The Lucky One (2) - Taylor Swift

11

"Would you be willing to do me a favour?" Grace asked her half-sister after dinner that night. She'd been convinced to stay after Grace and Michael stayed back with the toddler so Amber and Chris could go to a meeting.

They'd already gone that morning and Grace's energy was depleted enough that she knew if she got into the car, she'd be asleep by the time they got to the community centre. She had become more aware of her limits, she was partially attributing her relapse to the fact that she was exhausted from a new schedule and all the change. It was no excuse, but it was a factor in it.

"I've known you for seven hours."

"Ouch," Grace inhaled sharply, "Forget it."

"What did you want?" Eleanor inquired with an amused chuckle after it. She didn't have any siblings growing up but she did find the twins dynamic highly entertaining to watch.

"I want to try to orchestrate a practical joke," the older brunette opened her phone to the front-facing camera. She passed it to Eleanor and adjusted it until it was only her eyes and forehead visible, "I believe that if you held the camera like this and slowly moved it upwards, it would take my girlfriend some time to realize something was off. I'll talk, you just move your lips silently so your face moves."

"Seriously? You want me to prank Taylor Swift without ever having met her? No way."

"We don't call her Taylor Swift," Michael began, he and Grace had talked about it just the other day, "She's family so she's Taylor. You're family too, so uh, just Taylor."

Eleanor scanned their faces like she was waiting for the next instructions, for them to put her through some trial by fire. They didn't, though, "Let's start with someone easier. Hey Siri, FaceTime Parker."

"Who's that?"

"My former bodyguard turned best friend."

Grace and Parker had been keeping in touch, she knew he was supposed to pick up his new puppy soon. He was familiar to her and they both had a soft spot for the other, which meant even in a friendship, Grace got away with far too much.

"Why are you calling me?" Parker was in his new house in some mountainy area of the upper half of the United States. He was putting the money she had left him to good use although most of it went into investments.

"Because I want to," Grace scoffed. Eleanor caught on and moved her face to make it appear as though she was talking.

"Do you want to see my dog? I've already cleaned up three turds from the floor, you'd lose your fucking mind," Parker flipped the camera around and showed the puppy sprawled out on the floor.

Grace forgot what she was doing and took the phone, "What did you name it?!"

"What the hell just happened? Were you not just talking to me?" Parker squinted at the screen.

"No," Grace showed her red eyes and stuffy nose, "That was my sister. We were testing out a theory. Thank you for your time. What did you name the puppy?"

"Okay then..." He trailed off with confusion, "I considered calling her Grace Junior but there's already one of those so I went with Sprinkle Dog."

"Sprinkle Dog...?"

"Sprinkle Dog."

They reset the phone angle for the next call, they had to take a minute to laugh at how that had actually worked for a moment. Michael was nursing a glass of water across the room as he recalled the few moments he and William had gotten along like that when they were young. It stung a little, he hadn't heard from him in seven years. William was too mad to return the sentiment when Michael had reached out shortly after he left. He got mad at him and then stayed radio silent.