Eighteen: Sun Burn
When I arrived at the Hanson’s house… at home, I guess, I didn’t know if I should knock on the door or just walk in. I played it safe and knocked while trying to juggle two boxes in my hands too.
The door swung open and Zac stood in front of me with wet hair and a pair of jeans on. That was it. We both shifted awkwardly before he cracked a smile.
“You don’t have to knock, you loser,” he laughed, stepping aside and letting me in. “My mom made Taylor carry your boxes to the guest room earlier. You can probably just put those right next to the stairs and he’ll carry them up for you later.” He nodded at the boxes in my arms.
As much as I liked the idea of watching Taylor sweat as he carried all my boxes upstairs, I was far too feminist to agree with that idea.
“I’ve got them,” I smiled, starting for the stairs. After the first couple steps I realized maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I looked helplessly back at Zac and set the boxes where he’d originally told me to. “Or Taylor can just get them later.”
Zac smirked and walked by me, disappearing into the bathroom he shared with his brothers. I stood there in the foyer by myself and looked around. What now?
“My new sister!” Zoe yelled, running into the foyer and wrapping her arms around my waist.
I contemplated the idea. Zoe’s sister… dating Zoe’s brother. Oh, that just didn’t sound good.
“I’m not your sister,” I said, reaching down and scooping her up. “I’m your babysitter.”
“You have your own room here!” she giggled, pointing up the stairs. “It’s all for you. Want to see it?”
Before I could answer, Taylor entered the foyer looking a little disoriented.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me you were here?” he asked.
“Because I just got here. Relax,” I smiled, putting Zoe down.
“Why are you here so soon? I thought you weren’t coming over until eight.”
“You want me to leave for a couple hours and come back?” I laughed, trying to avoid having to discuss the whole kitchen situation. Seeing it was all bad enough. I didn’t need to relive it.
He glanced at his watch. “Yeah, could you? Can you pick me up some ice-cream on your way home too?”
I laughed and lightly smacked him in the arm, disappearing back outside to finish carrying all my boxes in. It was the only thing I knew to do, and standing there looking around the house felt too weird.
He followed me out and grabbed the boxes I was about to carry. He was always such a gentleman. “Seriously though, why are you here earlier?”
“I decided not to stay for dinner,” I replied, following him into the house to unload more boxes at the foot of the stairs. “We weren’t having anything good, and I know your house always has good food.”
He set his boxes down and fixed his crumpled shirt. “You’re not telling me the truth,” he said seriously, looking me right in the eye. He was good at reading people when he wasn’t blabbering about himself- when he actually tried. “How come you didn’t have dinner with your Mom?”
I sighed and went back out to the car to get the final load of boxes. “Because she and Brad got into a fight and it was an ugly scene, so I just left.”
“’Bout what?” Taylor asked, grabbing the final two boxes before I could.
“About me leaving, I guess. Brad was drinking as usual. You know… can we not talk about this?” I sighed, closing the trunk of my car and following him back into the house, closing the door for good.
He shrugged and started up the stairs with the boxes in his arms. “I guess… if you don’t want to. Although it wouldn’t kill for you to talk about shit that bothers you once in awhile,” he replied as Jessica came down the stairs past us and muttered something to him that I couldn’t understand.
I don’t think he did either, because he just shot her a confused look and kept going up the stairs. I followed him down the hall and into the room at the end of the hall. He pushed the door open with the boxes and stepped in, setting them down at the foot of the bed.
I looked around at the peach walls and subconsciously nodded approvingly. There were sheer white curtains hanging on the windows and a plain white bedspread on the bed. On the nightstand was a single brass lamp and an alarm clock. A pine dresser was in between the two windows that faced into the backyard.
Taylor looked around the room too and then looked at me. “What do you think? We can paint it.”
“It’s fine,” I smiled, sitting down on the end of the bed… my bed. “It’s nice, actually.”
“I’ve always been a big fan of peach myself,” he smirked, leaping onto the bed… my bed, and causing the whole bed to shake as he did it. He laid down next to me on his side, looking at me and watching my expressions as I took in the room.
“My mom said you hardly hesitated to say yes. I couldn’t believe my ears. Are you going soft on us Gab…?”
“Maybe I am,” I laughed. “Your family… your family is really wonderful for all of this. I mean… they’ve accepted me, taken me in, respected me… it’s really incredible. You have an amazing family, you know.”
