Page 5 of Wish We Were There

“I know,” he murmured, managing a slight smile. Despite her words, her tone was lighter than he would have expected. “That’s kind of why I’ve been avoiding everyone. I was still thinking about it, then when I decided, I was... dreading telling you guys.”

“Yeah, Dean and Angie aren’t gonna be happy,” Kylie sighed, leaning forward to prop her head in her hand. She looked at Taylor for a long moment, lips pursed in thought. He didn’t know how to respond, so he just waited, wondering how badly he’d just imploded all her plans for the future.

Get Well Soon had been on the up. Maybe they would have been more like Blink-182 in another year—Zach sure believed so. Would he be pissed that Taylor was throwing in the towel so easily? Would he have understood?

Did it even matter? Zach was gone.

“So what are you going to do, then?” Kylie finally asked him, pulling him from his thoughts.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, are you gonna start your own band now?” she pressed. “Capitalism and everything. Gotta do something, you know?”

He bit back a laugh. He hadn’t told anyone about his plans either—he’d considered telling Parker, but when he’d choked up about Zach, it had left his mind entirely. But if Kylie was the first to know, that was good, too. Out of all his bandmates, he and Kylie were the closest; not that he wasn’t friends with Angie or Dean, but something about him and Kylie had just clicked early on. Kylie always said that it was because he was a Libra and she was a Taurus. He wasn’t sure how much stock he put into that sort of thing; but it made sense in a way, dreamy air signs and grounded earth signs balancing out.

But her groundedness made him nervous about telling her his plan, too. She’d find out eventually, though, so he might as well be the first to tell her.

“I think I’m done making music entirely,” he said quickly, before he could overthink it more than he already had. “Instead, I want to... I want to set up a music venue. A queer-focused venue.”

Her brows furrowed in consternation, but she didn’t respond right away. He added nervously,

“I already have a place in mind. Zed Miller is selling The Bridge, so I think I’m going to buy it off him and renovate it.”

“Renovate it?!” she blurted out, as if that was the most unbelievable part of what he’d just revealed. “Taylor, have you ever done a reno in your life?”

“No,” he said self-consciously. “But, I mean, I talked to him about it, and it didn’t seem that bad—just replacing parts of the stage and repainting and stuff.”

She shot a pointed look at his arm in the cast. Embarrassed, he shifted the way he sat, so it was more behind him.

“How are you going to renovate it with one arm?” she said, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t even bought the damn venue yet, Kylie, so sorry I don’t have all the details figured out. I have the money for it. I’ll figure it out. But I want to do this.”

“You’re gonna open a music venue,” she repeated faintly. He nodded, willing the heat to fade from his cheeks. Once her initial shock subsided, he knew that she’d be excited and curious. “Well, shit. I guess that’s pretty cool. You really don’t think you’ll want to be in a band, though?”

He sighed, scrubbing his good hand through his hair. He really needed to shower. What the hell had he been thinking, showing up to Parker’s so scruffy like this?

“I don’t know,” he said softly, the words feeling more confessional than anything else that he’d said so far. “It won’t be the same. So much of it was just... Zach. I wrote some songs, but he made them good. And with my wrist...”

He trailed off. That felt too personal to say, even to Kylie. The doctors had told him he would definitely play piano again, but some part of him was completely convinced his musical ability would be entirely gone when the cast came off. He’d already gone so long without practicing, without so much as touching his keyboard, after playing it every day for almost his entire life.

“It hasn’t healed yet?” Kylie asked softly, brows furrowed in concern.

“It’s not that,” he said hurriedly, trying to move on. “I just... I guess maybe someday I could try again. But right now, I just really don’t ever want to write another song.”

Kylie’s expression crumpled at that. “Aw, babes. That’s really sad.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. It was mostly Zach anyway.”

She let out a long, slow sigh, mulling everything over. “He really messed everything up, didn’t he? Going and dying like that.”

Taylor stifled a laugh. It was a strange relief to know that they could joke about it now.

“Super inconsiderate of him,” he murmured, and Kylie chuckled.

“Should I tell Dean and Angie?” she asked, her voice more serious now. Part of Taylor wanted her to be the one to break the news, just so he didn’t have to do it, so the offer was tempting. But if he was going to be the one to pull the plug, they deserved to hear it from him.

“No,” he forced himself to say. “No, I should tell them.”

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