Taylor saw Kris standing in front of him, amused with the flowers that tried to pop out of the snow. He looked back at his father and put his finger to his lips, indicating that they should be very quiet. He tiptoed over to Kris, trying not to scrunch the snow under his feet. When he was close enough, he put his hands over her eyes. She screamed, but he kept his hands over her eyes. "Guess who!"
"Taylor!" she screamed, turning around. "You scared me to death!"
"How'd you know it was me?" Taylor asked.
"Brian would never do something like that." When she finally realized who she was talking to, she nearly toppled him over in a hug. His father stood nearby, just laughing. He had to smile for his son; he hadn't seen him this happy in a long time. Taylor took the liberty of kissing her, which only made her hug him tighter. Taylor had no clue why she was acting this way, it must of had something to do with the note he gave her. He had explained that there was little chance he would be able to come back, and when he did it must of surprised her.
"I thought you'd left already," she whispered, looking up at him.
"We leave in a few hours. I have the best father in the world; he let me come to say goodbye."
"You're damn right you have the best father in the world. Remind me to stop off at the Sears Tower on the way home," the man commented. Taylor looked over and smiled.
"Why?" Kris asked.
"We told my mother that we went for some last minute sight seeing," Taylor said. Kris smiled, her eyes shining. The best plans were the devious ones. Feeling rude, she let go of Taylor and walked over to his father.
"Um, hi. We haven't been introduced yet. I'm Kris." He shook her hand.
"I'm Walker Hanson." He decided it would be best to embarrass his son and this girl as best he could, while he still had the chance. "You're right, Taylor, she is a pretty one." Kris blushed and turned away. Getting compliments would take a long time to adjust to, but after a while she just might stop blushing every time someone said that.
"I told you!" Taylor said, walking up. Kris turned and put her face into Taylor's chest, the way a small child would. "She doesn't handle compliments well, as you can see. I personally don't know why she doesn't get them everywhere she goes�"
"Stop it!" Kris said. "You people are too nice for me." Taylor looked down to her. Her face was all red, at least the part that wasn't buried in his coat.
"Is there something inside my coat that seems to be catching your interest or something?" She gently shook her head. "Oh, poor Kris�" He wrapped his arms around her. Walker had a hard time understanding how close the two were, considering the length of time they'd known each other. It'd barely been a week since they met, but they hung onto each other like they'd been going out for years.
He decided to comment on it. "How long have you known each other?" he asked. Kris began counting on her fingers. It was too soon if she could use her fingers to find out.
"A week."
"Sure doesn't look like it," Walker said.
"I know," Taylor said, knowing just what his father was getting to. "But we didn't need all the time in the world to get together. We clicked from the start." Walker understood. That's why he let Taylor go back to say goodbye. He knew how quickly these things could pop up, and there wasn't much he could do without resulting in Taylor running away all the time.
He noticed that the sun was getting lower in the sky. He glanced at his watch, and looked to Taylor. Taylor took the message with a bit of grief. The plane was leaving soon, and he still had to go home and pack up. He turned back to Kris, but before he could say anything, he turned back to his father.
"Can we just have a minute, dad?" he asked. Walker smiled and went back to the car, down the road. The two were left alone. "I'm going to miss you."
"I know." She looked up at him. "I'll miss you too." He read her eyes, and knew automatically that she wasn't about to let this be it. "Come back," she whispered.
"I'll be back as soon as I can." He kissed her. "I love you."
"I love you." He kissed her again, this time lovingly and longingly. "Goodbye."
"For now." He kissed her lips again, then kissed her hand before releasing it and walking away. Halfway there, he turned back and ran back to her. "I don't want to leave you." He pulled a ring off his finger and placed it in her hands. "Remember me."
"It'll be hard to forget you." She put the ring on her finger. "Call me." He nodded and kissed her a final time, before he left for good. She stood there, waving until he got to the car and smiled at her. She stood there until the car was out of sight, then ran into the house and cried.
"Are you okay?" Walker asked. Taylor nodded, biting his lip and looking out the window. "We can always leave later�"
"No we can't. You know that," Taylor interrupted, looking over. "And if we'd stay longer, Mom would only get more and more angry at me, I'd probably run off again in the middle of the night, and then we'd have this whole episode again. It's better I leave now than get too attached to her that I never want to leave here."
"This city really isn't all that bad. The suburbs are beautiful and the weather isn't as bad as I thought it would be, when we have some time off I'd like to come back here."
"We're going to have to, I told her that I'd be back and for some reason I can't lie to her." Taylor smiled. "There's something about her eyes that I find very hard to even try. There's just something about her�I knew it was there the first time I saw her." Walker knew exactly what he was talking about, but wasn't about to mention what it was. He didn't want to tell himself that his sixteen year old son was in love with someone he didn't know, and that he was deeply in love with her. "There something wrong, Dad?"
