I don’t know how long we were at the field until we went back to the hotel. It seemed like it could have been hours, us just lying on the cool grass and talking. We always could talk—actually we could have sat there and talked forever if I hadn’t gotten tired. I only wished I couldn’t get tired, so I could stay there with him. I never wanted to leave, but I knew that our night together had ended. I was wrong.
Zac walked with me to my room. We both went inside, only to find Lauryn dead asleep on the bed, somehow sprawled out over the entire thing. Taylor had fallen asleep at the table, snoring away.
“She’s on my bed,” I said through my teeth.
“And she’s not going to move. I think your best bet is to just sleep in my room. I’ll sleep on the floor or something.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll just get my stuff.” I grabbed my bag from the floor. “Okay, let’s go.”
“How long were we gone to have them both asleep?” he asked, once we were out of the room. “I know Taylor doesn’t fall asleep early, especially when he’s waiting for someone.”
“Yeah, I know. It must be late. I’m not quite sure; I didn’t bring a watch.”
“Neither did I.” He opened the door to his room and looked around for a clock. “Nic, it’s four-thirty.”
“Are you serious? Four-thirty? No wonder I’m tired.” We both grew uncomfortable. There were so many problems just with me staying there with Zac; it’d arouse suspicion. “I’m gonna change.”
“Wait, before you do,” he said. “Let me look at you once more in your dress.” He held my hands in his, looking over me. He slowly spun me around, then looked up at my eyes. “You look so beautiful. You are so beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “I’m gonna change now.” I went into the bathroom and changed. I took off my make-up and took out my hair. When I went back out to the room, Zac had already changed too. He looked up at me.
“I’m getting deja-vu.”
“Why?”
“Last year. You used to walk out of there in the same fashion with that on. You wore that a lot.” I looked down at my flannel pants and oversized Las Vegas shirt.
“It’s comfortable.” I climbed onto my side of the bed. Taylor was different than Zac—he slept on the other side of the bed. But I realized I’d climbed onto the side of the bed I used to sleep on with Zac.
“The only difference is that I won’t be sleeping next to you.”
“I’d invite you in, but we’ll wake up late tomorrow and I don’t want Lauryn coming in here and thinking something is up.”
“Well if she even asked, I’d just ask why she was sleeping in Taylor’s room.”
“Would you like to sleep in the bed with me, Zac?” I asked.
“Yes I would.” He climbed in the bed next to me.
“Tonight was the best night of my life, Zac. I couldn’t think of a way to top that.”
“I can.”
“Well you always have something up your sleeve. You can always think of something.” I looked over at him. “What are you thinking?”
“There’s a museum exposition a few days after we get to Chicago. It’s another thing Lauryn would whine about until the world ended. I don’t want to bring her. Would you like to go?” he asked.
“Yes I would. I don’t know how that could be better than a symphony, but I bet you’ll find a way to make it better.”
“You know me too well.”
“But then again any time with you is something I look forward to.” I thought about what I said. “Oh, shit. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Nic?”
“What?” I looked over at him. He pressed his lips against mine. If I didn’t know better, I would have screamed. I knew it was going to happen, more like I hoped it would happen.
“I’m sorry for doing this,” he said.
“Don’t be. I’m just as guilty as you are.”
“Yeah, but Taylor, he’s my brother.”
“We’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t find out.” Zac nodded. “I’m just as bad as you are. Can we just stop thinking about it?” I asked. He nodded again.
“But tomorrow everything’s going to change. We can’t think about this again.”
“I won’t.”
“You sure?”
“Well I do suppose it depends on what we do tonight.”
“If we keep going like we were, I think we’ll be getting pretty far.” I smiled to myself. “What was that? Are you happy about that?”
“With you I’m always happy.”
“So am I. We just can’t let that get in the way.” I sighed. “Not around everyone else. I don’t want people to know we were fooling around while we’re still with other people.”
“I won’t, I promise. This won’t get in the way.”
I woke up the next morning to a shrill yet peppy high-pitched voice.
“You’re up!” Lauryn said. “It’s about time! Sheesh, Zac, how late was the symphony?” I crawled out of the bed and walked over to Lauryn, running a hand through my stringy hair.
“Listen, I don’t need to wake up to your high-pitched ear piercing voice. I just woke up, you don’t understand how painful you are right now.”
“I just said…”
“I don’t give a fuck about what you just said, alright? I heard what you said. Your voice is like a thousand needles piercing my brain. Don’t say a word until I am officially gone.” I looked around for my stuff. “Zac, where’d I stick my stuff?”
“I think it’s by the table.” I looked at the table. My stuff was sitting next to it.
“Okay. Thanks.” I took my stuff and left the room. As I closed the door, I heard Lauryn speak.
“She’s a bitch in the morning, isn’t she?”
No, I just don’t like you and I’m more prone to saying it in the morning, I thought as I walked back to my room. I opened the door and looked at Taylor.
“Well, someone was out all night,” he said. I smiled. “What time did you actually get back in?”
“Four-thirty. But we did stay up fro a little while longer before going back to sleep.”
“Doing what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Stuff.”
“What kind of stuff? Stuff that could possibly ruin my ‘relationship’ with you?” he asked, smirking.
“Maybe.”
“You had sex, didn’t you?” he asked. I grinned and nodded my head excitedly. “Oh my God! How did you manage that? You go to the symphony as friends and end up sleeping with each other? How good are you?”
“Apparently very, from what I heard,” I said. I climbed onto the bed next to him. “Good enough to do it twice.”
“Twice? Then it obviously wasn’t a heat of the moment type thing.”
