Work Text:
Taylor gingerly dips her toes into the pool of the Palm Springs villa they are staying at. While it is by no means early, it’s quiet around her due to the late night they’d all had.
She sets her phone beside her on the steps, opening the voice memo app. As her feet acclimate to the cool water, she tunes the guitar she’s brought outside with her. Something told her to bring it along yesterday when they left, and she’s glad she did. Not only for the impromptu tipsy sing-along amongst their friend group when they came back from the festival, but also for now. Now, when the words and phrases bouncing around her head carried her out of bed and Travis’s warm arms.
Guitar tuned, she plays random chords, chasing the ghost of a melody but more chasing words. Words that describe the freedom, the safety, and the love she felt surrounded by Travis last night. The joy, the acceptance, and the fucking fun she had with him and their friends. The softness, the closeness, the care she felt in the early morning hours as he took her apart piece by piece and let her do the same to him before they came back together.
At their last studio session before Jack went on tour, she had told him that sometimes it’s hard to write happiness. He’d been joking about the anthology she was probably writing about the past eight months and she’d shared that it wasn’t that easy.
Not because she doesn’t have the words. No, the problem is that she has too many. Too many emotions, too many descriptions, too many whispered promises that she’s sure will last. And they all speed through her mind anytime she goes to write. The past gave her clear notes and lines, but now? Now, it is a symphony of feelings, colors, and words she is always trying to untangle into some sense of a song others will enjoy. She loves the messy, complex, joyful sound that runs through her head when she thinks about her life with Travis. It’s painted through with a palette of colors as diverse as those in his wardrobe. She just needs to build it into something for everyone else to see.
It’s part of the reason on the last leg of the tour she loved reclaiming bits and pieces of her past catalog into mash-ups. To fit her emotions and experiences of the last eight and a half months into her younger self's words brought her new joy from those songs. And in some cases, she even found almost a premonition in a lyric to describe her love now. But she is ready to share the very real feelings of now with the world if she can just lay them out in order.
She thinks back to last night as she continues to mess around with notes. As the heat and dust settled into a cool desert night, Travis had pulled her closer as they watched Ice perform. Pausing at one point with his hand in her hair and his voice low enough in her ear to make her involuntarily shut her eyes. She wanted to hold on to this moment forever. Hold on to the feeling of his breath on her face and his arms encircling her.
“You still doing okay, Tay?” He kept checking with her, wanting to be sure the hundreds of eyes (and cellphones) on her were not getting to her too much. That she was still able to enjoy the show.
“I’m good,” she assured him. And she was. All she noticed was the heavy beat of the music, her friends nearby, and him holding her tight, keeping her safe.
“Gonna need a water after Ice’s set though. Tree will kill me if I lose my voice before recording promo stuff tomorrow afternoon,” she added, dramatically flopping against the arm around her.
His laughter rang out above the music and her happiness in the moment with this man made her fall just that much more in love with him. The night was full of moments like that. Moments where she was just a girl in a crowd with her love, living life to the fullest.
Light
It suddenly comes to her. This is how to describe her feelings about last night. How she has been feeling for months now—light and free.
And with that, the notes begin to fall into place, the melody emerges. And more than that, the words finally fall into line.
She plays it straight through over and over, tweaking it as she goes. It settles into her bones, this song about her unexpected, light, and joyful love. The love that came without warning.
“Sounds like you have some work for me in the near future,” comes a voice behind her.
She smiles as she stops playing and turns to see a disheveled Jack looking bleary-eyed at her from the outdoor sofa on the patio. He must have snuck outside at some point while she's been playing.
“You look like shit,” she states with an amused matter-of-factness, turning back to end the voice memo recording.
“Yeah, well I should have listened to you when you told me to go back to my place rather than sleep on the couch here.”
“Mmm, that and falling off the stage probably didn’t help.”
“Rude as fuck,” he gripes. “Whatcha working on? I like it.”
“Oh, um, maybe finally getting some of those happy thoughts in order.”
“About time. I like the bouncy beat behind it,” he says, bobbing up and down a little to demonstrate. “I got something that would go perfectly with it.”
“Yeah?” she asks. “I want it to stick out. It’s...I don’t know, I just love how that beat feels.”
He raises an eyebrow at her as if to question how she hasn’t realized what it is, and says, “It’s giddiness, Taylor.”
“Oh,” she laughs. “You’re right.”
“It sounds good. I saw it in you last night when I glanced over. Looks good on you.”
She smiles and looks down at the guitar, pleased that he approves. He is always the stoic one no matter what, so it can be hard to tell.
“I’m sorry I was an asshole before,” he blurts out.
She looks up confused at his words, “What? When?”
Jack has the habit of picking up conversations he’s only had with you in his head, days or months later. You always have to catch up.
“Before, before,” he replies, gesturing back with his head. “About folklore, that night at Long Pond.”
Oh…so this time it was years later.
“Jack, it’s fine.”
“No,” he says adamantly. “I should have said it better.” Then he winces and adds, “Nicer.”
“Wow, look at you using that word,” she jokes. “You were right though.”
“Still, Maybe I could have not been a—what does Travis say? A jabroni about it.”
She laughs. The collision of the parts of her life just gets better and better.
“I really just wanted you to have this…this brightness that you have now. And you didn’t see that.”
“I know,” she sighs. She picks at the strings again, playing with the melody.
He interrupts quietly, “This song is what you were made for, Taylor. Just wait and see.”
“So, I’m not going to get shady snark from you about Travis is what you’re saying,” she teases.
“I mean, you’re definitely going to get shady snark from me sometimes, that’s just me. But not about him. Not as long as he keeps you feeling like that song.”
“I think he will,” she shares softly.
“Yeah, me too,” he agrees.
“Are you being sappy right now, Jack?”
“Fuck off, Deadtooth,” he volleys back at her, laughing.
As much emotion as they pour into music together, they always have to bring it back to reality between them. It’s the only way they can keep that safe space they have in the studio.
Jack interrupts their banter with a grimace. It spurs Taylor up off the pool deck.
“I think after all that talk and the late night, we deserve brunch,” she commands. “I’ll go order stuff from one of the club's restaurants. Travis is going golfing, so he’s probably up by now too.”
“Golfing?” Jack questions. “I changed my mind about him.”
“No you didn’t,” she yells back at him from the doorway.
“Fuck, I didn’t,” he can’t help but agree as he flops back on the sofa.
Travis meets her in the hall. He’s fastening his watch, already dressed in a polo and shorts for his tee time in a couple of hours.
He takes in her PJs and the guitar she carries, “You writing?”
He bends to kiss her cheek after his question and she smiles up at him as he pulls back. She slings the guitar on her back and drapes her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to kiss his face. Once again, she hears the song playing in her head.
“I’m writing about us.”