Taylor grabbed the deoderent off the shelf and walked to the next aisle where the magazines were. Not finding anything he really saw interesting, he headed up to the checkout to pay for his deoderent. He stopped suddenly as he passed a small display. Condoms. He didn't know what possessed him to stop in the first place. His mind immediately went to Kylie. He knew what she wanted, because truthfully; he wanted it too. But at this stage in their friendship/relationship, sex was definitely NOT an option. There were too many things that needed to be discussed. The main thing being their feelings for one another.

"Can I help you find something?"

Taylor spun around to find a lady standing there, a slight smirk on her face. "Uh... no I'm fine, thanks."

She walked off and Taylor turned his attention back to the boxes in front of him. He hesitated for a moment before reaching forwrd and quickly grabbing a small box.

______________________________

"This looks okay, doesn't it?"

"For the fifth time, YES!" Isaac said from his spot on Taylor's bed.

"Does my hair look okay?"

"YES!"

"Do I smell okay? Should I put more cologne on? I probably should... "

"No, don't." Isaac stood up and grabbed Taylor's hand as he reached for his bottle of cologne on his dresser. "You look, and smell fine. Why the big fuss anyway? Where ya headed?"

"Just over to Ky's." he answered nonchalantly

Isaac looked at Taylor. "Just over to Ky's?" he asked

"Yeah... why?"

"Since when do you care about what you look like around her?"

"Since..... I have to go." he darted out of his room, Isaac right behind him.

"Tay, wait!"

Taylor stopped as he opened the front door. "Isaac look, Kylie and I are nobody's business but ourselves. What we do is just between us. You got that?"

"Yeah, I got that."

Taylor closed the front door behind him and headed nextdoor. He knocked on the door and waited for Kylie to answer it.

"Hey, there you are." she smiled at him as she answered the door.

Taylor let his eyes wash over her quickly. Her hair was pulled back loosely with a few strands hanging down. She wore a small white baby tee and a pair of black Adidas sweat pants.

"Hey." he said. She moved aside to let him through the doorway. As he passed her he could smell her perfume. Curve, his favorite.

Now it was Kylie's turn to give him the once over. "You look... "

"Nice?" Taylor asked with hopeful eyes

"No I was gonna say over-dressed. But nice, too. Yes, you difinitely look nice."

"Well I thought we could maybe go somewhere, but it looks like you had other plans... " he trailed off

She nodded. "Yeah, me and the tv."

"Oh, how original."

"I know. I try to come up with something new every night." She lead the way into the living room where the tv was already on. "I'm watching a rerun of Friends, we can put a movie on or something if you want."

"No, that's okay. Did it just start?"

Kylie curled up on one end of the couch, pulling the blanket over her. "Yeah."

Taylor scooted closer to her, lifting up the blanket and covering himself up with it as well. Kylie re-positioned herself so that her head was resting on Taylor's shoulder, his arm curled around her.

During a commercial break, Taylor started tickling her. She swatted at him, begging him to stop. "TAYLOR!" she laughed, "PLEASE STOP!"

After a couple more seconds of that, he gave in and stopped tickling her. Instead of putting his arm back around her shoulders, he grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers. She looked up at him and gave a coy smile. He rested their hands on her thigh under the blanket.

No more than two minutes later did Taylor start to lose interest in the show. He looked around the living room. "Ky?" he asked

She turned and looked at him. "What?"

"Are you sure you don't want to go anywhere?"

"Do I look like I feel like going somewhere?"

Taylor just stared at her.

"I'm sorry hun, tonight is just a lazy night for me, okay? You don't have to be here if you don't want to. You can always go home."

"You don't want me here? Kylie I'm hurt." he pouted

She smiled lightly. "No, that's not what I meant and you know it."

He let go of her hand and stood up. "I'm gonna go get something to drink. You want anything?"

"Nah, I'm fine." she waved him off and continued to watch tv.

Taylor entered the kitchen and opened the fridge. No Mountain Dew. "Damn her." he muttered, "Always drinks it all." He decided to go with Coke instead. Just as he was taking it out of the fridge, he dropped it. "Shit." He reached over and picked the can up off the floor, then opened it. As soon as he popped the top, the brown liquid went spraying all over the kitchen. "SHIT!" He ran over to the sink and set the can down, then turned around to survey the damage.

Kylie came running into the kitchen seconds later. "What happened?!" she asked in a panic. Her eyes looked around the kitchen and saw the Coke. "Taylor... " she whined, "why'd you have to go and do that?"

