0 comments/ 8089 views/ 0 favorites Soul Gazer Ch. 01 By: EroticSoul I stood there watching, slowly watching, in fact, almost anticipating what Taylor might do next. It was cold outside; much colder than it had been the past few times I had stood for hours outside just hoping to meet him. I wondered what the rest of the fans that were shivering all around me were thinking. I wondered if they too thought there might be something special when they had first saw him or if they were just there for autographs and pictures so they could brag that they had met him later to their friends. Most of the people in the crowd were either ten to fifteen year old girls who knew him from "that show" on television, women my age hoping to get him into bed or marry him... whichever came first, or women in their mid-fifties or early sixties whose maternal instincts took over when they saw the sweet man in their living rooms every Tuesday night. Then, of course, there were the fans like me. The ones who loved everything about Taylor Hicks; His sweetness, his humor, his humbleness, but most of all, the music and happiness he had brought to each of us. Christene and I were those fans, the ones that wouldn't turn and run at the first sight or mention of him doing something odd or different or straying from the person he was on the show. Flashback... The concert tonight was wonderful. He played songs from his new album which had just been released weeks ago and blew us out of the water with the striking harmonies, all the while playing the harmonica and making me weak in the knees. No one had ever had this kind of control over me and while it was exhilarating, it was also a bit frightening. The music he supplied was the air I breathed... my spirit. At one point in the concert he got on his knees and extended his hand into the sea of hands reaching for him. One girl, about seventeen from my best assessment, had grabbed his hand and wouldn't let go almost pulling him off stage. Being the calm and collected person that he is, he didn't let it faze him, as soon as the security guards freed him from her tight grasp he continued to make love to us through the music... to his fans, the intermittent ones who cared for the music almost as much as he did. Flashback to Reality... Christene is tugging at my sleeve when I'm pulled back to reality, out of my thoughts; out of my own mind. "Taylor just got off the bus and was waving to everybody! What's up with you tonight? You just stood there!" She laughed. "I don't know... maybe nerves... I don't know. Did he get back on the bus?" I asked her while being shoved by a few little girls to my left. "No, I think he went back in. You okay? You don't wanna leave do you?" she asked while I just stood there. It was true, I had a weird feeling all day and it was getting stronger and stronger by the minute. Something was going to happen. I didn't know whether it was going to be bad or good, but something was going to happen. I was getting more claustrophobic by the minute... Since everyone had seen the gray haired soul singer jump off the bus they were all clamoring toward the flimsy yellow caution tape to catch a closer look, pushing me forward in the process. The air was getting even colder now and I was tempted to walk back to my car for my pea-coat. The sweater I was wearing was too much during the concert and not enough now. "Just wonderful." I thought to myself, "When Taylor gets to me I'll be shaking so much from the cold that he'll think I'm getting all fan-girly on him and won't give me the time of day..." Standing there I played with my necklace to avoid biting my nails; A horrible habit I had since I was a little girl. My thoughts were racing as the people behind me kept pushing me up further and further against the yellow caution tape, causing the security guards to throw more than a few nasty looks my way. Suddenly, Taylor emerges from the loading bay of the concert hall to the left of me and the crowd goes crazy. Everyone is screaming and little girls are crying all around me. I stand there motionless as the tall, well-built man works his way up the line of fans with a Sharpie marker in one hand and gifts from fans filling the other, smiling from ear to ear. His every move is fluid even though he's being tugged on by women from all directions. Occasionally he stops to give hugs to kids and their mothers and even grandmothers. As he gets closer I pull the letter out of my pocket to get ready to give to him as he passes by. Flashback... I laid on my bed... the sounds of my house at night filling my eardrums. The clock ticking... The cat rolling something around on the floor above me... My own heartbeat was even distracting. I couldn't sleep, all I could do was lay there... in limbo... waiting until tomorrow and thinking of what I could possibly utter if I met Taylor. Sitting up in bed I decided I would just write him a letter to let him know what I wanted to say, just in case it wouldn't come out. The distraction of the sounds didn't help so I decided that I would turn on the radio or listen to some CDs while writing to keep my mind off of the ticking of the clock and the scrambling of the cat. Getting a piece of paper from a