“No way. It was all ‘I want you and I want you now’ type of thing.” He smiled. “But nothing is going to come from it. We want to forget about it. Well, he wants to forget about it.”
“I’m happy. Lauryn and I aren’t moving quite as fast, but we did make out.”
“I think we’re doing pretty well. Zac won’t be forgetting about it any time soon, and when you do it once it’s bound to happen again. So I do think we’re going somewhere.”
“We’ll be where we want to be in no time flat.” I nodded, smiling. “But I can understand why he did what he did. You looked hot last night.”
“Thank you.”
“That dress was really flattering.”
“Oh, I have to tell you what Lauryn said to me last night. She looked at the jewelry Zac got me and basically said he must have gotten it for me because I’m too poor to buy it myself. Can you even believe that? First off, I’m not poor at all! I’m sorry if I tend to dress like it but I have more important things to spend my money on.”
“Calm down, Nic. She didn’t mean it like that. And you really upset her. She thinks you don’t like her.”
“I don’t.”
“Well I wouldn’t tell her that. She’ll catch on to our case here and that will spoil the entire plan.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to try to like her, do I?” He nodded. “Dammit! Why do I have to like her? Aren’t you enough? You like her, that’s fine.”
I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. I shifted slightly, and surprisingly my head fit perfectly. It was the most comfortable position I had ever been in.
“You’re surprisingly comfortable.”
“Oh, I am?” he asked. “How?”
“My head fits perfectly right here,” I said. “I just find it funny.”
“Alright.”
The door opened and Darling walked in. “You nearly gave me a heart attack when I walked in here this morning and you weren’t here. I walked over to Zac’s room and the door was locked! I went to sleep at three and you still weren’t back...what are you doing?”
“What?”
“You’re being all cuddly. Why? What the hell?”
“We’re just being cuddly today. I don’t have a problem with it,” I said.
“Okay...anyway, what time did you come in last night?”
“Four. Lauryn was in here asleep on the bed. Zac said she wouldn’t move so we went back to his room. He must have locked the door. Sorry I worried you.”
“What did you do in there?”
“Nothing! God, Zac wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Would you?”
“Now that’s a different question. Zac and I are not the same person.”
“Obviously. Now did you do anything with him or not?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Well that’s what you want to hear! You don’t want to hear what I did with him because you don’t approve of it.”
“I don’t understand how you can do something with Zac and come back in this room and lay on Taylor.”
“Because this isn’t real,” I said. “I don’t mind and Taylor doesn’t mind either.” I looked up at Taylor. “Do you mind?” I saw a flinch of controversy in his eyes.
“No.”
“See?” I said to Darling. “We don’t mind.”
“You know, I hope this doesn’t work. You’re doing to Lauryn exactly what Amber did to you.”
“For the last time, I am not like her!”
“Yes you are! And I’m not about to talk to you until you stop this.” I got off the bed and walked up to her, away from Taylor.
“You know what he said to me last night?” I asked. “He said he loved me. He said that if he could find a reason to break up with Lauryn he would.”
“If he loves you he has a reason.”
“He wouldn’t do that to her. He’s looking for a reason to break up with her, something for her to do wrong so he can get rid of her. I think he’s starting to get annoyed by her.”
“Really?”
“And that’s where Taylor comes in. He’s going to try to get her away. He’s just quickening the inevitable.”
“Being in a fake relationship with Taylor doesn’t make it right. Even if Zac loves you and he does want to break up with her, wait for him to do it.”
“Whatever.”
“Please, think about it.”
“Alright.” Darling walked out of the room. I sighed. She was right. As much as I didn’t want to believe her, she was right.
I turned to Taylor. I climbed back on the bed and put my head on her shoulder again. I laced my hand with his. This would actually be a nice relationship if it weren’t fake.
“You need to cheat on me.”
“What?”
“You need to cheat on me and make sure Zac finds out so he can tell me so I can break up with you.”
“Why? This is just starting to get fun.”
“No, it’s not right.”
“Of course it’s not right. That’s what makes it fun. Listen, I know you’re concerned but nothing’s going to work if you try to break it off now. Just a little more time, Nic. We’ve only been here a few days. You knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“And why do I have you cheat on you? It’ll give me a bad name.”
“Taylor, you already have a bad name. This isn’t going to make it any worse, I promise you that. And it can’t be me, because it doesn’t work that way.”
“Can’t we have a big fight and break up that way?”
“Yeah, we’ll have a big fight over the fact that you cheated on me.”
“No, I mean without the cheating part.”
“Then what are we going to fight about? I can’t think of another reason to fight. We’re both pretty decent people.”
“I can think of something. Just don’t make me cheat on you. I’m not that bad of a person anymore.”
“Dude, you’re trying to break off your brother’s relationship so you can get his girlfriend.”
“You’re doing the same thing!”
“Lauryn’s not my sister. She’s not even my friend. What you’re doing is at least twice as bad as me.”
“Hey, I’m in it for you. If they break up and I find myself in a relationship with Lauryn, that’s how it goes.”
“That is such bullshit.”
“And you know it, babe.”
“Who said you could call me babe?”
“Who said you could call me Tay in front of other people? I hate Tay.”
“You love it when I call you Tay and you know. You’re just in denial.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“You’re in denial! Shut up, I win, you lose.” He shook his head. “Don’t move, you’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Oh and I wouldn’t want to do that, now would I?”
“No.”
“You’re insane.”
“No, I’m just right.” I looked up at him, lightly placing my chin on his chest. “You’re going to find some way to have us break up, right? Because I don’t like being like this.”
“I will. I promise.”