“Hey Ruby, check this out!”

I looked up from perusing the table in the middle of the store that was laden down with notebooks of various sizes and colours, along with quite a few jars of pens and pencils – I particularly liked the look of one notebook that had a multi-coloured, glasses-wearing cat on the front – at Lisbeth. She was holding up a book with a brown leather-look cover that had The Coffee Snob embossed on the front in gold. “You should get this for Taylor for his birthday. It’s perfect.”

I burst out laughing. “If you’re sure he wouldn’t take it the wrong way,” I said once my laughter had tapered off.

“Like hell he would.” She started flipping through the book. “He’d get a kick out of it. We all know about his addiction to Gloria Jean’s and Starbucks – he can use it to make notes on every coffee he drinks over the next however many months it lasts him. I’m not sure how many pages there are in it.”

“How much is it?” I asked.

“Seventeen dollars,” she replied, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “Yeah, I know, but it’s perfect for him. I’d get it but I’m not going to his party so…” She shrugged apologetically. “Stupid Woolies.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll get it for him. Give it over.” I held out my free hand, the one that didn’t have a tight grip on the handle of my walking stick, and Lisbeth came over and handed the book to me. “What else d’you think I should get him?”

“Well a birthday card, definitely…” Lisbeth trailed off as she wandered over to the display of greeting cards, next to the sales counter. I picked up three notebooks for myself – the cat notebook I’d been staring at when Lisbeth had interrupted me, another with a blue, pink and white marbled cover, and a third that had a surfer, a lifeguard’s stand and 1993 on the front – and followed her. “Shame he’s not turning eighteen, this one’d be perfect.” She held up a black card that had 18ohshityeah on the front in neon pink script.

“Or a chick,” I added.

“Yeah, that too.”

We ended up leaving Typo without finding a good birthday card for Taylor. I did, however, have my three new notebooks and part of his birthday present, while Lisbeth carried a metal plaque of the Eiffel Tower that had a map of Paris in its background. “Where to next?” Lisbeth asked.

“Rebel Sport,” I decided.

“Why Rebel Sport?”

“Because he goes for the Sydney Roosters,” I said with a shrug. “What?” I asked when I saw Lisbeth staring at me.

“How is it you know what footy team he goes for, something he’s only mentioned in interviews a couple of times at the absolute most, but you had no idea he had cancer twice until he told you?” she asked.

“Keep your fucking voice down,” I snapped. “His car has Roosters numberplates, for one, and besides which his phone case is a Roosters one. That’s how I know.”

“What’re you going to get him, then?” Lisbeth asked as we headed toward the lifts.

“A scarf, probably, maybe a hat if they don’t cost too much. NRL gear isn’t exactly cheap.”

Crown Street Mall and the Gateway were absolutely teeming with people, we discovered as we left Crown Central. “We should probably hurry up,” Lisbeth said as we rode the escalator down to level two of the Gateway. “This place closes in an hour.”

“Yeah and it’s not going to take me a bloody hour to find what I’m after,” I said. “Give me some credit. It’s not like he’s one of my brothers and I have no idea what I’m going to get him other than an iTunes gift card.”

“I’d have thought he’d go for the Knights, though, seeing as he’s from Newcastle,” Lisbeth mused. By this point we had stepped onto the escalator that would take us down into Rebel Sport. “Not the Chooks.”

“Doesn’t mean shit,” I said. We hopped off the escalator and walked through Rebel Sport’s security gates. “I’ve lived in Wollongong my entire life and you never saw me going for the Steelers. Or the Dragons for that matter. It’s been the Roosters since I was six and old enough to know what football was.” I grinned at this – I liked knowing that I went for the same football team as one of my favourite musicians.

Rebel Sport’s NRL section was right near the front of the store, on the left side of the level one entrance. While Lisbeth poked around in the racks of team jerseys, I headed straight for the hats and scarves. It soon became clear that for this season at least, the amount of half-decent Sydney Roosters scarves, beanies and baseball caps was fairly thin on the ground. I bit back a quiet sigh and picked the only promising-looking scarf up off its shelf. “Hey Lis?” I called out, and held up the scarf for her to see – it had white, red and dark blue stripes of varying widths and a dark blue border, with a small Sydney Roosters emblem near one of the ends. “What do you think?”

