“And what is that smile for, Mr. Hanson?” Simone caught his smile in her vanity mirror. Taylor appeared to be innocent enough, but she knew him better than that. She knew that he was plotting some awful consperousy to make her break her date and stay home with him. The truth was, she thought of nothing else but the previous night and how magical it was. Then reality hit her: she cheated on Jonathan.
Taylor shrugged his shoulders, then smiled again. She swiveled in her chair to face him. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She said.
“Doing what?” Taylor asked. She stood and slipped her feet into a pair of heels.
“Doing this. I mean, going out with Jonathan and leaving you here alone with Randy, wishing that Randy would be with Jonathan and I could be here alone with you.” She said.
“I like that idea.” Taylor said. Simone smiled.
“Me, too. Trust me, I am going to make this night go as fast as I can. I never actually realized how boring Jonathan and I were until you showed up. But, when I come home…”
“I’ll be up waiting for you.” Taylor finished her sentence for her. She smiled and allowed their foreheads to touch. She looked into his eyes and before their lips grazed upon each other’s, the doorbell rang. She pulled away, groaning with a hint of disappointment. She glanced at her watch
and then at her reflection in the mirror.
“So, how do I look?” she asked Taylor. He gladly looked her over.
“Very nice.” He said. He thought the little black dress that she had chosen to wear looked absolutely ravishing, even though it was still March, a little too cold to be wearing such a short dress. Then he became envious of Jonathan because he was going out with Simone that night. She smiled at his response, grabbed her coat and rushed down to the front door.
* * * * *
The clocked blinked over to 1:00 in the morning before the front door opened again. Taylor was waiting in the living room, just as he said he would be. He heard Simone say goodnight to Jonathan, and then he heard her kiss him quickly before the door shut. She walked up the steps, sighed, then turned towards the living room. When she saw Taylor, she smiled immediately.
“Early night, eh?” Taylor inquired, with a raised eyebrow.
Simone sighed with disgust. “You have no idea how much I tried to get home by 10:00. When we were eating dinner at some French place, which by the way sucked, I began to notice so many little things about Jonathan that were so incredibly annoying that I never noticed before. I was just about to point out to him that one of his ear lobes was lower than the other, but I realized that was really mean, so I didn’t say anything.” She explained the evening to Taylor. He chuckled a few times. It hadn’t been a perfect evening, but it wasn’t as boring as Simone thought that it was going to be.
“That’s okay. I’m just glad that you’re here with me right now.” Taylor said, wrapping his arms around her waist. She smiled and allowed their lips to touch. When she backed away and looked into his eyes, she quickly recognized the look they possessed. He pulled on her hand to go to her room. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, half thinking that Jonathan could come busting into the house catching her with Taylor. She really wanted to do it, but her head was in full thinking mode and was controlling her body, unlike the night before when her hormones were controlling her head. Taylor kissed her, but she turned away.
“Sim, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to do this.” She said truthfully. Taylor didn’t hide the let down in his eyes.
“Why not?” he asked. He had to know what the reason was. Before she left, she was being all sexy and was hinting that she wanted to do it again. She shrugged.
“Jonathan wanted to--”
“Oh, that doesn’t surprise me.” Taylor said angrily, taking a seat on the edge of her bed.
“But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I told him that I was on my period and that turned him off pretty quickly, but actually, I didn’t want to because you’re my only one. I love you so much and I would have never forgiven myself if I would’ve done anything with someone else.” She continued.
“You know that I love you, too.” Taylor said. She nodded.
“Tay, I don’t want to tonight. I’m tired and I have to work tomorrow.” She said. Even though Taylor was majorly disappointed, he nodded anyway. After Simone was under the covers and fast asleep, Taylor crawled beside her and fell asleep, too.
* * * * *
TWO WEEKS LATER
When Simone’s parents came home from their cruise, they were more that surprised to see Taylor there. Neither of them thought that they would see him again, but they loved him like a son before and greeted him with hugs and handshakes.
