Two
Taylor Hanson The teenaged guy that was now laying on top of me began apologizing immediately, but in the middle of each "sorry" came a laugh.
"Mmm." I groaned and laid my head down on the ground.
"Sorry, sorry . . . hehehe . . . are you okay? Shit, I'm so sorry . . ."
The guy slid to his left and got off me, and offered me a hand. I took it and allowed him to help me up. Isaac and Zac, who were about five paces ahead, were just looking back at me, staring.
"I'm sorry about him. He's retarded," said his friend. I got a good look at both of the guys and realized that they were probably brothers. Oh my God, they really looked alike.
"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I wasn't watching at all," agreed the other guy, whose hair was long and light brown except for the front portions, which had been combed through with bleach. They were whitish blond and he even had some shorter wisps reminiscent of bangs. He had sweet blueish-hazel eyes that were hidden behind some slightly yellow-tinted sunglasses. For some odd reason, he looked really familiar, but I wasn't about to ask him where I'd seen him before. He rolled his eyes then and shot a glare at his brother. "Shut up, Dave, I swear to God I will kill you on the flight." He turned back to me. "I am. I am really sorry, I didn't mean to run over you like that."
"It's okay," I told them. Then, they both kind of stared at me, and the one with short, spiky dark brown hair's jaw dropped.
"Oh, shit, Scott," he said to the one with long hair.
"This is forking weird!" gasped the one I assumed to be Scott. He was staring intently at my eyes.
"Tay, we're going to miss our flight!" Zac warned me. He began to mess with the hem of his orange T-shirt.
"Go ahead without me," I told them, and began to pick up my handbag and Toshiba bag that held my laptop and CD player.
"Taylor, you don't even know where terminal fourteen is, so we're not leaving you here. Now come on," Isaac told me, sighing and looking at his watch. "Aw God, it's probably being boarded by now. Hurry your ass."
"I hope nothing's broken," said Scott, helping me pick up my stuff. We both ignored my brothers.
"Uh, we're at terminal fourteen, too," spoke up the one with the spiky hair. "It's just right there."
"Oh, really, you're at fourteen too? That's cool," I commented. "It's kinda like fate!"
"Yeah, kinda like fate that Scott is stupid and has a blind spot right in front of him," he replied, and laughed. We all kind of laughed, but it died quickly. We were really causing a mess there in the middle of the terminal.
"I am going to have Clint beat your ass," threatened Scott, annoyed at his brother, handing me my Toshiba case.
"Thanks," I said to Scott.
"Oh, no problem. I'm just sorry, still. Um, I'm Scott." Scott stuck his hand out to me and I took it and made peace with him vigorously.
"I'm Taylor."
"Oh my God, isn't this weird?" Isaac asked Zac, looking at us.
"That's just what I was thinking, it's like he's shaking hands with his twin or something!" Zac announced.
"Oh, no, I don't have a twin. My little brother, Dave - um, this is Dave, he's one in three. Triplets," Scott told me, grinning and running a hand through his hair. Bangs fell all over the place. Dave just waved and said,
"Well, while we're standing here, our plane is probably taking off!"
Scott "Let's go," Taylor and I said in unison, and together, all five of us began to run down the hallway again, and into terminal fourteen, where our families were waiting for us. "Boys, there you are!! We thought we were going to have security find you!" our Dad said.
"Sorry, we had a little run-in with, um - him," I apologized to my Dad, and motioned to Taylor.
"Scott is stupid," complained Dave, and snatched up his backpack from the seat he'd been sitting in.
Taylor offered a smile to my Dad. "Sorry about keeping him up." I laughed a little. Like it was his fault, I thought, gathering my own suitcase. "We ran into each other. Literally." Then, he even offered my Dad a handshake. "I'm Taylor Hanson. I guess we're on the same flight."
"Hi. Frank Moffatt."
"Moffatt?" Taylor suddenly asked.
