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Zoe didn't realize quite how accustomed she'd become to the warmth of Taz's body in the bed beside her until the night before Bree and Jay's wedding. Long after Faye's soft snores began from across the room, Zoe was still tossing and turning, the blankets twisting around her legs as sleep evaded her. Sometime after midnight, Zoe gave up on sleeping and kicked her legs free of the blankets, swiping up her phone and vape. Faye didn't stir as Zoe made her way across the room, but Bree watched in silence as Zoe carefully unlocked the door that led out to the balcony that connected to their hotel room and slipped through. As the door clicked shut behind her, Bree turned her head to peer across the room at Faye, but when she just turned over and buried her face in her pillow, Bree got up from her bed and followed Zoe outside.
"You couldn't sleep, either?" Bree asked, keeping her voice low so that she wouldn't wake Faye, even once the door shut behind her. Zoe was standing at the railing that ran across the balcony, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that hung so big and loose on her frame that it had to have been taken from Taz.
Zoe turned at the sound of Bree's voice, her vape lifted halfway towards her mouth. Once she saw Bree standing in front of the doorway, however, Zoe stashed the vape away in her pocket, next to her phone. "I think I'm too used to sleeping next to Taz. It's his fault."
Bree snorted softly, walking over to stand next to Zoe at the railing, so close that their shoulders brushed. Her eyes glanced to the key that rested against Zoe's chest, watching the moonlight glint off the metal as she told her, "It's a good thing you're moving in with him, then, isn't it?"
Zoe looked down, but she was smiling. It was a soft smile, not wry or sarcastic in any way. It was a smile that Bree hadn't seen for quite some time before her engagement to Jay brought Taz and Zoe back into each other's lives, but had been gradually becoming more and more common in the months since.
"Yeah," Zoe said finally, looking up so that she could stare up into the clear night sky, at the crescent moon and the stars that twinkled high above their heads. "It's going to be interesting when he has to go off to shoot something and I have to stay home, if I'm having this much trouble with one night."
"You guys used to go months without getting to see each other. I think you can do it again while he's working," Bree said, smiling softly. "Hopefully, you'll have another record deal by then and you'll be working, too. That'll make it easier."
Zoe nodded, but it was slow and thoughtful, her eyebrows knitting together into a frown. Smiling at her softly, Bree reached over and flicked her finger against Zoe's temple gently. "What's going on in there?"
"I keep thinking about what you said, when we got back from London. About me starting my own record label," Zoe admitted.
Bree shook her head, an amused grin curling at her mouth. "I was kidding, Zo."
Zoe's eyes were big and uncertain and nervous in a way that they hadn't been when they were talking about Taz. She was wringing her hands in front of her body, pressing her thumbs hard into the backs of her hands as she asked, "So you don't think I could do it?"
Bree stared at her, surprised by the question. "I never said that. You're serious about this?"
"I'm just thinking about it," Zoe said, her fingers playing with the key dangling from the chain around her neck as she spoke. "I don't like it, but everyone thinks I'm difficult to work with now. It's going to be hard either way and I don't know if I want to go through all that just to end up having another set of people making money off me breathing down my neck all the time. I just – "
"You're crazy, you know that?" Bree interrupted, folding her arms across her chest to ward off the cool breeze that wafted through the balcony, making Zoe shiver as the wind cut through the cotton of Taz's shirt. "The whole world thinks you're difficult to work with and you want to see if you can find enough people to trust you so that you can start your own record label."
"So you think it's a bad idea?" Zoe asked, wrapping her arms around herself in a makeshift hug and looking away.
"If you were anyone else, yes," Bree said, knocking her shoulder against Zoe's gently. "But you're not. You're Zoe, and you're stubborn and a little bit crazy, and if anyone can flip this on its head and make this work for them, you can. Especially if you have Taz egging you on."
"How do you know he liked the idea?"
"Oh, please," Bree said, rolling her eyes. "He already thinks that anyone can do anything they set their mind to. If you told him that you were going to find a way to the moon, he'd believe you and wouldn't question it for a second."
"So you think I should do it?"
"Yes," Bree answered, without a moment's hesitation. "You'd be so much happier for it. And isn't that what this whole move to London is about? You being happy?"
Zoe leaned over to press her head into Bree's shoulder, nodding her head and blinking away tears that sprung into her eyes. Bree wrapped her arm around Zoe's shoulders to pull her closer, resting her cheek against the top of her head.
"Thank you," Zoe whispered, her voice muffled against Bree's shoulder.
"What for?"
"For sticking by me even when I didn't deserve it. I wouldn't . . ." Zoe trailed off, burying her face in Bree's shoulder and squeezing her eyes shut against the tears pricking at them. "I never would have gotten Taz back if it wasn't for you. I don't . . . I don't know if I'd still even be here."
Bree was quiet for a long time, her heart in her throat. She tried to tell Zoe that she didn't have to thank her for that, that she just hadn't wanted her to suffer through her grief on her own, but when she tried to speak the words got caught in her throat. The only thing she could manage to get out was, "I think you and Taz would have found your own ways back to each other eventually."
Zoe wasn't sure if she believed her, but she didn't tell her that, instead huffing out a quiet laugh against Bree's shoulder. Bree kept her arm around Zoe's shoulders, but she turned her face away so that when she yawned, she didn't yawn directly into Zoe's hair.
"We should go to bed," Bree said, blinking rapidly. "It's late, and we have to be up early in the morning."
"You go. I'll be back in soon," Zoe said, reaching into her pocket to retrieve her vape.
"Okay. Just don't be too long," Bree said, lingering long enough to see Zoe nod before she turned and disappeared back into the darkness of their hotel room, leaving Zoe alone with her thoughts and the moonlight.