notebook and a pen from the cup on my nightstand, I started writing. Taylor, Thank you. I'm sure you get tons of fan mail and you never get the time to read any of it. I hope you read this. No one has ever made me as happy as you have made me. I know I don't know you personally and will never claim to because I'm sure you get enough of that already. You make my heart smile and my worries go away. Thank you for bringing so much joy to my life. It truly means the world to me. -Loryn Flashback to Reality... Christine grabbing my arm again snapped me back... She was screaming something to me when I looked at her, but I couldn't hear what it was she was trying to tell me over all the screams. When I turned my head back to the front there he was. He was gazing at me with his eyes... those eyes... etching meaningful memories onto my soul. Even though he was smiling, his eyes were sad. For one split second I hugged him, gave him my letter and then he was gone. While he was signing more autographs, I heard the screams behind me and my heart began to thump in my chest and then the crowd surged. "C'mon!" Christene screamed as she pulled at my arm trying to help me get away from the crowd that was now making it difficult to see where she was. The screams were deafening and I was getting extremely worried that we would get separated... I always hated crowds and now I was being given a reason to hate this one. Christene's grasp on my arm had tightened and when I saw her face through a break in the crowd I could tell that she was getting worried just as much as I was. I wanted to run or hide but I couldn't break free from the tangle of people around me. I turned to run until I felt a hand grasp my other wrist and I was being pulled the other way back toward where the caution tape used to be. The crowd had broken through it and was going crazy trying to get to Taylor. Finally, I decided to pull the opposite way of Christene and let the hand take us where it was going to since it was only logical to go with the flow of the crowd instead of against them. I tried to look through the crowd at the person that was pulling me but all I could see was a swarm of unfamiliar faces and security guards. In the distance I could see that we were coming up on the back entrance of the concert hall and started to worry if Taylor was alright since the fans had gotten all the way here. I also started to worry that we were all going to get arrested, hurt, or worse, killed. The hand pulling me toward the concert hall kept tightening its grip so much it almost hurt but I kept following until we were to the dark overhang of the back entrance. As soon as I was about to see who was pulling me some security guards threw something over the bearer of the hand, Christene and I. "Great... we're REALLY in for it now... sneaking back into a blocked off area... sneaking into the back entrance of the concert hall... SHIT! How much weirder could my night GET!?" I thought to myself. "GET IN THE FUCKING DOOR!" I heard someone yell as I was pushed into the person in front of me "They're all right behind you and if you don't get in the damn building they're gonna follow you in!" as soon as the man stopped yelling the door slammed right behind us. "What the hell's going on!?" I heard Christene yell from behind me. I could tell she was just as worried (not to mention mad) as I was and she wasn't doing anything to hide it. I felt her fighting at the cover that was keeping us from seeing anything. Finally she had freed us from the cloth and I could feel the cooler air of the building hit my face as I looked back to see her standing there. Her hair was messed up and flying all around her face from the cover being thrown over her... She was mad. "WHAT THE Fuuuuu...." Christene yelled, dissolving into barely a whisper as I saw the expression on her face change "ck is this..." she finished, trailing off. "I wanna go home Christene..." I said, trying to explain while I was holding the blanket in my hands, "this person just kept pulling me toward the building and I couldn't help it and I was worried that we were gonna get into trouble and then those people threw this... this blanket over us... and now they're probably looking for us..." I said, out of breath and exhausted from my lengthy explanation. I turned my head to look around the room for an exit. I looked to the right and there was no way to get out from over there so I looked to the left... Stretched out on a bench was Taylor... watching us and laughing under his breath. (to be continued...) Soul Gazer Ch. 02 "You're not... um... yeah, I think you are..." I stammered to find the right words to say as I pushed my long, dark hair behind my ear. The letter was already in his hands so that plan was already shot to hell. "I'm not what?" he laughed as he sat up from the bench, "Yeah, I'm Taylor. Crazy out there, huh?" Slowly he got up from the bench and sauntered over to stand beside Christene and I who were awestruck that he was standing right in front of us. His beautiful dark hazel eyes were shining in the fluorescent lights that illuminated the room. He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket over an "Otis Redding" shirt and some