Pursuit of Happiness | Taz Skylar [1]

081. the appeal of peace

When Taz stepped back into his own house for the first time in months, Zoe was at his shoulder, standing on the tips of her toes to peer over his shoulder and into the house. When Zoe felt Taz's eyes on her, she dropped back to her regular height and looked up at him sheepishly, but his smile was nothing but fond as he gestured for her to step into the house ahead of him.

Zoe was shifting the strap of her bag as she stepped around Taz and into the house, moving it so that the strap was slung over her other shoulder and across her body. After shutting the front door behind him, Taz followed Zoe down the hallway, pausing behind her when she lingered in front of the first door she came to.

"You can open it. I promise it won't bite," Taz said, leaning around Zoe to push the door open. Zoe shot him a flustered smile and knocked her shoulder against his arm before she stepped into the room, taking in the bare walls and the single bed that sat with its headboard against the wall.

"Guest bedroom," Taz offered, when Zoe looked back at him, a question in her eyes. He was leaning with his shoulder against the doorframe, his expression open as he continued, "I was thinking we could take the bed out and turn it into a little studio for you. Get your piano in here, as many guitars as you want."

"You don't have to do that," Zoe said, walking back towards the doorway to stand in front of him.

"I know," Taz answered. "But I don't want you to have to go without if you don't have to."

Zoe smiled at him, so warm and soft and loving that it made Taz want to bend down and kiss her, but he wanted to show her the rest of the house just as much, so instead he offered her his hand. Zoe took it, sliding her palm against his, letting him pull her out of the room and into the hallway.

When Taz nudged open the door to the bathroom, he glanced over at Zoe, just in time to see her eyes light up when they fell on the bath nestled between the wall and the shower alcove. He laughed, kissing the side of her head, but ultimately didn't feel the need to ask her to explain why the bath excited her. He knew why. Zoe had lived in her tiny shoebox of an apartment for as long as Taz had known her, so she hadn't had constant access to a bathtub since she was twenty-one. Taz was hardly surprised that the idea of living somewhere that was big enough to even have a bath was exciting to Zoe.

Zoe spent even more time in the master bedroom, releasing Taz's hand so that she could walk into the bedroom, eyes taking in the room around her. The bed was just as big as her own back in her apartment, but the room was big enough size that the bed didn't make it look smaller than it was, even with the wardrobe that took up the entirety of the far wall. The sliding wardrobe doors were covered with mirrors, where Zoe's own reflection blinked back at her from across the room.

"That's, uh, interesting wardrobe placement," Zoe commented, an amused smile curling at her lips as she turned back to face Taz, her arms folded over her chest.

The roll of Taz's eyes told Zoe that he knew that she was going to say something to that effect. "It's not like I can do anything about it. The house came like that."

"I don't know. It could be kind of fun, having a mirror next to the bed," Zoe said, crossing the room back towards Taz until she was so close that he could smell the perfume that she'd sprayed on her skin and into her hair that morning.

"Later," Taz said, trying not to think about how easy it would have been to pick Zoe up in his arms and deposit her onto the bed.

Instead, Taz dropped his bag and Zoe's guitar case onto the floor against the wall and once Zoe did the same, he backed out of the room. "Come on. I want to show you the backyard."

Zoe's eyes lit up again. "You have a backyard?"

Taz said nothing, just smiled at her as she followed him out of the bedroom and back out into the hallway. At the end of the hallway, the space opened up into a large space that was a living room at one end and a kitchen in the other. A kitchen table sat at the intersection between the two spaces, a simple wooden piece of furniture with a handful of wooden chairs arranged around it, but it could have been made of gold for the way that Zoe stared at it.

"It's just a table, bub," Taz said quietly.

Zoe shook her head as if Taz's words had tugged her out of a trance, bringing her hands up to cover her face. "Sorry. I'm being . . . weird."

"You're okay," Taz replied, gently prying Zoe's hands away from her face so that he could kiss her forehead. "This house is probably twice the size of your apartment."

Zoe nodded, glancing past Taz at the windows that lined the wall behind him, offering a view of a small circular table with an ashtray on top of it and two chairs, set up on a rectangle of pavement. Around the pavement, soft-looking grass stretched all the way to the fence that lined the backyard. The backyard was smaller than the one that Zoe had known growing up, but it was significantly more spacious than the tiny balcony that connected to her apartment.

"More like three times, if you count that backyard," Zoe said, nodding towards the backyard.

Taz took Zoe's hands, squeezing them gently. "You think it'll keep Palkia in?"

"That fence is taller than me."

"She could dig."

"I don't know if that thought would ever occur to her," Zoe replied, her tone fond. Taz smiled down at her, but Zoe wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were still fixed on the backyard, on that little table and chairs. It was so easy to imagine herself sitting out there, her feet in Taz's lap and a cigarette in her hand while she listened to Taz talk about whatever script he was working on and he listened to her talk about whatever song she was working on. The image was so unbelievably domestic, so painfully normal that the intensity in which Zoe wanted it surprised her. Of course, she knew she loved Taz and that with that came the desire to build a life with him. She had just expected it to be the big moments that would excite her the most, not the idea of the smaller, fleeting moments of peace.

Although, given that peaceful was not a word that Zoe would have used to describe the past five years of her life, she supposed that it made sense that peace was so appealing to her.

"So, what do you think?" Taz asked, the sound of his voice interrupting Zoe's thoughts and making her look back to him. He looked almost nervous, but his grasp on her hands was steady as he continued, "Do you think you could live here? And be happy?"

Zoe nodded, but a lump of happy tears had formed in the back of her throat and she didn't trust herself to speak without them bursting forth. Instead, Zoe carefully pulled her hands from Taz's grasp so that she could push herself up on her toes and wrap her arms around his neck. Taz circled his arms around Zoe's waist to pull her closer into his chest, resting his head against her shoulder.

"I want to make this your home, Zoe. As long as it takes," Taz told her, his voice vibrating through Zoe's shoulder. Zoe said nothing, still not trusting herself to talk without crying, but her grip on the back of Taz's neck tightened, and it was all the answer that he needed.

I want that too, it said.