expectations? Like he was some gift to humankind or something. Yeah, she liked him. How could she deny that he was everything she wanted? Smart, funny, handsome. Kind.

Or at least he had been, until her unworthy self had had the audacity to fall for him.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, her eyes stony. “You think you’re hot shit because you drive a nice car, and run a shop that you’re daddy gave you? What a joke.”

“I’m a joke?” he said with a hard laugh. “This joke pays your salary so what does that make you?”

“Stupid!” Taylor yelled. “I’m the dumbass who’s been busting my butt trying to pay you back for flashing a check book that someone probably handed you... You think I want to be here? If I didn’t owe you I wouldn’t—,”

“There’s the door!” Christian slashed his hand toward the exit. “If you weren’t so damn pathetic in the first place, I wouldn’t have bothered taking you in.”

She jerked back. “I’m pathetic? At least everything I have I worked for. Mommy and daddy’s money didn’t pay for my car or my house!”

“No, but I did,” he said with a sneer. “Or are you forgetting why you still have a roof over your head?”

“Fuck you,” she said, instinctively raising her hand to throw a punch.

He blocked her easily. She raised her hands to swing at him again, but again it didn’t work.

“Get out,” he said, gripping her arms and shoving her away. “Before I do something I regret.”

She stumbled backwards, breathing hard. “With pleasure,” she said before she slammed out of the room.

...

 

As soon as the door banged shut, Christian slammed his fist against the nearest wall, feeling impotent for the first time in his entire life.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go down. Taylor had been gone for four days and it had bothered him more than he’d cared to admit. Taylor had become the backbone of the cafe and his disappearance had been disconcerting for everyone but especially for him.

He’d been a real pain in the ass all week and he knew it.

Then Taylor had finally shown up, standing nonchalantly at the counter as he always did, acting like everything was the same, like things were back to normal, when they both knew they weren’t.

He hadn’t wanted to deal with any of it so he’d put up a wall, pretended that Taylor was just another worker, that he hadn’t spent four days worrying about him, being angry at him, thinking about him.

But as the day progressed, he’d realized that cool indifference was impossible where Taylor was concerned. He’d physically had to stop himself from throwing out the customer who’d been harassing him. Like he was Taylor’s protector.

It made him want to pick a fight -- fracture Taylor’s irritating composure. Get right underneath his skin, like Taylor was getting underneath his. But fighting hadn’t accomplished anything. He felt even worse than he had before and their friendship was even more messed up than it had been.

He didn’t know how to fix any of it. Especially not now that he’d ridiculed Taylor about liking him.

He still couldn’t believe that he’d ignored the signs. He’d been so wrapped up in his brotherly connection with Taylor that he’d lost sight of the obvious. That Taylor saw him as something more. As a man.

That Taylor was gay.

It should have come as a surprise to him but it didn’t. Probably, in the back of his mind, he’d known it all along. Something about Taylor had never really fit and now he knew why.

And it wasn’t that he cared about that kind of thing, he had plenty of gay friends. He’d just never been tempted by any of them before. Not like...

He grimaced and shook his head. What was he thinking? He hadn’t been tempted. It had been a blip.

So what are you afraid of? Asked a little voice in the back of his mind.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said aloud as if saying the words would make them true.

Yet somewhere, somewhere deep inside, he was afraid. He was standing on a precipice. One false move and his life would change forever.

 












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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.