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new year's eve

"HANG ON!" bellowed haley. she was in the middle of rolling a batch of cinnamon rolls to be placed in the oven when a loud knocking on the door interrupted her thoughts. she knew who it was, of course. she just wanted to make kayla wait a little longer.

the knocking didn't let up.

"alright, alright, i'm COMING!" haley called, annoyed as she shuffled towards the door, hands dusted with flour.

"dude, i was freezing my fucking tits off out there, a little more consideration next time?" kayla asked, brushing by and dropping her bags, scarf and all onto the floor.

"dude," mimicked haley, "wear a bra."

"now why the hell would i do that when i could look like a classy, sexy parisian with my blouse half buttoned?"

"oh, i dunno, maybe because it's like thirty degrees outside? what else would you expect to your tits except freeze?" haley asked as she hunched over her rolls once more.

"where have you been this christmas?" kayla asked, slumping on the couch.

"i've been here the whole time!" haley exclaimed, shoving her baking pan into the oven. "spent it with rora, theo, james, and the rest of their family at their home," she explained. "cole spent his with bella and charlie in los angeles and zendaya's in london with tom right now, i think."

"and your brother?"

"sweden. what about you, your grandpa hasn't been answering his door for awhile so i figured he might be out?"

"yeah, we met up with mom and dad in florida. there was tension because i was there, god forbid their republican friends richer than them find out about their lesbian daughter," kayla scoffed. "so we had a christmas dinner there if you could even call it that and we left on the first plane outta there."

"ah." haley cleared her throat. what the hell would a person say to that? "i'm sorry?"

"i'm not. i hated every bit of it. and since grandpa's in brooklyn hanging with his posh stylist friends, i chose to go here." she concluded. "what've you been doing?"

"well, i plan to release an album in the next year, so i'm working on a couple more songs for that," haley said as she dusted off the flour on her pants. "i want it to be the only music i'll ever release. it's gonna be quite long anyways since some songs are from, like two to three years ago."

"ever?" kayla repeated.

"well, i dunno for sure, but for now that's my aim. maybe a couple of collabs here and there but nothing as major as this."

"ah."

"i'm planning to release twenty songs in it." haley added casually.

"hey your phones ringing... wait what??"

"what?" haley asked, walking to her bedroom.

"twenty songs? did i hear you right?" kayla followed her, fazed.

"actually, it's twenty-one. that's the goal."

"and how many do you have right now?"

"i have around nineteen right now, i think." haley replied, picking up both her phones.

"wait, why do you have two phones? also, why twenty-one?"

"uh, so this one," haley said, holding up a black iPhone x, "is my business phone. this," she said as she held up a white iPhone 13, "is my personal.

"and i have twenty-one songs on the album since i have a song titled 21. it's also my favorite number and it's the number of times i've seen my parents' romance movie , two weeks notice. and it was the age i turned the year my parents died. not that i'm happy the died or anything," she added hastily.

"you got some serious taylor swift shit going on there if you ask me." kayla stated.

"no!" haley laughed. "i could never."

she sat on her bed and began answering texts on her phone while kayla went through her closet.

"damn, look at all the couture you have here! they let you keep these?"

"those are custom from alainn, and they let me choose the ones i like. some of those are from red carpets, photoshoots and stuff." haley answered, not looking up.

"and here are your regular clothes. why're they so few?" kayla asked, pushing various hangers aside.

"most of my wardrobe is in LA." haley replied, glancing at kayla.

a beat later, she noticed her reaching for a box at the bottom left on the closet which had a sweater on top of it, and her heart rate increased.

"don't touch that!" she cried hastily.

kayla's eyes widened in alarm. "fuck! i'll put it down, alright?" she made a show of gingerly setting it down back where it was.

she was itching to ask what was in there, of course, but didn't have the heart to.

kayla stepped outside the room while haley took a couple of calming breaths. inside the box was a bunch of pictures and items that reminded her of timothee.

the annotated books he sent her for her 23rd birthday. the bad poetry notebooks he gave. two framed photos of the two of them in boston. a photobooth picture strip. a necklace he gave her the previous christmas. folded pieces of paper that had random scribbles.

the sweater on top of the box was his. it was her favorite among the ones that he had, and she wore it often. she still did sometimes, even to that day, but when she would, it probably meant that she was feeling really down. it was the sweater that she was wearing on the day of their breakup, and he didn't even notice that when he was in her apartment.

