4 (jaylor) gleaming twilight and an infinite afterglow

chapter one.

- this is book four of my wisteria hearts series! If you haven't read the other three books, make sure you do before reading this one! -

"Mommy!" Taylor was sitting with her hands resting on the piano when she heard her daughter calling her name. She got up and went over to the door, where Thea was running up to her, arms wide open. Taylor opened her arms, sinking to her knees, wrapping them around her. She'd never, ever get tired of this. Never get tired of her family, of these special moments. She'd never get tired of watching Thea run up to her, the biggest smile on her face. Watching her grow every single day, watching as her hair turned curly, just like Taylor's had.
Taylor would never get sick of this. Of living like this. It was something that she never thought that she'd have the privilege of experiencing.
"Where's Daddy? Did you lose him?" Taylor asked as she tickled Thea. "Did you leave Daddy behind?"
"No!" Thea giggled, and Taylor laughed. "DADDY!" Thea yelled through the house, and Taylor couldn't hold her smile back. She thought that it wasn't possible to love anyone as much as she loved Joe. But Thea was here, and she was just so beautiful in every single way. She was just... if daylight were a person, it would be Thea.
"You called for me?" Joe came up the stairs with a smile, and Taylor looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. Joe had a smile as wide as Taylor's on his face, and he scooped Thea up.
Taylor stood up, and Joe kissed her cheek. She pulled a face when he didn't kiss her lips, and he chuckled. "Did you miss me?" He asked Taylor, and she folded her arms, but couldn't wipe the smile off of her face for even a second.
"Of course. Did you have a nice time?" Taylor asked as Joe tickled Thea. She'd never get tired of hearing her laugh.
Joe had taken the two of them down to the beach because Thea was really interested in the ocean at the moment. That was probably because she loved mermaids - and wasn't helped by Joe always telling her that if she waited long enough, she'd see one. Most days, Joe would take her down to the water and they'd have a lovely time together. Taylor always felt like it was important that Thea got to spend time with him alone.
"I almost saw... I almost saw one! It was like, this close to me, Mommy!" Thea exclaimed, spreading her arms wide.
"Really?!" Taylor gasped as Thea wriggled in Joe's arms and he put her down. Thea went running towards her bedroom window, where she could see the ocean. Joe wrapped Taylor in his arms and kissed her lips.
"Are you okay?" He asked her softly, and she looked up at him with a smile.
"I keep wanting to pinch myself," She admitted to him. "I wake up every single morning and I just can't believe that... that I get to wake up to all of this."
Joe kissed her cheek, taking her hand as they followed Thea into her bedroom. She was sitting in her window seat, looking out into the ocean. Her hair sat in two tiny little pigtails, her hands pressed against the glass.
"I know what you're saying," Joe told her as he stroked her hand. "It just doesn't seem real."
"But it is!" Taylor smiled happily. This was real. Every part of it was real. Joe was real, and Thea was real. Her happiness was real. "Alright, petal." Taylor sighed. "Are you going to help me make dinner?" Thea's new favourite thing was helping in the kitchen. She loved to stand on a stool beside Taylor and put things into bowls.
"YES!" Thea shrieked, and Taylor wondered why five-year-olds loved to scream so much. Well, she was nearly five. Taylor had pushed down the fact that scared her to pieces as long as possible, and even now, she was still so worried about the fact that Thea would be started school soon.
"Alright then! Let's go and wash your hands!"
"But the mermaids..." Thea pointed out the window, and Joe went over to her.
"Don't you worry, my little sunshine. I'll make sure that they know that you're helping Mommy to make dinner, and I'm sure they'll wait for you." Joe sat beside her, and Thea climbed into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"But... how do you know they can hear you?" Thea asked, clearly suspicious of what he was telling her.
"Why don't we go out there and tell them?" Joe asked her, and Taylor smiled. She looked at Joe with Thea and knew that there was nothing in the world that would make her feel as happy as when she saw them together. "But we've got to be quick!" Joe took her hand, and Thea skipped down the stairs beside him.
Taylor watched the two of them from the top of the stairs and felt her heart melt as she pulled out her phone to record it. She wanted to capture as many of these moments as possible because she knew that if things got bad again, just one glance at them would make her feel better.
She walked down the stairs and her phone rang. She'd realised lately, that she could hear loud noises and be totally okay. She could hear her phone ring, and she wouldn't flinch. She didn't notice when she'd stopped panicking every time she heard that noise, didn't realise it until one month ago. When the thought had hit her and she'd realised that she truly didn't flinch at the sound.
It was Elizabeth FaceTiming her. Taylor smiled as she answered.
"You just missed Joe!" She smiled, as she turned the camera around so that Elizabeth could see Joe walking out the door, Thea at his side. "He's on a very special quest with Thea, telling the mermaids that they're not allowed to come out while she's helping make dinner."
