"Where you going, Hope?" Taylor asked at six in the morning of Christmas Eve. He’d woken up from the bitter cold in the room and couldn’t fall back asleep. Now he’d come downstairs, noting that Zac was already awake, and that Hope was walking to the front door.
The past three months had been uneventful. The guys had been off because of Zac’s injured arm, and just now he’d been practicing every day to get his beat back. Hope blamed herself when she saw him the first day he was able to play again.
He’d lost pretty much all the use of his arm. He couldn’t get the beat he had before and he sucked. He really sucked. When Ike and Tay heard him they’d almost cried, thinking everything was over. Slowly, but surely, over the time he’d gotten better and he was close to him old self.
Hope turned around and answered before heading out into the cold weather. It’d snowed the previous night and Hope was wearing sweat pants and a sports bra. Taylor couldn’t believe she’d think about going outside like that.
"I’m going running. I don’t think you’d want to join me."
"I don’t. Are you going out like that? It’s really cold out there. News says it’s 33 degrees."
"Taylor, I’ve worn less clothing in colder weather when I’ve been running. I’ll be fine. See you soon." She opened the door and a blast of cold wind flew at her. Taylor smiled when he saw her shiver.
Noticing his grey zip-up thin sweater on the coat rack close by, he grabbed it and put it on her. "I’m not about to let you freeze. Now don’t make a protest or I’ll have to keep you inside."
She turned to him, smiling. "Sure. Whatever. You’re the boss here, Taylor." He rolled his eyes.
"And if I see you running laps without it on I’ll have to pull you back in."
"Yes sir," she mumbled and then left, briskly running down the block. Sometimes I worry about that girl, Taylor mumbled. He walked into the kitchen and sat down under the vent. It was freezing in the house and the heat was on full blast.
He knew Zac would come down complaining it was too hot. He was just like Hope, he loved the cold. He’d never make it a summer in Florida. Speak of the devil, Taylor thought as Zac walked into the kitchen.
"Someone’s up early," Zac mentioned. Zac was always the first one awake, until Hope came along. They’d normally wake up around the same time. Sometimes Zac was first, sometimes Hope was.
Taylor shrugged. "Well someone decided it would be nice to make the room freezing and I couldn’t fall asleep again." Taylor gave his brother a pointed look. Zac rolled his eyes.
"It’s fine upstairs. You’re just an ice cube, you should get used to it. Hope doesn’t complain about the weather now does she? Hope loves the cold. That’s why she was in a good mood to go running."
"Why don’t you join her?"
"Do you know what she does out there?" Zac asked, his eyes widening. Taylor shook his head. "Well that’s a surprise, she only tells you everything. Every morning right after she wakes up she runs five miles. I can’t run that much. You may think I have a lot of energy but I can’t keep up with her, especially at her pace. She runs like there’s no tomorrow."
"Well thank you for the extended version. I didn’t need to know what she does. She can run like there’s no tomorrow, as long as it doesn’t bug me."
"Dork." Taylor gave his brother a look and walked over to the fridge. He took out some grapes and started popping them in his mouth. The two brothers talked there about Hope and about everything else in the world (like faith and love) for a half an hour until they came back upon a subject that made Taylor a little uncomfortable.
"Taylor," Zac said, "do you like Hope?" And Taylor, the dork, didn’t understand completely what Zac had meant.
"Of course I like her!" Zac shook his head.
"No, do you like like her." It took a minute for Taylor to realize what Zac was talking about.
"What makes you so curious?"
"Well you seem to spend a lot of time with her," Zac started. "You two talk about anything and everything, and before she came along you would barely talk to a girl about anything. What’s with that?"
"Why would you think I like her?"
"I don’t think you do, I’m just wondering if you do."
"To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I like her. She’s a really good friend and stuff but I never thought much about it."
"Tay, she’s hot! Why wouldn’t you think much about it?"
"I don’t know." Just then the front door and Hope came inside, still wearing Taylor’s sweater. Zac noticed.
"Oh really, why is she wearing your prized sweater? You won’t even let me touch that. Now that’s weird."
"Shut up you dork, she’s coming over here." Hope walked over to them, and stole a grape from Taylor’s hand. Taylor noticed she looked a little out of breath.
"Did you run extra hard or something?" Zac asked. "You normally don’t look this winded."
"I ran seven miles today."
"Dude, it normally takes you longer to do five," Zac said.
"Well it’s cold out. When it gets cold I tend to run faster." She unzipped Taylor’s sweater and gave it back to him. "You may want to wash it before you plan on wearing it," she said. He shrugged and went to put it in the laundry.
"So," she said to Zac once Taylor was gone, "did you ask him?" Hope had a feeling he liked her.
"All he said was that he didn’t think much about it. He seems to like you though, he’s never let anyone touch that sweater before. I can’t even touch it. I don’t know why it’s so special, but he loves it a lot."
"Dude."
"I know." Zac paused, and looked right at Hope. He had a suspicion about her, and had about her for a long time. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, but let him speak. "Hope do you like him?"
"I knew you were going to say that, I so knew you were going to say that," she said. Hope slipped into a chair at the table, the chair that had just been occupied by him. "I can’t."
"Why?"
"I can’t get attached because in the long run it’ll just hurt me. I mean you heard about what happened to me when you got hurt. I’m still going to the psychiatrist for it, and she’s trying to make me realize that it wasn’t my fault but I still don’t know." She put her head in her hands, trying to hold back memories.
