Dec. 7, 2013. Fraser Place, London, England.
Taylor
It shouldn’t have surprised me at all that this leg of the tour was hell.
I had finally had a small taste of freedom during my trip to visit Scott, and of course, I had paid handsomely for that when I returned home to Natalie. She had continued to call me regularly after I returned to the road, but the calls were even more strained and awkward than ever before. We had nothing at all to talk about, because we had made the unspoken decision to ignore the elephant in our marriage. What it would take for either of us to admit it was truly over… I didn’t know.
We both had to have known, maybe for years, that what we had wasn’t sustainable. It got a little boost, a little glimmer of hope, with every new child, but the truth was that our children were the only thing we had in common. At best, we were like old friends with no romantic attraction at all; at worst, we were bitter enemies.
But where did Zac get off calling me out for how I had chosen to destroy my marriage, when he had clearly acted just as badly? Was his marriage just indestructible? It certainly seemed that way at times, although I was sure there was more going on with him that he let on. His behavior on this tour had been progressively stranger and stranger. I knew, based on the bruises he tried to hide, that he had been seeing someone. That should have improved his demeanor, yet he was still short and snippy with everyone. He had a reason to be that way with me, I knew, but the rest of the band and crew didn’t deserve it.
Whatever it was, I was sure he would tell me it wasn’t my business. Rather than try to delve to the bottom of that mystery, I decided to hole up in my hotel room for a little of what Scott referred to as Taylor Time—which really just meant watching a pay per view movie until I fell asleep.
I had only just settled down and picked a movie when I heard a knock at the door. With a sigh, I stood up and walked over to look in the peephole. What I saw there was probably the last person I expected to see—well, aside from maybe Natalie.
“Zac?” I asked, opening the door just a crack. “What do you want?”
“Is the password ‘bacon?’” He asked, holding up a pizza box so that I could clearly see it.
“You brought me pizza?”
Zac rolled his eyes. “No, I brought you an empty box. Can I come in?”
“I guess…” I stood back and opened the door to let him in. This had to be a peace offering of some sort, I was sure. I just wasn’t sure why.
“Thanks,” Zac said, stepping into the room and revealing a six pack of Pabst in the other hand.
“You brought me pizza and beer.”
He grinned. “Uh huh.”
“What did you do?”
Zac gave an exaggerated gasp. “I can’t just bring my big brother pizza and beer because I feel like it?”
“I’m pretty sure you never have before,” I replied, pointedly raising an eyebrow at him. Given how bitchy he had been for the last few days, and his tendency to act like a little shit just to get a reaction… I could only imagine what he was up to now.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied, his expression turning more serious as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I overheard you talking to Natalie earlier; figured you could probably use some cheering up.”
“Oh… you did?” I sat down next to him.
Zac nodded. “How bad was it?”
“Could have—and has been—worse. I mean, we’re not really… talking about anything now. She still doesn’t know everything, but she kinda assumes the worst any time I go to California, anyway.”
Zac snorted. “Gee, I wonder why.”
I gave him a look. Everyone knew Los Angeles was my own personal Sin City; it was no surprise that was where this whole thing with Scott started. After a moment’s pause and a sigh, I added, “So anyway… she’s not stupid; she knows things are bad. We’ve got a lot to talk about when I get home, I guess, but I think we’re both dreading it.”
“I’m sorry,” Zac said, giving me a sympathetic nod. “Do you want me to go? You can keep the beer and pizza.”
Somewhat to my own surprise, I replied, “You can stay. As long as you’re not gonna get on my case for how I treat Natalie again.”
Zac sighed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You weren’t wrong,” I replied, giving him a dismissive shrug.
“No… but that doesn’t make what I said right.”
“Well,” I replied, “I’m sorry for what I said, too.”
Zac mimicked my shrug. “As far as you knew, you were right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighed, then gave me a careful look, the depth in his eyes surprising me. “I haven’t told anyone this; I didn’t want to say anything until it was over and done with.”
“Until what was over and done with?” I had a faint inkling as to what, but it couldn’t be. Could it?