"how was loverboy's birthday?" kayla called from outside. haley got up and met her on the sofa, in front of the large television set.

"hmm?"

"he turned how old again on the twenty-seventh?"

"twenty-six," haley answered immediately.

"how'd ya celebrate?"

"i wasn't invited to a big party, if that's what you're asking. if you forgot, we broke up and he made it clear he doesn't want anything to do with me. kinda hard, considering that we'll be filming a movie in january but oh well." sighed haley. "but i did pull up in front of his place and stare at his window for a long time."

"shit."

"yup."

"can i see what you're writing?"

"sure. but some songs are from two years ago."

"you mentioned that already."

haley put forth a list of titles and told kayla to choose a single song for her to sing, solely based off the titles.

"pancakes for dinner?" kayla asked incredulously.

"is that your choice?"

"hang on, let me just..." she squinted at the titles. "pancakes for dinner and feels like." kayla decided.

"wow, you chose the happy songs."

"happy songs?"

"it's super hard to explain, but basically there are Happy Songs and Sad Songs and they are subdivided into what i call Relationship Songs and Self Problems Songs."

"thing is, i kinda understand what you mean, and i dunno if that's a good thing or not."

"right?! anyways, you chose the Happy Relationship Songs."

"that's great and all, but i'm just curious. you aren't releasing 'mean it'?"

"mean it?" haley asked, confused.

"you know, that snippet you posted on instagram in like, early 2020? the one that goes 'and maybe that thing you said under your breath, you mean it... i know you mean it'?"

"oh, that one!" haley's face dawned with recognition. "it didn't make the cut, sadly."

"oh. it was really good, though."

"it was okay. wrote it about my abusive ex."

"timothée?!" kayla asked, aghast.

"god, no. his name was alex. he was a dickhead."

"most boys are, unfortunately. did you write songs about timothée too?"

"lots, but most of them are about how i messed it all up, so."

"what are the songs you're writing now about?"

haley bit her lip. well, there's one about you, she wanted to say. but she didn't.

"about how i pulled up in front of his apartment and couldn't bring myself to call and greet him." she replied, scrolling through voice memos for demos of the 'Happy Relationship Songs' kayla requested.

"how many are getting music videos?"

"uh. like, five? and then six songs'll have special music lyric videos then the rest have standard."

"gets."

that was a lie; kayla didn't understand shit about what haley just said. sometimes you just gotta roll with it.

ੈ✩‧˚ *ೃ༄ ੈ✩‧˚ *ೃ༄ ੈ✩‧˚ *ೃ༄

TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN!

"SIX!" screamed haley, glass of wine sloshing in one hand, the other slung around kayla's shoulders.

the two girls had stayed up, watching along with anderson cooper and andy cohen on CNN as they hosted the new year's eve countdown. and though times square wasn't that far away, they chose to stay inside, because as kayla did point out, it was fucking freezing.

"THREE, TWO, ONE!" kayla bellowed. "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" at that moment, an array of fireworks launched into the sky.

"THERE!" haley pushed kayla to the window and they both clambered to see the display from where they were.

"fucking magnificent." said kayla, her words blurring together.

"happy new year," haley said, drunk with alcohol and adrenaline. it was only time she noticed how close she and kayla actually were.

their foreheads were almost touching, smiles lopsided and flimsy.

and since they were both tipsy, kayla went ahead and crushed their lips together.

haley felt like her brain short circuited. fuck it.

"take it inside," whispered haley, shutting off the television while her neck was being covered in little kisses.

they staggered blindly to the bedroom, kayla kicking the door open aggressively while haley tore off the buttons of her blouse.

"bet you haven't done any of this with a girl before, huh?" kayla asked, once they were both tired and properly under the sheets, the remaining effects of the alcohol wearing off.

"never done any of that with a man, either." haley murmured, before drifting off.

happy new year everyone!! hope you're all doing well and that this year

will be way better than the past two. i really want this to hurry to

the good parts without it being less detailed, so i'm gonna try to post more.

also the sweater she has is the one in the timmy gif in the intro chapter :))

I MISS YOU, I'M SORRY