Last Hope {a paramore fanfiction}

Chapter Twenty One

We sat in the dining room, laughing over Taylor's reaction when he got his first haircut. "I remember the look on his face when we all agreed he should get it cut...I don't think he wanted to hear that!" Hayley laughed, before using her chopsticks to bring noddles to her mouth. She stopped and began to laugh again, dropping the noodles back into the container. We all chuckled as Taylor sulked jokingly. I shoved his arm playfully and he looked up at me and smiled. "Dumpling?" He said and held up the pasty pastel to my mouth. I took it in one bite, regretting it straight away. He laughed as I held the mixture in my mouth and tried to not spit it out on the table. Jeremy looked over at us and smiled a knowing smile. We almost shrivelled back into our seats.

When Jeremy walked in on me and Taylor in a moment of..well I'm not sure what it was...anyway; it was pretty damn awkward. I waited a good ten minutes before checking that the coast was clear and running to my room. I then came downstairs to see Jeremy sitting in one of the armchairs and smirking to himself. "I knew it," said Jeremy and smiled again. I rolled my eyes. I looked over to the kitchen. It seemed Taylor was trying to hide himself from Jerm, so I knew I'd have to do the explaining. I told him my apartment flooded and that Taylor was letting me stay here. He wouldn't let up. "And you're dating?" "No, we're not dating." "Bethan...you were in your underwear in Taylor's room with Taylor's arms around you..." I smiled nervously. "I know it looked bad but trust me I can't believe how it happened. Taylor offered to run me a bath because...because I hadn't been feeling well.. And then he walked in while I was getting changed." I looked into Jeremy's eyes. I was pleading for him to not say anything about it again and make the situation worse then it was. "Okay...well...seeing as I have now seen you half naked and scared Taylor shitless with questions-" "Hey I'm not scared!" Taylor called over from the kitchen. I laughed but wanted to know what those questions were. "As I was saying...Hayley really wanted to see you, and of course I did too..well I saw more then intended...don't tell Kat I said that," he laughed and I joined in. "I'll go pickup so Chinese food and bring it here and you can call Hayley and invite her round, and then tell her," he concluded. "Tell her what?" Taylor said and I jumped not realising he'd crept up behind me. "That you live together," Jeremy replied. I felt Taylor look down at me.

Yes, it was true I had been nervous about telling them me and Taylor had been living together. At the same time, I was fed up of hiding it. And Jeremy knowing wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would have been. Keeping secrets from people never worked with me. Of course I wasn't ready to tell them about Sam, but I wasn't going to let this menial one with Taylor stop us from getting closer. I hadn't had friends in years and I wasn't going to let these guys go.

So Taylor did call Hayley and she came in almost 10 minutes of us calling. She ran up and hugged me and within minutes we were laughing about in jokes from the night at the BBQ restaurant. "The lights were so dark in that place, as soon as I got home, I realised I had like 50 BBQ sauce stains on me," Hayley jokes and laughed with her. It was a shame the night had been ruined and it was hard to think of only the positive that had happened.

We all cleared our plates in record time when Jeremy came back with the food. I was finished munching my dumpling (well, Taylor's) when Hayley coughed. "Bethan, where's the bathroom?" Hayley asked. "Oh well there's Taylor's one upstairs, one in my room and one over by the..." It took me a second to realise what I'd said. "Urm..." I looked at Hayley, blushing as I started to form an explanation in my head. But I was met by her smiling face. "....how did you know?" Taylor asked, replicating the confused voice I was thinking with in my head. "C'mon Taylor, you aren't a genius. And neither are you," she said looking at me laughing. "I opened the drawers to stack some excess t-shirts that wouldn't fit in the boxes and I was met by bras. Then I used the bathrooms, your makeup bag was in there. I was bordering between two ideas; one, you lived with Taylor or two, he had a drag act. I don't know which one I would have been happier about." I looked her, my mouth slightly ajar. "Well...I think you made it easier for me to tell you Hayley Holmes." She rolled her head back and laughed, all of us joining in with her. "Why were you so afraid to tell us?" Jeremy asked. "I didn't want you guys to think I was using Taylor," I said. "Yeah, no matter how many times I told her she wasn't," Taylor added looking at me. I smiled at his growing stubble and cute brown eyes behind his glasses. "Bethan...we'd never think that, okay? You're like family," Hayley said and Jeremy smiled and nodded in agreement.