“Really?” she asked, her tone dubious.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I pulled a face at her and shoved the scarf back on its shelf. “So much for that, then.”

“What about Dymocks?” Lisbeth asked as we headed out of Rebel Sport, toward the escalators that led up to and down from level two. “They’d probably have some books or DVDs about the Roosters. Or maybe the ABC Shop, I think he likes Red Dwarf.”

“Yeah and that probably costs a shitload of money. You’ve seen how much they want for Doctor Who and Torchwood, right?” I gave my Typo bag a little shake. “I might get him some chocolate to go with the notebook – I’ll duck into Woolies on my way home tomorrow or something. I saw Darrell Lea’s version of Jaffas in there last week, I reckon he’d like those.”

“So we’re done then?” Lisbeth asked, and I nodded. “Sweet. Come on, let’s go get some dinner – there’s an Indian place near Woolies I want to try.”

Our shopping done, we headed upstairs and out of the Gateway, walking down the Mall toward Church Street. Soon enough we had crossed Burelli Street at the intersection outside of the Greater Union cinemas, and from there it was just a short walk to the Indian Home Diner. We ordered our dinner – butter chicken and basmati rice for me, and chicken biryani for Lisbeth – and took seats at one of the restaurant’s tables. “So how are you and Taylor getting to Newcastle this weekend?” Lisbeth asked once we were settled.

“The train,” I replied. “It’s exhausting me just thinking about it.”

“You’re not driving?”

“Nope,” I replied. “We were messaging on Hanson.net last night and he told me that he hates driving between Wollongong and Newcastle – it’s pretty hair-raising for him, especially the drive between his place and Sydney.” I shrugged a little. “It’ll take us longer than driving, but at least going by train we can get up and stretch our legs every so often. Can’t really do that when you drive unless you pull off to the side of the highway.”

“That’s a good point, actually,” Lisbeth conceded.

I pulled my handbag up onto my lap and rooted around in it for my notebook. “So basically,” I said as I found my notebook and started flipping through it for the train times that Taylor and I had agreed on, “I’m going to stay over at his place Friday night, so we can get an early train from Towradgi the next morning – it’s the closest station to his place.” I found the page I was looking for and traced my finger along the lines I’d written our train times on. “We’re catching the five thirty-eight on Saturday morning from Towradgi to Central, that’ll get us to Central at eight past seven. And from there, the eight-fifteen to Cardiff. That’ll get us to Newcastle at around twenty to eleven.”

“That’s insane,” Lisbeth said.

“Yep,” I agreed. “Either his mum, his dad or one of his brothers is going to meet us at the train station in Newcastle, and I think one of his sisters is catching the train with us from Sydney.” I scrubbed a hand over my eyes. “I am so not looking forward to the trip home afterward. Depending on how late his party goes, I’ll probably be getting home at some ridiculous hour of Sunday morning. It’ll take me days to recover.”

“I reckon it’ll be worth it,” Lisbeth said right as our meals were brought to our table. She picked up the fork that had come with her biryani and poked the boiled egg off to one side of her plate. “I mean, you’ve never been to Newcastle before, have you?”

“Nope.” I started folding the rice into my butter chicken as I spoke. “First time for everything, I suppose. I might end up staying longer than one day if I like it there.”

“I’ll expect plenty of photos.”

“So long as you promise not to spread them all over Tumblr or Twitter,” I replied. “Or Facebook for that matter.” I eyed her briefly and forked some of my dinner into my mouth.

“I wouldn’t do that Rue, you know that,” Lisbeth said. She sounded very defensive.

“I’m trying to protect one of my friends Lis, can you blame me?”

“No, I suppose not.” Lisbeth gave me a smile. “It’s nice being friends with him, isn’t it?”

