I woke up and realized that Taylor was sitting up and pulling on pajama’s that he’d probably left in my room before.

“Taylor?” I said sleepily.

“Umm, baby, you might want to get up and get some pajama’s on,” Taylor said sweetly rubbing my back. I just absentmindedly pointed towards my dresser and Taylor pulled out a pair of long, baggy red flannel pajama pants that had once been his. He pulled them onto each of my legs and secured them at my hips. Then he pulled a sports bra over my head and then one of his old wife-beaters that I had worn and stretched out so he had just given it to me.

“What’s going on in there? Why is the door locked? Mom’s gonna freak out when she comes down here and the door’s locked,” Zac said a mischievous sound growing in his voice.

“Umm, Zac, last night something happened,” Taylor said through the closed door. I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow wondering if he was going to tell Zac. He just shrugged his shoulders. He was improvising.

“That’s it I’m coming in,” Zac said. We had all forgotten that you could get into my room through the bathroom. Just a second later Zac appeared in my room with Taylor sitting next to me in a sitting position against the headboard of my bed rubbing my back and my head was in his lap, quite comfortable might I add.

“What happened?” Zac asked sitting down on the end of the bed looking like he wanted a juicy piece of gossip to take to the world above and I think Taylor got the hint of that too.

“Oh nothing really,” he answered him nonchalantly covering up the blood spot on the sheets with the top sheet; Zac didn’t draw attention to it. Taylor really was my knight in shining armor.

“Then how come you stayed down here all night? Plus it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and you haven’t even come up for coffee,” Zac said thinking he had caught us.

“No, I just brought Emma down here last night and we ended up passing out together. Zac you’re no Sherlock Holmes get over it, now go upstairs and leave us alone,” Tay said while playing with my long, blonde, curly hair that was down past my knees if I didn’t always have it pulled back some way.

“Okay, but Dad wants you upstairs because we’re having a band meeting, since we’re leaving tomorrow to go on tour,” Zac said knowing he’d get us.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Taylor and I both yelled together while sitting up so fast that I remembered that I had the remnants of a hangover.

“Yep, and you two haven’t even started packing, but the rest of have been packing all morning and since your door has been locked no one has been able to get to you so they could wake you,” Zac said an evil grin on his face.

“Yeah Zac, that’s the point! Get OUT now!” Taylor yelled, Tay didn’t yell much, but when he did you knew he meant it and you abided unless you wanted to die.

“Should I leave this door locked or –“ Zac asked before we interrupted him.

“ZAC!” Taylor and I yelled together.

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Zac left, leaving my bedroom door wide open; I just looked up at Taylor and smiled. The love I had for him was so immense at this moment I felt like I was going to burst.

“What?” he said smiling back.

“Nothing, it’s just that you’re so beautiful and perfect. I want to be with you for forever,” I told him taking his hand and lacing my fingers through his.

“Great adjectives to describe a man, but I feel the same about you, I want to be with you forever and ever and ever Emma. Don’t ever leave me, please.” Taylor basically begged.

“Don’t worry baby, I won’t ever leave you, trust me,” I promised Taylor.

We slowly raised ourselves out of bed and I kissed Taylor goodbye as he went upstairs for his band meeting with his father and Ashley.

I pulled out three different duffel bags from under my bed and started putting everything I basically owned clothes wise into those bags. In the third bag I put all my toiletries in it after I had taken my shower and gotten ready for my day.

I eventually went upstairs and heard voices coming from the den, I guessed that they were still having their meeting.

I walked into the kitchen wanting to get some coffee hoping that Taylor, the coffee addict, hadn’t gotten in there and drank it all. I met Diana and Jessica sitting at the table talking about the tour.

“Good-morning dear, or should I say good afternoon,” Diana greeted me with a smile.

“Yeah, we did sleep pretty late didn’t we?” I answered while pouring myself a cup of coffee and drinking it black.

Diana was staring me down with her mother death-glare wanting to know what was going on in my head, but I wasn’t going to give in and let her know what was behind my eyes.

“Umm, I’m going to go upstairs and start packing Taylor’s things, okay?” I basically was asking her.

“Okay, thanks that’d be great,” Diana answered my questioning statement.

“Em, you know you’re not his woman slave,” Jess told me like she had many times before, she was afraid he was using me.

“I know that, but I am his best friend,” I told her boldly back.

“Whatever,” she muttered into her glass of apple juice.

