WHY SHE DISAPPEARED - Taylor Swift x Reader

count to ten, take it in

You need your truck back from the city. More importantly, you need your truck back without having to explain to Joanna why you left it at the bar.

"I need a favour," you say when she picks up your call on the second ring.

"Good morning to you too, sunshine. You sound like hell."

"Feel like it too. Can you give me a ride into town? I need to get my truck."

There's a pause. "Why is your truck in town?"

"Long story."

"I've got time."

"It's really not that interesting." You take another sip of your Irish coffee, hoping the alcohol will make lying easier. "Just had a few too many drinks and made the responsible choice not to drive."

"Uh huh." Joanna's voice is dripping with skepticism. "And this has nothing to do with the mysterious blonde you disappeared with?"

"Not everything revolves around girls, Jo."

"Everything does revolve around girls if my friend suddenly starts acting weird right after being spotted with one for the first time in probably years." You can hear her moving around, probably getting ready to interrogate you in person. "What happened? Did you sleep with her? Was she not a good lay? Did she break your heart? Did she turn out to be married?"

If only it were that simple. "Can you just give me a ride? I'll buy you lunch."

"You'll buy me lunch and tell me everything that happened."

"I'll buy you lunch and tell you some things that happened."

"Deal."

Twenty minutes later, Joanna pulls into your driveway in her beat-up Honda, music blaring from the speakers. She takes one look at your face and whistles low.

"Jesus, you also do look like hell."

"Thanks. Very helpful." You climb into the passenger seat, immediately assaulted by the scent of her air freshener and the sound of what might be the most aggressively cheerful merengue ever recorded.

"So," she says, pulling out of your driveway with the kind of reckless abandon that always makes you grateful for your seatbelt. "Scale of one to ten, how badly did this mysterious blonde mess with your head?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"So like a thirteen, then." Ha. How very ironic.

The drive into the city takes twenty minutes, during which Joanna attempts to extract information through increasingly creative questions while you deflect with the skill of someone who spent years doing it for a livnig. By the time you reach the bar's parking lot, she's given up on subtle interrogation and moved on to wild speculation.

"My theory," she announces as you spot your truck exactly where you left it, "is that she's either a drug lord's wife or a witness protection situation. Those are the only reasons someone would be that secretive in a place like this."

You nearly choke on the irony. Seems like the universe is really doing a lot of it lately. "Your imagination is really something else."

"I prefer to think of it as investigative intuition." She pulls up next to your truck, studying your face. "You're not telling me something important."

"I'm not telling you lots of things. That's what makes me interesting."

"That's what makes you exhausting." She's smiling when she says it. "Lunch tomorrow? And I want details."

"We'll see."

You climb out of her car and into your own truck, grateful for the familiar smell of old worn-out leather and the engine that starts on the first try for once. Joanna waves as she drives off, still blasting merengue loud enough for the entire city to hear.