He nodded solemnly. “I know.”
After a few minutes of just sitting there digesting the whole scene, I watched Taylor get up and tear open a box at the foot of my bed.
“I was hoping for the underwear box,” he smirked at me, kneeling on the floor next to the box he had opened. He pulled out a picture frame. “But half-naked pictures of you are just as good.”
I looked down at the picture in his hand. It was one of the few baby pictures I had. I was two in the photograph wearing a diaper standing on the steps of the trailer we were living in at the time.
He took the photograph and set it on the nightstand, continuing to sort through the boxes. Next he pulled out a few of my old school binders, lazily sorting through them.
“Why do you still have these?”
Because they’re some of the few things I own, I wanted to reply. I save everything.
“When I’m feeling low, I just open them up and gloat about my grades,” I said, nodding at the test he had flipped too that was tucked inside the binder.
“A freaking 105… is that even possible?” he joked, taking the binders and beginning to make a pile of them on a shelf inside of the open closet door.
“You don’t have to do all that,” I said he continued to unpack the box. “I can do it tonight. It’s fine.”
He shrugged, “I’m nosy.”
It’s amazing how alike Taylor and I were sometimes. We both try so hard, sometimes, to conceal our real intentions. I had tried so hard for so long to suppress my feelings for him, and he always tried so hard to not let me know how much he liked to help me. As I watched him take a few ceramic figurines from my childhood out of the box and carefully place them on top of the dresser, it occurred to me just how thoughtful he was.
I sat there staring at him until he felt my eyes on him and he paused, turning to look at me. “Sorry. If you feel like I’m prying, I’ll stop.”
“Tay… thank you.”
“For…?”
“For being good to me. Thanks for caring.”
He looked at me for a minute, trying to figure out if my comments were serious or sarcastic. When he noticed my serious expression, he smiled and ducked his head. “Uh oh… Gabrielle is getting sappy on me… sappy and soft now!”
I grinned and joined him on the floor to unpack the boxes already in the room… my room before we started to bring the rest of the boxes up.
*****It was strange getting into a routine that night. After awhile it became so natural to live at the Hanson’s house, but at first I remember how awkward it all was. I joined the family for dinner, which entailed me getting a few hugs first. The family was more talkative than usual and the focus seemed to me on me a lot.
Did I like my room? Was I liking the car Taylor had given me? Would I be okay sharing a bathroom with Jessica and Avery? It seemed to focus on how much the Hanson’s were giving me, which freaked me out, but I did my best to nod and thank them.
I helped clean up the dishes afterwards, and even began to wash them, but I was informed after a few minutes that it was Zac’s job to clean the dishes. Apparently Zac hadn’t done a very good job with the attic earlier, and Diana wasn’t happy about it.
“He’s been a pain in Mom’s ass lately,” Taylor muttered to me as he dragged me away from the kitchen. “In fact, he’s been a pain in all of our asses lately. Always in trouble and always pissing people off.”
Zac grumbled and walked by us, loudly throwing a spoon into the sink from across the room and getting reprimanded by his irritated mother. An argument between to the two ensued.
“I think my parents just need to ground him for a few solid weeks like they would have done for me when I was his age and had something permanently shoved up my ass like that, but no. All Zac gets is little chores and empty threats,” Taylor shrugged.
After dinner I watched television with Taylor and Isaac, who I was beginning to get to know more and more by the day. One by one the younger Hanson’s began filling up the living room until I couldn’t seem to hear anything except for talking and screaming.
Jessica and Avery were having a loud conversation about some television show- and not the one that was playing mind you- and Mackenzie and Zoe were screaming over a game of Trouble. Not to mention the popping of the trouble game interrupted our television show every five seconds.
It was strange how I couldn’t concentrate on the television, but Isaac and Taylor seemed completely unfazed by their rowdy siblings. They sat and watched the TV, just concentrated despite the screaming of their siblings.
Taylor finally did look away from the TV at one point and seem to notice the chatter when Mackie screamed something at Zoe.
“Can you go play that somewhere else?” he asked calmly.
“Can you go watch that somewhere else?” Mackenzie sassed back to him.
Taylor just shrugged and went back to watching the TV show. Getting used to all the background noise in the Hanson house was going to take some time.
After an hour or so of sitting on the couch marveling at the volume of the room in general, Zac finally walked into the room with a DVD in his hand.