"We'd better not interrupt him then, should we?" Elizabeth smiled and Taylor rested her phone on the bench while she put a pot of water on to boil. "How are you?"
"Good," Taylor smiled. Elizabeth was so lovely, and she treated Taylor as if she were her own daughter. "I'm really good. Although I'm really... I'm a little bit stressed about Thea having to start school soon," She told her. She really was, and it was something that she spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about. What would happen? Taylor got incredibly anxious whenever Thea wasn't with either her or Joe. So stressed about the cameras, stressed about it all. And Taylor felt like no one else would be able to protect her like she would because no one else knew the camera's like she did. Both she and Joe had worked tirelessly to keep her out of the cameras. It had been a decision that they'd made early on because they felt like it was selfish of them to toss Thea in front of a camera. Both Taylor and Joe had chosen a life in the spotlight, Thea had not.
Elizabeth smiled. "I know that she'll be okay. It's perfectly normal to worry about it. I remember feeling so anxious when Joe walked into school that first day, because he was still my little baby," Elizabeth told her. Taylor smiled. "And look at him now! Now my baby has his own baby!"
"I just hope that she's... going to be alright." Taylor leaned against the bench. She shook her head. She'd been trying really hard not to let herself slip into those unhappy thoughts, because she knew that she was just overthinking everything. She knew that she didn't need to be worrying. She'd been in close contact with the school, and they'd assured her that Thea would be safe. Taylor had to start trusting other people. She knew that was something she struggled with, and she was really working on it. Blake and Ryan had managed to keep both James and Inez's school from the public, and she would too.
"I can't believe that you two haven't even gotten married yet - it's been four and a half years!" Elizabeth sighed, and Taylor smiled. It had been a long time since Joe had proposed to her, but it still felt like yesterday. Neither of them wanted to rush anything, and they'd been too caught up with Thea.
"I know," Taylor told her. "We're definitely going to do it - it's just about finding the time," They were so busy. They hadn't even had time to plan it yet. "I think that once Thea has settled in at school, we'll be able to think about it."
"Then you'll have hours to yourself again!" Elizabeth laughed, "What will you do with yourself?"
Taylor let out a breathless laugh, shaking her head. She didn't mind that her days were taken up by Thea, in fact, she wouldn't have it any other way.
"I really don't know," She smiled. They were just so busy, planning on moving back to New York so that Thea could attend school there - at the same school that both James and Inez attend. Blake had recommended it to Taylor, and she'd done a lot of research. Currently, they were staying in their Rhode Island home, but they'd have to move soon. That was another thing that Taylor added to the long list of things that she had to do. The school was expensive, but it only had a maximum of two hundred and forty students, and it offered the level of security that Taylor needed. The fact that Blake's daughters went there too - the fact that Blake was able to vouch for their security and privacy, was nice. It made Taylor feel the tiniest bit relieved.
Taylor looked up when she heard Thea's giggle, smiling as she came running back into the kitchen. "Do you want to come and talk to Grandma?" Taylor asked her, and Thea tried to peek over the corner of the bench, and Taylor helps her by sitting her on the bench.
Elizabeth talked to Thea as Taylor prepared dinner, as Joe came up and hugged her from behind. She would never, ever get tired of these moments. The moments that felt as if she was falling like a thousand shooting stars, falling more and more in love with her family with every breath she took.
"Did you talk to those mermaids?" Taylor asked Joe as she nudged him. "You'd better hope that they're well behaved."
Joe chuckled. "Oh, she told them alright. I think that everyone in the neighbourhood will have heard her telling them not to come out while she's helping you." He kissed Taylor's cheek. "Is Mum alright?"
"I'm fine, Joe!" Elizabeth called out through the phone, and Joe shook his head. "Hi, Mum."
"Hello, Joseph," She called out before talking to Thea again. Taylor felt guilty that she didn't get to spend as much time with Joe's parents as she did with hers, but they'd tried their best to balance their time between London and America. Of course, now that Thea was at school, they'd had to narrow down the time where they could travel. That didn't matter - Taylor had already organised an entire holiday for Joe's family and her own at their home in the Lake District. They'd been building a house over there for the past two years and by the time Thea will finish for the holidays, it would be completed. So, Taylor and Joe were paying for them all to stay with them for two weeks. It was nice for Thea to get to spend time with her grandparents, as well as all of her Uncles. Taylor wouldn't admit this to Austin or Thomas, but she knew that Thea liked Patrick the best. He always FaceTimed Taylor just to see her. Taylor had lost count of the times he'd not even spoken three words through the phone and Thea had come running into the room to see him.