"Hi, Frank, I'm Walker, Taylor's father," said a man, leaning over the youngest blond boy to shake hands with my Dad.
"Isn't this nice, we're all friends now," Dave muttered, handing the stewardess his first-class ticket and boarding behind my brothers.
"So, I guess you're going to LA," Taylor said, searching for his own ticket in the various pockets on his clothing. I approved of his fashion taste. He had a black T-shirt on, blue jeans, a pair of brown Doc Martens, a few strings of nifty beads around his neck, his blond hair ponytailed, and a very, very cool light brown leather jacket with the cuffs unbuttoned so they hung to the knuckles on his fingers.
Listen to me, I rebuked myself. Not five minutes ago was I threatening to kill Dave for calling me a Hanson, now I'm admiring Taylor's fashion sense.
"Yeah, we've got a couple of shows to do," I told him, handing the stewardess my ticket. He followed suit.
"Shows?" he repeated.
"Mmm-hmm, yeah, we're a band," I replied, smiling. "We're The Moffatts."
"The Moffatts?" I just smiled. He grinned, too. "Well, I thought I'd seen you someplace. I can't place you, though."
"Well, we've released three CDs, but that was sort of long time ago," I told Taylor, and his brothers who were now following us. "We used be do country, when we were way little. We wanted to release something new, and we didn't want to do country anymore. We're more into rock now. I guess you could say we're pop now."
"That's awesome," commented Taylor. "I really did think I'd seen you somewhere before. I'm Taylor, this is Isaac, and Zac, and we have a band on the Mercury label . . ."
"Hanson," we said in unison.
"Yeah, if you couldn't tell by the shboggled look on Dave's face, we recognized you back there in the terminal," I told him, and as we stepped aboard the plane. "We had just been looking at a magazine and we were on the back of a pinup of you, and Dave told me I was about as blond as a Hanson now."
Taylor laughed at that. We both headed into first-class seating. I saw Dave, Clint, and Bob all on a row of seats on the left-hand side, and threw my backpack into the seat I chose and put my duffel bag into the overhead compartment. "We get blond cracks all the time," he told me.
"Scotty, who're your very blond friends?" asked Clint, using my despised nickname.
Tay smiled, as if saying to me telepathically, See? All the time!
"He's made friends within his own species," cracked Bob from his seat.
"Hanson," I replied. "Isaac, Taylor, Zac, meet Bob, Clint, and Dave, the triplets."
"Um, hey," said Clint, giving a meek little wave, recognizing the name and obviously shocked.
"Hey," everybody else repeated. Isaac, Zac, and their father took seats in the very back of first class, and our Dad sat behind the triplets.
Taylor "So, you a fan?" I asked Scott, half kidding and half seriously curious. Scott shed his denim jacket and took a seat in an empty row behind his dad. I took a seat in the also empty aisle straight across from him.
"Well, sorry to say I've never heard any of your stuff except for-"
"'MMMBop,'" I nodded, smiling and gritting my teeth. Oh, the notoriety of being the "MMMBop" boys. Although I was insanely grateful for the success of the song, it sucked to have the word "MMMBop" and the word Hanson as interchangeable adjectives that went with your face.
"Yeah, that's it." Scott nodded, too.
"Dad, don't they look just like evil twins from a parallel universe?" Zac's voice asked, and he leaned into the aisle and examined me and Scott.
Scott and I just looked at each other. "Yeah, it's weird, you guys really do look alike," remarked Clint, turning around in his seat and getting on his knees. At least, I think it was Clint. The one with the spiky bleached bangs and dark hair?
"Yeah, check it out, Clint, we aren't the only look-alikes in the family," said the one with long, dark hair. Yes, it was Clint. Then the one that just spoke was Bob.
"I think it's safe to say we did get to good looks in the family," agreed Clint.
There was a flapping of a magazine and Dave, the one with the very cool sunglasses with red lenses, smacked each of the brothers over the head with a rolled up Teen People.
