the stars in your eyes | t.s. one shots

the woman who sits by the window

Taylor loves spending her days in Kansas City. She loves living the domestic life. It's the little things that make it special. Waking up in the morning and pouring her cereal as Travis makes eggs beside her, not a drop of makeup on her face and not a care in the world about it. Travis's house is starting to feel like hers, too. She doesn't feel as though she needs to say anything before going about her normal day. She doesn't always have to be by his side or have permission to be places like she'd feel she needed if she was a guest here. No, she's all but officially moved in. They're living together.

She even has a favorite spot in the house. It's the room in the back on the third floor that Travis has turned into a music room for her. He set up a gorgeous white grand piano in the center, and hung a few of her favorite models of guitars on the walls. There's a big, comfy sofa to sit on, and it's all humidity controlled. It was her Christmas present, and she loves it so much. There's a big window that looks out onto the backyard, and today, she's positioned herself so that she can see out as she sits cross-legged on the floor, watching Travis mow the lawn. She'd told him so many times that he could hire somebody to do that for him, but at the end of the day, that man loves riding around the property on his John Deere mower, for whatever the reason. Taylor respects that. It seems to be something that calms him down, a change in pace after a long day of football.

As the sun starts to set, Travis is all finished up with the mowing, so he comes inside. She watches him put away his mower in the shed and walk in through the back door, so she's not surprised when he taps lightly on the door a few minutes later. "Tay?"

"Hey," she says with a smile. "Come on in."

"I saw you up here when I was mowing. You looked really engrossed in something. What are you working on?"

"I've been writing," she admits, hardly a confession as it's what she can be found doing nearly every day. In the time that he's spent getting to know her, Travis has been absolutely blown away at just how much she is truly in love with her craft. It's one of his favorite things about Taylor. The way that she just lives like a songwriter. If she hears a word or phrase she likes in daily conversation, she'll whip out her phone and jot it down in her notes. During dinner, she'll often excuse herself to hum a melody into a voice memo. She just seems to view the world through a lens of poetry, which Travis finds incredible.

"What are you working on? Can I hear?" he asks, a little smile on his face. Only a few days ago, she played him a song she wrote about him. Though it wasn't the first, it was the first that she told him she thought would make the album. He'd never thought much about what it would feel like to have somebody write a song about you, but Travis has learned in his time with Taylor that it's the most special gift she could ever give him.

Taylor nods eagerly, then freezes once a realization hits her. "Well... I mean, yeah, you can hear it," she says, "but it's not... about you. It's... well..." Taylor searches for the right words- something which isn't common in the woman who always seems to know what to say.

Travis sits down on the floor beside her, leaning his back against the sofa. He bends his knees, pulling them up to his chest, and rests one hand on her thigh. "Tay, that's okay. I don't care. I just want to hear it because it's something beautiful that you created."

"It's just..." she begins, letting out a sigh, "I'm in the final stages of putting together an album, and a lot of it... it's some pretty depressing shit." She mindlessly strums the strings of the guitar that she has cradled in her lap. "Not just depressing, but... well, angry. Manic, in a way. There's just a lot of emotions in there, and none of them... well, most of them, they're not emotions that are caused by you."

"Most of them?" Travis raises his eyebrows, trying to figure out what she means. He hopes he's not doing anything to make her feel the way that she's describing.