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Taylor Swift used to land in a different city every night with fireworks in her veins, but now, the highlight of her day is coming home before bedtime after a long day of songwriting in her studio.
The taxi turns off the busy roads of Central London and begins to wind through familiar, tree-lined streets, the leaves outside the window painted in a palette of amber and copper and fading gold. The world is slowly being swallowed by dusk, soft shadows stretching long across the countryside, the faint silhouette of chimney tops in the distance.
Taylor leans her head back against the seat and exhales. The hum of the tyres on the road, the low crackle of the radio playing something old and gentle, the warmth of the heating system against her legs — they all make her feel like she’s about to drop off to sleep.
Her phone buzzes in her lap. She glances down. It’s Jack, telling her he’s looking forward to seeing her in the recording studio next week. She types out her reply and hits send, confirming that she’s flying out to LA on Tuesday and that she’s looking forward to seeing him too.
She sighs, lets the message sit on the screen for a moment, then locks her phone and looks out the window again.
Almost done. Almost ready to let the world hear it.
This album has been a slow one. Not because she doesn’t have anything to say, but because she has so much, and no urgency anymore. No pressure. The stakes don’t feel as high as they used to. She can take her time now. She has earned the right to be quiet for as long as she wants before she has to be loud again.
The countryside opens up wider, and soon she can see the old iron gate up ahead, half hidden by vines. She taps a button on her phone and watches the gate creak open. The driver glances at her through the rearview mirror, eyebrows raised.
“Beautiful place,” he says.
“Thanks,” she replies softly, a smile curling her lips. “It’s home.”
The taxi curves up the long gravel drive, the headlights bouncing softly off ivy-covered brick. The house comes into view slowly, warm light glowing from every window, golden and welcoming. The front garden is wild but tended. A swing hangs from an oak branch, swaying gently in the evening breeze. Taylor feels something unfurl in her chest.
When the car stops at the front door, she gathers her bag, thanks the driver with a warm smile as she pays him, and steps out into the cool evening air. The scent of damp leaves fills her lungs. As the taxi pulls away, she stands for a second, staring up at the house.
God, she loves it here. Not in a performative, look-how-domesticated-I-am kind of way, but in the quiet bone-deep sense of belonging she never thought she’d find.
She unlocks the front door and pushes it open.
“I’m home!” she calls as she steps inside, voice bright, lifting over the creak of the old floorboards.
The sudden sound of small, fast footsteps echoes from the other end of the hallway.
Then — “MAMA!”
A blur of blonde curls and pink pyjamas comes flying toward her, all limbs and joy and sugar-high adrenaline. Taylor barely has time to drop her bag before she’s crouching down, arms open wide, catching the almost-four-year-old tornado as she flings herself into her mother’s arms.
“Hi, baby,” Taylor coos into her daughter’s hair, burying her face in the soft, buttery curls. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too!” her daughter says, voice loud in the way kid’s voices always are. Unregulated. Like every word is in capital letters with an exclamation point tacked onto the end.
As Taylor pulls back, she suddenly notices the child’s cheeks are pink, her pyjamas are covered in flour, and her hands are sticky. Taylor holds her at arms length, one brow lifting.
“Oh my god, what on earth happened to you?”
The little girl beams, unfazed by the mess. “Come see! We’re baking!”
Then she turns on her heel and runs back down the hall, disappearing round the corner, barefoot and smearing a trail of something greasy along the doorframe.
Taylor shakes her head and laughs, peeling off her coat and hanging it on the hook. She can already hear music coming from the kitchen. A quiet, jazzy number she doesn’t recognise. Something her husband would pick. Something that makes flour and sugar feel like high art.
When she rounds the corner into the kitchen, her breath catches in her throat.
It’s chaos. Absolute chaos.
Bowls stacked haphazardly on the island. Measuring cups coated in batter. A thin dusting of flour hanging in the air like mist. Eggshells in a pink ceramic bowl. And in the middle of it all, standing in front of the oven and mixing something in a big, blue plastic bowl, is Matty. He’s holding their eleven-month-old son on his hip, both of them covered in flour.
He turns around when he hears her enter, eyes wide, like he’s just been caught mid-crime. “Darling.”
Taylor blinks. “What… happened here?”
He runs a hand through his greying curls, which only succeeds in spreading a streak of flour down one side of his face. “The kids wanted to bake.”
Taylor looks at her daughter, who is now eating sugar straight out of the bag with her bare hands.