I made my way up the stairs and into Taylor’s room and began to pack his things as well. Just a few minutes later I heard three sets of footfalls coming up the stairs towards where I was. Just two or three seconds later I was joined by Ike, Tay, and Zac.

“Oh, so you’ll pack his stuff, but you won’t pack anyone else’s,” Zac said somewhat stubbornly.

“That’s because she loves me,” Taylor said putting his arms around my waist and I turned my head facing his and gave him a kiss, not caring that his brothers were in the room.

“Eww guys, that’s gross,” Isaac spoke up.

Taylor looked at me with a questioning look in his eyes and I nodded.

“No, it’s not because she’s my girlfriend,” Taylor said with a bright smile appearing on his face.

“What?” Zac and Isaac both said, stunned looks on their faces.

“Just don’t tell your mom because we want to be able to spend time together and not be patrolled constantly, especially during the tour. We’ll tell her after the tour,” I said and Taylor nodded in agreement with me.

“Ah ha! I knew something happened last night,” Zac said pointing his finger at us.

“What do you mean?” Isaac said once again shocked.

“When I went down there to wake them up this morning the door was locked. Why would they lock the door if they were just having another one of their ‘sleepovers’?” Zac said playing detective again.

I was blushing and Isaac looked at me.

“That’s right guys; we’re naughty, naughty people. Especially after last night,” Taylor said winking at his brothers.

“Tay, I don’t want to know about your sex life,” Isaac said with a disgusted look on his face.

“That’s because you don’t have one,” Taylor retorted back with an evil grin on his face.

”Shut-up man,” Isaac said blushing slightly and slugging Taylor in the arm.

We all got packed, me helping Taylor and made our way downstairs. After I had picked up my bags and made my way outside the tour bus had pulled up in front of the house. For this tour we were driving everywhere, I couldn’t stand the idea of being cooped up in that bus for months with the guys, but it’d be okay because we had hotels too and I’d be with Taylor.

It was only June 30 and the first concert wasn’t until July 5th, but we were going to Myrtle Beach and so we were going to basically take a vacation before the tour started. Two days on the beach and then two months of touring sounded good.

Everyone climbed slowly onto the buses dreading what was going to happen this tour. The things that had happened on the bus had been legendary. The whole world knew about the water war between buses, but there was a lot more fun than those videos let on. But, the other things were stuff like Zac putting Taylor’s hand in warm water. That is totally not cool in bunks. I just happened to be sleeping under, I was very angry, but ended up laughing when Taylor woke up:

”I can’t imagine what happened. I must have drunk too much at the concert. I’m just so tired, I didn’t mean to. Em I’m sorry,” he muttered while I bust out laughing. Eventually Zac told him what he did and Tay swore revenge and boy did he get revenge….

“Em, Emma, wake up! Come on, we’re going to get revenge on Zac,” Tay said while arousing me from the sleep I desperately needed.

“Oh, Taylor not tonight,” I begged half awake.

“Yes, tonight. Come on it’ll be fun! Please! Please! Please!” Taylor said taking my hand and pulling me out of the bunk.

“Okay, I’m coming, this one better be good,” I said grinning mischievously at Taylor in the dark.

“Oh it will be,” he simply said.

He had a huge box of saran wrap and a big white bag and some Elmer’s glue. I couldn’t imagine what he was going to do.

We got to Zac’s bunk and he dumped the contents of the white bag on the floor, he had hundreds of fake black spiders of all different sizes, Zac hated spiders. He wasn’t afraid of them, they just grossed him out and he couldn’t stand to be around them.

“Start gluing them all over his bunk,” Taylor whispered.

After about an hour of gluing and Zac’s bunk was almost completely covered with fake spiders we stepped back to admire our spider-work. Then Tay took the Saran wrap and covered the opening of Zac’s bunk with it. I then took a big roll of packaging tape and taped around the edges so Zac was completely trapped in with the spiders.

“Good work,” Taylor told me while giving me a high-five.

“Where’d you get that wide of a roll of saran wrap?” I questioned him.

“Mom ordered it one year for Avie and Mackie’s Halloween costumes. They looked pretty cool all wrapped in saran wrap. We called Mack bubble boy,” Tay whispered to me.

It was about 8:00 in the morning, but with the blinds pulled down in the bus it still looked like nighttime.

“In about a half an hour, we’ll wake everyone up then wake Zac up… With a fog horn!” Taylor said throwing his head back and laughing an evil laugh quietly.

