When Emma Falls in Love (Taylor Swift x OC)

Sweet Home New York

AN: This chapter talks more in depth about Emma's relationship with James. Some of the topics are sensitive and talk about domestic violence.

December 28, 2016.

Twelve - Taylor

It had been twenty three days since she had an actual conversation with Emma. Twenty three long days. She had gone home a couple days after her birthday and had spent the whole three weeks and two days trying to ignore the fact that she and Emma hadn't discussed what happened between them.

All of that would change today. Emma was coming home to New York, and Taylor had insisted on cooking dinner tonight. She knew Emma didn't have any food at home. Her roommate had gone home to California for the holidays and wouldn't be home until well after New Years and Emma had been gone for weeks herself.

Emma had tried to resist, saying that she needed to go to the store anyway, or that Taylor really didn't need to do that for her. In the end, Emma had given in when pasta was mentioned. 

Cooking wasn't normally Taylor's thing. She was great at baking, and in her experience you were good at one or the other, not both. Nonetheless, she stood in her kitchen with a boiling pot on one burner and a pan filled with melting butter and cream on another. She was stirring it around, adding in milk and different cheeses at small intervals. Every so often she turned to the pot, making sure the pasta hadn't bubbled over.

The front door opened, scaring Taylor just enough to make her drop half a block of cream cheese on her foot. They weren't supposed to arrive yet, she was supposed to still have at least another couple minutes to change.

She ran towards the front door to greet Dean and Emma, leaving cream cheese footprints the whole way. When she got to the front room Emma was there, hanging up her coat on a rack and sitting her shoes by the door.

When Emma turned around to see Taylor in all her cat pajama pants, cream cheese toed glory, she tilted her head. "What..." She started to say something but quickly stopped, following Taylor back to the kitchen to find the alfredo sauce brown and bubbling, and Olivia licking the cream cheese off the floor. Meredith was there too, but she just sat and watched. Everyone knew she was far too good for anything relating to the floor.

"Shit." Taylor hurried to turn off both burners before something worse happened. She looked from her burnt sauce to Emma and smiled sheepishly. "I made dinner. I think it might have burnt a bit. We can always just order something, I have an Italian place on speed dial."

"I'm sure it's lovely." Emma waved her off and made her way to grab two plates out of the cabinet and sit them by the stove. Taylor looked at her, trying to figure out why Emma was agreeing to eat this. It was decidedly not 'lovely' by any means. She watched Emma carefully putting the pasta and sauce on a plate and sitting it down to make another for Taylor.

Taylor picked the plates up to sit at the table. She pushed hers around with her fork while Emma spun hers up and took a big bite. Immediately, Emma's eyes started to water and her face went a little green. "It's good Taylor."

Taylor didn't have to take a bite of hers to know that was a lie. "Don't eat any more of that, you look like you're about to be sick. Let me order something." Emma didn't protest. Taylor wasn't sure if she could. Taylor ordered double her usual from the Italian place and sent Frederick to meet the driver at the lobby of her apartment.

They ended up eating on the couch, sitting on opposite ends in complete silence. Every so often Taylor would look over at Emma to see what she was doing, but she didn't look up from her food the whole time.