“And somehow you ended up… what? In a war zone?” Taylor asks.
He shrugs helplessly, adjusting their baby on his hip. “I was outnumbered.”
Their daughter, sitting on the floor, points suddenly at Matty, her brows furrowed. “Daddy, you’ve got something on your face.”
Matty looks at her, deadpan. “I know.”
Taylor can’t help herself any longer. She bursts out laughing, loud and bright and helpless, doubling over with the force of it. And in the midst of her laughter, she catches Matty looking at her like she’s the most radiant thing he’s ever seen. A little smug. A little proud.
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” he says.
“I mean—how could I not?”
Taylor crosses the kitchen and scoops their daughter into her arms, despite the sticky mess.
“Have you been helping daddy?” she asks.
The girl nods furiously. “I did the sugar part!”
“Wow,” Taylor says, kissing her cheek and getting a smear of frosting on her own face in the process. The little girl squeals in delight.
Then Taylor leans over and kisses her son’s cheek, who giggles and babbles something incomprehensible, reaching for her hair with sticky fingers.
And finally, Taylor kisses Matty.
It isn’t rushed. It isn’t cinematic. It’s soft and sweet and full of a thousand quiet things that pass between them without ever needing to be said.
Their daughter scrunches her nose up and makes a gagging sound. “Ewwwww.”
Matty pulls back just enough to laugh. “Oi. That’s rude.”
Taylor smiles, brushing a smudge of flour from his cheek. “You look ridiculous.”
“I feel ridiculous. I tried to separate the eggs and ended up breaking a spoon.”
“That’s not even… possible.”
“Apparently it is if you’re me.”
She shakes her head with a laugh, setting their daughter down on her feet. “Do you want help?”
“Oh, god,” Matty says quickly. “Yes, please.”
Taylor rolls up her sleeves and turns toward the counter.
As she sifts flour and melts butter and passes Matty a whisk, she feels it again. That quiet hum in her chest. That certainty. That calm. She isn’t playing a part here. She isn’t being anyone’s idea of her.
She’s just… home.
She glances at him, standing with their son still nestled into his side, hair a mess, eyes crinkled at the corners, elbow-deep in cookie dough and humming along to the jazz song playing in the background.
When they’d first met, she never would’ve believed that this could be their life.
They’d burned so hot, back then. Flared and fizzled and sparked again, until neither of them could tell what was real and what was performance. Too much ego. Too much fear. Too many nights chasing chaos like it would somehow save them.
But they’d changed. Slowly. Without ceremony. They’d grown up, grown in, grown together.
And now, they have this.
A warm kitchen. A child with curls and a crooked smile. A baby who smells like lavender shampoo and hope.
Matty catches her looking at him. Sticks his tongue out at her. Their daughter sees him do it and cackles, and their son begins to giggle in response.
Taylor smiles softly and thinks, this is what the songs were all leading to.
Not the stadiums. Not the awards. Not the fame. Not the wealth.
But this.
This ridiculous, beautiful, sticky, perfectly imperfect life.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The bathroom is a humid mess of steam and laughter. The kids are hyper after eating far too many cookies. Bubbles froth over the rim of the old clawfoot tub, puddling on the tile floor in soft, iridescent clumps. Taylor kneels beside the tub, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hands carefully working conditioner through her daughter’s hair.
The girl squirms under her touch, giggling. “Mama, it tickles!”
“You’ve got approximately three pounds of cookie dough in your hair, love,” Taylor says gently, dragging a wet curl through her fingers. “I’m not taking any chances.”
At the other side of the tub, Matty sits cross-legged on a folded towel, one hand steadying their son, the other gripping a plastic octopus like it’s a microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he declares in a deep, dramatic voice, “coming to you live from the treacherous depths of Bathtub Cove, it’s Sir Squiggles and the Splash Patrol!”
The baby shrieks with laughter as Matty waves the toy wildly through the water, making exaggerated splashing noises and narrating in an American accent for no reason at all. “He’s eight legs of absolute madness! He’s wet, he’s wild—”
“You’re insane,” Taylor interrupts, laughing.
“Shhh,” Matty says. “I’m performing. Don’t diminish the craft.”
The baby squeals again, kicking the water with stubby legs and soaking the floor in the process. Matty barely flinches.
