Taryn caught herself smiling the silly smile of a schoolgirl more than once as she spent the afternoon working on the Hanson article. It was close to six o’clock that night before she had what she considered a decent rough draft, and as she prepared to read over it one more time, she was startled by a light tap on her office door.
“Come in,” she called.
Taylor Hanson peeked around the corner.
“Are you busy?” he asked.
Taryn was intrigued. What was Taylor doing here? Didn’t they have a press conference in an hour?
“Not at the moment,” she said. “I can make time for you if you don’t mind looking at my face.”
Zac popped out from behind Taylor.
“Wowee!” he exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
Taryn smiled. Out of the mouths of babes, she thought.
“I got into a little altercation with a Suburban,” she said. “You can tell who won, huh?”
Dispensing with the niceties, Taylor decided to get down to business.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he asked seriously.
“Sure,” Taryn said, motioning to the two burgundy-colored leather chairs facing her desk. “Have a seat.”
Zac and Taylor slid into the chairs, then looked at each other for a brief moment before Taylor began to speak.
“Um, Miss Mathews …”
“Taryn.”
“Right, Taryn. We’re kind of on our way to a press conference and we only have a few minutes, but the thing is that we wanted to talk to you about Ike.”
Ah, Taryn thought.
“About Ike?”
“Ike,” Zac repeated.
“See, Taryn, we’re a little worried about him,” Taylor continued.
Taryn nodded for Taylor to go on.
“You’ve been a lot of places, you’ve seen a lot of things and you’ve met a lot of people,” Taylor said.
“And you’re a lot older,” Zac piped up.
Taryn smiled; Taylor crushed Zac with a dirty look.
“This is all true, Taylor,” Taryn said. “But I guess I’m not sure where you’re going with it.”
“There’s something you have to understand about our brother,” Taylor said. “He likes to be in love. He likes it a lot. And when he finds somebody he thinks he could love … well, he falls hard, Taryn.”
“He gets his feelings hurt really easily,” Zac added, a somber look in his big brown eyes. “He’s always the one that gets crapped on, because he’s always the one who is really into the relationship.”
Taryn looked hard for a moment at the two boys seated before her. Were they really only 15 and 13 years old? They sounded like they had seen it all.
“What are you telling me exactly?” Taryn asked.
Taylor decided to pull no punches.
“Ike has got a major thing for you,” he said quickly, tucking a strand of golden hair behind his ear. “He would be really mad if he knew we were here, but we had to let you know.”
“Why?” Taryn asked.
“Because if you’re not planning on keeping in touch with him after we leave New York, we’d like to know it,” Zac said. “And if that’s what you’re going to do, we’re asking you to not see Ike again. It’s okay if you don’t feel about him the way we think he’s starting to feel about you, but we don’t want to see him hurt.”
Taryn smiled. “He has no idea you’re here, huh?”
“No,” Taylor admitted. “We’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”
“How did you get here?”
“We snuck out the back of the hotel and took a cab,” Zac said with a devilish grin. “We’re just going to go to a press conference from here.”
Taryn could tell he thrived on getting away with things.
“Since you’ve been so honest with me, I’m going to be honest with you,” Taryn said. Taylor and Zac looked straight at her, waiting for her response.
“I’m not sure where this thing with your brother is going,” she said, looking from Taylor to Zac and then back again.
“I do know that he makes me feel safe, and that he’s interesting and smart and has great manners. We had a great time together the other night, and at this very moment there’s nothing I want more than to see him again.
“However, there are a lot of obstacles in a potential relationship between Isaac and me,” she continued. “We both have very high-stress careers that take up a lot of our time, and I have a daughter who is older than some of your siblings. And I guess it goes without mentioning that we’re dealing with a pretty significant age difference. I realize I’m ten years older than he is. But I have to be honest and tell you that, truly, I have met men three times Isaac’s age who didn’t have as much class in their entire bodies as Isaac has in his little finger.”
Taylor and Zac blinked absently at Taryn, processing this information. Was she really talking about their gawky older brother, the one who was all arms and legs, the one who had just gotten the braces off his teeth?
Taylor finally spoke.
“We’re just protective of each other,” he said quietly. “In this business, you never know who’s out for what. We have to look out for each other, and in things like this we especially have to look out for Ike. He tends to spend a lot of time with his head in the clouds.”
“Just don’t hurt him,” Zac said.
“I’m not promising that this is going to last forever,” Taryn admitted. “I don’t even know if it will last beyond tonight. But I do promise that whatever comes, I will take Isaac’s feelings into consideration. He’s a wonderful man, and I swear that I would never do anything to hurt him on purpose.”
Taylor smiled. “That’s all we wanted to hear,” he said, rising. “Let’s go, Zac.”
Zac got up to follow his brother. “Thanks for listening,” he said.
“Yeah, and thanks for being honest,” Taylor added. “We’ll see you around.”
