Heaving a heavy sigh, Exhale rolled over in bed the next morning and tried to force herself back to sleep. It was nearing nine o’clock, and there were so many things she wanted to do that day, like go down to the beach or souvenir shopping or even just out of the constricting loft. But the thought of running into Taylor was enough to keep her in the safety of her bed. Since their confrontation the day before, she had avoided him at all costs, trying desperately to piece together what had happened. Taylor Hanson had told her he was in love with her. The concept seemed so foreign that Exhale nearly had herself convinced that she had made the entire thing up, just another figment of her overactive imagination. But then she’d remember the pleading in his voice, the emotion in his eyes, and she’d know that it was real. The hurt and betrayal that she felt towards both Taylor and Ethan was overwhelming, and she couldn’t figure out how she was ever supposed to move past something so huge and serious.

Once she had thought she’d heard everyone leave, off to their destinations for the day, she gathered her bathing suit and a pair of shorts, and headed down to get dressed and brush her teeth in Ethan’s bathroom. When her feet connected with the bottom step was when she saw him. He was sitting at the bar counter, eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream for breakfast. She avoided eye contact, but mumbled an unintelligible “good-morning” as she passed him on her way to Ethan’s room. Taylor made a grunting noise in reply and returned his eyes to the white mound of ice cream in the bowl before him.

When he heard the door to Ethan’s room click shut, he dropped the spoon, sending it clattering onto the counter top. All of the tension between them was absolutely killing him inside. His plan, his vision, his dream of going to her and telling her he loved her and wanted to be with her had shattered cruelly in his face the day before on the porch, and he had no idea how to even begin to fix it. Her words haunted him: …why was it so easy to cast me aside…? Even after memorizing her letter, after thinking he knew everything there was to know about how she had felt, he had never known she felt so discarded. It killed him inside to know that he had caused her so much pain. Knowing he had never intended any of it didn’t make it any easier to accept.

Pushing a hand back through his hair, Taylor thought, This is what hell must be like… Hearing the door open behind him, he quickly straightened up in his chair and picked up his spoon, pretending to be interested in his breakfast so as to avoid making eye contact with her. Her whispered voice in his ear startled him, making him visibly jump when she said softly, “Taylor…” Looking towards her voice, he found her standing beside his chair, her eyes searching his desperately. She wanted to reassure herself that his words yesterday hadn’t been a dream before she did what she was about to do, because once she did, there was no taking it back. The pain in his sky blue eyes was more than enough to tell her that their confrontation the day before had definitely taken place.

He rose slowly to his feet so that he was standing in front of her, feeling strangely like she could see what he was thinking. Exhale sucked in a deep breath, gathered her courage, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Taylor’s mind spun as he returned her kiss, so much so that he could swear the floor was shifting beneath his feet. Her velvety lips felt more perfect against his than he could ever imagined. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her closer against him as he deepened the kiss, tasting the peppermint toothpaste still lingering in her mouth. The torrent of emotions that both of them had been experiencing for months simply evaporated. Goosebumps popped up over his skin as her fingers became entangled in his hair. Never before had either of them experience a kiss so full of passion and intensity. When the seemingly never-ending kiss finally did come to an end, Taylor smiled, bringing his hands up to her face and resting his forehead upon hers. “Haley…what does this mean?”

“What do you think it means?” she said with a grin. “It means I love you.”

Sighing, Taylor closed his eyes briefly. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say those words to me…”

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “Because I was waiting just as long.” They fell silent, allowing the gravity of what had just happened between them settle. “About yesterday,” Exhale said finally. “I’m really sorry for blowing up the way I did…I just can’t believe Ethan would go behind my back like that, you know? No matter what the results were, he had no right to do that…But it wasn’t fair of me to go off on you the way I did and I-”

Pressing his lips to hers gently, Taylor quieted her apologies. “Haley, you don’t have to apologize for anything yesterday. You meant what you said, and I respect your feelings. If anything, I should be apologizing to you for making you feel like that.”