“You know,” he says conversationally, “I’m the frontman of The 1975. Critically acclaimed indie band. I’ve played sold-out arenas. I’ve headlined Glastonbury. And now I’m doing bath-time performance art for a not-even-one-year-old.”
Taylor grins, nodding toward the baby. “And your audience is deeply unimpressed.”
“Oh, he’s obsessed with me,” Matty says, beaming at the baby, who is now gnawing on Sir Squiggles’ head and gazing at his dad with a look of pure, glassy-eyed devotion. “We’ve got a whole vibe. I wouldn’t expect you to get it. It’s very niche.”
“Daddy, look!” their daughter suddenly squeals. Taylor and Matty both turn to look at her at the same time. She’s piled a tiny mountain of bubbles on top of her own head. It slides slightly to the left like it might fall off, but she reaches up to balance it, holding very still like it’s sacred. “I’m a princess!”
Matty gasps. “No way. I was gonna be the princess!”
Taylor snorts, rinsing the little girls hair out gently. “Hey, it’s not the 1920s. You can both be princesses.”
“I have a better idea,” Matty says.
He scoops a handful of bubbles out of the water and turns away. Taylor watches in quiet amusement as he shapes the bubbles over his face and jaw, pressing them into an oversized beard. Then, slowly, dramatically, he pivots himself back towards the tub.
He lowers his voice to a deep theatrical rumble and announces, “BEHOLD. I am the ancient bath sage. I have become… Bubblebeard.”
Their daughter screams with laughter, smacking the water with both hands. “Daddy! You look like a grandpa!”
“Do not mock me, small mortal!” Matty roars, shifting into an over-the-top Shakespearean lilt. “Or I shall cast upon you the must inconvenient of curses — tangled hair forever!”
The little girl gasps. “Noooo!”
“Yeah,” Matty says, leaning closer with raised eyebrows. “Yeah. Never-ending knots. The kind you can’t even get out with that pink detangling spray.”
Taylor chuckles, still combing through their daughter’s hair. “If you curse her, you curse me. That stuff smells like fake watermelon and regret.”
Their daughter reaches out and runs her finger along Matty’s face, collecting some of the bubbles. She squints. “You need to shave, daddy.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” Matty says, looking down at the beard of bubbles as if in shock. “I thought this was just part of my face now.”
Without warning, the little girl scoops a handful of bath water up between her hands and throws it towards her father, giggling in absolute glee. It hits Matty square in the chest, turning his t-shirt transparent.
Taylor gasps. “Hey! No tidal waves!”
“Too late,” Matty says dramatically, scraping the foam from his chin and flinging a clump toward their daughter. “That was an act of war.”
“You’re setting a dangerous precedent,” Taylor mutters, trying not to laugh.
Their daughter is cackling so hard now she can barely sit up straight. The baby has joined in, squealing joyfully, and Matty is beaming at them proudly as if he just performed stand-up in front of an adoring crowd.
Taylor watches them from the side of the tub, smiling. The sound of their laughter is the kind that fills a room and lives there, like furniture. She feels it settle inside her, warm and real.
A few minutes later, when the water starts to cool, Taylor gently lifts the baby out of the tub, wrapping him snugly in a hooded towel shaped like a duck.
“Alright, little guy,” she whispers, kissing his cheek as he leans his damp head into her neck. “Let’s get you into something warm.”
Matty’s still in full entertainment mode, stacking bubbles on their daughter’s shoulders like armour. She’s giggling, shrieking, “Again! Again!”
Taylor shakes her head, smiling as she steps out into the hallway with their son nestled against her.
Behind her, Matty’s voice echoes from the bathroom.
“I just ate a bubble. Do you think I’m gonna float away now? Should we call grandma?”
And their daughter’s high-pitched laughter trails after it like music.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Later, after the kids have been dried off and dressed in clean, warm pyjamas, the four of them are in the nursery. The room is warm with low light, the curtains drawn against the deepening night. Outside, wind moves through the trees, making the windows rattle softly every now and then in a way that feels cozy rather than ominous.
Taylor settles into the rocking chair by the window, her body easing back with a quiet sigh of contentment. The chair creaks softly as she moves, beginning a gentle back-and-forth rhythm. In her arms, their son lies nested against her chest, a tiny bottle held to his lips. He drinks slowly, little fingers curled around hers.
She strokes his cheek with her thumb, marvelling at how soft his skin is. The kind of softness that only belongs to babies.
“Hey, little guy,” she whispers, her voice low and warm. “You missed me today, huh?”