Zac glanced down. “The divorce.”
“The divorce? As in… your divorce?”
He glanced back up, an eyebrow raised. “No, the Queen of England’s. Yes, mine.”
“Very funny,” I replied, giving him a faint glare. “But you’re… you and Kate. You’re seriously getting divorced.”
“It’s a good thing you’re so pretty.” Zac smirked.
I gave an exaggerated pout. “I’m not gonna let you stay if you’re gonna be mean.”
“Sorry,” Zac apologized quickly, but it actually sounded sincere.
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“So, yeah,” he said. “We filed about six months ago; I signed my half of the final paperwork over the break. She’ll be out of the house before Christmas. If you’d shown up earlier on Thanksgiving, you would have known, too, but whatever.”
“Wow.” I actually felt my eyes widening as he spoke. I wasn’t even upset that he had called me out for the disaster I had made of the holiday. I had known something was strange that day, but I thought it was all about me. This was still a shock, but in a strange way, it made sense.
“Like I said—if I wanted to leave Kate, I’d leave her.” With a shrug, he added, “And I did.”
“I guess you did…” Softly, I added, “She didn’t deserve you, anyway.”
He glanced up and gave me a tiny smile. “Natalie doesn’t deserve you either, you know.”
I shrugged. Leaving her wouldn’t be as painless as Zac’s secret divorce seemed to be, and so I didn’t see the point in even talking about it.
“Neither does Scott,” Zac added.
“Well, he’s got me,” I replied firmly. With a frown, I added, “And Natalie does, too… for now, anyway.”
Zac sighed, falling silent for a moment. Finally, he asked, “Tay? Do you think we could get back to being us? You know, Zac and Tay, brothers, best friends?”
“I hope so,” I replied honestly. Thinking of the conversation I’d had with Scott, I added, “I don’t wanna lose you, Zac.”
He nodded, eyes on the floor. “Don’t wanna lose you, either.”
I scooted closer to him, tentatively. Biting my lip a bit, I said, “I don’t know where this came from, you being all nice tonight, but I like it. I missed you, you know.”
“Missed you, too.” There was a hint of a smile on Zac’s face, and it gave me hope that maybe things could somehow go back to being okay between the two of us.
“So…” I said, giving him a smile. “Can I have a beer, then?”
“Of course.” Zac chuckled, pulling one from the case and handing it to me. “Sorry for being so moody lately.”
“Thank you,” I replied, popping the top and taking a sip. “And it’s okay, just as long as it doesn’t happen again, alright?”
“I’ll try,” Zac replied, biting his lip somewhat nervously.
I shook my head. “It’s not an order, Zac. You’re just… just no fun to be around when you’re moody like that, especially when it feels like it might be my fault.”
“Not your fault,” Zac replied, shaking his head. Lowering his voice a bit, he added, “I’ve just been kinda… pent up.”
“Oh. Oh.” It took a moment for me to realize the full meaning of Zac’s words, but it made sense. After all, I knew he was involved, in some way, with a new Dom, and I doubted he had gotten any from Kate.
He gave a tiny smirk. “I’m trying to be good.”
“Well, you’re doing pretty good tonight,” I replied with a smirk of my own. So that was why he had given me the cheesy peace offering. It made a bit more sense now.
He gave a slight sigh. “It’s not just tonight. I’m not allowed to… you know. At all.”
“Ouch,” I replied. “That’s a little harsh isn’t it?”
He gave a shrug and a smirk that lit up his entire face. “Worth it.”
“I’m not even going to ask.”
Zac chuckled. “Trust me, with what she—”
“She?” He cut himself off, but I was sure I had heard him correctly. After everything, I wasn’t so sure Zac was into women at all. Sure, he had been with Kate for years, but he hadn’t even shown that much interest in her. “Your Dom… is a woman?”
Blushing, he gave the tiniest of nods. “Her name’s Lily.”
“Cute.”
“Damn straight,” Zac replied, that infernal smirk returning.