"Hope, I know you can’t get attached, but for right now forget about it. You’re not the bodyguard. You’re a friend, you’ve been living down the block all your life. Do you like Taylor?" She took her head out of her hands and looked straight at Zac. If Taylor knew he would be devastated.
"No."
"No?" Zac asked, amazed. "No?" he asked again.
"None whatsoever. I don’t think I ever could. In the words of your mother, I’m still baffling over some other guy." Zac was shocked.
"You’re still in love with Jonathan?" he asked. Hope sighed and looked away.
"Desperately."
"Now I thought that you hated him," Zac said. "You’ve given an aura out that he’s a big jerk and you’re going to hate him for the rest of your life."
"Zac, he’s the father of my daughter. I love my daughter with all my heart. He may be a jerk, he may be horrid, but I still love him. I know that, that’s the only I thing I know right now."
"Why?"
"I’ve loved him for so long, and I want him back. He gave me the greatest gift a person could ever give. She’s adopted by another family now but I still love her. I’m still hung over him and the feeling won’t go away."
"Do you even know what he feels?"
"No," she said. "I have no idea what he feels. I wish and prey that he feels the same way but there’s a part of me that doubts him completely."
"Well go with that part of you, Hope. When is the next time you plan on seeing him? I mean you got lucky that one time on the plane but that’s all. Nothing else is gonna happen, you’ll prolly never meet him again."
"Yes I will," Hope said, standing up. "You don’t know him. On her birthday, he’ll find me and try to rub it in. He’s the kind of person who’ll do something like that. I know him."
"When’s her birthday?"
"June."
"Well he won’t be here for a while, it’s December now." Hope shrugged. She didn’t care. All she knew was that in six months she was going to be faced with a dilemma.
The conversation was cut short by Taylor walking back in. He looked flushed. "What’s wrong, Taylor? Is it really that far from here to the laundry room? Or did the washer try and eat you again?" Hope kidded.
Taylor shrugged. Hope figured he was being a dork once again and the washer caught his sleeve and tried to eat him. "You know this would all be prevented if you closed the lid of the washer before you turned it on."
"Shut up with the washer! I made that mistake once, I learned from it, okay? Let it go!" Taylor said. Hope laughed. That boy had a good sense of humor.
Taylor was about to say something when Diana came in and interrupted them. "I see the pack is up now! Too bad Ike's a late sleeper or I would have you four go do something."
"We can go without him," Taylor said, a small smirk on his face. Diana hit him.
"No, you won’t. You need to get at least somewhat closer to him. Bad enough it’s just you and Zac all the time," she said to him. "You’re sticking him with the littler ones and he doesn’t need to be with them all the time."
"Well he brings it on himself, mom," Zac complained. "We would include him more if he would just do something substantial. I mean me and Taylor do a lot together because we can do stuff without getting bored of it. I mean you see me and him outside there all the time doing nothing. If Ike was out there he’d be bored in two seconds and want to go back inside. So we let him."
"And to tell you the truth, Diana," Hope added, "he enjoys being by himself most of the time."
"Oh really? Then do whatever. If you guys insist on being secluded then go right ahead. Do what you want but don’t stay out too late, it is Christmas Eve, ya know. We’re supposed to be a ‘family’ today."
Zac rolled his eyes. We always have to be a family, I don’t want to be a family today. He sighed, now that they were allowed to go somewhere, it suddenly seemed to cold to do anything.
"O.K., we gotta do something now."
"We can’t do anything, Zac," Taylor said, "all the stores and stuff are closed for the holidays."
"Wal-Mart isn’t!" Hope said. Taylor and Zac looked at her strangely. "I passed by it while I was running and it was open."
"Why would we go to Wal-Mart?"
"Cause it’s open," Hope said, half sarcastically, "and it’s prolly the only place we can go to that isn’t freezing."
"It’s not that cold out," Zac said. Hope shook her head and stopped herself from throwing him outside. It was hard to think, all of a sudden. The room grew silent, while the three most talkative people in all of Tulsa just looked at each other.
"Well, I have paperwork to do," Hope said getting up.
"I got something to do," Taylor said, also getting up. Zac remained seated.
"I’ll stay here and watch the table, to make sure no one steals it." Hope laughed, then walked out of the room. I swear, one of these days that kid is going to become a stand-up comic or something. Her and Taylor walked away and he followed her to her room.
"What do you want, Taylor?" she finally asked, after starting her paperwork. He’d stayed there, watching her and she didn’t know why.
"I was wondering what you were doing," he said. She rolled her eyes, going back to her paperwork. It was hard to concentrate with him standing there. Ok, think damn you. Think!!!!!!!!! If you get this, then you’ll have to take this away. Damn, why does the world have to be so frustrating?And why does he have to stand there looking at me?
She turned to Taylor again, and he was still staring at her. "What is your problem, Taylor? Can you go away for just one moment?"
"Sorry," he muttered and walked away, heading down the stairs. "What the hell is up her ass?"
"Taylor," Diana said from the bottom of the stairs.
"What, mom?" he asked. She gave him a smile. Ok, now I’m confused.
"Get Hope down here."
"Why don’t you get her down here? She’s pissed at me for some reason. I don’t want my head bitten off." Diana gave her son a look and ran up the stairs herself. Taylor watched her and shrugged. This was going to be a lovely Christmas.