He blinks up at her through long lashes, milk-drunk and sleepy, blue eyes wide and content. Her heart pulls in that quiet way it always does when she looks at her children, when she remembers this isn’t a dream. This is her life.
She brushes a dark ringlet from his forehead. “You’re gonna be so much trouble when you’re older. Just like your daddy.”
Across the room, Matty is sitting on the edge of their daughter’s bed, one hand propped beside her as he flips through the pages of a storybook. Taylor watches him from where she rocks, gaze caught on the way he leans into the little girl, voice dipping into a dramatic whisper.
“—and then the wolf said, ‘Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!’”
Their daughter squeals with laughter, her curls bouncing as she tries to muffle the sound under the covers. “That’s not the wolf, daddy! That’s the pig!”
Matty grins at her. “Are you sure?” he asks teasingly. “I think the wolf stole the pig’s lines! Bit of a method actor, that wolf.”
“Noooooo,” she insists through a giggle. “You’re doing it wrong again!”
“Am I?” Matty asks, tilting his head dramatically. “Or am I just creating a new postmodern fairytale interpretation?”
Taylor smiles, her fingers still gently stroking the baby’s cheek. God, how far they’ve come.
Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, she forgets how chaotic it used to be. Matty was… a storm when she met him. Beautiful, complicated, self-sabotaging. And she was always too careful, too in control — until she wasn’t.
But now…
Now he reads bedtime stories with silly voices and makes their daughter laugh like nothing else can. Now he bakes, badly, but with full commitment. Now he makes Taylor tea in the mornings and sometimes forgets the sugar, but always remembers to kiss her forehead before she’s even opened her eyes.
Taylor watches him run a hand through their daughter’s golden curls, smoothing them out around her face.
“Alright,” he says, lowering his voice. “One more page, and then it’s time to go to sleep, yeah?”
She yawns, rubbing her eyes. “Mmm’kay.”
He finishes the story — the Big Bad Wolf gets outsmarted again, thank god — and by the time he’s done, her eyes are already closed and her breathing has evened out.
Matty smiles softly, like he’s seeing a magic trick unfold, and leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams, trouble,” he murmurs.
He stands slowly, taking care not to creak the floorboards, and crosses the room toward Taylor. She smiles at him. The baby is asleep now too, slack and heavy in her arms, bottle empty.
Matty stops in front of her, eyes on their son. “He out?”
“Like a light,” she whispers, brushing her knuckles along his jawline. “He drank the whole bottle. I think you two wore him out with the whole… flour tornado situation.”
Matty scrubs a hand over his face, grinning. “It was meant to be one tray of cookies. Somehow it became a full-blown production. She started delegating and everything.”
Taylor chuckles. “Well, you’re her favourite sous-chef.”
“Yeah, I know my place.”
He leans down, takes their son from her arms with practiced gentleness, cradling him close. Taylor leans forward to press a kiss to the baby’s head.
“Goodnight, my sweet boy,” she whispers.
Matty turns and walks to the crib, laying their son down so carefully it’s like he’s handling glass. The baby barely stirs. Matty leans in and kisses the soft crown of the boy’s hair gently.
When he straightens, he looks at Taylor, and his expression is so open, so full of something weighty and warm, it makes her breath catch.
He doesn’t speak until they’re both out in the hall, the nursery door closed softly behind them.
“You know,” he says, voice low and tired in a good way, “I used to think I wasn’t cut out for this.”
Taylor turns to him, leaning back against the wall, arms loosely crossed. “For what?”
“This,” he says, gesturing around vaguely. “Domesticity. Sleep schedules. Children’s books. Not having a breakdown at 3am over the collapse of Western culture.”
She laughs, but it’s quiet. She knows he’s not really joking.
“And now?” she asks.
He looks at her for a moment — just looks — and then leans in, one hand landing on the wall beside her head, his forehead dropping gently to rest against hers.
“Now I still think that sometimes,” he says honestly. “But then I look at them. At you. And it’s like… my head finally shuts up. Even if I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time.”
Taylor doesn’t answer with words straight away. She just slides her hands around his waist and pulls him close, resting her cheek against his shoulder. She feels his arms wrap around her, tight and certain.
“I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re doing,” she murmurs.
“But we’re doing it anyway,” he replies.
She smiles, snorting softly. “God, that’s such a ‘dad’ answer.”
He chuckles. “Shit. Am I becoming wholesome?”