"I'm so sorry, I'll clean it all up."

As she was walking over to grab the rag from the sink she glanced down at his clothes. "Its ALL over your clothes." She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing.

Taylor looked down. "Dammit! This is Zac's shirt!"

"Calm down, we can wash it."

They both stood there, staring at eachother. "You're gonna have to take it off first." she said

"Oh, right." He unbuttoned the black shirt and took it off, handing it to Kylie. "Here."

She grabbed it from his hands and ran off in the direction of the laundry room. Taylor grabbed the rag from the sink and got down on his hands and knees, begining to wipe up the mess from the floor. Kylie came back and got another rag from a drawer near the sink. She then stood there, staring down at Taylor.

He sensed her behind him and stopped, turning to look at her. "What?"

"Oh nothing, I'm just admiring your fine ass."

A smile crept onto his face. "My fine ass, huh?"

She took a couple steps toward him. "Yep, you definitely have a fine ass." She knelt down and crawled the rest of the way over to him.

"You know something?" he asked her once she was next to him.

"No, what?"

"You've got yourself one fine ass, too."

"Why thank you." She smiled at the compliment.

They both began to work in cleaning up the mess on the floor and counters. Once it was all cleaned up, she stood in the kitchen doorway and reached her arms up, touching the door frame at the top. In doing so, her baby tee rode up enough to show off her whole stomach. She looked and saw Taylor standing across the kitchen, grinning at her.

"You want this?" she asked, referring to her exposed flesh.

He slowly walked over to her, his eyes never leaving her's. Once he was standing right in front of her, he lowered his lips to her ear. "What do you think?"

Kylie sucked in her breath. "We can go upstairs... "

"We can... " He agreed, his lips attaching themselves to her neck.

"And... do some... stuff." she continued. She let her arms drop from above her.

Taylor quickly pulled away. "Lets go finish watching tv." He didn't meet her eyes as he pushed passed her and walked back into the living room.

Kylie stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. "What the hell Taylor?!" she called out to him as she turned and went back to the living room. She found him sitting in the chair in the far corner of the room, his eyes glazed over, staring off into space. "Taylor?" she repeated "Hello?!"

"WHAT?!" he snapped

Kylie advanced toward him. "What do you mean, what? What the hell did you do that for?"

Taylor sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back. "I feel guilty." he said. Kylie sat down on the end of the couch that was closest to him. "I mean, you're right. This stuff is sooner or later going to ruin our friendship and I don't want to do that."

"It wont ruin our friendship; not unless we let it."

"I don't want to take that chance, Ky. I love you too much."

Kylie got up and went over to Taylor, taking a seat on his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned over to kiss him. "You're not even going to give us a chance?" she asked when she pulled away.

"I can't. I want to but I just... "

"Can't." she said

He nodded slightly, looking her in the eyes. "I'm sorry... " he whispered

Kylie felt like crying. She wanted him so much; so much it hurt. "I'm sorry too." she said, her voice quiet.

"Come here." he said as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. Kylie burried her head in the crook of his neck. The second she smelt his cologne, that was it; she broke down in tears. Taylor rubbed soothing circles on her back. "Shh... Ky come on, its gonna be okay."

"No its not." she cried

Taylor felt more guilt now that he had made his decision, rather than before, when they were about to go upstairs. He hated seeing her cry like this. He wanted to be able to tell her he was wrong; that they could be together. But he felt like that was putting their friendship on the line. It'd be like taking a risk he wasn't willing to take.

"You know something Taylor?" Kylie lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

"What?"

"If we both agreed to getting together, then what's the problem?"

Taylor thought about this for a minute. He figured if something happened to their relationship down the line, the blame would be put on both of them, not just him, which was a fear of his.

"Ky... "

She placed a hand on his chest. "What's your heart telling you, Taylor?"

He wasn't expecting her to ask that. He shook it off though. "It doesn't matter what my heart says. Reality is what counts here."

"No, you're wrong. What matters is how we feel for one another and how badly we want this." She moved her hand up to the side of his face. "So I ask you again, what's your heart telling you?"

He hesitated for a moment. He knew he should get up and leave, but his body just wouldn't allow him to. He let Kylie's words sink in... Listen to your heart... And he did just that. Without so much as a second thought, he cupped her face in his hands and pulled her lips towards his until they met in possibly the sweetest kiss they have ever shared.