“Sounds like you really like her…” I said softly. There was something in his expression, beneath the smirk, something that I wasn’t sure I had seen since… well, I didn’t want to think about it.
“Well… she’s a good Domme,” Zac said, his expression going a bit blank, as though he hadn’t really considered how he felt about her.
“Yeah, you made that pretty clear,” I replied dryly.
He nodded. “It’s not just the physical stuff, though. She has this way of getting in my head… I like talking to her.”
“That’s good, Zac. You deserve to be happy.” Somewhat in spite of myself, I gave him a smile. He did deserve to be happy; I couldn’t deny that. That didn’t mean I wasn’t sad that I couldn’t be the one to make him that happy.
He gave a slight shrug. “I’m kinda not even worried about that anymore. I mean, sure, I wanna get my money’s worth, but it’s like… like I wanna make her happy too, ya know?”
“Your money’s worth?” I repeated. His what?
Zac stared blankly at me. “She’s a professional Domme. What’d you think, I picked her up at a bar?”
“I… I didn’t know how you met her, Zac,” I replied. There was so much more I wanted to say, so many questions I wanted to say, but all I could do was point out the obvious.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, now you do, I guess.”
“I guess I do,” I replied. “I just… you weren’t talking about her like, like you were paying her.”
Zac blinked up at me, looking strangely innocent. “I don’t really think about it like that. Not usually anyway.”
“How do you think about it, then?” What was happening here? What had my little brother gotten himself into? And how had I been so clueless to, well, everything happening in his life? The answer to that, I knew, was that I had been too wrapped up in my own life, and I couldn’t go back in time and undo that. I could only hope that now that Zac had seen fit to include me in his life again, I could be there for him if he needed me to pick up the pieces of this strange arrangement he had gotten himself into.
“Well, she’s like… like…” Zac began, his expression going a bit distance and his smile falling.
“She’s like what, Zac?” I prodded, my voice low.
He turned his head away from me, his hair blocking any attempt to read his expression. “Nothing. Nevermind.”
“Zac…” I said softly, scooting just a tiny bit closer to him. “Like I said, you deserve to be happy.”
“Yeah…” He mumbled, nodding softly. After a moment he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “I think I like her.”
“Okay…” I replied, knowing this was just the tip of the iceberg. If I gave him a moment, he would break and say all that he wanted to say.
“And I think she might like me too. I don’t know, I can’t tell if she’s flirting with me because she wants to or because I’m a paying customer. God, that sounds dirty…” He trailed off, bringing his legs up onto the bed and curling up. He was receding back into his shell, and I didn’t like that. It was a step backward, and not what either one of us needed.
I inched closer to him, still afraid to actually touch him. “Well, it is kinda her job to make you happy, right? But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible that she likes you, too.”
Zac shrugged.
Sensing that there wasn’t much more I could say along those lines, especially since I only knew his side of the story, I said softly, “Tell me about her.”
“She’s really sweet,” he began, just a hint of a twinkle coming back into his eyes, “but strict, too. But not like… harsh. She has this dry sense of humor, but she’s really funny. She just seems so generous and caring; she’s always asking me about myself and trying to figure me out.”
Of course I didn’t know from experience, but that didn’t sound exactly like a professional Domme’s behavior to me. It sounded more like what I shared with Scott; it wasn’t just about pure domination. It was about getting under your sub’s skin, understanding their needs and fulfilling those.
“Sounds perfect for you,” I replied, giving him a genuine smile. “And it sounds like she cares about you, too.”
“Yeah, well. She could just be a really great actress.”
That was true; I couldn’t dispute that. But I also couldn’t dispute the change I was seeing in Zac. Professional or not, she was having a positive impact on him.
“Well, I don’t know her,” I said. “So I can’t say. But from the way you look when you talk about her? I can see how much she means to you.”
He gave me a cautious smile. “That obvious?”
“Yup,” I replied. “It’s kinda cute, though.”