“You’re becoming soft.”
They stay there for a long moment, just holding each other in the quiet.
Then Matty says, “Come on, darling. Let’s go to bed.”
He takes her hand, and she follows him.
She would follow him anywhere.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The bedroom is dim, lit only by the bedside lamp on Taylor’s side of the bed. The sheets are crumpled, left unmade during the rush of this morning. There’s a faint scent of vanilla from the diffuser in the corner, and one of Matty’s t-shirts is draped across the back of a chair. The windows are fogged slightly from the cool night outside and the warmth within.
Matty sinks down onto his side of the bed with a groan — exaggerated but not entirely a joke. “I’m dying,” he mutters, flopping back onto the pillows. “I’m so knackered.”
Taylor smiles as she walks over to the dresser, tugging her sweater off and folding it neatly. “You say that every time you watch them alone for more than three hours.”
“And I mean it every time. They’re little goblins. Beautiful, terrifying goblins.”
“You adore them.”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice warm and quiet now. “More than anything.”
After changing into her pyjamas, Taylor turns off the lamp and climbs into bed beside him, her body curling instinctively into his. He shifts just slightly to make room, his arm wrapping around her waist, hand resting lightly on her hip. His eyes are already half-lidded.
She runs her fingers lightly over his bare chest. “You did good today.”
“I didn’t poison anyone with undercooked cookies. So I’m taking that as a win.”
“They were barely cookies,” she teases.
“They were abstract cookies. Conceptual.”
Taylor laughs softly, her head tucked into the crook of his arm. She feels the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest.
He mumbles, “Tell me about your studio session?”
“It was a good day,” she breathes. “Finished one of the bridge rewrites. The one that’s been driving me crazy.”
“The one with the key change?”
“Yeah. I finally made it work.”
“‘Course you did.”
She smiles. “I sent Jack a recording. He loved it.”
“‘Course he did,” Matty says again, eyes closed now.
They’re quiet for a moment, the house still and silent around them. From the hallway, the faint creak of a floorboard sounds as the heating clicks on. Matty’s thumb strokes gently over her hipbone, slow and absent-minded.
“So, LA next week,” he murmurs. “That snuck up.”
“It did.” She glances up at him, mesmerised by the dark fan of his lashes against his cheeks. “You still okay with going?”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I like watching you in your element. Plus, the kids love that pool. And the hotel does those little pancakes she likes.”
Taylor smiles. “She asks about them all the time.”
“Jet lag’s barely a thing for them anymore. They’re better travellers than I am.”
“That’s true,” she says, then laughs quietly. “Remember when we took her to Tokyo that first time? She threw up on the tarmac and then basically passed out for ten hours straight.”
“I was so scared,” he admits.
“You were so green. We both were.”
“I wasn’t green. I was… cautiously optimistic.”
She giggles into his chest. “You were freaking out. I remember the look on your face.”
“I didn’t know babies could just… do that. I thought she’d been possessed or something.”
Taylor lifts her head slightly so she can see his face, shadowed and soft in the dark. “You’ve changed so much.”
He hums, almost embarrassed. “Yeah, well. You kept choosing me. Even when I didn’t understand why.”
“I always knew,” she says simply. “Even when it was hard. Even when we were hard.”
Matty opens his eyes, just barely, and looks at her. Really looks.
“You taught me how to stay, you know,” he whispers.
She reaches for his hand, intertwining their fingers. “You taught me how to soften. Made me feel safe enough to.”
There’s nothing grand about it. No swelling music, no big declaration. Just truth, quiet and rooted and alive between them.
Taylor settles back down, her head on his chest, his arm pulling her in close. He presses a kiss into her hair, lingering there, then breathes out long and slow.
They lie like that for a while, not saying anything. Just the two of them in a dark room in a house in the countryside, the chaos of today behind them and more ahead tomorrow — but right now, just this. Only this.
Taylor closes her eyes, feeling the steady beat of Matty’s heart against her cheek.
“I love you,” she whispers.
And Matty, almost asleep, murmurs, “I love you too.”
She smiles.
Within minutes, they both drift off — their legs tangled, hands still clasped together, bodies shaped around each other like they were always meant to fit this way.
And somewhere down the hall, a child turns in her sleep. A baby breathes softly in his crib. The wind rustles the ivy outside.
The house exhales with them. Relaxes.
Tomorrow will come, and they’ll wake to it a family.
Together.