"Oh, I only pissed Jess off and she's never gonna talk to me ever again." Taylor complained, though he knew that was a huge exaggeration. Did he care? He felt miserable. Sighing unhappily, he half-flung himself onto his bed.
"Well, what did you do?" Zac wanted to know. He slipped the cd into their stereo and turned it on softly. He peered at the pictures on the cd jacket. "You're always pissing somebody off, aren't you, Tay?"
"Shut up," Taylor replied sourly.
"Point well taken," Zac answered coolly. "Request denied; unable to connect to server." He pointed to his head and smiled, and he looked so geniusly stupid that Taylor had to smile. Zac had that effect on most people. Then he got serious. "But no, really, what did you do?"
Taylor took a deep breath, and went into a little bit more detailed version than what he had told his father. "And I guess she's not really mad at me or anything, but I want to know why she's been acting so weird. I try to talk to her, and it's like nothing. It's like talking to a brick wall. You know, nothing gets through." He added a little louder, "It's like talking to ZAC!"
"What?" Zac snapped to attention. He had been staring off into space, looking sleepy and probably bored out of his mind with Taylor's story. "What about me?" Both Isaac and Taylor started laughing.
"I rest my case," Taylor chuckled.
Zac threw them both a wary glance. "I don't know about you two sometimes. I think you're plotting to take over the world in your spare time. Why not clue me in? Would it take too much effort to include your little brother?"
Both: "Yes!"
"Well, fine then," Zac pouted. "I'll just take my drumming skills and my extraordinary intellect and my stunning good looks to another band and make them famous." He added, "And then we'll come back and kick your asses."
"Bring it on," Isaac challenged, and they started to get into a little mock fight but Taylor interrupted.
"Do you guys know why she's been acting so weird?"
They both shrugged, and Zac turned up the stereo a little louder. It was a new cd, but it had some of the old hits on it; "Crazy" was on now, and it was one of Zac's personal favorites. (*author's note* I don't actually know if he even likes that song, I told you, I make all this junk up*) Zac stated forwardly, "I think she likes you."
Taylor groaned, "God, that's what everybody's been saying. But she doesn't. I mean, come on; this is JESS we're talking about. Me, Jess. Jess, me. It sounds all nice and good to me, but I don't think it would actually work."
"Why do you think that anyway, Zac?" Isaac wanted to know.
Zac grinned. "Aw, come on, Ike, it's obvious; you must not have seen the way she was looking at Tay when we were practicing before dinner. When we did our scales and Tay was singing, she was staring at him. I almost died from laughing, and she kept throwing me these evil glares."
After a moment, Isaac smiled. "Come to think of it, she always looks at you funny when you sing, Tay. And she's always hugging you and pulling on you."
"She probably looks at me funny because my voice keeps cracking again," Taylor muttered, blushing from their assumptions. "And we're really good friends. She's always hugged me and stuff. Why would that suddenly be a sign that she likes me?"
"You should ask her out," Isaac insisted. "You two would make an adorable couple."
"Look at him blush!" Zac exclaimed, giggling. Indeed he was blushing; his whole face was bright red, all the way to the tips of his ears. "Awww! Tay LOOOOVES Jess!" Zac crooned, and ducked as Taylor hurtled a pillow at him with enough force to take his head off. Luckily he dodged it in time.
Taylor said curtly, "I don't love her. I like her. There's a difference. How many times am I going to have to tell you people this? You don't listen."
This continued on for the next hour; they teased Taylor about her, and finally they somehow squeezed the promise out of him that he would at least CONSIDER asking her out. "But I can't promise anything," Taylor warned.
"Yeah, yeah, sure sure." Isaac rolled his eyes. "It's gonna happen. She likes you, Tay. I'm sure of it."
Taylor blushed. They teased him a little bit.
That night they got around to writing a song. It was called "Sad Goodbyes", and it was a sweet melody with haunting, directive harmonies. It was on the difficult side but they were confident that they could work at it. Taylor was, after all, a perfectionist and he rarely quit on a song, even if it was obviously going nowhere. . . but this was WAS going somewhere. On their next record, perhaps. . .