June 28th 2022

Chapter 179
Our Days of Friendship

The very next day following Haley's show was going to be another big one… for some of them at least. Taylor Munroe was flying home for the next few weeks. And as excited as anyone would be to see Dylan and Phoebe's younger brother if they knew him, it was hard to ignore one such source of excitement in particular, though she certainly tried to play it cool. Oh, they would never laugh at her for it, but Maya and Lucas were both having to tie down their smiles that morning, seeing how Ella was having to harness that excess of energy in her at the prospect of his arrival. He'd already promised, since she was in Austin that weekend anyway, to drop by the Friar house as soon as he could. Until then, they had to wait.

"You know, when your little sister gets like this, we try and give her something to do so she doesn't spin herself right into a frenzy," Maya teased her eldest with a small, supportive smile.

"Do you have anything you need me to do?" Ella asked, showing she was more than open to suggestions.

"I could use a willing ear…" Maya offered.

"Sure, what's up?"

"I've been thinking about Nellie," Maya started, and Ella's expression shifted in understanding. Even though they hadn't gone into detail with everyone else over what had happened the previous afternoon, Ella had seen plenty to be able to figure out at least the base of what was going on with her young aunt. She knew that Nellie had just broken up with her boyfriend.

"She'll be okay," Ella said, because it needed saying, even if it felt like they shouldn't have to. That was sort of where the crux of Maya's issue lay. She wanted to trust in this eventuality as much as anyone, but until it actually happened, she was stuck worrying over her sister's mental state. She'd been dating Anton since she was all of thirteen years old, and she would be sixteen next month. This was not some silly, brief little crush she was having to get over.

"I want to do something for her, to just… get her spirits back up a bit, you know?"

"Yeah," Ella nodded.

"I just don't know what… or how…" Maya sighed.

"Well, it's about what she needs right now, isn't it? What she needs is…"

"Us." She'd gotten that far, but from there, she still couldn't… "You know what we've never done?" she thought aloud. "Sisters' day, girls' day, just not as a sleepover." Ella smiled at this, and for a few seconds they both stood there, quietly pondering. What was the opposite to a Sleepster? Ella was the first to straighten up with an idea, which she turned over to her mother.

"Wakester?" she grinned, and Maya laughed. Alright, yeah… She could work with that.

They spent the next little while tossing ideas around for this day they hoped would cheer Nellie up, and it was everything they both needed right then, a solution for one and for the other a distraction until a long awaited return happened. When it did happen, when the doorbell rang to announce his arrival, Ella was out back with Tori and four of her little sisters, playing with a ball, so she didn't hear it. Maya was upstairs with the baby, which regrettably meant that she missed the big reunion. Lucas was plenty aware of 'the situation' though, so thinking of his wife, he made sure to discreetly take out his phone and record the moment, just in case.

When they came through the kitchen door, Taylor up ahead of him, Lucas could see as well as him that 'the chase' was on, with the bouncy pink ball being tossed around one way and the other while Marianne, Kacey, Remy, Lucy, Tori, and Ella all went around to get hold of it. As far as they could tell, there were two teams of three, and goals to defend, though whether these rules were being observed was anyone's guess. The biggest aim of this match seemed to be to get the pink ball flying around. Maya said she loved this ball and its color because it just stood out in the yard, making it easy to find, always. She wasn't wrong. That thing was impossible not to see.

Maybe just as impossible not to notice was Taylor Munroe, standing there… at least to Ella. She stopped all at once when she noticed him, so much so that she barely managed to catch the ball when it was tossed her way. Oh, that smile… It took the girls calling for their ball to break her out of the immediate reaction, and she gave the ball to Remy, telling her and the others that she'd be back. The soon to be two-year-old looked on just as the others did as her big sister took off, first at a quick step and then at an outright run, over to her long distance best friend. Their arms were all out at the ready before she reached him, which was just as well with how she nearly leapt at him. He caught her though, held right off her feet and momentarily causing him to backpedal.

He didn't drop her, just held her like this for a few seconds before lowering her back to stand, though she didn't let go of him and he didn't let go of her either, so much so that they were just sort of standing there, faces near enough that their foreheads touched. In that contact, it felt as though they'd both breached the other's shield, the one any sensible person who knew them would know was there, guarding their feelings for the other. Now they were right there, and to Lucas it recalled a moment of letting go, many years ago, in a diner in New York City, the first time he'd kissed Maya and she'd kissed him.

That wasn't what happened here, but the way they looked at each other, Ella, and Taylor… they might as well have. Possibly the only thing that had stopped it was an unavoidable awareness that they were far from alone and everyone would be looking at them. Of course, now, having committed to extract themselves from this moment of… bubble sharing… it became a break in momentum. Pulling back from one another, they would have to realize what they had been doing, almost doing, and be forced to wonder what it would mean for them.