“We’re watching this,” Isaac told him.
What were we watching again? Some kind of crime show…
“Mom said I could watch this in here as soon as I was done with all the kitchen chores,” Zac told him, putting the DVD into the player and ignoring Taylor and Isaac who were staring intently at the screen.
Isaac got up and left the room, probably to turn the show on in another room, but Taylor just shrugged as the show clicked off and looked at me. “Want to go do something?”
What? He had just spent nearly an hour watching some kind of murder mystery show and was about to miss the final 10 minutes because his little brother had decided he wanted to watch Dumb and Dumber? And he didn’t care? I was baffled.
“You don’t want to watch the end of your show…?”
“Huh?” He looked at the television. “Oh. I don’t really care.”
Okay, I thought to myself. Watching television at the Hanson house means you hardly get to hear the TV, and you are not supposed to care when someone turns your show off. How in the world did they live with this many people in the house? At the time, it felt to me like everyone was living on top of each other… literally.
Zac sat down with half of his body on top of Taylor, trying to find room to spread out on the couch. Taylor shoved him with his elbow.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” I breathed, getting up from the couch and actually running from the room. I was experiencing over sensory stimulation. I’m sure of it. Too much was going on at once.
Taylor followed after me. “Did you want to watch the end of that?”
I laughed and began to climb the stairs, the first place I could think of that wasn’t near so many people.
“I hardly heard a word of it. I’m fine, trust me.”
“Oh, you weren’t really paying attention? I could have explained it to you.”
“Your family is so… loud,” I laughed, looking around the hallway upstairs and deciding to walk towards Taylor’s room instead of my own.
“Were they being really loud?” he asked, following me into his room and swinging the door closed. “Yeah, I guess they were.”
He flopped down on his bed and laid on his back. “It feels weird with you living here,” he mused.
I sat down on the bed next to him and looked down at him, his eyes closed and his hair spread on his comforter.
“Weird how?”
“It’s like… I feel weird going about my usual routine with you here. I feel like I should be entertaining you or something… but then I’m like well I can’t entertain her every second of everyday so I guess… I’ll just do what I usually do. And as you can see, I don’t live a very exciting life,” he chuckled.
“When I first met you I thought you were a big party boy too,” I admitted.
“Why?” He laughed.
“Well because you were a celebrity so I figured you’d had your share of like… clubbing in Los Angeles. And then you went to that party with Melissa… I don’t know. You just seemed like it at first.” I paused and looked down at him again. He was wearing Adidas sweatpants and a grey sweatshirt. He looked nothing like a party boy at that moment. “But I’ve realized you’re just as lame as me.”
He opened his eyes and grinned. “Shut up. I’m not nearly as lame as you are,” he scoffed.
“Mmmyeah, okay,” I said, looking down at his sunburned face and kissing his pink nose. “Mr. Sun burn.”
“Does it still look bad?” he asked, but then cut me off before I could answer. “Gabrielle, I have a question.”
“Besides the condition of your sunburn?”
“Right.”
“Okay… go for it.”
I laid down on my back next to him and resumed his position of staring up at his ceiling and smirking at his glow in the dark stars. He was most definitely lamer than me.
“Are we… we’re going to be okay right? We can still… we can still be together even though we’re living under the same roof, right? I mean, I’m thrilled you’re here and I couldn’t want anything more. But I have to admit when I found out, I was scared it would change us. You’re going to see me walking to the shower when I look like crap in the morning and watch me stumble down the stairs at the crack of down when it’s too early to think straight. We’re still going to… we’ll be okay, don’t you think?”
I wasn’t about to deny that it wouldn’t be a strange transition, but if anything I felt closer to Taylor getting to really see him in his natural setting.
“We’ll be okay,” I nodded, feeling odd to be the one convincing him of our relationship. “Better then okay maybe. I can’t see anything but getting closer with you.”
I don’t think either of us said anything more. Our concerns just disappeared into a kiss that lead into another kiss that, for the first time, lead into… well by the time we heard a knock on the door we had enough to feel guilty about. I frantically grabbed my discarded shirt from his bed and pulled it on worriedly as he composed himself and sat up on the bed.
“Yeah?” he asked at the door.
“It’s Dad. I just wanted to tell you… can I come in?”
Taylor looked at me to see if I was composed. I nodded and sat on the edge of Taylor’s bed.
