miracle | tayley

woah

    Hayley's dreaming and in her dream, Taylor is touching her, and it's tender and delicate and heated and perfect.

     He touches her arm and her face and her neck and she wishes there was more but even this is so much. It's so much.

     She feels her body relaxing and growing warm and languid, and she feels gooseflesh rise on her skin at the delicious sensation of being loved again.

     And then it stops.

     Her brow furrows. Her eyes fly open, in confusion. 

     They meet wide, familiar hazel-brown ones- not her daughter's- and her breath lodges in her throat. It hadn't been a dream. It'd been real. He'd been touching her... He was still touching her, his hand seemingly frozen against the now overly-sensitive skin of her neck.

     And he was touching her like that. He's still looking at her like that, and it's doing wonderful and confusing things to her insides. She wasn't sure he still felt that way about her, exactly, but apparently the heat between them is still alive and well, and painfully mutual, she thinks, grinding her teeth in response to the slow, warmth pulsing lazily through her body. 

     She knows he cares about her, knows he loved her once upon a time.

     Her eyes stay on his. Her heart beats with heavy, slow, deliberate beats. She slides her hand up, slowly, covering his, her fingers tracing the prominent veins along the back of his hand and the long, strong lines of his fingers where they disappear beneath the veil of her hair.

     Could they really do this? Now?

     Could she have this with him and not get too attached, too dependent? She's not sure. Her body wants it, there's no doubt about that. Is it wise? Definitely not. But could she handle it, compartmentalize it? Maybe. Before Rowan, back then, she definitely couldn't have. But now?

     Now she's had more practice closing off her emotions, denying herself things she might want to give herself the things she needs, instead. So, maybe... But then, would that be fair to Taylor? He'd told her that when they'd had sex before he'd thought she'd been committing to something more between them. She'd acted impulsively, they both had, and they'd both ended up hurt. If they did anything now, they'd have to be very clear about their expectations and intentions. 

     She glances around the room at his very grown-up bedroom, in his very grown-up house and thinks about her worries about his overall stability. For a moment, she allows herself to ponder the possibility of a future with him, of a life here in Nashville, in this house with him and Rowan and... She stops herself right there, before her imagination can gleefully knock her up a few more times with more beautiful York-eyed babies. 

     She focuses on the family they'd be now, the three of them, in this house, if only she can trust Taylor to be the stable guy she'd counted on pretty much her entire life before the last tour and the painful year that followed.

     He seems different now, more like his old self, like he has his life together. He hasn't given her any reason to doubt that fact since they'd re-entered each other's lives. Maybe she could just try to give him the benefit of the doubt and see where it leads?

     Maybe she could just be open to the possibility of them, as utterly terrifying as it seems to even consider it. She thinks she owes it to her daughter to be brave enough to try... She thinks, maybe she owes it to herself and to Taylor as well.

     So, no compartmentalizing. If she decides to give this a chance, she needs to be able to commit herself to trying with an open heart, and that she needs to think long and hard about before she hurts Taylor all over again by jumping into something she's not ready for. She's going to need a little time to consider the possibility, to really be sure.