"No." To quickly avoid any follow-up questions, he continued to inquire about Kris. "Her parents don't seem to be objecting to this."
"Her parents don't know," Taylor said. "Well, her mom doesn't know. Her dad's not around anymore." Walker thought nothing of it. It would have surprised Kris.
"Why doesn't her mother know?" Walker asked. "You were over there the night a few days ago."
"Well I got there and her mom was already asleep. I left before her mom woke up." Taylor watched as they pulled onto North Avenue, heading deeper into the city. He didn't want to mention about Brian, because that really would make the whole situation worse. He wasn't sure if Walker would approve as much as he was now. He hoped he didn't think of that situation.
"How did you find her so quickly?" Walker asked. "I just find it weird that you just picked her up with no complications." Dammit, Taylor thought.
"It just happened, no complications." Taylor lied. He took a breath in and shut his eyes. He never could lie to his parents, and he hated that he had to now. He just hoped that Brian wouldn't come up. Of course he did, indirectly. Walker knew automatically he was lying, just by the way he acted. It was obvious that Taylor didn't want to, so Walker decided not to push it. Maybe later.
After a brief stop in the Sears Tower gift shop, Taylor was back in the hotel. They were going to the airport in a half an hour, and his clothes were still everywhere. He looked around the room. "Shit," he muttered. Zac looked over from the TV.
"This is what you get for tricking mom."
"You shut up. At least I did something other than sit on my ass the entire time I was here. This city is beautiful and you sat here."
"We'll come back."
"So you can watch Chicago TV again?" Taylor asked, grabbing scattered clothes from the floor and throwing them in a suitcase. "Other cities do get WGN, you know."
"You're just trying to avoid thinking of Kris." Taylor stopped, and looked at Zac. He bit his lip and quickly resumed what he was doing. "I'm sorry."
"Just forget about it, Zac. The best thing I can do it keep it out of my mind until I talk to her again." Suddenly Taylor dropped the clothes in his hands and sunk into a chair behind him. He put his hand over his face and sighed. Zac was quite unsure what to do. None of them had ever been in this kind of situation before. For some reason Zac always thought it'd be Isaac who'd fall for a girl along the tour, but he never thought it'd be this bad.
Taylor had become amused with something on the ground, and now had both of his arms over his legs. His face was a bit red, but he wasn't about to cry. Zac got up and walked over to him. "Something that amusing crawling on our floor?" he asked. Taylor looked up.
"You like Kris, right?"
"Yeah, she's cool," Zac said, sitting on the bed. "I didn't get to talk to her for long cause Mom pretty much shoved her out of the room." Taylor shook his head, looking very furious with Diana. "What did Mom say to you?"
"You didn't press your ear to the wall and find out?" Zac shook his head.
"It was hard to hear." Taylor figured Zac would be listening in on the conversation. He knew his brothers were that nosy. "Isaac heard everything but he didn't feel like telling me."
"It was basically that we travel a lot, we won't be back here for a long time if we ever come back, long distance relationships don't work, blah, blah, blah. I tuned her out after a while."
"Who says we're not going to be coming back here? With you, me and Dad on the same side we're bound to get at least a few of us back here." Taylor shrugged. "I don't want to leave yet. We haven't done anything."
"Yeah, neither do I, but we got the concert in Detroit tomorrow night."
"Hey, maybe I'll find a girlfriend there."
"I doubt it. The blind population in Detroit is very limited," Taylor said, then immediately had to duck in order to dodge the pillow chucked at him. "But seriously, Zac, do you actually think any of this will work out?"
"I don't know. It's really all up to the two of you. It's really not my decision to make. If you work at it, it'll be fine. If you don't, then it's all going to disappear and you'll be left wondering why."
"Why is it that you seem like you've done this before?"
"I'm just cool that way." Taylor laughed. Immediately afterwards, almost interrupting him, there was a knock at the door.
"Time to leave guys," Walker's voice said. Taylor's eyes grew as he looked around the room. Zac helped him pile his clothes into his suitcase and they were out the door in five minutes.
Taylor rested his head against the seat in the car, on the way to Chicago O'Hare airport. The flight wasn't scheduled to leave for another hour, but knowing planes it'd be about three hours before they actually boarded the plane. The weather was looking pretty bad; it was snowing a bit, so that meant the flight was going to be delayed more. He would have invited Kris along to relieve a bit of the boredom, but he was sure Diana would kill him. Bad enough she was now constantly watching him.
Luckily she hadn't found her way into this car. It was just him, Walker, Isaac, and Zac. A sullen look had overcome his face, thinking mostly of the fact that he was actually leaving. Of course he left cities and entered others nearly every day, but this time it was different. He was leaving something very important behind.
