Taylor pulled his jacket tight around his body as he shuffled through the park. It was still early spring, so there was a chill in the air that seemed to go right through to his bones despite the sun shining down. His baseball cap shielded his eyes some, but he preferred to keep his eyes on the ground anyway. He didn’t know where he was going. He just needed to walk for a while. He was pretty sure that was the kind of cliche thing people did when they needed to clear their minds, and his mind was about as cluttered as possible.
“Catch!” A child’s voice called out and Taylor glanced around to find the source, just as a baseball went sailing past his head. He swore under his breath and hoped the kid hadn’t heard, although he was pretty sure his own newborn son had heard him say worse.
He ducked his head down further, engaged in a serious staring contest with the grass, and continued his aimless walk, glad for the anonymity of New York City. The last thing he wanted was to be recognized, although that seemed to be happening less and less as the years went by. He pulled his baseball cap down low on his forehead just in case, and wondered how ridiculous he must look. Ultimately, he decided that he didn’t care.
Taylor didn’t know how long he’d wandered when he finally found just the spot he was looking for – a lone bench with no one around to look at him sideways and wonder what a twenty year old guy was doing by himself in the park or why his face seemed so familiar. He could just sit in silence and feel sorry for himself. As everyone in his family liked to point out, he had become particularly talented at that over the past year.
An entire year… Taylor thought to himself. He couldn’t believe that much time had passed since everything in his life had changed forever. It felt melodramatic to describe it that way, but there was a certain melodramatic quality to it – a shotgun wedding, becoming a father at nineteen, marrying a fan. They were all the sort of things Taylor never thought would happen to him; these were just the soap opera-style fantasies that fans wrote about.
But those absurd fantasies were his life now, and he certainly wouldn’t call it a fantasy. He supposed Natalie wouldn’t either, not once the cake was eaten and all the presents opened. Everyone liked to remind Taylor that he just wasn’t considerate of Natalie’s feelings and how hard this was on her. Taylor knew all that; he never denied it. He just wished that someone would stop for just a second and ask him what he wanted and how he felt about the course his life had veered off on. It seemed that no one ever did.
Especially his brothers.
“Well, speak of the devil…” Taylor mumbled to no one but himself.
A familiar figure caught Taylor’s eye. It was just in his peripheral vision, but he would recognize it anywhere. The painfully tense shoulders, the hoodie with holes worn on the cuffs from constant fidgeting, the ridiculous faux mohawk – there was no doubt about it. It was Isaac. The one brother who seemed to have a permanent disapproving frown on his face lately. The frown deepened and his brow furrowed even more when his gaze finally fell on Taylor. Taylor thought he could probably outrun Ike if he tried, but he didn’t relish another speech about trying to run away from his problems. He decided to stick around and take whatever punishment Isaac felt like dishing out.
Isaac stood over the bench for a moment before finally taking a seat just a little bit too close to Taylor. He didn’t speak for a moment and Taylor wondered just how many judgmental comments he was plotting in his mind.
“You smell like alcohol.”
So he went for the obvious one, Taylor thought. “It’s the strangest thing. That just has a way of happening when you get drunk.”
“In the middle of the day, too. Classy. I especially like how you left the empty champagne bottle on the counter for anyone at all to find.”
Taylor rolled his eyes. “Oh, what’s the big deal? I highly doubt Ezra’s going to go crawling around and confuse it for his bottle. Anyway, as you already pointed out, it’s empty. I made damn sure of that. Never let it be said that Jordan Taylor Hanson half-asses anything.”
Isaac smirked slightly. “I’d never dream of saying that. Was that one of the leftover bottles from the wedding?”
“Yup, I do believe it was,” Taylor said with a short nod. “Natalie was probably hanging onto it for our anniversary or something cheesy like that. Like that freezer-burnt piece of white cake with white icing. Who decided on that thrilling combination, anyway? Whatever. I’ll just tell her I didn’t realize it was that bottle. I’m blonde. I can get away playing dumb.”
“Nice. I like the symbolism. But somehow I don’t think she’ll buy that,” Isaac said, finally turning his head to look at Taylor.
“She’s bought more ridiculous things from me.”
The two brothers locked eyes for a moment, a certain look passing between them that said they each knew exactly what Taylor was alluding to. A lot had gone unsaid between the two of them for the past few months, communicated only by furtive glances and carefully planned almost-innocent touches, and Taylor was still unsure what to make of any of it. It occurred to Taylor that their last real conversation – at least, about anything other than music – had been on the very day of his wedding.