"Dave, I'm going to kill you," Clint said, raising up his pointer finger.
"Don't muss up your pretty hair," Dave said. Zac giggled, and Dave shot Zac a grin.
"So, you're doing shows, that's cool, which ones?" I asked Scott, who seemed to be able to carry on a conversation. I assumed he must have been the eldest brother. "Well, first of all, we're playing at the premiere of Never Been Kissed," Scott told me, and then described what all they were going to be doing there.
"We've been invited to that premiere you were talking about," I told him.
"Wow, we're just going to run into each other all over God's creation," he grinned. I grinned, too.
"What instrument do you play?"
"Guitar, both acoustic and rhythm," he said.
Isaac's face appeared over my shoulder. "Who said guitar?"
I laughed hard. Isaac has a thing for guitars; guitars and girls.
"I did. I play it," replied Scott, smiling over his shoulder. The stewardess that had ushered us to first-class seating made an announcement about taking off, so we all buckled our belts in anticipation of this.
"Well, maybe you can teach Tay a few things, because God knows he isn't learning anything from me."
"You suck at teaching!" I retorted, messing up his hair that had been so neatly combed in the taxi on the way here. The plane began to rumble down the freeway.
Isaac wrinkled his nose at me. "You are too young to begin the training. You are impatient."
"Well, I'm trying," I said haughtily.
"Do, or do not. There is no try," Isaac said.
"Shut up, Chewy!" I said, bringing back the old nickname Ike had grown to loathe the more it became associated with wedgies instead of Chewbacca. Isaac slithered back into whatever slimy cave he'd ventured from. "So, what do your brothers play?"
"Well, me, and Clint and Bob all play guitar, but usually, Dave's on keyboards, Bob plays drums and percussion and stuff, and Clint is the bass player," Scott explained.
"Wow, lucky, you have a bass player in the family," Zac said, who had been listening in on our conversation. He raised his voice. "Bump up to Bob the drummer!"
"Mmm." I groaned and laid my head down on the ground.
"Sorry, sorry . . . hehehe . . . are you okay? Shit, I'm so sorry . . ."
The guy slid to his left and got off me, and offered me a hand. I took it and allowed him to help me up. Isaac and Zac, who were about five paces ahead, were just looking back at me, staring.
"I'm sorry about him. He's retarded," said his friend. I got a good look at both of the guys and realized that they were probably brothers. Oh my God, they really looked alike.
"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I wasn't watching at all," agreed the other guy, whose hair was long and light brown except for the front portions, which had been combed through with bleach. They were whitish blond and he even had some shorter wisps reminiscent of bangs. He had sweet blueish-hazel eyes that were hidden behind some slightly yellow-tinted sunglasses. For some odd reason, he looked really familiar, but I wasn't about to ask him where I'd seen him before. He rolled his eyes then and shot a glare at his brother. "Shut up, Dave, I swear to God I will kill you on the flight." He turned back to me. "I am. I am really sorry, I didn't mean to run over you like that."
"It's okay," I told them. Then, they both kind of stared at me, and the one with short, spiky dark brown hair's jaw dropped.
"Oh, shit, Scott," he said to the one with long hair.
"This is forking weird!" gasped the one I assumed to be Scott. He was staring intently at my eyes.
"Tay, we're going to miss our flight!" Zac warned me. He began to mess with the hem of his orange T-shirt.
"Go ahead without me," I told them, and began to pick up my handbag and Toshiba bag that held my laptop and CD player.
"Taylor, you don't even know where terminal fourteen is, so we're not leaving you here. Now come on," Isaac told me, sighing and looking at his watch. "Aw God, it's probably being boarded by now. Hurry your ass."
"I hope nothing's broken," said Scott, helping me pick up my stuff. We both ignored my brothers.
"Uh, we're at terminal fourteen, too," spoke up the one with the spiky hair. "It's just right there."
"Oh, really, you're at fourteen too? That's cool," I commented. "It's kinda like fate!"
