GETAWAY CAR

16. I'm Only Me When I'm With You

January 26th 2017

Karlie's POV

"I've got her, can you grab the cats?" Taylor asks as we gather our things to get off of the plane. We landed in Nashville about ten minutes ago, having flown in so Taylor can start rehearsals for her performance in a couple of days. "I've got them." I tell her as she starts heading towards the stairs and I follow close behind her.

We walk down the steps and when we reach the bottom there's two black SUV's waiting for us. Taylor clicks Maisie into the car seat base and gets in, and I do the same after putting the cats in the second car with security.

I get in and close the door behind me, sighing as I look over at Taylor who's pulling her hood down so it's no longer covering her face. The bruises on her face have faded to a yellow colour which makes it easier for her to cover them, but the ones on her body are still pretty bad. She catches me staring and gives me a funny look, "what?" She laughs as she looks back to me, waiting for an answer. "I'm just admiring how beautiful you are." I smirk which makes her blush. "You're such a flirt." She laughs as she shakes her head and her hair flows freely around her shoulders.

It's only been two weeks since we aired our feelings and things have been better than ever between us. We haven't really told anyone since we're trying to get used to it ourselves and so far the only person that knows is Blake, although that's probably about to change since we're staying with Taylor's parents for the next couple of days until the security systems get replaced and locks changed at Taylor's house, after the last time we just wanted to be safe.

"Babe?" Taylor touches my hand and I'm broken away from my trance. "Yea, sorry." I smile and look up at her, her soft eyes giving me a source of comfort and security. I squeeze her hand three times as I glance back towards the window, but her breathy laugh brings me back. "You always do that, squeeze my hand three times." She observes and I look down at our entwined hands, "my mom always did it when when I was a kid. If I was scared she would squeeze my hand to say I love you, she still does it when I'm about to walk a runway or do a press event. She always squeezes my hand three times and I know what she's trying to say and it calms me down, I guess I've just adopted it."

She smiles as she looks down at our hands, stroking my hand with her thumb. "I like that, I never realised there was a meaning behind it." I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my body as she rests her head on my shoulder. "I love you too." She says and the corners of my lips turn into a soft grin.

Maisie starts babbling and we both chuckle as we turn to look at her. "We love you too, bug." She reaches over to rest her hand on the baby as she babbles away to herself, that's her new thing.

"This is going to be fun." Taylor laughs as we pull into her parents driveway. They've been drilling her for information on what happened with Adam and she's just not comfortable talking about it, they have no idea what she's been through. "You'll be fine, it's gonna be okay." I smile and turn to open the door but as I go to step out she squeezes my hand three times before letting go and I look back with a small smile on my face as she wears the same.

I take Maisie's car seat out of the car and Taylor gets the cats from the second car as security bring our bags. "Mom? Dad?" Taylor calls through the house as we step inside and when Scott and Andrea appear, she sits the cats down on the ground and her parents warily wrap her in individual hugs. "How are you, honey?" Andrea asks her as I kneel down to take Maisie out of her car seat and they make light conversation, Taylor avoiding the topic she knows they really wanna talk about.