That Blue Gibson: Etc.

For a Song, pt. 2

(Part 2 of 3 because I can't help myself...)

"Bye, T." 

Liz leaned across the console of the car Taylor had rented and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks for lunch."

"I'll see you in a bit, okay?"

"Yup. Tell Al I'm excited to see her."

She waited until Taylor was down the street and the gate was safely shut behind him before letting out a long breath and trudging into the house. It had been a week since the premiere and she was still feeling a little off-center. 

The journalistic and public reviews had been overwhelmingly glowing, but to her, Taylor's praise of her portrayal had been the most meaningful. The moment he burst through the front door of the Cavendish house a week prior, he made a direct path to where she had been sitting on the back patio and crashed into her with such force that they both went over backward into the grass. And he'd barely let her out of his sight since.

Dave had made himself scarce, letting the two of them talk it over while he worked with Paul on some things at the Abbey, but nearly six days had passed and Liz was feeling more than a little emotionally raw.

She found that talking to Taylor about living with Kyle through his addiction was cathartic. She finally felt like she could open up to someone that understood the pain, someone with a symbiotic past that could help her understand why Kyle acted the way he had. But it was still tricky, The Addict and The Healer, both of them still smarting from their experience and aching to process it all in their own way.

"Maybe we'll never heal," Taylor mused one late night in the depths of an Abbey Road control room while they waited for Dave to perfect some vocals, "Maybe we'll always have to feel like this."

"Maybe," she'd sighed defeatedly, "But at least we're not alone anymore."

Exhausted, emotionally and physically, she stepped into her and Dave's bedroom and found it just as she had left it that morning, save for a white garment bag hanging from the curtain rod. She slowed her gait to curiously narrow her eyes at the bag positioned just so it would be the first thing she saw and spotted a simple white card on the window seat beside it. Her name was scrawled in Dave's bold handwriting across the front and she felt her smile widen as she flipped it open.

I can't fucking wait to see you in this.
I love you.
- David

The welcome feel of excitement rippled through her as she wondered what he was up to. Probably dinner and then an underground gig somewhere, she surmised. The Ivy seemed like a logical place for him to take her, but she was secretly hoping for The Roundhouse, maybe even The Crobar since they'd had such fun shamelessly flirting with one another last time they'd been. The idea of a night of him discreetly feeling her up in public made her shiver and the fluttering in her chest only intensified as she reached for the bag to find out what he wanted her to wear.

The zipper made it midway down before she peeked into the thick nylon bag and instantly choked on a sharp gasp. Her eyes blurred with tears as she coughed harshly into her shoulder and backed up so quickly that her legs collided with Dave's side of the bed.

A white silk dress with delicate lace along the scooped neckline hung on a simple wooden hanger emblazoned with their October wedding date, making Dave's intention almost unmistakable. A hot, prickly flush washed over her skin sending Liz staggering out of the bedroom, still in a fit of coughing, to get a glass of water from the kitchen. She was two sips in when an unexpected voice made her jump.

"Elizabeth?"

Her heart froze in her chest, but only momentarily before it made up for its stuttering by nearly bursting straight out of its cage.