Who am I to You? (Kaylor/Torlie AU)

14

"Were there any cupcakes as good as these in Westerton?" Toni asks jokingly.

Karlie was afraid of this. The moment she saw Taylor again at their lunch meeting, she knew there wasn't a way to avoid this topic any longer. Admittedly, she hadn't talked to Toni much at all about her time away in the countryside, mostly because of the issue of Taylor and their fling— for lack of a better term.

She lets a beat pass before answering with the blaring sounds of the city in the background on full volume.

"Yeah there were! They were mine!" Karlie jests in response.

Toni throws a bit of the cupcake at Karlie, with a dab of icing landing near the girl's lip. Karlie easily wipes it off with a finger, licking it for good measure and to tease the blonde in front of her. In return, Toni kisses either side of Karlie's lips saying, "You missed a spot!" before planting a lengthy one square in the center of her mouth.

"I didn't! You just wanted an excuse to kiss me."

The blue-eyed girl could only smile with a hint of sadness in her eyes as she stared into Karlie's green orbs of light.

Another lapse in the conversation falls over them. The times they spent silent and nagged by things they wanted to say outnumbered the times they did speak, barely scratching the surface.

Toni tries again, though. "What else did they have over there? Like what did you do for fun, Kar?"

She was firm in her resolve to know a bit more about what had happened to Karlie, and how it's changed her.

"I stayed near the farmhouse for the most part. Reading, baking, there really wasn't much to do," Karlie starts. She was careful with her words, not wanting to discuss this particular topic, especially in public. "When I did go out, I'd spend time in the scenic places. Rivers, forests, mountainsides— you name it!"

"And what about Taylor? How'd you two meet?" Toni couldn't resist to ask. Based on the reactions from their earlier meeting with Dianna and Taylor, Toni felt there was something more than she or Karlie let on.

You need to tell her the truth.

"I was reading by the river one afternoon and she saw me. We struck up conversation after a bit and then she came by for dinner because the woman who took care of me, Helen, saw us talking and invited her."

And Helen thought she was you, so there's that, Karlie kept this bit to herself.

"You spent a lot of time with her?"

"Uh...yeah, there wasn't really anyone else to hang out with. And she was the one who helped me get back into contact with the twins, actually!"

Karlie lets herself smile over the memories of that time with Taylor. It was a whirlwind from start to finish; they came into each other's life as sudden and as quick as they had left. And it's happening again, the green-eyed girl thought to herself.

Toni is stunned but plays it off as casual curiosity, "Really? How?"

"There was this emergency contact on the ID in my wallet, she figured out the area code was from New York and we called it then Kimby picked up."