old faded jeans with wear in the pocket from where he always kept his harmonica with him. "Yeah! Those people are crazy asses out there!" said Christene to break the silence, "I didn't know if we were gonna get outta that crowd or not." "Wow... me either. Truth be told, that's the craziest crowd I've had yet! I don' know what got into 'em... sheesh... it was fuckin' nuts out there! What'd you guys think a the show?" he asked quickly to change the subject. "You made love to the music Tay..." I said in almost a whisper, making Christene whip her head around at me as my face turned blood red, "I mean... I love the way you make music Taylor." He laughed the cutest laugh I'd ever heard and I turned even redder when I realized he had actually heard me say what I did. It was one thing if I talked like that around Christene... she'd probably heard me say every thing imaginable about the man, but the fact that HE had heard me say something like that... and call him Tay, was almost more than I could take in terms of embarrassment. "So I take it you liked the show then!?" he said bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, acting almost like a little boy, "How'd you like the new songs?" "I uh..." I stammered again from the embarrassment that was still hanging over my head. The words just wouldn't form for me. "The chorus of the first song you sang tonight was beautiful Taylor. Who are you gonna write with for your next album?" Said Christene, keeping the ball rolling. "Not sure yet really... uh... I don't think I caught your names... did I? God... I hear so many names in a day that it's a wonder I remember my own sometimes." "I'm Christene and this is my friend Loryn." Said Christene, knowing that I was still incapable of forming words. "Where ya'll from?" he said. "TENNESSEE." I blurted out. "I mean, we live in Lewisburg, Tennessee." I finished, almost impressed with myself that I could remember where I was even from. "That's cool... that's cool... You guys came pretty far! I played in Nashville at the beginning of the tour ya know." he said laughing and looking sort of puzzled, "I'm just glad this tour is over. I get to go home and spend some time with the family and friends for Christmas." He said, running a hand through his tousled silver hair. "It's been a while since I've been home. Wonder if they've cleared 'em out yet?" Slowly he sauntered over to the door to peek his head out while looking side to side. No screams... It was clear from the sound of it. Closing the door quietly he sighed and told us the security guards would come get us when it was okay for him to go outside. He slowly sauntered back over to us and put his arms over our shoulders and led us over to the bench to sit down with him. Reaching into his jeans pocket he pulled out a few rumpled pieces of paper and read them out loud. "Taylor... you are hot. H-A-W-T." he read laughing. "You guys know how many a these I get in one night?" He said making a funny face. "Some nights I can't even hold 'em all. It's weird." Immediately I looked down at the floor and faked a laugh, knowing he'd get to mine soon. I felt the heat rise into my face as he began reading the first distinguishable part of my letter aloud. "I'm sure you get some nice ones though... right?" I interrupted, "I mean, surely they couldn't all just be one line high-school type notes... right?" "Oh, don't get me wrong, I love 'em... it's just weird." He said while stuffing the letter I wrote back into the faded pocket of his jeans. "Jeez, it's gettin' late. You'd think they'd be back in here after me by now." About that time the door of the room swung open and three security guards came in red-faced and sweaty. "You ready?" asked the big burly one. "Yeah Mike. Ev'rybody gone? You don't have one a those little carts we could get them back to their car in do ya?" said Taylor, motioning to Christene and I. "Sure." The security guard answered tossing Taylor the keys. "But don't do anything stupid, Tay. On second though, I'll come with you. We all know how much you like to play around with those carts." He said giving Taylor a stern look making Taylor laugh and roll his eyes. "Actually," I interrupted, "We don't have a car here. We rode here with some other girls from home and I'm not even sure they're here anymore since everybody left... I hope they are 'cause my car's at my house... in Lewisburg... Tennessee... three hundred miles away..." I finished, putting my hand to my head worrying about what Christene and I were going to do to get home. "We'll figure somethin' out." Taylor said patting me on the shoulder. We walked out to the parking lot together with the security guards all around us. This was definitely nothing I had ever imagined happening to me in a million years. The air was even colder now than it was before and small flakes of snow were swiftly beginning to fall all around us coating the grass and parking lot with a fine sparkling powder. I looked up at Taylor to see what he was doing. To my surprise he would occasionally tilt his head up and catch a snowflake on his tongue, smile for a second, and then I would watch as the sad look in his eyes took over again making me turn away because I felt I was