“Go for it,” Taylor told his father.
Walker opened the door and gave us a cheerful smile. “I just wanted to tell you guys that the little ones are in bed if you want to use the television to watch a movie when Zac is done with his. I don’t know how much longer his is going to run, but the house should be pretty calm for the rest of the night.”
Thank god.
“We have church in the morning, so don’t get to bed too late,” Walker instructed, turning to walk out the door. He paused before he walked out. “Oh and Taylor.”
“Hm?”
“Mom made it clear where everyone sleeps tonight right?”
Taylor groaned and blushed, falling back on his bed and looking up at the ceiling. I noticed how he strategically folded his hands in front of himself. “Goodnight Dad.”
“Tay,” Walker said, turning back into the room. Oh, great. Why hadn’t Taylor just nodded and smiled? Now Walker had his attention back on the two of us. I wanted to vanish into thin air.
“Can you show a little respect? Do you understand where-”
“She told me like fifteen times,” Taylor grumbled. “I got it. Trust me.”
Walker turned to me, and I was convinced he was about to ask me too if I understood where I was supposed to sleep. Oh… the humiliation.
“My son likes to show off and pretend he’s too cool for Dad’s rules when he’s around girlfriends,” Walker explained. “Sleep well, Gabrielle.”
When he stepped out of the room and closed the door, Taylor sat up and frowned, looking me in the face and trying to preserve as much “cool” as he had left in him, which wasn’t very much.
“I believe my mother said both Taylor and Gabrielle sleep together in my bed,” he smirked, trying to grab me.
I got up from the bed before he could even touch me and stood back, looking at him with an amused smile on my face.
“You could use a cold shower,” I smirked.
“Want to join me?”
I laughed and walked towards the door. “I’m going to finish putting my clothes away, and then I’m going to bed.”
He sat up and frowned. “Awww how come! It’s only like… ten at night and it’s Saturday. We don’t have to be up for church until like 8.”
“You might not have to be up until 8. But I work tomorrow, so when exactly does your Mom get up on Sundays?” I was completely determined to convince myself I was earning everything the Hanson’s gave me. I would take my job, as always, very professionally and seriously.
“Like 6:30,” he said, pointing a finger at me and laughing. “Sucks for you.”
I glanced down at his crotch and cleared my throat. “Actually Tay… sucks for you.”
He blushed and rolled his eyes, “Fine, you’re going to leave me here all by myself and go to bed at the same time my grandmother does, at least come over here and give me a goodnight kiss.”
“You already got a goodnight kiss!” I said, fingering the handle on the door.
“That was a… good evening kiss. I still need to give you a short and simple goodbye kiss.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t trust you…”
“It’ll be a nice kiss! Gentlemanly. I swear.”
I gave him a challenging look and crossed the room again to stand at the edge of the bed. He slid to the end of the bed, stood up, and gave me a sweet, simple kiss, stepping back and smiling proudly at me.
“Goodnight Taylor.”
“Goodnight Gabrielle,” he said quietly, his voice more raspy than usual. I wondered if it was his raging sex drive or the late hour.
It was hard to actually put one foot before the other and leave the room, but I wanted to have time to get myself oriented in my new room before the following morning. I heard Taylor quietly whimper behind me as I pulled the door open and stepped out. I looked in at him and smiled.
“Don’t leave.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Sleep well,” he whispered before I closed the door.
Getting ready for the bed was the easiest part of my new routine to learn. It was almost the same as at my old house except the bathroom was different and toothpaste at the Hanson’s house was Colgate- not Crest. I brushed my teeth and washed my face in the bathroom I’d been told was mine to use, and then found a pair of my pajamas to wear to bed. I spent some time finishing unpacking most of my clothes, but I eventually grew bored of that quickly and took to just standing by the window and staring off into the woods.
I must have stood there for thirty minutes just looking out at the dark night and looking at my new view. My old view was a stack of tires and a trailer home. My new view was nothing but trees and sky and stars… I pushed the window open and leaned out it, admiring the large house I had moved into and the many windows- most of them dark. One was lit though. I could just barely see the shadow of Taylor’s body on the wall as he walked around his room. I smiled.
My old view was the occasional, and horrible, glimpse of the used car salesman who lived in the trailer next door when he got out of the shower in just a towel and stood on his porch smoking a cigarette. I closed the window and crawled into bed. My new view? Taylor.