"But it's not even dark outside-" Thea complained as Joe walked her upstairs to get ready for bed.
"Sometimes Mommy and Daddy go to bed when it's light outside, Theabear. But the clock tells me that it's your bedtime!" He scooped her up in his arms, and she kissed him.
"Well... it doesn't tell me that!" She argued and Joe laughed.
"If those mermaids hear that you haven't been doing what Daddy says..." Joe told her as he got her stool out from beside the sink so she could see herself in the mirror. "Then they might never come out again!"
"Daddy!" Thea stuck out her tongue at him.
"Alright, let's clean your teeth."
"Are you and mommy going to sing to me tonight?" She asked, and Joe smiled.
"Of course we are - but only if you clean your teeth."
Thea sighed dramatically, and Joe held back a laugh. She had Taylor's stubbornness as well as her hair. She had Joe's eyes and his kindness.
"Why?" That was Thea's favourite question at the moment.
"Because we've got to make sure that they're all clean for bedtime," he told her softly. "Do you remember what I showed you?" He'd been teaching Thea to put the toothpaste on her toothbrush - without pouring half of the tube down the sink.
"Daddy," Thea whined. "I can do it myself. I don't... need your help!"
Joe stood back, as she put toothpaste on her brush.
"Good job!" Joe applauded her. Thea brushed her teeth, but when Joe didn't start singing their special teeth cleaning song, she turned around.
"You've got to sing or else my toothbrush won't work!" She said, her mouth filled with toothpaste.
"Alright," Joe grinned. He'd sung this song to her one day when they'd first been teaching her to clean her teeth, and she didn't clean them without it. "Make sure you're brushing those teeth!" He reminded her. Thea turned back around, dramatically brushing her teeth in the mirror, and Joe began to sing. "This is the way we clean Thea's teeth, clean Thea's teeth, this is the way we clean Thea's teeth on the day we... went to the beach and saw mermaids!" Joe smiled as he watched Thea cleaning her teeth. He always changed the last part every single day, changed it to something they'd done that day. "Keep brushing!" Joe laughed when she got a little too distracted by dancing. "This is the way we clean Thea's teeth, clean Thea's teeth, this is the way we clean Thea's teeth on the day we... went to the beach and saw mermaids!" He repeated again.
"Finished!" Thea spat out the toothpaste, washing off her toothbrush. "It's still not dark outside, Daddy." She frowned, dramatically folding her arms. "I can't go to bed when it's light."
"You can," Joe told her as he led her to her room, closing her curtains and turned on her lamp. They'd made an effort to get her into a steady bedtime routine, and that included making sure that at six-thirty every night, the lights in the house dimmed. "See? It's dark outside."
"That's because-" Thea started, getting onto her bed and beginning to jump.
"It's bedtime," Joe reminded her. "Let's see, what pyjamas do you want to wear tonight?" He asked her softly. "It looked like Mommy might have gotten you some new ones," Joe said, and that got her to stop Jumping and run over to see. She pulled out some pink ones that had gold glittery cats on them.
"Wow!" She hugged them tight to her chest, yawning.
"Let's get dressed then!" Joe said, smiling when he saw Taylor leaning against the doorway.
"Mommy!" Thea ran up to her, "These are the bestest pyjama's in the world!"
Taylor grinned down at her daughter. Joe loved her so much. With each passing day, he realised that he'd fallen in love with an angel. With someone who was golden and someone that he loved with everything he was.

Taylor and Joe sat on either side of Thea, as they did every night after Thea had chosen a book for them to read to her. Tonight, it was a book about a baby dinosaur named Rosie. After they read the book to her, when she was usually half asleep already, they'd both sing to her. Joe would hold Taylor's hand and they'd both wonder how they could be so lucky. They'd sung the same little song to her every night, and Thea was always asleep by the end of it.
"I don't want to look at anything else now that I saw you
I don't want to think of anything else now that I've thought of you
I've been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night
And now I see daylight
I only see daylight..."
And then the two of them would go downstairs and snuggle together on the couch, sometimes it would be Taylor's head in Joe's lap, and other times it would be Joe's head in Taylor's lap. Sometimes they'd talk about their day, talk about their feelings, talk about things they were worried about. Other times they'd just sit together quietly, enjoying each others company. Or they'd be writing music together - that happened most nights. When they started, the two of them tended to note be able to stop writing... and time would get away on them. Sometimes they had to actually tear themselves away from writing, or playing the piano.
Tonight, Joe made them both a hot chocolate, and they played scrabble together, sitting on the floor with soft music humming in the background. It was nights like these, that Taylor wanted to bottle up and keep with her forever.