I mirrored Lisbeth’s smile. “It’s very nice,” I agreed. “I just hope nothing happens to fuck everything up. I might like things to go a little further someday.”

Lisbeth’s smile turned into a very wicked grin. “You like him!” she almost crowed. “I told you months ago that you liked him, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, okay, I like him,” I admitted, feeling my face beginning to heat up, and I pointed my fork at Lisbeth. “But you are going to keep your mouth shut about it until I work up the nerve to ask him out!”

“Changed your tune pretty bloody quick, didn’t you?” Lisbeth’s tone this time was very sly, and I loaded my fork with some of my dinner with the intent of flinging it at her. “Okay, okay, I’ll shut up about it,” she said hurriedly, her hands raised in surrender.

“That’s more like it.” I smirked at Lisbeth and went back to eating my dinner.

When Taylor had told me where he lived, to say that I’d been surprised was a massive understatement. As it turned out, we lived less than a kilometre and a half apart on the same street, with Taylor living a couple of hundred metres north of Towradgi Creek. So instead of going home after TAFE on Friday afternoon, I bypassed the entrance to the caravan park entirely and kept on driving along Pioneer Road until I spotted the school zone sign just south of the takeaway place. Taylor’s house was just across Gregory Avenue from it – it was a white brick house with a dark brown tiled roof and a low brick wall blocking it off from the footpath, and a towering wattle tree in its front garden. I pulled up in front, parking just up from the No Stopping sign, and cut the engine.

“You are full of surprises, Taylor Hanson,” I said with a quiet chuckle.

Taylor met me at his front door after I rang the doorbell, armed with a chef’s knife that looked wickedly sharp. “Hey,” he said cheerfully.

“Hey yourself,” I replied as he let me inside. “Can I let Sadie out into the backyard? She needs to work off some of her energy before she settles down for the night.”

“Yeah, go ahead – just go straight through to the back of the house, the door’s open.” He shut the screen and wooden doors behind me once I along with Sadie, my duffle bag and my backpack were completely inside, and I gave him a smile before leading Sadie through to the back of the house.

Once I had let Sadie outside, I quickly ducked back into the lounge room and tucked her lead and jacket into my duffle bag, and glanced over at the kitchen before pulling a neatly-wrapped parcel and an envelope out of my backpack. Taylor was singing as he worked at the far end of the long, narrow kitchen, and I closed my eyes and listened for a little while.

“I’m standing here on the ground…the sky above won’t fall down…see no evil in all directions…resolution of happiness…things have been dark for too long…don’t change for you…don’t change a thing for me…”

“I didn’t know you liked INXS,” I commented as I walked up to the end of the kitchen bench, and Taylor broke off singing to look over at me.

“I love INXS,” he said. “First band I ever remember liking – my dad is mad about them.”

“What’s your favourite INXS song?”

Taylor put his knife down on the chopping board he was using and turned to face me, brow furrowed in seeming concentration. “Shine Like It Does,” he said eventually.

“Good song,” I said, and was rewarded with a grin. “Come over here, I have something for you.”

“Well, if you insist,” he said. He wiped his hands off on a teatowel before coming over to where I stood.

“You either get it now or you wait until tomorrow night,” I said, and waved the parcel teasingly just above my right shoulder. “And I know which one I’d rather.” I waited until he was just inside my reach before holding it out to him. “Happy birthday for yesterday.”

Those four words made Taylor’s eyes light right up. “Thanks,” he said with a bright smile, tearing the envelope open as he spoke. I put my hands behind my back and crossed my fingers, feeling suddenly nervous – the closest I had got up until now to wishing any member of Hanson a happy birthday was sending out a tweet on each of their birthdays. I honestly had no idea what Taylor would think of what I had got for him, and I could only hope he liked them. “Oh, sweet!” he said once he’d unwrapped my birthday present to him – the coffee journal from Typo, a little package of Hershey’s Kisses, and a teddy bear dressed in a miniature Sydney Roosters team uniform.