There was going to be a party at Ashna’s house that weekend. It wasn’t a special occasion, she was just having it for the soul purpose that her parents weren’t going to be home and she wanted to have some fun. Basically the entire school was invited to come, and Simone took it upon herself to invite Taylor, too, since he had been staying with her for awhile. She really wanted him to come, but at the same time, she wanted him to decline the invitation because she knew that Jonathan was going to be there, and her and Taylor would never have any time together without someone seeing them, then telling Jonathan about it. She was somewhat angry when he decided to come along, knowing that she would be able to think of nothing else but not being about to be with him.
The night of the party arrived and Simone showed up at Ashna’s house with Taylor beside her. As she saw the small line waiting at the front door, she realized that it was a shot party. Ashna hadn’t told her about that. When they finally reached the door, Ashna smiled cooly at Taylor, then looked at Simone. She already noticed that her friend was a little tipsy.
“Sim, who’s your friend?” Ashna asked, being obvious when checking him out. “Gittin’ some on the side?”
Simone felt her cheeks redden, but she knew that Ashna didn’t detect it. “Ash, this is Jordan.” She introduced. Taylor shook Ashna’s hand, who giggled a drunk giggle. Simone and Taylor soon downed their three admission drinks and were allowed to enter the party.
“You didn’t tell me that this was a shot party.” Taylor said as they were inside. Simone shrugged her shoulders.
“That’s because I didn’t know about it.” She said and quickly spotted Jonathan walking towards her. He had a look of jealousy in his eyes. He got like that any time he saw Simone with another guy, especially when she was standing so close to a guy that he didn’t know.
“Simone,” Jonathan said, then kissed her lips. She quickly looked at Taylor, who was busy not paying attention to the kiss. “You’re here. So, who’s this?”
“Jonathan, this is my very good friend Jordan.” Simone said. They shook hands. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw them getting along. Even though she knew that Taylor was faking it, she was still relieved that Jonathan didn’t sense anything.
The party continued late into the night. Simone was sort of pissed off because Jonathan wouldn’t let her out of his sight. There were a few times when she wanted to get Taylor and go back to her place, but with Jonathan being there, watching her every move, she was prevented from doing that. Sitting next to him basically the whole party, the only thing that she and Taylor could do was steal glances at each other.
Simone could feel the tugging of Taylor’s eyes. She knew that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But…she couldn’t do anything about it and wait until she could go home. And even if she told Jonathan that she wanted to leave, he would probably insist on taking her home and staying with her.
Simone’s friend, Lisa, came over to the couch that she and Jonathan were sitting on, and started talking to her. They talked about pretty much everything that was going on at the party. Mostly about what other people were doing, who people were doing and what people were wearing. She was grateful that Lisa was there to talk to.
“Sim, I have been wondering this almost the whole night…who was that guy that you came with?” Lisa asked. Simone smiled, and her friend quickly noticed what that smile meant. “You’re not serious, are you?”
Simone turned her head to see if Jonathan was paying attention to their conversation. With the loud music and everyone else that was around, she was certain that he couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
“Lis, this is so crazy.” She began. Lisa listened with anticipation in her eyes and eagerness to learn everything that Simone had been keeping a secret. Simone hadn’t told Ashna about Taylor coming back yet. She took a deep breath and was about to tell Lisa, tell Lisa everything.
Jonathan tapped her shoulder. She seemed annoyed, then turned to him. “Isn’t that your friend Jordan?” he asked her, pointing to the staircase. She followed his gaze. She almost choked on her breath. There was Taylor walking up the stairs, with Ashna ahead of him, pulling on his hands. Jonathan’s words echoed in her head.
“Isn’t that your friend Jordan?” she heard them again.
Blank and black. Her mind went completely blank and black. She couldn’t think anything. What the hell? Why? What? Taylor! She blinked once, and then they disappeared from her sight. She focused her attention back to Jonathan.
“Sweetie, I have to get home. My stomach isn’t handling everything too well.” She said. Jonathan nodded and kissed her goodbye. Simone ran from the house, and up the 3 blocks to her house. The cold air filled her lungs , waking her to the harsh reality that the guy she was in love with was probably in the middle of fucking her best friend. She cried, not caring about the icy March wind freezing her tears to her cheeks.