"Is Taylor going to cry?" Zac teased, from the front seat. "Shed a few salty tears over leaving the Windy City?"
"You're still upset over leaving that dog you met on the side of the road, so I wouldn't be talking."
"Shut up about Muffy!" Zac said, looking very upset. "She was a very nice dog. I'll miss her very much."
"Zac, only you."
"Still, you gonna cry?"
"No."
"Yes you are."
"No!" Taylor kicked the back of Zac's seat.
"Zac, stop it," Walker said. Zac rolled his eyes and sat back against the seat, adjusting his seat belt. "When you cry over Muffy I'll let Taylor make fun of you."
"Shut up about the damn dog already!" Isaac said. Taylor laughed. After all these years, he still enjoyed the dog joke. He'd eventually let it go, but for that period it seemed like the best joke he'd ever told, even if he'd told it a million times. Isaac was already out of it, but lately he'd just not been the same Isaac anymore.
"Hey, wait a minute, he swore and you didn't do anything about it!" Taylor said to his father.
"I don't care, it's just that I act like I do when your mom's around. She gets uptight about those kind of things."
"She gets uptight about a lot of things," Taylor added. "I don't get what the big deal's about with this whole Kris thing."
"It's because you're sixteen and you think you're in love with a girl you'll probably see twice in the next three years," Isaac commented.
"Way to burst my bubble, dude."
"It's true you know. We're busy people, we don't have time for that sort of thing."
"I'll make time," Taylor huffed, and looked out the window. Walker had turned onto yet another street, and Taylor could tell he was getting a bit lost. "Dad, why don't you just take the Kennedy Expressway right in?"
"Cause I don't know how to get there."
"If you turn back to Grand you'll find and entrance near Halsted." Walker gave his son a look through the mirror. "I was looking over a map earlier today."
"Why don't I just let you drive?"
"Can I?"
"No."
"Why not? I know the streets better than you do." Walker caved and pulled the car over. Zac moved to the back, while Walker moved to shotgun and Taylor got behind the wheel. "Alright, first stop, Kris's house."
"No, Taylor."
"We have like, three hours until the plane leaves, considering that the snow's getting heavier." It was true, the snow was picking up now. Zac had one of those cool phones that could check stuff like that out, so he looked up their flight.
"Yeah, Dad, the flight's delayed."
"How bout we wait in the airport like normal people instead of roaming the city in the cold snow?" Walker asked no one in particular. "I personally don't want to pry you off her." Yeah and Brian's probably over there anyway, she said he'd be coming over today, Taylor thought. I don't want to have everyone here know that she's cheating on him with me. The fact that she was still dating someone else still pierced his conscience. He knew it wasn't right and he wanted to do something about it, but his desire for her was beyond his reach at that point.
"Fine," Taylor said, a bit annoyed but trying to cover up his worry that Brian might be over there. He pulled back onto Grand and was on the highway in about ten minutes. He knew in a half an hour he'd be bored out of his mind, waiting for the flight to board and then wait another hour for it to take off. He could probably call Kris from the plane, but wasn't sure if he'd have the time, with all the many things there are to do on a plane.
"Aren't you going a bit fast, Taylor?" Walker asked, looking at the speed limit on a sign that whizzed by. Taylor checked his speedometer to find that he was going about 90, and made a face before slowing down quickly. He couldn't let his thoughts overwhelm him or he'd go skidding off the expressway. He wasn't supposed to be going half the speed he was at, and that was enough for a pretty nice ticket.
The Chicago O'Hare airport was one of the larger airports he'd been to. Everything there seemed so very rushed and there were a ton of people flocking to their flights and where they needed to be. Most flights stopped there as a transfer station to other countries, as well as flights to other cities. The boys were on their way to Detroit, which really was a short flight�only about an hour long. It actually took more time to get onto the flight than the actual flight itself. Taylor hated these "quick" flights, because they were always much more of a hassle than the longer flights.
After checking in and getting settled in waiting, Taylor took out his phone and called Kris. He'd barely remembered the number, and was kinda afraid he'd get someone else.
"Hello?" a male voice asked. He made a face, thinking he dialed the wrong number. In the background, he heard Kris's voice.
"Brian! Why are you answering my phone?" She grabbed the phone from him. "Hello?"
"Hey," Taylor said. Zac stood in front of his and made kissy faces, but Taylor only shook his head. "So what's up with that?"
"He's being a moron," she said, pretty pointedly in fact. She lowered her voice so Brian wouldn't hear. "I'll kick him out in about an hour, so we can talk then."
