Pursuit of Happiness | Taz Skylar [1]

104. bittersweet

After the piano had been removed from Zoe's apartment, leaving a space that hadn't been there in her spare room that hadn't been there since she moved in, Taz found Zoe lying on her back in the middle of the room, staring up at the ceiling. Palkia was lying across Zoe's stomach, tail thumping against the floor happily as Zoe ran her fingers through the fur that covered Palkia's back. Zoe turned her head when Taz entered, her hazel eyes watching him walk over to lie down on the floor next to her, so close that his shoulder brushed hers as he got comfortable.

"Are you okay?" Taz asked, his cheek pressing against the floor as he turned his head to look over at her.

Zoe just shrugged, her eyes drifting back to Palkia, who had shifted so that she could lie her head on Zoe's chest. "I'm just being a baby."

"You're not being a baby," Taz said, reaching over to press the pad of his thumb to her cheek. Zoe's eyebrows furrowed, confused by what he was doing, though the frown smoothed out again when he turned his hand around to show her the eyelash now clinging to his thumb. Then, allowing his hand to drop to his side, Taz told her, "If you want that piano, we can make it happen."

"No," Zoe said slowly, reaching down to take Taz's hand, bringing it up so that she could watch her fingers slide between the gaps between his. Taz let her, his eyes fixed on Zoe's face as she watched her own thumb graze the back of his hand. "No, it's okay. I can get another one. It's not that big of a deal. I just . . ." Zoe trailed off, gnawing on her bottom lip.

"Your dad got it for you," Taz murmured, reaching over with his free hand to pull on Zoe's bottom lip to stop her from chewing on her bottom lip. Zoe looked up at Taz sheepishly, her eyes holding the look of someone caught doing something they shouldn't, but she nodded her head. Palkia, apparently deciding that she had had enough of sitting on Zoe's chest, got up and padded her way out of the room. A few moments later, Taz heard the faint sound of crunching from the living room as Palkia ate from her food bowl.

"Zoe," Taz said, using his hand joined with Zoe's to bring her hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it. "If you're having second thoughts about this, we don't have to – "

"I'm not," Zoe interrupted, her eyes suddenly so sharp and so determined that Taz couldn't do anything but believe her as she sat up and swung her leg across his thighs to straddle his waist. When Taz sat up, Zoe brought her hands up to cup his face in her palms, and the steadiness in her hands seemed at odds with the ferocity burning in her eyes.

"I'm not having second thoughts," Zoe continued, the tang of cigarettes faint on her breath as she leaned in to let the tip of her nose nudge Taz's. "I'm sure about you, and I want to do this. It's just bittersweet, that's all. There's a lot of memories here."

"There is," Taz agreed, brushing his thumb across her cheek and leaning in to kiss her softly. "I remember the day you moved in here, it was so late in the day by the time you got the keys and I was so jetlagged that we fell asleep on the living room floor."

Zoe laughed. "I forgot about that. My arm was so sore when I woke up."

Taz hummed, smoothing his hand down her side and around her back. "Then you woke up in the middle of the night and told me that you loved me for the first time. I thought I was still asleep at first."

Zoe smiled, nudging her nose across his cheek until she found his lips, kissing him slowly. "I just needed you to know. You only had a couple of days here before you had to go home, and I needed you to know before you left."

Taz's hand left Zoe's back, moving back up her body to reach the key dangling from her neck. Taz pulled his head back so that he could look at it, and Zoe moved her hands to Taz's shoulders, gripping tight as she arched her back, stretching until a joint in her back cracked.

"I've been wearing this every day since you gave it to me and you think I'm having second thoughts," Zoe hummed, leaning to peck the end of Taz's nose affectionately. "You silly man."

Taz dropped the key, threading one hand through Zoe's hair to cup the base of her skull in his palm. When he began to massage the back of her head with his fingertips, Zoe sighed happily, going boneless against Taz and dropping her head onto his shoulder. Taz laughed into Zoe's hair and took her weight without complaint, winding his free arm around her to hold her.

"I just want to make sure you're doing this because you want to, not because it'll make me happy," Taz told her, speaking against the shell of Zoe's ear.

"I am doing it because I want to," Zoe answered, her nose nudging the tendons in Taz's throat as she moved to kiss the skin underneath his ear. Taz was still massaging his fingers against her head, but his arm around her tightened at the kiss, and Zoe smiled against his skin. "Making you happy is just a bonus."

"I have you. I'd be happy either way," Taz said.

Zoe snorted softly, dragging her head up from his shoulder to look at him. "Yeah, I'm sure you would. I'm sure it wouldn't drive you absolute insane if we did long distance again."

"I didn't say it wouldn't," Taz replied, his hand leaving the back of her head to slide down her cheek so that he could caress her jaw with his fingers. "But I'd do it for you, if that's what you wanted."

Zoe's smile had been close to a smirk, all teasing and laughter, but it softened at Taz's words. Her voice was so quiet that Taz almost didn't catch them when she said, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you were trying to convince me to stay."

"I'm not," Taz said, cupping her face in both hands. "I want to build a life with you, but I only want that if it's what you want."

"You have no idea how much I want that," Zoe said, a little breathlessly, and then she was kissing him. If Taz had still held any concerns that Zoe was simply telling him what he wanted to hear, they disappeared when Zoe dragged her teeth across his bottom lip and parted his lips with hers. There was no waver in her conviction as she kissed him, no evidence that uncertainty was taking root in her the closer that Zoe got to moving to London. If anything, Taz could feel nothing but conviction in the way that Zoe dragged her nails up his back, like her certainty had been solidifying a little bit more each day that had passed since she'd agreed to move in with him.