The apprehension I’d been feeling melted away in an instant. “So you like them?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“Yep,” he replied. “Okay, this is awesome,” he said with a chuckle as he flipped through the coffee journal. “Where did you find this?”

“Typo,” I replied.

“This is brilliant, really.” He set the journal down on the table next to the chocolate and the teddy bear. “Thanks, Ruby,” he said, before enveloping me in a hug. The teenie that lived permanently in the back of my head started screaming He’s hugging me Taylor fucking Hanson is HUGGING ME, and it took every last smidgen of self-control I possessed not to let that side of myself take over.

“You’re welcome, Taylor,” I replied as I hugged him back. “So what are you cooking?” were the first words out of my mouth once we had broken apart.

“Honey soy and garlic chicken stir-fry, vegies and noodles,” Taylor replied as he went back to the far end of the bench. “Is there anything you can’t eat? I don’t want to make you sick or anything.”

“Capsicum, cauliflower, zucchini and broccoli is pretty much it,” I replied. “Other than that you’re good.” I slipped my hands into my pockets. “You want a hand?”

He looked back over at me. “Only if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. I don’t get to cook much – entirely aside from not having much energy for it my kitchen is fucking tiny, and I really only have enough space to cook some noodles or to heat up a tin of soup or spaghetti sauce.” I flashed him a grin. “What can I do?”

Taylor’s immediate response was to point at the refrigerator with the blade of his knife. “Second shelf from the top, packet of udon noodles – there’s a plastic jug in the cupboard over the fridge, put the noodles in it.” He put his knife down long enough to turn back to the stove and the electric kettle that sat next to it. “Once the kettle’s boiled,” he continued as he switched the kettle on, “fill the jug with water until it’s just covering the noodles.”

“On it.” I walked down to the far end of the kitchen, keeping to the opposite side of the bench, and once I had reached the fridge I raised myself up on my tiptoes and opened the cupboard above it. It took a bit of blind rooting around, but my right hand finally closed around the handle of the jug that Taylor had said would be in there. From there it was just a matter of finding the noodles in the refrigerator, tipping them out of their packet into the jug, and waiting for the kettle to boil.

The two of us worked in a comfortable silence for almost half an hour. For as long as it was, Taylor’s kitchen was much narrower than it looked, something like four or five paces across. So the two of us worked side-by-side – Taylor at the stove, poking chicken pieces around in a frying pan, and me at the short stretch of kitchen bench between the refrigerator and the stove chopping up vegetables.

“Can I ask you a quick question?” I asked once dinner was on the table.

“Yeah, sure.”

I stabbed at my bowl of chicken, vegetables and noodles with my chopsticks. “Why do you live in Corrimal? I’d have thought you lived in Wollongong.”

Taylor chuckled quietly. “My brothers asked me that question a couple of months ago, did you know that?” He twirled some noodles around his chopsticks and shoved them in his mouth. “It’s quiet here,” he replied finally. “I did look at a few places on Cliff Road, but they had buses and cars going past at all hours – that wasn’t worth having the beach practically across the road. It takes me a little longer than I’d like to get to the beach for a surf, but it doesn’t bother me all that much. Besides which, I lived most of my life practically in the middle of the city – I needed a change of scenery.”

“That’s fair enough. This is really good, by the way.”

My comment on Taylor’s cooking was rewarded with a grin. “Thanks, Ruby.”

“No worries.” I mirrored his grin and continued eating my dinner.

---

“Hey Taylor! Over here!”

The voice that had yelled out at Taylor and I, I saw when I looked over at the destination board just inside the ticket barrier, belonged to a very tall young woman dressed in jeans, a bright pink T-shirt and sandals, her blonde hair pulled back in two low pigtails. From the way that Taylor started walking faster upon hearing his name called out, I figured this had to be one of his sisters.

“Ruby, this is my sister Avery,” Taylor said to introduce us. “Ave, this is my friend Ruby McCormick.”

Avery stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Ruby,” she said, and I shook her hand. I watched as she glanced at Taylor with one eyebrow raised, and I could have sworn he gave his sister an almost-imperceptible nod. “We’ve got something like an hour until our train, d’you guys want to go and grab some breakfast?”