invading some sort of personal space. When we finally reached the small golf-cart security vehicle Taylor turned to me. "Are you gonna call your friends? See if they're still here?" he said "Tell 'em it's okay if they're not 'cause there's a nice warm tour bus sittin' right over there with all kindsa good food... good tunes. We'll getcha home." With that, my heart fluttered like crazy in my chest and I felt myself gain an all new respect for this man who had already given so much of himself to so many people. "But don't you have to get home? I mean back to Birmingham? I really don't want us to be a problem..." I said, digging through my purse for my cell phone, "I can't find my cell... I must have dropped it while that crazy security guard was pulling me through the crowd... Can this night get any worse!? I mean... uh..." "Stupid security guard, huh? Honey, I have to stop in Nashville before I go all the way back to Alabama so we'll be takin' sixty-five South anyway. It's really no biggie. Here, use my cell phone." He said, obviously amused by something, "You'll have to dial the area code first though. That's a 'Bama number..." "Yeah," I laughed, my friends are gonna know somethin's up when they see this." I laughed, dialing the phone. I called my Marie and Missy, whom were both freaked out, to let them know Christene and I wouldn't need a ride home that night as they both enquired why. I told them that we had just decided to go ahead and stay in Cincinnati for the night and that my dad was going to come get us in the morning. They asked all kinds of questions as to whose cell phone I was using, why I was using it, where I went during all the commotion and why Christene and I didn't just come find them... but I played it cool. I told them I was using someone's cell phone who was standing outside after the security guards made everyone leave, that I had lost my own cell phone during the big rush of everything, and that Christene and I couldn't find them after everyone started going crazy so instead we just went around to the front of the building and stood until it was all over. They bought it... I told them to go ahead and go home after they got done eating at the truck-stop they had went to and that Christene and I would call them when I got home the next day so we could all compare pictures. As soon as I hung up the phone I looked around as Mike, the big burly security guard, and Christene were getting into the security vehicle and I could feel someone standing behind me. "Ya ready to go to the bus? I've already told Christene you guys are gonna be dropped off when we pass through Lewisburg sometime tomorrow. C'mon." Taylor said, making me jump a little as he took my hand and helped me into the little golf-cart and climbed in behind me. As we approached the huge bus I could see that the bus was already running and the bus-driver was ready to go. "I'm sorry for holdin' you guys up. We could have just gotten a hotel room and stayed for the night." I said looking at Taylor. "Hon, the guys in the band already left because they were on the other bus when everybody went crazy... It'll be nice to have somebody new to talk to on the way home." He replied back smiling. When we got to the bus the security guard turned off the engine and got on the bus leaving Christene, Taylor and I. Taylor helped me out of the golf-cart and then we walked over to where Christene was so he could help her out. It was already getting slick out and the snow was flying all around getting stuck in our hair. The exhaust of the enormous bus in front of us hung thick in the air making the visibility even lower. "C'mon, let's get you girls outta the cold." Said Taylor while he led us to the bus. The bus looked even more enormous on the inside as it did from the outside. To the right of us there was a green fluffy couch like bench and to the left in the main room of the bus there was a flat screen television mounted on the wall with a tiny dining space to the right side of it. Farther back to our right was a door partitioning the front half of the bus from the back half. "You girls can take your coats off and lay 'em over here when ya get ready. I'll be back in a minute." Taylor said, pointing to a coat rack and heading back to the door. "Boy this is nice." I said stretching out on the couch as Christene sit down beside me. "I'm tired though... I just don't think I'll be able to sleep!" Christene looked at me and just laughed for a minute. "Hey Loryn... how do you think we got back inside earlier?" she said pausing. "Somebody pulled us inside there Christene. I don't know who it was. Maybe the big security guard guy noticed that we were gettin' shoved around and decided they'd better help us before somebody got hurt." I said between yawns. "Maybe..." she said trailing off, "I just thought it was weird that we were the only ones who ended up back in the building. Usually they just say 'piss on it' and leave everybody to fend for themselves. They probably saw you go catatonic after you met Taylor and decided they'd better do something to get you to safety before you let yourself get trampled by a bunch of little girls and caused some bad publicity about the concert." She