"I might be on the flight by then, but by the looks of the snow, I'm not that sure." Zac continued to disturb him. He turned around and feigned him making out with someone. Taylor kicked him.
"Ow!"
"What was that?" Kris asked.
"I kicked Zac."
"You're so nice."
"Who you talking to?" Brian asked.
"My loving and understanding and oh-so-nice nephew Steven," Kris answered, lying very well. She had to admit, her and Brian were better friends than they were a couple. They joked around a lot, but that was only on the good days. Today was a rather good day. If only she could tell him that. That they were better off as friends. "Listen, Steven, you call me when you get on the plane."
"Sure," Taylor said, smiling. "I love you Auntie Kris!"
"I love you too." Taylor hung up the phone. Zac was looking at him, confused.
"What?"
"Auntie Kris? Why would you say that?" Taylor only rolled his eyes. "Why would you say that?" he repeated. Taylor looked around, rolling his phone around in his hands. There wasn't anyone close by, and he'd confided in Zac before. He was there to listen, so he might as well tell him.
"I have to tell you a secret."
"Okay�"
"You can't tell anyone! Not even Isaac. He'd only yell at me and I don't want any more input on his part for my relationship with Kris." Taylor bit his lip, thinking about the yelling he received from Isaac. It was drastically similar to what his parents had said. That was why he didn't want to talk about it with Isaac; he'd just get yelled at again.
"Why not? We tell Isaac everything!"
"I said that already. He'd only yell at me."
"What is so wrong that this has to be this big secret?" Taylor opened his mouth to spill it out (he'd been dying to tell somebody about Brian ever since the beginning, he hated keeping things to himself) but Zac stopped him. "And before you say anything, you do remember that I am the worst person to be telling a secret to."
"Well you're going to have to learn to shut up. You can keep your mouth shut if it's serious, and this is pretty serious." Zac thought about it, then finally nodded.
"Okay, I won't say anything."
"Kris is cheating on her boyfriend Brian with me." Zac's eyes grew. "He was there when I just called and she told him I was her nephew." Zac looked at all the people around. None were close enough to hear Taylor speaking but were close enough to hear Zac if he screamed. "No screaming."
"Taylor, that's so wrong!" Taylor frantically looked around and told Zac to keep quiet. "I don't care how pretty she is or how much you freaking think she's your soulmate or whatever the hell you're thinking, she's taken! That means no room for you. I don't care how much you may love each other, she's someone else's. That means you wait until he's gone."
"Don't blame me, it's her decision too!"
"If you two act so luvey duvey why doesn't she just break up with Brian to be with you?"
"I don't know, why do people cheat at all? She's not ready to break up with him and I'm not going to push it. He's more of a security blanket than a boyfriend, though. I'm going to be gone, I'm happy she has someone to fall back to when I'm not there. They've been going out for like seven months now, she can't just say I don't love you anymore I'm leaving just out of the blue."
"But she doesn't love him anymore, does she?"
"I don't know."
"I knew there had to be something wrong!" Zac said. "I knew you couldn't just walk into this city, find the woman of your dreams and everything's perfect from now until the day you die. Taylor the thing about having a girlfriend is the knowledge that she's yours and only yours. You're sharing her with this Brian guy."
"He's emotionally distant anyway, it's not like anything serious is going to happen while I'm gone."
"So he's just going to sit there, not knowing that his girlfriend has been running around with someone else, proclaiming her love to him and all that?"
"Yeah."
"Great." Zac finally sat down next to Taylor. "You know, the one thing in life that I hoped I never experienced was having someone cheat on me. I always hear people that have been through that and they say how much it hurts. I never want to know." Taylor looked over to Zac, who looked a bit dazed. After a while of silence, Zac looked over to Taylor. "Now that I know you're doing it to someone else, I've lost a lot of respect for you." He stood up and began to walk away.
Taylor stood and faced Zac's direction. "Zac I heard what she's been through. I know that Brian does not treat her like he should. She even told me that she did not understand how I could be in love with her! She didn't know it was possible. I'm finally showing her the love she never had and just because there's someone else doesn't mean this doesn't mean any less to me."
Zac turned around. "I don't care."
"Stop acting like I'm the one doing this! I'm not cheating on my girlfriend, she's cheating on her boyfriend."
"Yeah, but you know. It makes you just as guilty," Zac said. "And Taylor, if she's cheating on Brian, how do you know she won't cheat on you?"
"Don't even say that. Don't jinx what I have with her."
"I'm not jinxing anything, Taylor. I'm just saying that you don't know. You don't know and I don't know, but she's more likely to do it again if she knows she can get away with it."
"You don't know what you're talking about." Zac took in a quick breath.
"Taylor, this time I actually do know what I'm talking about." Zac ran off. Taylor sat back down.