Zac just chuckled and rolled his eyes. It was cute, though. It made my heart ache a little bit, knowing it couldn’t be me making him that happy, but it didn’t do any good to dwell on that jealousy. I had, I realized, spent years jealous of his wife, my anger growing with every hint that she wasn’t what he needed. Now… now I realized he might have found a person that was. How could I be upset about that, even if that person wasn’t me?
Softly, I added, “Just… just don’t give up or second guess yourself, okay?”
“Okay…” Zac said, nodding. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I replied, smiling. It was bittersweet, but I knew I had to swallow down that hard lump in my throat ignore the jealousy if even one of us ever had any hope of real happiness. Zac didn’t return my smile; in fact, his expression seemed only to sadden. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. After a beat, he asked, “Scott really makes you happy, huh?”
“Yeah. He really does.” I wasn’t an idiot; I knew this relationship with him had caused me to make some terrible decisions, making an even bigger mess of my life than it was to begin with, but it was all because I believed in the connection we had. It had to be right. It just had to. And eventually, I was sure, time would show that we were both right where we needed to be when we were together.
Zac glanced down. “Then I guess I have to be happy for you.”
“You don’t have to be anything, Zac.” I sighed. “I know how much it hurts to see someone you love with someone else.”
His eyes fell shut and he nodded.
“It’s not easy, but if you love them, then you just want them to be happy… even if it’s not with you. You know?”
“Yeah,” he replied, finally meeting my eyes. There were tears just starting to pool in the corners of his, threatening to fall.
“So… I guess I have to be happy for you, too. And I hope things work out, with Lily.”
Zac looked thoughtful, his head tilting a bit to the side. “Tay?”
“Yeah?”
He chewed his bottom lip a bit before speaking again. “If… if I’d said something sooner… before you met Scott…”
“Things happen the way they happen, Zac. Thinking about what you’d do if you could go back in time doesn’t make it better. Trust me on that.” It wasn’t the answer he wanted, and truthfully, I couldn’t answer his question at all. Things would have been different, but I wasn’t so sure it would have been a good different—then again, maybe. Just maybe.
Zac frowned. Of course it wasn’t the answer he wanted.
“I don’t know if things would have worked out differently, Zac,” I replied honestly. “But… can we just make the best of the way things are now?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think we can.” He gave me a sad smile.
“Good,” I said. “I’m not gonna lose you, damn it.”
“Of course not. We’re brothers,” Zac replied, his head tilting further to the side, a curious look on his face, as though what I had just said made no sense at all.
I sighed. “I know, but… but things could still come between us.”
Zac gave a soft sigh of his own, realization of a sort seeming to dawn on him as he placed a reassuring hand on my knee. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
“Good,” I replied, playing my hand over his. “I’m not either.”
“Tay, I…” Zac stuttered out, his bottom lip jutting out in a bit of a pout, as though he were frustrated that he couldn’t seem to say what he wanted.
“What?” I prodded gently
“I… I still…” He glanced away and muttered, “You know.”
“I know. I do too.”
He turned back to look at me then, giving me a sad smile and lacing his fingers with mine. Maybe things would be okay between us. We couldn’t be together, that was clear, but none of that changed the way we felt. Maybe that was for the best.
“Thanks for coming over tonight,” I said. “Even if we have let the pizza get cold.”
Zac chuckled. “Cold pizza’s even better, though.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Hand me a slice?”
He didn’t let go of my hand, instead using his non-dominant one to reach awkwardly into the box and pull out a slice of the good, but cold, stuff. Holding it in front of my face, he said, “Say ‘ah.’”
I rolled my eyes, but nonetheless opened my mouth wide. “Ah.”
With a giggle, Zac shoved half the slice into my mouth all at once, leaving me coughing and sputtering around it.
“Bastard,” I mumbled, giving him a shove as I chewed.
“Yeah, right,” he said, giggling. “You love me.”
“Yeah, yeah… whatever.” I rolled my eyes, but I knew that he knew the truth.
I did love him, in a dozen or more ways that I shouldn’t have loved my brother. None of that had or would change, even if it was becoming clear that our relationship would never again be what it was during the first leg of this tour.