Daylight - Taylor Swift

Chapter 45

December 25th, 2017

Jo closed the door to Taylor's car after they pulled up in a new white picket fenced subdivision. Charlie unbuckled her seatbelt in the backseat, ready to hate everything about everything.

Billy had moved in with Melissa and the gremlins, a perfect suburbia filled with cookie cutter homes, a park in the centre of the grid, schools down the block. The home in Henderson was gone, this one just outside it now, letting him commute until he was retired early the next year.

Jo grabbed her and Taylor's bags from the trunk, letting her younger sister fend for herself. She stared up at the house, it looked so plain.

"Why couldn't I stay with Andrea and Rob again?" Charlie sighed. She wouldn't mind seeing her Dad, but all of the extras that now came with him weren't that enticing.

"Unfortunately we've been requested as it is Christmas. Just try to get through the day, we can leave tomorrow."

The three girls knocked on the door and waited for it to open. The doorknob jingled a little bit before it turned slowly, front door only opening about three inches.

"What do you want?" The voice whispered, Jo looked down and saw Dylan, aged seven now.

"Hi Dylan, it's Jo and Charlie. Can we come in?" Jo crouched down, levelling herself with the singular eyeball she could see.

"No thank you!" The door closed and locked with a shout.

Taylor exhaled loudly through her mouth, "You really weren't being dramatic."

"Nope," Charlie just sat down on the veranda. She'd been here before, Dylan locked her out often before she moved in with Josephine and Taylor, "Take a seat, you have to wait for Dad or Melissa to check their phones."

The three girls sat on the front steps for about twenty minutes before the door opened, Melissa looking surprised by the two pop stars and teenager waiting with unamused faces.

"Hey!" The woman tried to perk up, "What are you doing out here?"

"Your son locked us out," Charlie stood up and walked past her future step-mother, bag in hand.

"Your bags... did your Dad not tell you?" Melissa placed a hand on her almost five month baby bump, which protruded heavily already.

"Tell us what?" Jo furrowed her eyebrows, stepping in carefully.

"You're supposed to be in a hotel, we don't have any extra rooms," Melissa said softly, she looked confused as to why her fiancé wouldn't have told the girls there was no where for them to stay in the new house.

"Pardon me?" Josephine rasped with anger, "You bought this house before Charlie moved in with me, where did you plan on letting her sleep?"

"She could've stayed in the nursery or moved into Cassidy's room until she went to university," the middle aged woman explained without picking up on Jo's frustration.

"Yeah... Where's my Dad?" Jo handed her bag to Taylor to take back to the car, about to give her father an earful.

"He's in the garage, hon. I'm sure he's excited to see you, the puppy's in there with him."

"Thanks," Jo turned, walked past her to try and find the entrance to the garage. There was Billy with his old restoration project, finally pained, "William."

"Pal!" He smiled, wiping his hands off on a rag he had tucked into his belt and opening his arms for a hug.

Jo shut him down, they still had unresolved business. She scoffed, "You have some nerve. Do you know how embarrassing it is to show up here and think we're staying at Dad's, just like normal and your fiancée tells us that Charlie doesn't even have a place in your home? I know she lives with Taylor and I now but you put the offer in on this house before that was decided so I need to know what the fuck you have been thinking and honestly if you're out of your mind, tell me! I can afford a psychiatric hospital for you!"