Love Story (Taylor Swift x fem!OC)

Chapter 7

Inside the room, Gabi gasped in shock.

"What's wrong?" Taylor asked. "You have your 'surprised' face on again." Gabi couldn't speak. She just pointed at the edge of the floor. "What?" Taylor repeated, confused.

"You-I-GUITARS!" Gabi blurted out.

"...Yes...? I play guitar..." Taylor said, still very puzzled by her friend's reaction.

"No, but, like, you have three guitars. With you. On tour," Gabi said.

"...Yes..." Taylor repeated. "Did you want to play one of them?" she added, trying to figure out Gabi's motive.

"No! Well, kind of. But, sorry, I was just... surprised at how many guitars you have..." Gabi said.

Taylor laughed. "Oh! Is that what this is about?"

"Well, kind of," Gabi said, embarrassed. "I just- I've only ever seen this many guitars in a guitar store. But I also don't go to very many peoples' apartments or houses, so I don't have much to compare to..."

"Don't worry about it. I know I have an obscene number of guitars," Taylor said, laughing slightly. Gabi looked very relieved at that. "Here! Do you play?" Gabi nodded. Handing a guitar to her, Taylor said, "You can play this one for a bit if you'd like." Gabi suddenly started grinning.

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure!" Taylor said, grabbing a guitar for herself. Gabi just looked down at the guitar, a little lost as to what to do. After all, what was she supposed to play in front of Taylor Swift, the greatest musician and guitarist and songwriter of the last thirty or forty years? Taylor seemed to pick up on this, saying, "Pretend I'm not here. Don't worry about me judging or anything. You should hear my songs before I've cleaned them up... They're kind of a mess..."

Gabi just smiled. "I find that hard to believe." But she started strumming the guitar, a little bit more confident after what Taylor said. Gabi began to hum to herself, thinking about all of the excitement she'd been feeling for the last few hours and poured it into the song. At least, that's what she did in her head. All Taylor heard, however, was a guitar strumming, and some muttered gibberish because Gabi was so quiet, Taylor had no idea what she was saying.

"Whatcha playing?" Taylor asked after a few minutes. Gabi just shook her head, not verbalizing a response. "...Okay. I wonder if this is how I am when I'm playing guitar," Taylor said to herself, considerably quieter.

About fifteen minutes later, Gabi raised her head and asked, "Er, Taylor? Do you have some... paper? And a pen or pencil..." Taylor immediately got up, knowing that when inspiration struck, you kind of just had to run with it. She handed Gabi a page from her notebook and a pencil. "Thanks."

Gabi started to scribble on the page, scratching things out every so often and strumming to make sure she'd gotten whatever she was writing down right. "Yes!" she suddenly shouted, throwing her arms into the air in celebration.

"What happened?" Taylor asked.

"Er, can I play this for you?" Gabi asked shyly. Taylor nodded eagerly. "Er, just keep in mind that I'm not a singer. Or a guitarist. And that I'm kind of an amateur at this sort of thing." Taylor just waved off the disclaimer, motioning for her to start playing.

Gabi began strumming an 8-bar intro before singing, "There I was again tonight, forcing laughter faking smiles. Same old tired lonely place."

Around five minutes later, Gabi sang, "Please don't be in love with someone else. Please don't have somebody waiting on you..." finishing the song. Taylor began to clap almost immediately.

"That was amazing! You just wrote that?"

"Er, yeah..." Gabi dragged out.

"That was so good! I really liked it!"

Gabi smiled. "Thanks!"

"Have you thought about releasing your music?" Taylor asked.

"...What?" Gabi asked, doing a double take.

"Oh, well, sorry. I-I figured you'd have written a lot if you could write a song so fast like this..." Taylor said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Oh! Er, no," Gabi said.

"Oh." Gabi just nodded, not totally how to respond. "I just feel like a lot of people would really like it! I could probably talk to someone at my label if you want. They might give you a record..." Taylor said after a beat.

"I..." Gabi hesitated, she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be famous. After all, it wasn't really something she was into. Her work was more of something that was just for her. "Would you want to release it ever?"

"I mean, yeah, it's a great song! But, like, you wrote it. Shouldn't you get to release it?" Taylor asked.

"Well, I mean, as long as I'm listed as a writer, I'm cool with you releasing it as one of your songs. If-if you want, I mean..." Gabi said.

"I-I'd be honored if that's what you'd like. I mean, this song seriously deserves to be released to the public!" Taylor said, enthused. "I'll talk to Nathan, my producer, about it!"