“Just as long as it’s not bloody Hungry Jack’s,” Taylor said. He sounded vaguely grossed out by just the prospect of this.

“Fuck no,” Avery said. “Definitely not Hungry Jack’s. There’s this café on Crown Street in Surry Hills that I go to sometimes, especially if I have time before uni – it’s not too far from here. And hell, Mum said we don’t even need to be in Newy until at least two o’clock so we can take it easy if we like. There’s another train at a quarter past ten that we can catch instead.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said.

True to Avery’s word, the café wasn’t far away at all. A walk through the Devonshire Street tunnel up into Elizabeth Street, followed by a left turn into Crown Street from Devonshire Street at the lights near the Actors Centre, brought us to a dark grey building with a sign reading fouratefive above its front door. I bit back a laugh at the café’s name once I caught sight of its street number, 485 – it was a very clever play on words. I figured it had to have opened for the day’s trade very recently, as there weren’t many people sitting at its tables. The three of us claimed a table near the front window, Sadie settling herself at my feet, and set about deciding what to have for breakfast.

“What are you doing at uni?” I asked Avery once I had decided what I was going to have for breakfast.

“Honours in Fine Arts at UNSW,” Avery replied. “Major study’s in painting and drawing.”

“Nice. Sounds a bit like what Taylor’s doing at TAFE.”

“Sort of,” Avery hedged. “Fine Arts is a fair bit more in-depth than what Tay’s doing, plus I want to get my Diploma of Education after I’ve finished this year – I need my degree for that.”

“She wants to be an art teacher,” Taylor added. “Ever since she was little.”

“I can speak for myself, thank you Taylor,” Avery said, her tone a little sharp, and she got up from her seat. “I’ll go order for us, okay?”

Once Taylor and I had told Avery what we wanted for breakfast and handed over enough cash to cover our individual orders, she wandered over to the sales counter. “So Avery wants to be a teacher?” I asked Taylor.

He nodded and started playing with a sugar packet from the jar on our table. “Like our mum. Mum teaches Music at Merewether High, so Ave’s pretty much following in her footsteps.”

“What about the rest of your sibs?”

“Well…” Taylor leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling above us. “Jess is a dance teacher, Josh is doing his Foundation Diploma at AFTRS, and Zoë’s still at school – she’s in Year 9 at Lambton High. I think she wants to go to NIDA when she’s finished Year 12.”

“Sounds like a pretty creative family.”

“We have our moments,” Avery said as she returned to the table. “Runs in the family, at least on our mum’s side. Most of Dad’s side of the family lives in the USA, and we’ve never met them so I can’t say for sure.” She cracked a smile. “Our parents are a little crazier than most, but even they draw the line at dragging seven kids on a fourteen-hour flight across the Pacific. They won’t even tackle the Sydney to Auckland run with all of us.”

“Josh is an absolute shithead so can you really blame them?” Taylor said. “He was bad enough in the back of the Kombi, imagine him in a plane cabin for three hours. He’d drive the flight attendants up the wall.” He got up from his seat. “‘Scuse me.”

Almost at the second that Taylor was out of earshot, Avery leaned across the table and eyed me. “If Taylor finds out you heard this from me, he’ll smack me,” she said quietly. “But he told me that he likes you.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “He hasn’t had a girlfriend since he was in Year 11, so far as I know anyway, and he hasn’t had a lot of time to go on dates the last eight or nine years. What with all the time he spent in and out of hospital, not to mention all the recording and touring they do…” She shrugged. “Bit hard to pick up chicks when you’re flat out doing this that or the other.”

“Charming, Ave,” Taylor said dryly as he sat back down at the table. “Mum would belt you if she heard you talking like that.”

“She’ll only find out I was talking like that if you tell her, Jordan,” Avery retorted, using what I knew to be Taylor’s first name, and I bit back a snicker when he flinched at hearing it. “Oh grow up, it’s your name isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and you know damn well I only get called Jordan when I’m in deep shit,” he snapped. “So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t particularly like being called by my first name.”