A half an hour passed and we had everyone awake. After we had warned the bus driver what we were going to do, so he wouldn’t drive off the road. We got positioned around Zac’s bunk so he couldn’t see and got ready for a show.

I counted on my fingers to three and when I got to three Taylor blew the fog horn.

It was so loud in the bus that I knew it would wake Zac and sure enough it did. He woke with such a start that he flew up and hit his head on the top of the bunk which caused some of the spiders to fall down on him.

”AAHH! OH MY GOD! MOMMY!” Zac screamed. Then he threw off his blankets to reveal some spiders we had positioned there. He let out another shrill scream. He went to go bounding out of his bunk, but instead met the saran wrap very hard and was thrown back into the back wall of his bunk.

We all came into his view laughing our heads off.

“Very funny guys, just let me out,” Zac breathed hard.

“Fine, just first apologize to Taylor,” I said standing up for my best friend.

“Okay, I’m sorry Taylor, now get me out of here,” Zac was basically screaming still.

“Just one more thing, why did you yell out for your ‘mommy’?” Taylor asked laughing.

“I don’t know, please,” Zac said pure panic in his voice.

“Okay you two that’s enough. Let him out of there,” Diana said coming to her son’s rescue now after she had had her laugh.

“Yes mom,” Taylor said and we started to take the saran wrap off. As soon as Zac was out he jumped around for about 10 minutes rubbing himself hoping to get everything off. For the rest of the day he would randomly feel stuff crawling on him. It was a riot.

“I’m not sleeping in that bunk,” Zac told his mom with his arms folded across his chest referring to the last bunk left, his most feared bunk. “Make Taylor or Emma sleep in it, because I’m not sleeping in it.”

”Zac those spiders were fake and you know it,” I said coming up behind him touching his shoulder lightly.

“Yeah, and Emma and I are staying in the same bunks we’ve always stayed in, so just be a man for once, that whole thing was over a year ago anyways you idiot,” Taylor said coming up behind me and setting his laptop case down on his bunk.

“Zac trade bunks with Mack, he won’t know the difference,” Diana said trying as hard as she could to solve a conflict.

“Fine,” Zac said walking off to find Mackenzie and to get himself a new bunk.

In about 15 minutes time we were off, headed away for yet another tour, the one thing my boys did that people knew about, the thing that made them, well, them.

The trip took exactly 24 hours, which I found amazing. We quickly settled ourselves into the hotel and grabbed bathing suits and headed out to the beach. Our whole family was quickly immersed in the waves of the ocean hoping that no one would come down early for the concert and recognize the guys.

I found myself being thrown around by the swells and by Taylor. We could easily flirt because we were acting like we had always acted; we just couldn’t show anymore affection for each other than we ever had before. So we found ourselves kissing each other under water. That was quite an experience actually.

Taylor and I eventually parted from the family and went down to the pool claiming we were tired of swallowing salt water, but we didn’t want anyone to come with us because we wanted to talk.

I distinctly heard Zac mutter under his breath that talking was all we were going to do in a very sarcastic tone.

We went down to the pool and I found myself very giggly sitting on Taylor’s lap. But, to our sheer disappointment someone recognized us even though we both had sunglasses on.

“Taylor Hanson, oh my gosh, Maria come here, I think it’s Taylor Hanson,” we heard a girl whisper. My lips that were currently connected to Taylor’s felt his drop very quickly. I pulled away from him and looked at the girls.

Two extremely blonde girls wearing very skimpy bathing suits were standing a couple feet from us staring very intently at us. As soon as Taylor looked at them they let out a shrill sound and came bounding over to us.

“Oh my gosh it is you,” the girl I’m assuming was Maria said.

“Yeah, yeah it’s me,” Taylor said a sad tone in his voice. I just looked at him, normally he was smiley and happy-go-lucky with the fans, I wondered what was wrong.

“Would you sign my bathing suit?” the other girl asked. He certainly would not, I thought quickly. Those bathing suits barely had any fabric on them and if he signed them he would have to put his hands in some very inappropriate places which I would not have. Just one day of us going out and I was acting like this, I just didn’t want him touching some strange girls.

“I’m sorry I can’t do that considering the placement of where I would have to sign, but if you have something else I would gladly sign it,” Taylor said making me smile. Could he read my mind?

Their faces dropped.

“No we don’t have anything else. Why is this happening,” Maria begged the universe, it seemed.

“Hold on, I got you covered,” I said. I reached down into my pool bag and pulled out a pad of paper and a sharpie. I kept these things handy for these exact moments.