laughed, making fun of me and causing me to blush. About a half-hour later Taylor opened the door and came out with his hair dripping wet, dressed in a gray t-shirt with Soul Patrol written across the front in what appeared to be a child's handwriting and a pair of maroon knit shorts that fell right above his knees. "Be right back." He said as he passed by us toward the driver cab and ruffled my hair playfully. "I've gotta let the driver know to take sixty-five South on the way outta Nashville in the mornin'." "But... I thought... Nevermind." I said as he shut the door to the driver cab. "He told me they had to take sixty-five South anyway. Weird." I said to Christene as we tuned the TV to the local news station to check the weather reports and see if news had gotten out about the riot earlier. Luckily they hadn't. "God I'm so tired. I'm sure David and my cats are worried to death about me... Lemme see your cell phone. I left mine in Marie's car." Christene said sticking her hand out and motioning for me to give her my phone. "Don't have it. Lost it... I hope nobody picked it up... mom and dad would shit a brick if somebody besides me or you picked it up. I'm twenty-four but they treat me like a little kid sometimes. But, I think I would freak out if someone besides them answered the home phone... I'm makin' no sense." I rambled, giggling when I realized that what I had said had no relevance to the whole situation. "So how did you call the girls and let them know we didn't need a ride home?" "Tay let me use his... I'm sure he'll let you use it when he gets back in here." I said, yawning yet again before I drifted off to sleep. (to be continued...) Soul Gazer Ch. 03 The next thing I remember was faintly hearing the TV being switched off by someone and the lights in the main room of the bus being switched off. I propped myself up on one arm and took a quick glance around the room, noticing that there seemed to be light from something coming from the dining area behind me and the smell of cigarette smoke filling the room. I turned around and saw Taylor sitting at a laptop typing something. Beautiful music was spilling out of the speakers of the laptop and into my ears. "Hey hon... this botherin' ya?" he said looking up at me and holding up his cigarette for me to see, "I can take it back in the back if it is." "God, no. I said groggily, "I'm usually a night owl... I would be up hangin' out if earlier hadn't drained me. I'm not used to fighting crowds like you are. Did I bring a little camera case on the bus with me earlier?" "No... at least I don't think so... Did ya lose somethin' else back there?" "Oh, GOD... only my concert pictures and my cigarettes. Do you think the driver'll stop for gas anytime soon? I'm havin' a nicotine fit." I said laughing. "C'mere." Taylor said, patting the seat beside him. "I've got some cigs if menthol doesn't bother ya." He finished as he licked the faint menthol taste from his lips before exhaling the smoke. "Menthol doesn't bother me... that's what I smoke. I didn't even know you smoked, Taylor." I said as I got up from where I was laying, being careful not to wake up Christene before I noticed she wasn't even laying there anymore. "Where'd Christene go?" "I showed her to one of the smaller guest bunks in the back earlier. She was watchin' the news when I came back in here. We talked for a few minutes and I let her use my cell phone to call her husband." "Oh, good. David's actually her fiancé. He's such a good guy. He worries about her so much and treats her so good. I'm glad she got to finally check in with him... I'll hafta be checkin' in with my parents soon... They still don't know where I am. I hope Marie and Missy didn't call 'em earlier when they couldn't get me on my cell phone." "Here." he said, lighting up two cigarettes at once and handing me one. Digging in his pocket he found his cell phone and handed it to me too. "Call your folks. I call mine a lot. It's always good to check in and let everybody know you're okay." Slowly I dialed the number to my house and listened to it ring until my mom picked up the phone. I told her that I was okay and that I was calling her from Missy's brother's phone and that I would be home in the morning. We told each other we loved each other and hung up. I hated waking up my parents early in the morning. Especially at four in the morning but I hadn't noticed how late it was until I hung up. When I looked back over at Taylor he was smiling but he still had that sad look in his eyes. It hurt me to see the pain in his eyes but it really wasn't my business to ask why he looked so sad so I just decided to make small talk with him. "So... I saw that shirt you have on when you came through the cab earlier. Where'd you get that?" "Believe it or not I got it tonight. Some little girl had made it for me. Cute, huh?" he said, pulling it away from his body to let me read it better. "Yeah. Real cute." I said smiling. "Oh... what was up earlier when I mentioned the crazy security guard that threw that cover over our heads and pushed us back into the building where you were?" He laughed at me for a minute and then slowly answered. "I noticed everyone shovin' you and Christene up to the