Chapter Ten - Anticipation
I'm over at Taylor's, getting ready to go round and see Hayley, and I can't seem to find the guts to tell him how I tweeted an apology to Josh. Taylor obviously hasn't looked at my twitter recently, and I hope he doesn't any time soon. I have no idea what his reaction will be. Speaking of reactions, I have even less of an idea what Josh's reaction will be; he still hasn't got back to me.
Taylor is rifling through his drawers, grumbling to himself about how he doesn't know where his socks go. I'm loitering in the doorway to his bedroom, arms crossed as I deliberate on whether to tell him about the apology or not. I glance around the room and shift in the doorway, when I notice what looks like an airing cupboard. Indifferently, I open the door expecting to find towels or a boiler or something, but instead there are shelves upon shelves of garden gnomes.
"Taylor, why on earth have you got a cupboard full of garden gnomes?" I ask him. He looks up from a drawer and blushes, a smile creeping across his face.
"I like gnomes," he says sheepishly. "That one's my favourite," he adds, pointing, "the one bowling."
Sure enough there's a gnome bowling, his cheeks pinched red like rosy apples and an excitable smile on his face. I shut the door to the cupboard, suppressing a baffled laugh.
Taylor gives up looking for socks, shrugging as he says, "I'll just go without socks." The he adds in a gruff voice, "Men don't need socks." He stuffs his feet into his converses.
I roll my eyes but I'm laughing anyway as Taylor laces his fingers through mine and pulls me down the stairs. As I mentioned, we're going round to Hayley's, as everyone's taking a day off from doing any work. They managed to at least get part of a song penned down yesterday during my absence.
Once we're round at Hayley's, instead of going up to her front door Taylor jogs over to a set of slanted doors in the ground. It must be a basement, else Hayley lives in some kind of hobbit hole. Taylor reaches down and tugs on the door handles, but the doors don't open. He knocks on them and after a few seconds of impatient silence he proceeds to leap onto the doors with two feet, ricocheting off them. He stumbles a little then regains his balance as I laugh at him.
The doors swing open to reveal Hayley standing there, glaring at Taylor but she's laughing all the same. "Taylor you can just knock rather than jumping on it," she reprimands him. She looks to me with a look of mock sincerity and adds, "I feel for you, I really do."
"I did knock, and you didn't answer," Taylor retorts, "so maybe you should just... answer your... basement doors." He pouts, his brow furrowed, but Hayley just laughs and waves him in.
"For that I'm making you watch a horror movie," she says as we walk down the steps into her basement.
"No!" Taylor wails.
"Why do I hear wailing?" comes Jeremy's voice from below us. He pokes his head round a corner.
"We're gonna make Taylor watch a horror movie," Hayley explains nonchalantly.
Jeremy's face lights up. "The Saw movies!"
Taylor pretends to gag while Jeremy reasons, "T, it's broad daylight outside."
"And we're in a basement!" Taylor retaliates.
Hayley throws herself down onto her sofa. Her hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, strands of flame-orange hair coming lose to frame her face. "You know any good horror movies?" she asks me.
"Erm, I like zombie movies," I offer.
Hayley gasps and high-fives me. "I love zombies!" she exclaims. "I feel in the mood for something creepier though, not gory."
Taylor eyes her with a sickly look on his face. "Either way I'm not gonna like it, am I?"
Hayley grins while Jeremy answers, "Nope."
Hayley looks to me again. "So what's the scariest horror movie you've ever seen then?" Her eyes shine with anticipation.
"'Wolf Creek'," I reply, "it was traumatising."
"Really?" Hayley answers with a grin. "Let's watch that!"
"No," Taylor interjects before anyone else can say anything. I elbow him playfully and he elbows me back, then he gives me a stern look.
"No 'Wolf Creek' then," I say, grinning at Taylor as I speak, "we don't want to upset Tay."
Eventually we settle on 'Creep', which was my choice. I know for a fact that it's pretty scary from sporadic clips I've seen when my parents watched it a few years back. I left the room almost as soon as the scary music came on. With all four of us squashed onto Hayley's sofa, Hayley rents the film from Netflix via Apple TV. Halfway through Taylor tries to make a break for it, mumbling something about needing the toilet, but I snatch his hand and pull him back down onto the sofa. It's not exactly the best horror movie ever made, but it serves its purpose as we jump and shout a lot, especially Taylor. Then, towards the end of the film, I pretend to check my Blackberry, looking for any excuse not to watch this section of the film, when I notice that I have an update from twitter. I glance at the others to check that no one's watching me, but their eyes are all glued to the screen.
It's a Direct Message from Josh and I feel my heart kick up a notch. Please say this is the apology I've been hoping for; I want to stop worrying about it before it begins detracting from my relationship with Taylor. The message says: 'Apology accepted, don't worry about it, I was a bit of an asshole myself, so I'm sorry too'.
I bite back a sigh of relief. Feud aborted. At least I hope so. That apology was meant for me, not for Taylor or Jeremy or Hayley. I have a feeling there'll be more opportunities for arguments and apologies there. After all, my row with Josh stemmed from one a lot bigger.