“Can you try not to stab me with that?” Taylor asked, trying not to wiggle as Isaac fiddled with the boutonniere he was attempting to attach to Taylor’s suit. The suit made him itch in places Taylor didn’t know it was possible itch. He longed for the wedding to be over mostly just so he could put normal clothes on again.
“I’ll do my best. It wouldn’t look good if the best man murdered the groom just before the ceremony, would it?” Isaac stood back to admire his handiwork. He adjusted the flowers one last time, then his face turned serious. “By the way, why did you pick me? For the best man, I mean. You and Zac have always been closer. Everyone knows that. It should have been him.”
“Have we? Do they?” Taylor cocked his head to the side, looking past Isaac at his own reflection in the mirror. He looked and felt like a child playing dress-up, not a man about to get married and – none too soon after – become a father. He frowned at himself.
Isaac spun around to stare at their reflections as well. “Yeah. It always seemed that way to me, anyway. Especially the last few years. You guys are like Frick and motherfucking Frack. Hell, you’re dating – well, marrying – best friends.”
“I guess you could look at it that way. I dunno, I guess I just like being the older brother to him,” Taylor said with a grimace. “At least, I used to be good at that. Before… all this. I could teach him things. Guide him, you know? Be someone he could look up to.”
“You’re not as bad as you think. It takes a lot to own up to your –” Isaac’s face went pale and his sentence hung in the air, unfinished.
“Mistake? You were going to say my mistake.”
Isaac shook his head and stepped back from the mirror to fiddle with his own boutonniere. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
Taylor strode up behind him, standing just close enough to be irritating, to make the hairs on the back of Isaac’s neck stand up. He watched his brother tense as he spat out, “Yes you were. Why not? Everyone’s thinking it. I wish someone would fucking say it.”
Isaac spun around and stared at Taylor. Their faces were so close he could almost feel Isaac’s breath on his face. Isaac sighed. “Fine. You fucked up big time. And I’m a shitty big brother for not somehow preventing you from potentially ruining your life, so I don’t think I really deserve to be standing up there next to you. You should have picked Zac.”
Taylor frowned. “How the hell could you have prevented this?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like I wasn’t there for you the way you just said you like being there for Zac. I’m definitely not the best man here. I’m horrible for how I feel about you – about this, I mean.”
Isaac turned his back to Taylor again, but the words were already out there. There could be no hiding from the truth he had just let slip. Taylor shook his head, but he was certain he had heard his brother correctly.
He put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “About me?”
“What do you want me to say? If my jealousy of how close you are with Zac didn’t make it obvious enough – no, just fucking forget it.”
“Whatever you’re going to say, I want you to say it. And I want you to say it to my face.”
Slowly, Isaac spun around. He looked, in a word, vulnerable. Taylor didn’t know what else to do, so he wrapped his arms tightly around his brother and leaned down to rest his head on Isaac’s shoulder. It was an awkward position that he had a feeling would leave him with a crick in his neck – damn being the tall one – but in that moment, it felt right.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, his voice muffled against the heavy fabric of Isaac’s suit.
“I’m not the one you should be telling that to,” Isaac replied.
Taylor lifted his head. “No, you are. One of many, anyway. I meant I’m sorry for not realizing how you felt. You’re not a bad brother at all. I never meant to make you feel left out or… or…”
He struggled to find the right word, but it wouldn’t come to him. Instead, he did the most irrational thing he could think of, but it was the only way to express what he felt – and what he thought Isaac was stumbling toward telling him that he felt as well.
He kissed him.
Isaac’s lips were rough, but he didn’t push Taylor away like he had expected. At first, his lips stayed close in a tight line and Taylor was ready to give up and beg forgiveness when he finally felt Isaac relax against him. His tongue darted out and just barely brushed Isaac’s lips, but he was afraid to take any more risks than that. Taylor wanted things to go on just as they were; he feared any sudden moves would send everything tumbling down. A part of him was still surprised that Ike hadn’t pushed him away and screamed that that hadn’t been at all what he meant.
Loud footsteps down the hall alerted them that someone was coming. Taylor pulled back and hoped his face wasn’t as flushed as it felt. Isaac rushed to fiddle with the rest of the flowers and act like everything was normal while Taylor returned to the mirror to stare once again at his unfamiliar reflection.
The man who stared back at him seemed forever changed and he wondered if anyone but Isaac would know what had made all the difference. A million voices screamed at him from within his mind, most of them telling him how everything he was doing was wrong. Somehow, the kiss he had just shared with his brother seemed the least wrong. It was the first thing in months that he had honestly done because he wanted to.
