Chapter 5
Somehow Taylor found me on the way to our last class and walked me the rest of the way. We sat together in class, having trouble not talking to each other. Finally the class ended and we were on our way. I followed Taylor back to his house. I couldn’t decide if it shocked me that he owned a little silver mustang or not. It had been evident from seeing his house the day before that his family had money. However from what little he had said about his parents, it seemed like they were a little disappointed in him. I couldn’t imagine unhappy parents buying their teenage son a car like that. I figured Taylor just exaggerated about the situation.
We got to their house, and upon stepping inside there was further evidence to the amount of money his family owned. It seemed decorated perfectly, and expensively. I didn’t get much of a chance to look around though. We went straight up to Taylor’s room stopping only in the kitchen for a couple cokes.
Taylor’s room surprised me. I figured every teenage male’s room was trashed. His wasn’t exactly spotless, but not too bad. His double bed rested in one corner unmade. There was a desk on an opposite wall, with a heap of clothes on the chair. A few pairs of shoes were strewn around the room, but that was about it.
I wasn’t really sure how to start small talk. I’d never been in a guy’s room just the day after meeting him. “So, I like you’re house” I started.
He scrunched up his nose. “Too fancy for me. Now my room, it’s bare, but it’s very livable” he said in a fake decorating show host’s voice. I giggled. “Don’t get used to it this neat though, I was ordered to clean it as part of my punishment this weekend.”
“Ahh, all of my inquires answered” I teased. “So are you even allowed to have friends over then?”
He shrugged. “As far as I know its all part of the deal, just as long as you don’t cause any trouble.”
“Well then I’ll try to behave myself” I told him flashing my best teasing grin. Then I stopped. Was he flirting? Had I just flirted back? ‘Oh god, slow down’ I thought to myself. I had been thinking about it. I couldn’t lie and pretend I wasn’t attracted to Taylor, but I just wanted to become friends with him, and take things from there.
I looked around the room a little uncomfortably. That’s when I noticed the guitar by the door. “You play?” I asked pointing to it.
“Yeah, a little bit,” he said picking it up. “It’s kind of like a stress reliever, almost a sanity check for me.” In my mind I flashed back to shaking his hand when I first met him, and remembering his callused fingers. He must play it quite often to develop that.
“Can you play me something?” I asked truly interested.
“Sure” he said. He sat at the head of his bed resting against the wall for support. I sat at the foot and turned to watch him pull the guitar in his lap and play a few warm-up chords.
“Do you ever write your own stuff?” I asked.
“Yeah, usually” he said. “I’ll play you something I wrote a couple weeks ago.”
He started playing some chords, and working some intricate notes into it. I watched mesmerized as his fingers moved swiftly and gracefully across the strings. His voice caught me off guard. I would have never guessed that he sang too, but he sure did. His voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. It was smooth tenor quality, with some sort of raspy sexiness going on at the same time. Not to mention the soul it possessed.
He looked up at me when he was finished. I just stared at him completely amazed. I couldn’t believe he possessed this raw talent. It made me see him in a whole different way.
“So, you’re not saying much” he finally said.
“That was amazing Taylor” I said finally finding my voice. “I had no idea you were so talented.”
“Oh come on, I was just messing around” he looked a little embarrassed.
“No seriously, that was so good. I thought you’re guitar playing was so good, I was so content on watching that. And then suddenly you opened your mouth and started singing along with this voice I can’t even describe how good it was. And you wrote it yourself. I can’t even believe it, it was truly amazing” I told him honestly.
“I don’t know, music just come easy to me” he said shrugging. “I like playing, I feel good. I can completely shut out the world, and everything else going on. No matter what is going on in my life it makes me feel better.”
“You’re so good at it Taylor. You have a gift, you should really use it” I told him. I didn’t know what I meant with that statement, but I meant it, and I knew that it would be the start of something amazing.