caution tape and I had a feelin' that you guys were gettin' a little uneasy. I'm such a crazy security guard sometimes." He said laughing at me again before he finished. "Shit. I can't believe it was YOU who pulled us back into the building with ya. That's crazy. How'd ya know we weren't some sorta crazy fanatics like the rest of 'em!?" I asked in disbelief. "I just knew. You guys weren't doin' anything but standin' there and the rest of 'em... they were grabbin' at me and yellin' at me and... and... uh..." he trailed off as he ruffled his hair and looked out the bus window, "You know how damn irritating it gets to have strange women grabbin' your ass all the time!?" he said turning back to me, "It's like nothin's personal to 'em. They think they own me but they don't." he finished getting quiet again and turning back to face the window of the bus. We sat speechless for a few minutes. I couldn't think of anything to say or do. After all, I had thought about touching him more than once, but I had never actually been so brazen to do it. Before he turned back to his laptop and shut it, without looking at me he said "Sorry. I just get so sick of people thinkin' they own me sometimes. None a that was directed at you." "You tired?" he asked, turning back to face me. "Yeah... I am... I can share a bunk with Christene. I don't wanna take up too much room." "Shit. There's two small guest bunks back there besides mine. C'mon." he said as I stood up from the bench. I let him around me so he could get to the door to the bunks and followed him into the back. "There's the bathroom right here," he said as he pointed to the first door on the right, "There's my bunk, and you can sleep in there." He said, first pointing straight back to a door and then to another door to the left. "Thanks so much for this Taylor. I don't know what my dad would have done if he would have had to come all the way from Tennessee to Cinci to pick up Christene and I." I said pausing as I opened the door to the bunk I'd be sleeping in. "No problem... Sleep good, cause we stop and get breakfast pretty early." he said, reaching out his arms to hug me and kiss me on the forehead before opening the door to the main sleeper and disappearing inside the door. "Goodnight Tay..." I whispered after the door had already closed. Quietly I opened the door to the guest bunk and went inside to lie down. "God," I thought as I sat down, "the couch in this thing is so comfy... guess they ran outta funding when they got to the guest bunks. I hope he doesn't have to sleep like this ev'ry night." The only thing in the small room besides the bed was a small shelf with an LED alarm clock and a small window. For a while I just lay there on my side staring out the window, watching the snowflakes fall. Slowly... quickly... slowly... quickly. The ground beside the road was already coated with what I could only estimate to be about three inches. Slowly I drifted off into dreams. Vivid, colorful, music filled dreams that didn't make sense at all. We must have hit a bump in the road... something woke me up. I rolled over onto my other side and started drifting back into my dreams. No... not a bump. I heard the knock on the door again. Sleepily I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was already five in the morning. "You guys do wake up early for breakfast don't ya?" I said opening the door. "Hey... it's not breakfast yet, hon." Taylor said. "I just can't sleep, can you?" "Well... yeah. I could sleep before you woke me up." I said laughing. "Sorry. You need anything to drink before I get ready to go back to my bunk? I've got some Bud Lite or Dr. Pepper in the fridge under the dining table out there... or some milk. Yeah. That's what I need. Milk. That helps you sleep don't it?" he said before walking into the main cab again as I sat completely and totally confused on the bed. "Here ya go." He said when he got back with two glasses of milk. "I hate not bein' able to sleep... which is most a the time." "Thanks," I replied as I took the glass of milk from his hand and took a drink. "You wanna come back here with me for a minute?" he asked, motioning back to his bunk. "I've got music back there and a TV." "Sure, music helps me sleep. I'll come back there and listen to your music with ya for a while." I said as I stood up on my feet and rose from the bed, shutting the door to the bunk behind me. Taylor's sleeper bunk was much larger than the guest bunks. Oddly, on one wall there were pictures of crowds of people waving with happy, excited looks on their faces; on another there were pictures of his family and friends. There were lights mounted onto the walls and on each side of his double bed there was a nightstand type shelf mounted to the wall with drawers underneath. In the corner by the door there was a small flat screen TV mounted to the wall and a cd player mounted on a shelf on the other side. Taylor closed the door behind us and I noticed on the back of the door was a poster of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding and across the bottom it said "Watching Over You..." in white letters. "Oh! That's cool! Where'd ya get that?" I exclaimed as I examined it closer. "Some kids and