“Okay,” she smiled. “You know we have to keep this between us, right? At least until we get home. I promised my parents there was nothing going on between us and they’d kill me if they thought I was lying.”

“It’s okay,” Taylor assured her, lifting his lips so that they connected softly with her forehead. “As long as we know…” Enfolding her within his arms once again, he drew her closer, resisting the urge to keep kissing her because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“Do you wanna go down to the beach?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Yeah, sure,” he said with a smile. And just that quickly, they were back to being the best friends they had once been before the tension had come between them. Because now they were sharing the same secret rather than keeping secrets from each other, and that was enough to dissipate all of the awkwardness that the past year had put between them, making them more comfortable and happy than they had ever been.

__________________

Later that night, after a day on the beach and a dinner with everyone at a seafood restaurant up the beach, Exhale and Taylor found themselves aching for even a minute alone. “Hey, Mom, me and Taylor are gonna go for a walk, okay?” Exhale called over her shoulder as her and Taylor made their way to the back doors.

“Okay, but don’t be out too late,” Magdalen replied, giving them a pointed look from the kitchen where she was picking up the empty drink cans and paper plates strewn about the counter.

“I know, Mom. We won’t.” Exhale rolled her eyes towards Taylor, causing him to laugh as he followed her out onto the porch. They descended the steps side-by-side, pausing when their feet came in contact with the cool white sand. They kicked their sandals off and left them on the bottom step, venturing out into the salty breeze towards the Gulf of Mexico. They waited to interlock their fingers until they were a safe distance from the house, and no sooner had they done that when Exhale let out an audible sigh. “She knows something’s up.”

Taylor shrugged, grinning mischievously. “Yeah, but what’s she going to do about it?”

Exhale laughed. “Nothing. You’re right, I just feel weird lying to them.”

“It’s only till we get home,” he said softly, squeezing her hand gently. “Only till we’re not sleeping under the same roof.”

“I feel like…when we go home, this’ll have all been a dream, you know? Like, where did I get the guts to come out of nowhere and kiss you? When did we become…a couple?”

“It won’t have been a dream.” He dropped her hand and instead draped his arm around her shoulders. “We’ve waited too long for this, and it doesn’t matter how, it just matters that it all happened and here we are.”

She coiled her arm around his slender waist and let her head fall to his shoulder as they walked, their feet slipping into the wet sand a little further with each step they took. After walking awhile down the deserted beach in silence, she said softly, “Taylor, I feel like…I wasn’t completely honest with you in the beginning.”

“What do you mean?” he asked curiously.

“I really hope you don’t get mad when I tell you this, but it’s been driving me crazy that I’ve had to keep this to myself for so long and-”

“Haley, would you spill it already?” he said with a laugh, lightly kissing the top of her head. “I won’t get mad.”

“Okay, do you remember talking online to a girl named Bethany? It was when we first started hanging out…”

“Yeah…” he prompted.

“That was…definitely me,” she admitted, hiding her face in his arm as she waited for his reaction.

Taylor stopped walking and dropped his arm from around her, startling her enough to make her stop as well. “Are you serious? You did all that just to find out how I felt about you?” Exhale looked up into his face, wishing she had never said anything at all, and nodded slowly. After seconds of stoic silence passed, his face broke into a grin and he laughed loudly. “I can’t believe you went through all that instead of just talking to me, Haley!” He pulled her into a tight hug and kissed the top of her head again. “You’re such a geek!”

Exhale pushed him away playfully, kicking up some dry sand at his legs at the same time. “I’m sure you did something equally embarrassing in all the time we’ve been friends!” Taylor tilted his head to the side as if thinking, and suddenly he blushed. “I knew it! There is something, and you’d better tell me!”

“No way, mine’s way more embarrassing than yours,” Taylor said, starting to walk away.

“Taylor Hanson, you are so telling me, right now!” Exhale grabbed his arm and spun him back to face her.