“Wow, you’re amazing. Who are you?” the other girl asked.

“I’m – “ I started.

“She’s my girlfriend, Emma,” Taylor finished for me.

Once again their faces dropped. I smiled.

“Who should I make these out to?” Taylor asked them.

“Ashley and Maria,” the girl named Ashley said.

Taylor signed the autograph like he did every other autograph, “To Ashley. Best Wishes, Taylor.” Then the next one said the same thing only it had the other girl’s name on it.

“Oh thank you so much, thank you, thank you,” they both said over and over.

“You’re welcome, now could you please give us some privacy before our family comes back from the beach,” Taylor said not thinking.

“The rest of your family is at the beach?” they asked huge smiles coming to their faces.

“Yeah, sadly,” Taylor said and they ran off to find Isaac and Zac. “I didn’t mean to tell them that Zac and Ike were down there.”

“I know baby, you’re just tired and want some time without these crazy people around,” I said reassuring him.

“No, it’s not like that, I just want to be with you without everyone interrupting now they’re going to mention that they’ve already seen me and my girlfriend and mom’s going to be like ‘what? Taylor’s up there with Emma,’ and they’re going to say ‘yeah that’s her name he told us she was his girlfriend and they were making out,’ then mom’s never gonna let us be alone again,” Tay said getting a seriously sad look in his eyes.

“Don’t worry baby, we’ll have time to ourselves and your mom trusts us, she doesn’t think we’ll do anything bad, and plus we’re adults. We can make our own decisions,” I said kissing his forehead which was very hot from the early July sun.

“That’s true we are adults, we can do whatever we want, but we have done something bad, very bad,” Taylor said getting a slightly naughty tone to his voice.

“Yes, and you are a very bad, bad boyfriend Taylor Hanson,” I said tickling the only place on his body that was ticklish, the line that went horizontal across his stomach.

“Hey stop that, I mean it. Ahh Em,” Taylor laughed standing up pulling me up with him so that he was carrying me. He lugged me over to the pool and tossed me in. When I came up to the top blowing water out of my nose he was like:

”That was for the tickling,” and jumped in cannonball style creating a big splash and a wave that pulled me under causing me to meet Taylor underneath the water. We came above the water choking and laughing and kissing, having a grand old time.

“I love you so much,” I told him looking into his eyes that matched the perfectly blue water of the pool.

“I love y –,” but before he could finish a shadow fell over us. We looked up to see Diana standing over us with her hands on her hips, but because of the sun we couldn’t see the smile she had on her face so we automatically thought she was mad.

Our smiles automatically melted like ice creams cones in the same hot sun we were in.

“You’re dating huh?” Diana asked sitting down on the side of the pool and putting her feet in the water.

“Mom we didn’t tell you because we were afraid you wouldn’t trust us and then you’d stop letting us do the things we used to do,” Taylor said quickly coming to both our defenses.

“Why would I not trust you, is there some reason why I should not trust you?” Diana asked giving us both the mother death-glare again.

“No ma’am,” we both said in unison.

“Well, I’m perfectly okay with you stepping into a relationship; I actually always knew this would happen. You two love each other so much that it was obvious. I just can’t believe you didn’t want to tell me,” Diana said frowning.

“We were going to tell you after the tour we just wanted to do stuff during the tour like sleep together… hold on, that came out wrong, I meant sleep in the same bed and stuff, just like we always do,” I said flushing a bright color.

“It’s okay, you can still do those things, if you’ve held off from sex-related things for this long I think you can for a little while longer. I trust you. Now have fun,” the woman I would one day call mom said while getting up and walking back towards the beach.

“She knows we’re having sex,” I said as soon as she was out of hearing range.

“How?” Taylor asked.

“Maybe she heard us, maybe she just knows, oh I don’t know, she just knows,” I said frustrated that I could never have a secret from Diana.

“She could’ve definitely heard us, especially you, geez you probably woke the dead, at least the dead men,” Taylor said grabbing at my sides and making me laugh.

“Oh whatever, at least we can sleep in the same room like we always have. Come on let’s go back to the hotel, the others probably won’t come in for a while,” I said hoping my voice sounded somewhat sexy.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Taylor said jumping out of the pool and then turning around to pull me out.

We got up to our room and shed our wet bathing suits and moved from the bed, to the floor, to Zac’s bed, to the chair, and to the shower. It was definitely interesting.

I was so happy to be on the road again, only this time was going to be a little bit different.

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Email: hshanson09@yahoo.com