"Tay-Tay!" Tori came dashing over now, and after a blink that took him back to the whole of reality, he was all smiles, the picture of his older half brother, as he got hold of the small girl and lifted her into a flying hug that made her laugh.

"You are getting so tall, do you know that?" he asked her, jostling her around to make her laugh some more as she nodded. "You've got a birthday next month, too." Yes, she sure did! As she was so kind to remind him – as though she hadn't been saying it to everyone who asked – she was going to be four years old.

"Are you going to my party?" she asked very importantly.

"You bet I am. You think I would miss it?" Taylor smiled and got another hug from the girl.

He had always been so good with her from the day he'd finally been allowed to meet her and know Summer Levesque's secret. He had understood how important it was that, as her mother's friend, he was given space in Tori's life. And even when he'd moved off for college, he had been mindful of the small girl and how it might play in their relationship that he'd be gone. They were fortunate in their being able to stay in touch through calls, video whenever they could, and now Tori's reaction to his return spoke volumes on where she held him in her esteem.

For Taylor, it was about so much more than Tori herself could realize, but then the rest of them, whether they would say it or not, were not so clueless. They could not speak for their daughter, but both Lucas and Maya, as they'd see the young man interacting with their granddaughter on this day… There may not yet have been anything going on between him and Ella, and for all they knew it could end up staying that way, but far more likely – if things carried on as they did now – it would all change in due time. And what would happen if it did change, if the two of them became a couple… and if they stayed a couple?

What they saw today was that Taylor had been reflecting on that question. It was discreet, but it was there, this awareness of Tori, and how she could come to see him as a father, as she… she would be a daughter to him… Maybe it went back to his family's complicated situation, back when it had come out that his mother had had another family before him and his dad and sister, or maybe it was just because he was and had always been a very dedicated person to the people in his life, even after one of them had passed away… Whatever it was, he saw his place in the world, and he took it seriously. He was one of the most dependable people you'd ever meet, and when that dependent was Tori Friar, oh…

"Thank you for the poster," Taylor told Maya later on, over dinner.

"Oh, you got it?" she smiled, and he nodded, taking out his phone to show her a picture of it hanging in his room back in Indiana.

"What poster?" Ella asked, unaware. Taylor showed her the picture, which drew the attention of several of the small girls around the table except for Lucy, who was focused on her plate. "Oh, I've seen this, that's… Where did I see this?" she asked, her brows in deep thought. Lucas took a peek, and he smiled, pointed to the phone as though to say, 'I know what it is,' which only perplexed Ella even more until it came to her, possibly by bringing together thoughts of Taylor and her mother and where they intersected. "Wait, was this in your class?" she turned to her, and Maya made a gesture to say, 'yes and no, keep thinking.' The girls were very intrigued by this mystery now and they followed it along with almost as much investment as they did the construction of the dog retreat.

"It's okay, I didn't even know it until she reminded me," Taylor pointed out, and when she allowed for him to 'spoil the answer,' he explained about the letter he'd written to his former art teacher, and the painting that reminded him of her class, and his friends, which had been featured on a book cover on display. Maya had gone ahead and found the poster, bought it, and shipped it to him, for which Taylor was very grateful.

"Can you send it to me?" Ella pointed to the picture. "I have to show Lea when I see her, I want to see if she'll figure it out."

"Yeah, definitely," Taylor nodded. Ella kept on smiling, looking at the picture; Taylor kept on smiling, looking at her. When her smile softened, he knew as well as the others did where her thoughts had gone. They both looked to their wrists, to their matching sleeping lambs. "You got your new flower," Taylor noted, indicating Ella's tattoo. "Mine looks kind of lonely out here. The guys on the team gave me a hard time at first when they saw it, but then I explained to them what it was about."

"You could add to it," Ella suggested. "Underneath, here, like I've got my flowers," she went on, holding his wrist with one hand and tracing at the empty spot with her index from the other. He watched her as she did this, and it took Kacey's sneezing for them to realize they'd landed themselves in another charged moment, which everyone else was left to witness. Taylor's hand was released, and they sat back forward, picking up their forks again, getting back to the meal as the others did the same.

"If you want, I bet she could draw you something for your arm there," Lucas chimed in, indicating Maya, who was just finishing with a tissue at Kacey's nose.

"Oh, definitely," Maya agreed. "You can take him to see Cheyenne," she nodded to Ella. "Nice friend activity," she smirked, applauding her daughter's restraint in not kicking her under the table.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners