"Hey, you," Taylor brought a large cup of water with a lid and straw into the living room of their New York apartment the day after New Year's and offered it to her girlfriend.
They'd gotten back from upstate the evening before. Grace made Taylor drive very slowly on the way home because she had a lot of anxiety about being in the car again, especially with the winter roads. She had a mask over her eyes, still sensitive to too much light and quick movement. Most of the concussion symptoms were fading like the bruises and cuts on Grace's skin, but headaches lingered sometimes.
She had problems with her memory still, sometimes a little more dazed than she probably should have been. She got the okay to go home and try to resume normal light activities and physiotherapy for both arms and her shoulder.
"Hi, darling," Grace carefully used her left hand to type one letter a time on her laptop, it was slow and tedious.
"What are you doing? Do you need help?" Taylor leaned over the back of the sofa and gasped, "Grace Kent, you are not working."
"I am," the brunette murmured, "I can still type with my index finger."
"Nope, you are supposed to rest," Taylor walked around the couch and pulled the laptop away before she closed it and left it on the far side of the coffee table after glancing at what Grace was working on, "While I agree that budgeting for merch production is important, the entire team knows you're going to be off until you get your casts off."
"What do you expect me to do then? Stare at the wall and twiddle my thumbs? I can't even move my thumbs!" Grace looked down at the cast, it wrapped right around her thumb leaving them pretty much useless unless she wanted to unlock her phone, which was very hard to use or hold.
"There is lots we can do," Taylor kept her voice calm even though Grace had started to yell at her. She knew that wasn't really Grace talking, Grace wouldn't do that before the concussion and irritability had become all too common since, "It's only for a few more weeks, my love."
"Please tell me some things we can do," Grace was actually looking for something, anything. She was going to get so bored, it had only been three hours since Taylor helped her shower and get ready for the day and she was already losing her mind.
Taylor paused as she thought about. Everything they normally did seemed impossible to do at the moment.
"Exactly! I can't cook, can't play chess, can't tolerate being in the car, can't play piano, can't work out, can't have sex. Nothing, I can't even hold a book."
"Do you want to play chess? I'll move the pieces for you," the singer offered. They had the chess board set up at almost all times, Grace still played nearly every day.
"I want a shot, an orgasm and to be able to use my thumbs," Grace sighed, "Thank you for the offer. I'm sorry I got frustrated."
"Spread your legs and take off your pants," Taylor grinned, "I can solve one of those problems."
"The doctor said not for at least a week. The stupid concussion symptoms should go away first."
"I know," she nodded, "I was just teasing. I'm sure we'll figure it out though."
"I do not necessarily require my fingers, you're right," Grace hummed with a tiny smirk. Taylor laughed and leaned over to give her a kiss, "You're the best. I appreciate you helping me while I'm useless."
"You're not useless," Taylor pecked her lips once more, "Trust me, you are good company at the very least. I'm gonna go upstairs and take a shower, do you want me to put on the TV or are your eyes hurting?"
"Can you put on some music instead? At volume seven, if you don't mind."
"Music? Feeling fancy I see, what playlist?"
"Whatever one is going to drown out your moaning in the shower."
Taylor dropped Grace's phone into her lap by accident as she parted her lips, "What the fuck, Grace, I am not!"
"You have this thing you do with your face, I just know," Grace laughed as Taylor picked up the phone again and connected it to the in house speakers, "Don't pretend, darling, it's fine."
"I'm ignoring you," Taylor bit her tongue, "Just for that, you get my songs! No Mozart for you today."
"Terrible," Grace replied in a sarcastic dry tone, that was hardly a punishment, "Anything except Dress, I'm trying to avoid thinking about anything dirty. If I wanted to hear it, I'd loiter outside the bathroom."
"Glad I'm pushing your buttons," Taylor had moved from biting her tongue to biting her lower lip with amusement. Grace using that tone, she knew what she was doing. Taylor could tell.
"Good. Thank you for turning it on," Taylor left her phone on the couch next to her as she got up. She walked out of the living room and towards the staircase as Dress played at the seventh volume level through the entire penthouse. Taylor loved that speaker system but she loved bothering Grace more.
Concussion and damaged body or not, she still loved pretending Grace wasn't the entire universe for her just to get a reaction. She was about to start to warm up the water in the shower when the music stopped and text to speech took over.
She froze as Grace's message started to relay through the house. Grace using one finger to type the entire thing out must have been a struggle, but Taylor started to laugh as she heard the message end and the song change.
You're a brat so enjoy listening to Symphony No. 40 in G, K. 550: II. Minor Andante while you go fuck yourself.
Taylor typed her own note and turned on the text to speech, broadcasting her own message right back.