their gramma gave that to me in Texas. One a the things that makes me happy. I doubt the kids knew who those guys were, but their gramma probably did." He said as he smiled softly and sat down on the bed holding his glass of milk in both hands. "You can sit down y'know." He finished with a chuckle. "Oh... yeah... right." I said laughing at myself and sitting down on the bed. This bed was much softer than the twin bed in the guest bunk; probably from countless nights of being slept in. I'm sure Taylor had another bed he wished he could be in at home though. "So where we at now?" I said. "We just passed by Lexington, Kentucky I think." He said looking out the window trying to see the next road sign. You fell asleep before we even left Cinci. We were just pullin' out when I woke you up." "Wow... really?" I asked before yawning long and hard. "Yeah... No shit. Here," he said, scooting himself back on the bed and sitting his glass of milk down on the nightstand beside him and picking up a little remote, "Let's listen to some music and I'll let you go to sleep." Taking my glass of milk and sitting it on the nightstand beside his own he reached for my hand and pulled me back beside him making my heart skipped a beat. I had dreamed about this for a long time. Not just being "in bed" with Taylor; Just to have a close personal memory of just the two of us that I would never forget. Ever since I first saw him on "that show" and began watching him week after week and got to see what a great guy he seemed to be, I thought he would be someone great to be friends with, but this just took the cake. The sounds of acoustic guitar filled the small room and Taylor began singing along with the music. "Can I stay, here with you til the morning... I am so far from home and I feel a little stoned. Can I stay here with you til the morning, there's nothing I want more than to wake up on your floor...So lay with me in your thinnest dress, feel my heart with each caress, between your blissful kisses whisper darling is this love..." "Wow... that's beautiful... who wrote that?" I asked, laying back onto the pillow behind me. "That's Ray... LaMontagne. Y'know... the same guy who wrote Trouble. Great fuckin' musician, man." He said shaking his head. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg with him." The room grew quiet all except for Taylor's beautiful raspy, tenor voice cutting through the silence and slowly I felt as if I were slipping back into my dreams. Euphoric dreams. Dreams of great imagination and longing... I slept for a while and hid in my dream world until I woke up to my heart thumping in my chest wildly. The beautiful man beside me was slowly running the fingers of one hand through my tousled hair and still singing along with the music. I sighed and rolled over to face him. Sometime while I was asleep he had taken off his shirt because when I rolled over I could smell his scent and feel his shoulder against my cheek. Skin to skin... This was definitely another something that I would have never imagined I would experience in a million years... Something that I was sure I would never forget. I laid there for a while and listened to the lyrics of the songs playing on the stereo and after a while the realization that I would probably never experience this again hit me. The emotion was so strong that it felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Immediately I began sobbing into his chest. I was confused. Was this a dream or was this real? Was this really happening to me? I tried to ask him but everything that came out of my mouth was masked by a sob. He held me tighter and closer as I cried into his chest. I could feel his breathing and his heartbeat so close to me as I lay there, nestled to him. Slowly he sat up, still cradling me to him. "I know, hon... I know..." He whispered to me as he stroked my hair, "Sometimes bein' close to someone is just as sad as bein' lonely. It makes ya realize what you've been missin' for such a long time and it makes ya ache for it even more." Slowly he rocked me as I sobbed, stopping a few times to brush my tears from my face with the backs of his fingers. A few times he looked at me and I could tell that he was thinking; Deep thoughts that I was sure I would never know. We just lay there quietly for the longest time. Slowly we put our arms around each other as we cried. I cried now because I could finally feel the dam of his sadness break loose. It may not have been my business... but he had told me what I had been wondering all night. His hot tears soaked through my shirt and onto my shoulder. Slowly with one finger he raised my head to face him and stared into my eyes with that gaze of his... the gaze that burned through to my soul. Tilting my chin up he gave me the deepest kiss that I had ever had in my twenty four years, our faces covered in tears and our tongues caressing each other. I felt things happen to me that had never happened when anyone else had kissed me. It was like I was floating on a cloud. We melted into one person it seemed; our hands roamed and explored each others bodies. We lay there touching and kissing for hours until we fell asleep embracing each other. (to be continued...)