I'll give you my sunshine

Chapter 37

Frankie's POV:

We were now back at the hotel. It was a lot bigger than the one at Mount Shasta and a lot more boogie.

We didn't have a whole floor of it booked out, but rather annoyingly, all the cast and crew were spread out over most of the hotel.

I was in a room with Lilah again, and Olive and Naomi were in the room directly opposite from us.

"Thank God there's a working elevator this time." I laughed as we stood in the lobby, waiting for the elevator to come.

"Oh my god, if there was no elevator, I swear to god I would sleep on the floor tonight. I am not going up those stairs." Naomi said, half sitting down on her suitcase.

"It's only like 2 p.m.What are we doing the whole rest of the day?" Olive asked, looking around at everyone.

"Well, you guys are technically allowed to go out into the city, but only with adult supervision. I know you're all teenagers, but that's the rule, I'm afraid." Gloria said to us:.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm way too tired to go out into the city right now." Lilah said.

"Oh, absolutely not; maybe we can later, though." Naomi said, looking outside at the busy streets.

"What time are we going to that restaurant tonight?" I asked, trying to format a schedule in my mind.

"The reservation is for 7:30 p.m.," Elizabeth said, looking at whatever timetable she had on her phone.

"Ok, that gives us loads of time to relax for a bit and then do some exploring," Lilah said, looking satisfied.

Just then, the elevator came and opened for us.

It was a squeeze, but we all managed to get in.

On our floor, the four of us girls got out of the elevator, as well as Elizabeth and a few of the crew members.

We all walked down the hallway until we came to our rooms.

The room was really nice; it was very clean; there were two twin beds on either side; a nice TV; and more storage space than someone could ever need.

We also had the accessible room, which made it bigger than the other rooms, both in the bedroom and the bathroom.

Lilah basically collapsed on her bed when we walked into the room, as if she had not been asleep for the duration of the flight.

Something about the difference in pressure on the plane had made my leg feel really uncomfortable, so the first thing I did was sit down on the edge of the bed and take my prosthetic off.

"You ok?" Lilah asked from her bed, looking over at me in concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine; the airplane just made my leg feel a bit weird," I said as I took an ibuprofen, beginning to feel some pain.

"Oh, I never even considered that a plane could affect your leg; that's crazy," Lilah said, sounding half asleep.

"Me neither; at least I know now for on the way back," I said, shrugging.

For the next few hours, Lilah and I sat on our respective beds and recovered from the flight.

At some point, Olive came in to steal my hairbrush, but otherwise, it was pretty uneventful.

I was scrolling aimlessly on my phone, trying to keep my eyes open, and I'm pretty sure Lilah had a nap.

Eventually, I decided to get up and take a shower.

Due to the hotel room being wheelchair accessible, the shower was both big and had a seat in it, which I was grateful for, as although I love everything about Taylor's house, not having a shower seat has been a big struggle.

She's already done so much for me, though I don't want to seem ungrateful for bringing it up.

Anyway, I had a nice long shower. It was nice to not have to worry about how long I can stand on just one leg without the risk of falling over.

"What's the shower like?" Lilah asked me from under her bedsheets as I exited the bathroom.

"Really nice, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to turn it on," I said, laughing as I sat down on my bed.

"Ah, ok, I'm going to go shower then; wish me luck." She said she was getting out of bed.

"You'll need it, trust me," I said back as she went into the bathroom.

While she showered, I began to get changed, looking in my suitcase for some nicer clothes than what I had worn to the airport.

Apparently I was searching for a while because Lilah then came out of the bathroom from her shower.

"You were right, it was stupidly hard to turn that shower on," Lilah said as she walked back from the bathroom.

"Well, I'm glad it wasn't just me being an idiot." I said, sitting back from where I had been leaning over the bed, rummaging in my suitcase.

"We can be idiots together. What are you going to wear for tonight?" Lilah asked me.

"No idea; I've been looking for something to wear the whole time you've been showering," I said, gesturing to my suitcase that looked like a mole had tried to burrow into it.

"I'll help you once I've changed if you help me," Lilah said, putting her hair up into a messy and very wet bun.

"Deal," I said, throwing myself backwards onto the bed.

I helped Lilah pick out a nice lilac chiffon dress with a pair of cream flats.

"Ok, so what do you want to wear?" Lilah asked, looking down at my suitcase.

"That's the problem; I don't know." I said, laughing.

"Well, surely you have some preference, like, do you feel equally about wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume than you feel about a floral dress?" Lilah asked, rolling her eyes playfully.

