I Miss You
Title: I Miss You
Author: Diane
Pairing: Ryan/Taylor
Rating: Teen Rated
Disclaimer: I don’t own a thing!
Spoilers/Warnings: This is set during the college years post-Season 4.
Summary: His heart is racing as his vivid imagination runs through all the reasons for her calling him in tears. “What’s wrong?” It feels like a lifetime passes before she finally answers.
Author's Notes: I've been wanting to write something for this pairing - who I absolutely adore - for a long while now and, tonight, I suddenly found myself feeling inspired.
He curses under his breath when the familiar ringtone of his cell phone finally breaks through and registers with his sleep-addled brain and glancing over at his alarm clock, the bright red LED numbers tell him it’s only 3:47. Reaching out his arm, he grabs the still ringing device from the nightstand and a quick look at its screen states the caller is “unknown”.
Slightly more alert now, his first thought is that it’s bad news. After all, what other reason could there be for someone to call him this early in the morning?
Flipping the phone open, he places it to his ear and says, “Hello?” There’s silence on the other end which serves to raise his hackles even further. Rolling over onto his back, he pushes himself up into a sitting position, the covers pooling at his waist, as he repeats the greeting. This time, he hears a faint sniffle and he knows instantly who’s on the other end of the line. “Taylor.” His heart is racing as his vivid imagination runs through all the reasons for her calling him in tears. “What’s wrong?” It feels like a lifetime passes before she finally answers.
“I miss you.”
Her voice is soft and he breathes a sigh of relief at the knowledge that she’s not calling him because she’s hurt or in any kind of trouble. Running a hand through his hair, he leans back against his headboard, a small smile tugging at his lips.
“Ryan?”
“You couldn’t have called me later this morning to tell me that,” he quips, his smile widening when he hears her giggle. He loves that he’s able to make her laugh, even more so when he knows that just a few moments ago she’d been crying.
“Sorry,” she tells him.
“S’okay. I thought it was always me that forgot you’re nine hours ahead of us over there.”
“Yeah…” she trails off, her happy tone suddenly fading. “I just… I had a bad morning and I-I wanted to hear your voice and I completely forgot about the time difference. I’ll let you get back to sleep and we can just pretend I didn’t have a mini-meltdown and—”
“Taylor,” he interrupts her ramble before she can really get going, “it’s fine. You wanna talk about it?”
“No, not really.”
There’s a weariness to her voice that he can’t remember ever having heard before and he wishes he was there to hold her and let her know she isn’t alone even if, right now, there are six thousand miles separating them. It’s been months since he last saw her – New Year’s to be exact when she came home for the holidays – and he misses her like crazy. Despite them both agreeing to see other people while they were on different continents, no one’s captured his attention quite like Taylor Townsend has and the thought of being with anyone else leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
The fact she turns up in Berkeley every few months for long weekends which they spend tangled together in his sheets might have something to do with that though, he muses.
“Ryan?”
Her voice cuts into his thoughts and he realises that while he’s been conjuring up images of the last time he had her naked and pinned beneath him in his bed, she’s been talking. “Huh?”
“I was just saying that I’ll talk to you tonight so you should try and go back to sleep. At least your first class isn’t until 11.”
“Ah, still stalking me, I see.”
“Of course.”
He can hear the flirtatious tone in her voice and, in his mind’s eye, he’s able to picture the amused twinkle in her beautiful, expressive hazel eyes. “You’re coming home for the summer, right?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” he states firmly. “And, uh…”
“And what?” Taylor prompts when he doesn’t continue and she hears him take a deep breath.
“And maybe we could talk about you transferring to Berkeley for your final year?”
There’s silence on the other end and he considers backtracking but then he hears her shy response.
“Really?”
“Really,” he confirms. Smiling, he closes his eyes as he repeats her earlier words to him, “I miss you.”
Fin