The Lucky One (2) - Taylor Swift

37

"Did you know that some cacti can hold up to two hundred gallons of water?" Grace asked as she squinted at the screen of the phone she was holding. She was trying to take a photograph of Taylor under a cactus the day before the tour started. The singer wanted to post a little teaser of her being in Arizona and thought the desert would be a good place for it.

"Do you really keep all those facts in your brain all of the time?" Scott asked as he held his hand over his eyes to shield the sun. It was a ridiculous question because he had realized that yes, Taylor's partner was strange and knew lots of weird things about lots of weird things, "Don't you get tired?"

"No actually I boot my brain up to Bluetooth and download it from the internet on command. It saves me a lot of time."

"What are you saying?" Taylor put her hands on her hips when she saw Grace's shit eating grin.

"Smartass over here is pretending she's part robot," Scott said back, chuckling as he decided that was enough time in the blistering sun.

"You're the one who told me that stupid questions get stupid answers!" Grace followed him towards the car. Over the past couple months, she and Scott had been forced to get over their differences and get things ready for the tour with Taylor. She totally pretended that Thanksgiving never happened and he did too, that's what made it work.

"Oh cool, thanks guys," Taylor scoffed as they left her alone on the side of the road. She walked back towards the SUV and got into the back beside Grace. She dug through her purse for a moment before she looked at her girlfriend with a tinge of annoyance, "Did you take my headphones?"

"No," Grace furrowed her eyebrows after answering immediately only to think about it a second, "Oh! Yes, I apologize. Gracie called me this morning and I didn't want to wake you."

"What'd she call about?" It was always interesting to hear about what the three and a half year old was up to. Grace couldn't believe that she'd been back in Michael's life for over a year, she'd been free for over a year and just about to hit a full year sober.

"She wanted to know if she could have ice cream because Amber, Chris and Michael all said no because it was only eleven in the morning. She's in a phase where she thinks she can just keep asking until someone says yes," the former heiress explained with a warm smile. There were very few things she enjoyed more than listening to Gracie babble on and on. It healed her in ways she didn't know she needed healing.

"If it wasn't for your sister flying all the way to New York to help me decorate the apartment for your birthday a few weeks ago, I'd swear that kid was your best friend on the planet."

Nellie had made the trip to help Taylor set up for Grace's surprise birthday dinner. The whole family was there. Michael didn't mind sharing the attention since he'd gotten quite a few special birthdays and once Taylor admitted she had 'kind of' dumped Grace the day before her birthday the year before, he knew it was his turn to sit back and let her have a day.

Grace had such a great day and Taylor was quite pleased that twenty-six had started off good for the brunette. Grace kept swearing she was never going to age past twenty-five, just like she would never wear Prada, but it was inevitable.

"You are my best friend on the planet," Grace replied without missing a beat and that ridiculous butterfly feeling in Taylor's stomach came back in full force. She could never seem to get them to go away, maybe it was the tone Grace used or the fact that it was Grace in general, but she was always doing that.

The next day, Grace sat in Taylor's dressing room before the show and took short videos of her warming up her voice and shaking all the nerves out. The brunette had made a stop by the merch booth apparently, because she was wearing a reputation hat and shirt with her VIP lanyard. She was ready to watch from the comfort of the VIP tent.