He debated it in his head for a second, then finally sighed in defeat. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.” He plopped down on the sand, keeping his knees bent in front of him. Exhale sat between them, nestling herself against his chest with a victorious smile on her face. “Do you promise not to laugh?” he asked, brushing her windblown hair from her face.

“No,” she said shortly. “Just tell me and get it over with.”

“Okay, all right…I never went on a date with a girl named Abby that night you came to baby-sit my brother and sisters.”

“Really? Then who’d you go on a date with?” she asked, tilting her head back so she could see his face.

“No one. I just hung out with Levon, Ithaca, and Isaiah for the night. But I wanted to see how you’d react. If you’d be jealous or not.” Taylor was careful to keep his eyes from hers as he admitted the truth.

Exhale stared at him expressionless until she couldn’t contain it any longer, and she started sputtering like she often did when trying to hold back laughter. A loud laugh escaped her throat as she said, “Taylor, that’s pathetic!”

“Hey, I didn’t do all this for your confession,” he said, pouting his lip exaggeratedly and poking her in the side.

“Yeah, but I didn’t completely fabricate a date just to get a rise out of you!” she retorted, squirming away from his hand before he could poke her again.

“Well, it worked didn’t it?” Exhale stopped squirming suddenly and just looked at him. Taylor smiled triumphantly. “I’ll take your silence as meaning yes…”

They sighed in unison, settling against each other calmly once their laughter had subsided. “Haley, I should tell you before this goes any further…I’m going to be leaving again soon,” he said softly, resting his cheek on her head. “The album’ll be coming out and we’ll have to promote and tour and everything…”

“I know,” she replied quietly, lacing her fingers with his. “We’ll make it, though. I’ll come see shows whenever they’re close, and I won’t have to worry about you hooking up with any Irish girls while you’re gone.”

“At least you hope not,” he teased. When she gave him a stern look in reply, he just laughed. “Haley, do you know how many times I wanted to ask you out before we left for California? I thought about it so many times, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it knowing we were going to be leaving so soon. That night at my birthday party…God, if I wasn’t in love with you before that night, it definitely happened then.”

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “When did you realize you were in love with me?” she asked.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment…I mean, I was sure I liked you the night of the double date from hell. I remember feeling so jealous of Castor, but I wasn’t sure why at first. I can’t say there was an exact instant, but…I know I felt it way before I could admit it to myself,” he answered.

“I know for me, it started with a crush the very first day I met you,” Exhale said, tilting her face into his neck and laying a soft kiss there. “But I don’t think I realized it until I accidentally said it to Taston.” Taylor snorted, but she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “I ran after him that night, part of me hoping he’d turn around and forgive me, and part of me wishing it had been real…that you had been in my arms minutes before and told me you loved me. It really was a slip of the tongue, but thinking about it felt so right, and…that’s when I knew.”

Taylor drew her face up and kissed her, feeling a sudden warmth spread over him despite the chill of the night breeze. “I love you, Haley,” he said when the kiss ended. “There, now it’s real.”

Smiling, Exhale pecked his lips again quickly before standing up and pulling him to his feet. “Let’s head back. My mom’s probably pacing on the porch by now…”

They walked back to the beach house hand-in-hand, dropping their embrace only when the house came into view with Magdalen and Sage on the porch swing. The rest of the vacation went much as that night had, with the two of them stealing more private minutes together whenever they could, but remaining behind the front of “best friend” whenever they were around family. Upon arriving home, everyone quickly picked up on the change in their relationship, though they never actually told anyone they were together, because really, everyone had expected it to happen. Actually seeing it was never much of a shock.

One night, as they lay entangled on the couch watching a movie at the Brooks house, Taylor looked down to find that Exhale was fast asleep. His eyes roamed over her face for a minute before he frowned, thinking of all the time he had wasted, all the time he had deprived himself of the feelings he felt when he was with her at times like this. But then, just as suddenly, he smiled. Because he knew he had the rest of his life to feel it.

FIN

INDEX