I had a feeling Avery was about to snap out another retort of her own, but her potential argument with her brother was forestalled by the arrival of breakfast – Avery’s French toast and peppermint tea, Taylor’s bacon and scrambled eggs and coffee, and my muesli and a banana smoothie. It had been quite a while since I had treated myself to this sort of breakfast, and so I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

“So how did you two meet, anyway?” Avery asked as she cut a bite from her French toast and loaded it with some of the mascarpone and rhubarb from her plate. “I know you go to the same TAFE, but there has to be more to it than that.”

“Last night of the New South Wales regional tour,” I replied. “We kind of bumped into one another at Crust Pizza in Wollongong before the concert. He ended up spending most of the show that night sneaking glances at me.”

Avery let out a snicker. “So you’re the girl who nearly made him pass out on stage!” she almost crowed. “And here I thought Zac was exaggerating.” She gave me a grin. “Nice one, Ruby.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s all laugh at Taylor,” Taylor said darkly. “One of the prettiest girls I had ever laid eyes on had caught my eye all over again, can you really blame me?”

The second Taylor said this, a sort of fluttery feeling took up residence somewhere in the region of my stomach, and I found it almost impossible to hide a smile. I couldn’t hide the blush that I knew was rising on my face, though.

Taylor Hanson – the lead singer of my favourite band and one of my friends, not to mention someone who I had crushed on for all of my teen years and subsequently spent nearly all of my twenties lusting after – thought I was pretty. In his own words, I was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. It was almost enough to wake my inner teenie up again. But I damped that down, and instead got up from my seat. “Excuse me,” I managed to choke out before snatching up my walking stick and fleeing the café.

I really had no way of telling how long I’d sat on my backside on the footpath outside the café, backed up against the wall between fouratefive and the organic health food store next door, but when I finally looked up it was to see a very concerned Taylor crouched in front of me.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, and I nodded. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t embarrass me,” I assured him. “It’s just…you think I’m pretty.”

“Well, it’s true,” he said with a shrug. “You are pretty, Ruby. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say you’re gorgeous. You did take my breath away, after all.” He cracked a grin. “Not many girls have ever been able to do that.” He reached over and tucked a few stray locks of my hair behind my ears, his trailing fingertips sending sparks hurtling down my spine and out into my extremities.

“But why me? Why not some other girl you spotted in the crowd?”

“Because those girls aren’t you. That’s why.” He shifted out of his crouch and settled himself down on the hard footpath next to me. “Okay, yeah, I guess I could pick any girl, but they wouldn’t be you. I like you Ruby, okay? Nobody else, just you. To you, I’m not Taylor Hanson the celebrity. I’m just Taylor. And I like that – I like that you can see beyond who I am on the surface, and that I can be myself with you. I like that I don’t need to put on an act around you. I get the feeling you’d see straight through it anyway. Trust me when I say that’s a good thing.”

“I like you too,” I admitted. I looked up at the clear blue sky above us, through the branches of the oak tree that stood just a few metres away. “I guess I have since we met in December. I just…I haven’t wanted to admit it to myself since then, or to anyone else for that matter. Thought I’d get laughed at.”

“I would never laugh at you, Ruby,” Taylor said. “Not unless you did something to make me laugh. And even then I’d be laughing with you, not at you. Okay? I can promise you that much.” He eased himself back to his feet with a quiet groan. “Ugh, I’m getting old,” he groused as he reached down to help me up.

“Thirty is hardly old,” I said once I was on my own feet with the handle of my walking stick firmly in hand. “A little terrifying, yeah, but not that old.” I looked him up and down briefly. “I’d have to say you don’t look a day over twenty.”

He grinned. “Come on, let’s go and finish our breakfast,” he said, and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Otherwise that sister of mine is going to remember she takes after both me and our dad, and that she has a bottomless pit for a stomach. She’ll eat both of our breakfasts when she’s done with hers if we don’t stop her.”

I let out a laugh at this. “After you, then.”

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