Just for you I'll do it twice!
Grace groaned at the message, looking up at the ceiling as Mozart continued to play. She listened to the song and stared out the window just as the snow started to come down again.
Taylor was back downstairs half an hour later with a smirk. Grace opened her eyes at the sound of the footsteps, she had closed them but hadn't gotten tired.
She rolled her eyes with an annoyed scoff as Taylor landed on the couch, tossed the throw pillow that was behind her onto the floor and kicked her heels up onto the coffee table. Her arm went over the backrest, waiting for the reaction she was so desperately trying to get.
Grace sipped the straw cup she had tucked into her armpit, supported by the arm of the couch, and maintained eye contact the entire time. Taylor started to laugh and covered her face with her hands.
"You look between my eyes and my lips repeatedly when you get in the mood," Grace said calmly, "In case you'd like to prevent me having the ability to read you like a book."
"I do not," Taylor did not uncover her face, instead she reached for the throw pillow and hid behind it as her cheeks turned red.
"Yes, you do."
"Don't say it like that," Taylor whined about Grace knowing her better than she knew herself.
"I like it," Grace's face split into a grin, "I love you."
"I love you," Taylor finally hijacked the sound system and got rid of whatever Beethoven symphony had started to play. She could only take so much of it before she wanted to push the piano out of the window and onto those passing below unsuspectingly.
It was an adjustment to say the least. Grace was not only trying to eat with her left hand but to hold a fork in a cast. She cursed the dislocated shoulder the most of it all, if it was just the arm then she could have at least not missed her mouth.
"I appreciate you cooking... however, I would like to make a suggestion," the brunette had melted into the couch further.
Taylor was sitting with legs pulled up beside her in a chair. Her blue eyes flashed up as she nodded for Grace to continue, she twirled a fettuccine noodle around her fork and then slurped up the end of one that landed on her bottom lip.
"Could we avoid food that requires twisting a fork?" Grace had managed to take one single bite in five minutes. She couldn't get any onto her utensil, she couldn't make the twisting motion.
Taylor's face dropped, "Shit, babe, I'm so sorry."
"It's fine," Grace laughed, she did genuinely laugh, "To be honest, it is the most entertainment I have had all day but I do not think I'm going to be able to eat this before I die of starvation."
Taylor set her bowl down on the coffee table and walked over before Grace could reject her offer to help, "Let me help."
"I can do it," the younger woman crinkled her nose at the idea of Taylor feeding her, again. She loved Taylor more than anything but she was starting to feel really useless. A part of her also liked feeling so loved so she didn't fight it too hard when Taylor twirled her fork for her.
"Here, I'll twirl and you take it. Compromise."
"That is much more tolerable, thank you."
Later on, Taylor made some comment about finally getting to share a bed again. Grace had been on the twin mattress in Michael's guest room and Taylor took the floor on a pile of blankets because Eleanor ended up on the guest mattress and Michael couldn't make it up the stairs so he got the couch. They were originally going to share but it was too hard for Grace to share such a small space with how bruised she was, it wasn't ideal for cuddling.
The night before, Taylor had enforced a pillow wall rule so she didn't accidentally hurt her while they slept. When she got out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth, she noticed the pillow wall had been removed, "What happened to my architectural genius?"
"It was displeasing me."
"It's to keep you from getting hurt. I'm a cuddly person, I'll roll into you while we sleep and like, cause an actual hemorrhage or something," Taylor tried to reassemble to divide between them but Grace was quick to ask her not to.
"As much as it pains me to admit it," Grace sighed, she couldn't believe the person Taylor had turned her into with mandatory five minutes of cuddles after sex and genuine love, "I miss cuddling so I was hoping that you would be willing to switch sides because if you lay on my left than I can put my arm around you and this leg can go over yours and then it'll be as though we're close."
Taylor furrowed her eyebrows, "If you want to try it, I have a better idea."
Taylor propped her back against the headboard and then told the brunette to sit between her legs. She was able to very carefully hold her from behind as their show began to play on the television across the room, not quite time to sleep yet.
Grace held her breath as Taylor kept her in the embrace, she ignored the searing pain it sent and shut her eyes to keep herself from panicking. It hurt so much and yet it was exactly what she needed. After a while, she didn't need to suck her cheeks in, she settled into the feeling.
Taylor combed fingers through her long wavy hair and pointed out one of the flaws in the show that Grace had missed and that was the moment she knew without a doubt that Taylor was the only person she had ever known that would be worth going to the ends of the earth for, even if it meant one day she would have to wear Prada or something.
She knew Taylor would do anything for her and day after day she proved it. She only hoped she would be able to make it up to her when they finally cut those stupid, itchy casts off.