reputation

Valentine's Day

February 14, 2018.

Seven - Taylor

Valentine's Day was the first day in the past month that didn't have something related to the tour planned for it. Rehearsals, costume fittings, and finalizing a million other little aspects had filled nearly every slot on the schedule, leaving just enough time to eat, shower, and sleep when the to-do list was done.

Today Emma was under the impression that Taylor had a busy schedule, but that was only half of the truth. She had plans, but not anything officially scheduled. Her plans started at a local grocery store. People recognized her as they did anywhere, but the special thing about this grocery store was it was located in a complete dead zone. While people would be able to take pictures to their hearts desire, no one could post anything or call anyone but emergency numbers until they were far away from here, at which point Taylor herself would be far away as well.

A few people gathered around her and watched as she stared at the buckets of flowers. The supply had dwindled over the last few days, but a teenager in a black uniform with a sour expression had just come out to refill them and had placed a bouquet of pink lilies down in the bottom corner. There were already a few large bouquets of assorted flowers at their apartment, but none of them contained liles. The florist hadn't any when Taylor called a week ago and apparently, short of growing them yourself in miraculously quick time, flowers were hard to come by around Valentine's Day. In any case, this worked better. It gave her a chance to go out in public and slightly hint towards her ideas for the next album, all before seven in the morning. All before Emma had woken up, something that recently had seemed to be early even given her normal early morning tendencies.

Emma still wasn't awake when Taylor arrived back at the apartment, giving her time to pull out the heart shaped waffle iron they stored with all of their other seasonally or uniquely shaped waffle irons. Taylor chopped up strawberries and placed the fine pieces in the waffle mix to give it a slightly pink tint. They baked into fluffy perfection. Taylor stacked them three high and set them on a fancy plate. Emma came into the room wearing one of her favorite sleep shirts that she had put on last night especially for this occasion.

"My girlfriend is my favorite pain in the ass," Taylor read the shirt aloud. "I have to say I agree with that. You are quite the pain in the ass."

"Such a pain in the ass that I actually bought you a shirt too." She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and finally took in the room full of flowers and waffles. "Holy shit, Taylor. You didn't have to do this."

"I wanted to do this. You deserve the world."

"Hang on a second, I've got to go grab something."

Emma left the room and came back a moment later holding a yellow bag and a bouquet of white roses. "This is for you."

Taylor accepted the bag from her and opened it. Inside were three cat sized sweaters with three different merch designs from the upcoming tour. "I love these. Get the kids, I'm putting them on right away. Wait, three? Are you telling me that I can get another cat?"

"Absolutely not. I figured this way we have an extra when Meredith gets her claws in the first one. Your shirt is in there too."

Taylor looked in the bag once more and pulled out the folded shirt at the bottom. She held it up so she could see the front and examined the cat with rainbow sunglasses and a small speech bubble above it that read 'I can't even think straight.' Taylor laughed and pulled her shirt off to replace it with the new one. "Where do you get these from?"

"Online. I was going back and forth between that one and one that said vagetarian but I figured you'd like that one better since it has a cat on it."

"I need a picture of us in our shirts," Taylor said, laughing. She held her phone in front of them and took a picture, making sure to get both shirts in the frame. As soon as she was done a text from Tree popped up.