in my wildest dreams - a taylor swift fanfiction

8 - a careless man's careful daughter

SKYLAR

We ended up leaving a little later than planned because I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom and couldn't get out. Taylor said we could walk to the restaurant, but a group of girls who wanted pictures and autographs slowed us down. Louis helped us weasel our way through the people, and Taylor had to grab my hand for me to keep up with them.

Once we finally made it to the restaurant, the nerves started kicking in again and I squeezed Taylor's hand harder. She glanced down at me with a small smile before she started looking for the table and led me farther into the restaurant. I looked down to the floor to avoid meeting Rowan's eyes and almost walked straight into Taylor when she suddenly stopped in front of a table. I could hear a chair scraping and I knew I had to look up to greet him.

He didn't look exactly like I remembered. I'd imagined him really tall but he was kind of short, or at least shorter than Taylor. He had a much darker complexion than me, was kind of athletic looking, and he had similar dark and curly hair as me only his was much shorter. One thing I noticed right away was his eyes. His dark brown eyes were not at all similar to my dark blue ones, and it probably meant that I'd gotten them from my mom instead.

When I met his eyes, I saw that he was staring directly at me which made me even more nervous and uncomfortable, and I moved to stand closer to Taylor. She cleared her throat and gave Rowan a polite smile, reaching out her hand for him to shake. He seemed to snap out of his trance — and to not have noticed Taylor until then — because his eyes darted between us a few times with a confused look before he went to shake her hand.

"Hi, I'm Taylor," Taylor said and the familiar words made me smile even through my discomfort.

"Hi, nice to meet ya. I'm Rowan." He glanced down at me again and I avoided his gaze by looking down to the floor. "M'sorry, I don't mean to stare..." he said, still looking at me and he seemed almost as nervous as I was.

Taylor pulled her hand away from mine to place it on my shoulder instead. "This is Skye," she introduced me, as if he didn't already know. He just nodded and went to sit down, so Taylor and I did the same and slid into the other side of the booth that resembled a couch.

I was starting to get super nervous again because, when I looked at him, I was reminded of how he used to treat me and my mom, even if I hadn't remembered exactly what he had looked like. My nerves made me slide in closer to Taylor until I was almost sitting on her, but she didn't seem to mind. I also didn't realize that my hands were shaking in my lap until Taylor grabbed them with her left hand and squeezed them three times.

"Welcome to Burger House. Are you ready to order your drinks?" a waitress said, coming up to our table. We ordered our drinks and an awkward silence settled over us when she left.

"Sweetie, what are you thinking of getting?" Taylor asked suddenly, obviously to break the silence, and I skimmed the menu that we were sharing on the table between us.

"Uh, maybe a California Dream?" I replied quietly, pointing to the meal on the menu.

She nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, that actually sounds so good. We should both get it."

Rowan cleared his throat across the table, making both of us look up at him. He gave me a hesitant smile that I did not return.

"So... SJ. You've really grown since I last saw ya," he said in a way that had probably meant to be funny.

Both Taylor and I frowned at him and then met each other's confused looks.

"Sorry, what did you call Skye?" Taylor was the first to speak and I was grateful she did because I would never have had the courage to myself.