"I mean, I don't really want to wear a dress, but I don't pack any, so that's not narrowing down much." I said, shrugging.

"Oh my god, Frankie, this is not helpful." Lilah said, facepalming herself.

"Ok, well, I think I want to wear something that covers my prosthetic, so that rules out shorts," I said.

"Really? Why?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm still quite self-conscious about it, I guess? I don't know if there's going to be paparazzi, and I'd rather that if they are there, the focus isn't just solely on my leg." I said it with a sigh.

"Oh, ok, I get that." Lilah said, beginning to take out some of the trousers from my suitcase.

Eventually, I settled on a nice outfit. The length of the trousers didn't fully cover the prosthetic, but it was enough that you couldn't see it at first glance.

We then went to Naomi and Olive's room, and we made a plan for where to go before the restaurant.

After we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go, we went to ask one of Elizabeth or Gloria to come with us for'supervision'.

Elizabeth offered to go with us, and so we were soon on the elevator again, going back downstairs.

New York, being New York, was incredibly busy, and it took us ages to get anywhere.

Over the next hour or so, we explored the city, mostly going into stores and trying to find landmarks.

I hadn't ever been to New York and been able to just go and see everything, so it was really fun. Even if it was so busy and loud, I could hardly hear myself think.



Taylor's POV:

It's always somewhat of an adjustment going from living somewhere a bit quieter like Nashville, or even LA, to then New York.

"Taylor, just to let you know there's a few paparazzis outside your apartment," Mike, one of my security team members, said from the front seat of the car.

"When are they there?" I said, half joking. Although I didn't necessarily like the idea of being filmed whenever and wherever I was, there was nothing I could do to change it, so there was really no point in letting myself get upset about it.

As the driver turned down our street, I prepared to get out and be photographed, making sure I hadn't dropped any food on my shirt.

We parked on the curb of the pavement, and I got out of the car, keeping my eyes focused on the door of my apartment block and not looking at any of the paparazzis.

Soon enough, the near-blinding flashes stopped as I walked into the lobby.

I waited for the people carrying my stuff, especially the cats, before I called the elevator.

"That never gets less daunting," I said, taking off my jacket.

"I guess not; you have mastered the act of a pap walk, though," Mike said, winking at me.

"Hardly, it always feels so unnatural; I hate it," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Well, you don't show it, Taylor; you always look great," he said.

A moment later, we reached my floor. I stepped into my apartment first, turning on the lights.

I put my bags down, then was handed the "kitty carriers," as I liked to call them, and let the cats out into the apartment.

All my stuff was taken from California to here, then taken up to the apartment before I was left to just myself and the cats.

After having been living with Frankie for almost a month, it felt weird to not have her with me.

I sat down on the sofa and put on the TV, feeling tired from getting up so early, and then I took the flight, on which I hardly got any rest.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because I suddenly opened my eyes to see the clock an hour and a half later than when I had last looked at it.

Yawning, I got up from the sofa and went to go take a shower and get ready.

It was still a while until I had to be at the restaurant, but I was factoring in the time I would get distracted and start doing chores around the house.

After my shower, I put on a pair of leggings and a jumper, as I didn't want to be in the outfit I was wearing all day.

It was around 4 p.m. at that point, and I went into one of the spare bedrooms in the house to begin getting it prepared for Frankie.

This room had become somewhat of a storage space over the last few years, so I basically just took everything out and put it into a different room, also separating our stuff that I didn't want anymore and would donate to charity.

Soon though, it was 6:30, and I did my final steps of getting ready to go out.

I had scheduled for my car to be ready at 6:45, which was only barely enough time.

At 6:40, I got a message from Steve, one of my security team members, telling me they were out in the lobby waiting and that there were, of course, paparazzis there.

Making sure the cats were fed, I did a final sweep of the house, turning out all the lights before going downstairs.

"Good evening, Taylor," Steve said as I exited the elevator.

"Good evening, how are you?" I asked as I fixed my hair in the mirror in the lobby.

"I'm great; are you ready to go?" He asked.

"Yep, let's go," I said, turning towards the door to leave the apartment block.

Keeping my focus set on the car, I walked down the steps, past the paps, and into the car.

"Ok, Taylor, we should be there in 15 minutes," my driver said from in front.

"That's great, thank you!" I said, opening one of the waters from in the back pocket of the seats.

Pulling out my phone, I messaged Frankie:


Frankie 🤍

Hey! I'm just leaving now; I'll be
there in 15 or so minutes x