Track 9 …Ready for It? – Taylor
TAYLOR
Clang! Clang! Clangggg!
Those annoying sounds echoed from the kitchen for the umpteenth time tonight.
Assuming they were coming from some faulty pipes, I rolled over in my bed and groaned. Then I grabbed my phone to check the time.
2 a.m.
Annoyed, I opened my text messages and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Nick (Agent)
Hey, I know you’re starting the writing thing this week, but call me whenever you grab breakfast.
I need to clarify a few things before talking to Fox Sports Live in the afternoon.
Stacey
Are you sure you HAVE to stay on campus? Why not a hotel nearby? (Or maybe ask them if I can stay on campus, too…) xoxo
Dr. Gautsch
Be sure to complete those finger exercises I sent you every day. They’ll help with your recovery.
I checked to make sure my alarm was still set for 6:15 — enough time to make it to this morning’s orientation.
Shutting my eyes, I started to drift to sleep again.
Pstchhh! Ptshhhh! Ptshhh!
BAH-DOOMPH!
“Jesus.” I got out of bed and headed to the kitchen.
To my surprise, there weren’t any busted pipes.
It was Audrey.
Dressed in an oversized T-shirt and workout shorts, holding a pot high above her head, poised to drop it on the floor.
“It’s two in the fucking morning,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”
She dropped the pot, forcing a loud clang to echo off the walls, then walked over to the table and scribbled something in her notebook.
“Audrey.” I raised my voice, and she looked over at me — removing one of her earbuds.
“May I help you with something?” she asked.
“You can stop making so much noise this early in the morning,” I said. “I didn’t think we needed to set rules for something as simple as that.”
“They sent out the first surprise essay assignment, ‘Onomatopoeia,’ that’s due this weekend,” she said. “I was just brushing up on the different ways the sounds could be described.”
I stared at her.
“I’m not making it up,” she said, picking up a few of the pots. “They sent it out at midnight — typical for the first two weeks of ‘hell’ that everyone who’s ever done this has warned about, you know?”
She bent over and picked up more of her mess, and I brushed away the dirty thoughts flooding my mind.
“Now that I’ve explained myself and alerted you to the surprise essay—”
“I knew about that damn essay,” I interrupted. “And I just pulled up ‘pans falling,’ ‘shattered glass,’ and ‘kitchen sounds’ on YouTube like a normal fucking person.”
“Oh…” Her lips fell open and her cheeks reddened.
“Exactly,” I said, stepping back. “Cut this shit out, and let’s set 7 a.m. as the time for noise in the shared parts of the suite, shall we?”
“Can we also set a rule for not walking around in nothing but briefs, too?”
I looked down, realizing that I hadn’t put on anything before coming out here.
“An oversight on my part,” I said, noticing she was still staring—her nipples standing at full attention under her thin shirt. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good.”
“Since I’m already out here, though…” I moved past her and turned on the coffee maker.
“I was about to make some for myself.”
“‘About to’ isn’t a real thing,” I said. “But if you ask me nicely, maybe I’ll consider making some for you, too.”
“I don’t trust you not to poison it.”
“You honestly think I would risk going to prison for you?”
“You might.”
“I won’t,” I said. “You like it with lots of cinnamon and caramel, right?”
“No…” She frowned. “Yes.”
I opened the cabinets, expecting to see what I saw when I was in here hours ago for dinner, but there was a long stretch of yellow tape running down the middle of the shelf. And there were labels on everything: Do not touch, Mr. Taylor’s, Miss Parker’s, Not for football players, and Not Yours.
What the… I looked over my shoulder at her.
“You have my permission to touch the cinnamon if you don’t have any.” She avoided my gaze. “But you can’t use my stevia packets. Those are expensive.”
“If you’re going to be this petty with me, we’re going to have a problem, Audrey.”
“You mean ‘another’ problem,” she said. “We had millions between us long before we came here.”
She had a point, but I didn’t feel like reminding her of her “we never knew each other” spiel from earlier.
“Fine.” I grabbed her labeled sweeteners and made the coffee without saying another word.
I carried mine to my room and downed it in one gulp. And at the thought of Audrey in that T-shirt, her nipples hardening as her eyes met mine … I took the longest cold shower of my life—and it still wasn’t fucking cold enough.