LABYRINTH | kaylor

PROLOGUE

When Karlie Kloss got a hurried phone call from Taylor at the ripe hour of two in the morning, she knew it was serious. While she had only met the blonde a few months prior, the two had become fast friends, and she couldn't imagine the recent era of her life without the eccentric songwriter in it.

So it only made sense that, when she found out her best friend was in labor, she jumped into her car, ignored any and every traffic rule that had been drilled into her since she was sixteen, and hurried off in the direction of the hospital.

Karlie arrived to the worried facial expression of Taylor's brother, Austin, but she didn't have much time to wonder, because he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of the delivery room that Taylor was in. No sooner was Karlie shoved into a pair of heavy-duty scrubs, a mask tied across her face and her hair shoved back into a hairnet, that she walked into the room, to meet the relieved faces of Taylor and Andrea.

Now, that had been almost an hour ago, and Taylor was well into recovery, with an eagerness to see her three babies. Karlie, Andrea, Scott, and Austin had been waiting with her until the doctor gave her the all-clear to go up to the NICU, and it was just a matter of time before Taylor's nurse, Madeline, came back to get her and Karlie.

"How's Kaydence doing?" Taylor directed the question at Austin, whose girlfriend, Laurel, had been babysitting Taylor's five-year-old for the night.

Austin flashed his older sister a thumbs-up. "She's good. Laur said she went to bed around eight, and has been sleeping well. I've given her updates, and I'm sure you'll be able to call her in a few hours or so."

Taylor nodded. "Good. I miss her."

"I'm sure she misses you too, Tay," Andrea placed a comforting hand on her daughter's shoulder.

Madeline entered the room, a smile across her face visible, despite the mask covering her nose and mouth. "Ready to go see your babies, Mama?"

Taylor couldn't help the smile that stretched across her lips. "Definitely."

Madeline wheeled Taylor through the hospital corridors and to the elevator, as Karlie followed, almost as eager as her best friend. She had been around for the better part of the pregnancy, especially after Taylor's boyfriend, Joe, had broken up with her. In his words, he 'wasn't ready to deal with one baby, let alone three', but Taylor could see through his lies. He'd been acting distant for a while, and it didn't come as a surprise to her when his new girlfriend appeared a week after the breakup.

"Here we are," Madeline rolled Taylor's bed up to an incubator. "Miss Rivers-Kate."

"She's beautiful, Tay," Karlie said, smiling at the little baby.

"How much did she weigh?" Taylor directed the question back towards Madeline.

"Four pounds, eleven ounces," Madeline replied after a quick glance at the chart next to the incubator. "A bit bigger than we'd have expected for a baby at her age, but that's all good news."

Taylor smiled at her new daughter. "Hey, baby," she said, gently stroking Rivers' arm with a single finger. She turned to look back up at Karlie. "She's so small."

"She really is," Karlie agreed.

"And here you have BB," Madeline said as she pushed Taylor's bed to the incubator on the opposite wall. She, as well as some of the rest of Taylor's team, had been let in on the nickname that Taylor had lovingly given to her middle triplet. Before the names were announced during their delivery, the babies had been referred to using 'Baby A', 'Baby B', and 'Baby C', and Taylor had fallen in love with the name Brooklynn, which only felt right to give to her second triplet. Brooklynn's middle name, Brielle, fell in line with the pattern, and she was always known as Baby B, or BB, for short. "She was the smallest of the three, at four pounds, five ounces."