The Lucky One (2) - Taylor Swift

24

Taylor was looking at it and trying to think about how she could politely offer suggestions on decorating for the future. She stared off a little until Grace picked up the leftover boas and gently wrapped the blue one around Taylor's neck, "This will accentuate your beautiful eyes."

She took the lime green one and wrapped it around her own neck before fixing her hair and bestowing the prettier crown on Taylor's head.

"I would've thought you'd complain about this," Taylor smiled as she adjusted how it sat on her head.

"I only have one niece and she only turns three once. I would've loved to be indulged like this as a child. We didn't even do cake," Grace said just loud enough for Taylor to hear. The singer put Grace's crown on her hand with a gentle smile and promised to make Grace's next birthday once she wouldn't forget.

"Auntie Gracie! My- my tea party!" Gracie held up the plastic toy tea kettle and Grace smiled down at her.

"You'll have to excuse me, Taylor, I've been cordially invited to the event of the decade."

"Have fun," Taylor took the boa and crown off with the rest of the adults the second Gracie dragged the former heiress upstairs to her room. She walked towards the kitchen and looked at the cake, "Do you need a hand with anything?"

"No, I'm good!" Amber shook her head, "How was the drive? You must be exhausted, Grace said you just got in from Nashville again this morning."

"Yeah but we pumped ourselves full of coffee and came straight from the airport," Taylor replied lightly, "We'll probably get a hotel room in town and drive back tomorrow. Grace has a doctors appointment after lunch."

"Everything good?" Amber asked. It wasn't particularly nosy, more so a passive question.

"I think so. She just has some concerns and wants to see what's going on," Grace had found a doctor to talk about her suspicions of ADHD and the first step was that appointment. She hadn't told anyone and Taylor knew that so she kept it to herself.

"Nothing bad right? Liver disease? Cancer?"

"No," Taylor assured her quickly, "No, she's fine. She's good! I check in, I know she's still adjusting."

"And how are you doing?" Amber asked after Chris excused himself to go check on the dogs. Whenever they had a moment alone, Amber checked in because she knew Taylor didn't talk about dating an alcoholic often and she knew what it was like first hand to be on both sides of that coin.

"I'm surviving," Taylor shrugged a little, she didn't know how deep she could get, "Most days are completely fine, great even. Other days she hits a wall and it's hard not to feel responsible if she's having a bad day or I am and it bounces back and becomes a thing. Like a couple weeks ago, I was so busy and she said she would change over the laundry and put it into the dryer and then I went to go to bed and it was still sitting here in the washer so I had to rerun it and when I tried to tell her about it, she got super defensive and shut down for like two hours. Like, it's so hit or miss whether she's in a great mood or she's easily knocked over and I can't tell what mood is what until it's too late."

Amber nodded as she spun the spatula around the cake again to smoothen out the icing, "It's probably cravings and when she's using her energy to fight those off, she's taking it out on you because she doesn't have the energy to react in a civilized way. It's totally not okay and you can call her out for it. Mike did that too a few times, just snapped like I'd murdered his best friend or somethin' but we talked about it and worked through it. It's hard, it's a whole lot of work to love someone without the addiction never mind with."

"I feel like a major asshole when I have to say like anything remotely negative because I know what her life used to be like. She's happy almost all of the time, a few hard days here and there but she's practically glowing."