He feared that it would be the last.
“So, how long are we hiding out here in the park?” Isaac asked. “That is what we’re doing, right? Hiding out?”
“That’s what I was doing. You, I’m not sure about. Just loitering, I suppose.”
Isaac chuckled. “I can loiter just as long as you can hide out. But seriously — all day?”
“Possibly,” Taylor replied. “I mean, I could do something useful, but Natalie likes to remind me how useless I am, so that seems pretty unlikely…”
“She loves you, though. Regardless of what she says.”
Taylor snorted. “Seems like she’s the only one.”
“Really? Is that what you really think?” Isaac shook his head and looked away from Taylor. His entire body tensed up and Taylor wondered if he was going to get up and leave.
“I honestly don’t know. I just want to feel like I’m doing something right for once.”
Isaac gave Taylor a sideways glance. “Define right.”
“Something that I don’t feel guilty for later.” Taylor shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I can really, truly want something and still feel guilty for it. I’m really good at that, in fact. So that’s not what I meant. I just want to know that whatever I do, whatever the consequences and the guilt, it’s my decision and mine alone.”
“I sure hope you’re not asking me for relationship advice. Because we all know how lucky I am in love,” Isaac turned back to Taylor and took hold of his left hand, lifting it into the air. The light glinted off his wedding band. “But I’m pretty sure that ring right there means you don’t really get to make your own selfish decisions anymore. At least, not completely.”
Taylor tried not to stare at the ring. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? That ring. It might as well be something out of a quarter machine for all it means to me. Everyone knows it was just a mistake that I’m trying to somehow make right. I think, deep down, even Natalie knows that.”
“And I’m sure that beneath that perfect little wife and mother routine, she’s got some of the same guilt as you about that,” Isaac said, letting Taylor’s hand fall but leaving his own on top of it.
“Maybe about that. But she couldn’t really understand all the guilt that I feel.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Why not? What kind of guilt could you have that your loving wife wouldn’t understand?”
“Guilt that what I really want…” Taylor looked down at their hands, Isaac’s neatly covering the gold band. “I can’t have. And shouldn’t even want.”
Isaac stared down at their hands for a moment before half-mumbling his reply. “That’s a guilt you don’t have to feel on your own. You should damn well know that.”
“How can I know anything when it seems like we haven’t talked since the day I put on this stupid ring?” Taylor asked, trying to control his volume although he could feel his temper rising. “It seems like you never have anything to say to me these days except to argue and remind me what a fuckup I am. And, you know, I can think at least one way you’re just as fucked up as I am.”
“Because I can’t say what I really want to say!” Isaac said, then coughed and tried to steady himself. “I told you. I’m not a good big brother to you. I am fucked up too, alright? I’m trying to look out for you now, but I guess it just comes out as anger because… because I don’t like that I’m still missing out on you.”
“I’m still here, Ike,” Taylor said, his voice pleading. He grasped Isaac’s hand again. “Maybe not in the way you want or the way I want, because god knows we can’t really have all that, but I’m here. Everyone’s always telling me to make the best of what I’ve got, and I’m sure they’re talking about the marriage and the baby. But it seems like good advice for us, too.”
“What have we got?”
Taylor smiled. “Each other. You can’t exactly quit being my big brother, you know. But I don’t think you’re doing so bad of a job. So you’re angry at me. So am I, most of the time. Like I said, I’d rather do what I want and deal with the guilt. Even if it means leading a double life. At least part of me’s getting what he wants.”
Isaac smirked at that. “You might be onto something, there. You think it’s possible fatherhood is making you wise?”
“It couldn’t have made me much dumber, could it?” Taylor said, hoping to solicit a real laugh from Ike. He wasn’t disappointed.
“You’ve definitely got a point there,” Isaac choked out between laughs. “But seriously, I want to be there for you. To be the big brother you need – and want. In whatever way.”
Taylor smiled and trying to think of a witty comeback, but nothing would come to him. Instead, he dissolved into another fit of happy laughter. The weight he had carried with him to the park seemed, for the moment, lifted from his shoulders.
He suspected their laughter – and the fact that they were still practically holding hands – was bound to attract some strange looks, but he didn’t care. It was the first time in a year that Taylor had felt relaxed and happy. It felt like a turning point, a watershed moment – even more important than the wedding. He wasn’t fooling himself into thinking this could be easy; he knew that his life was only going to be further consumed by secrets and guilt from then on. But he didn’t care. With his big brother by his side, in every way possible, he knew he would be okay in his new life.