"Yeah, kinda like fate that Scott is stupid and has a blind spot right in front of him," he replied, and laughed. We all kind of laughed, but it died quickly. We were really causing a mess there in the middle of the terminal.
"I am going to have Clint beat your ass," threatened Scott, annoyed at his brother, handing me my Toshiba case.
"Thanks," I said to Scott.
"Oh, no problem. I'm just sorry, still. Um, I'm Scott." Scott stuck his hand out to me and I took it and made peace with him vigorously.
"I'm Taylor."
"Oh my God, isn't this weird?" Isaac asked Zac, looking at us.
"That's just what I was thinking, it's like he's shaking hands with his twin or something!" Zac announced.
"Oh, no, I don't have a twin. My little brother, Dave - um, this is Dave, he's one in three. Triplets," Scott told me, grinning and running a hand through his hair. Bangs fell all over the place. Dave just waved and said,
"Well, while we're standing here, our plane is probably taking off!"
Scott "Let's go," Taylor and I said in unison, and together, all five of us began to run down the hallway again, and into terminal fourteen, where our families were waiting for us. "Boys, there you are!! We thought we were going to have security find you!" our Dad said.
"Sorry, we had a little run-in with, um - him," I apologized to my Dad, and motioned to Taylor.
"Scott is stupid," complained Dave, and snatched up his backpack from the seat he'd been sitting in.
Taylor offered a smile to my Dad. "Sorry about keeping him up." I laughed a little. Like it was his fault, I thought, gathering my own suitcase. "We ran into each other. Literally." Then, he even offered my Dad a handshake. "I'm Taylor Hanson. I guess we're on the same flight."
"Hi. Frank Moffatt."
"Moffatt?" Taylor suddenly asked.
"Hi, Frank, I'm Walker, Taylor's father," said a man, leaning over the youngest blond boy to shake hands with my Dad.
"Isn't this nice, we're all friends now," Dave muttered, handing the stewardess his first-class ticket and boarding behind my brothers.
"So, I guess you're going to LA," Taylor said, searching for his own ticket in the various pockets on his clothing. I approved of his fashion taste. He had a black T-shirt on, blue jeans, a pair of brown Doc Martens, a few strings of nifty beads around his neck, his blond hair ponytailed, and a very, very cool light brown leather jacket with the cuffs unbuttoned so they hung to the knuckles on his fingers.
Listen to me, I rebuked myself. Not five minutes ago was I threatening to kill Dave for calling me a Hanson, now I'm admiring Taylor's fashion sense.
"Yeah, we've got a couple of shows to do," I told him, handing the stewardess my ticket. He followed suit.
"Shows?" he repeated.
"Mmm-hmm, yeah, we're a band," I replied, smiling. "We're The Moffatts."
"The Moffatts?" I just smiled. He grinned, too. "Well, I thought I'd seen you someplace. I can't place you, though."
"Well, we've released three CDs, but that was sort of long time ago," I told Taylor, and his brothers who were now following us. "We used be do country, when we were way little. We wanted to release something new, and we didn't want to do country anymore. We're more into rock now. I guess you could say we're pop now."
"That's awesome," commented Taylor. "I really did think I'd seen you somewhere before. I'm Taylor, this is Isaac, and Zac, and we have a band on the Mercury label . . ."
"Hanson," we said in unison.
"Yeah, if you couldn't tell by the shboggled look on Dave's face, we recognized you back there in the terminal," I told him, and as we stepped aboard the plane. "We had just been looking at a magazine and we were on the back of a pinup of you, and Dave told me I was about as blond as a Hanson now."
Taylor laughed at that. We both headed into first-class seating. I saw Dave, Clint, and Bob all on a row of seats on the left-hand side, and threw my backpack into the seat I chose and put my duffel bag into the overhead compartment. "We get blond cracks all the time," he told me.
"Scotty, who're your very blond friends?" asked Clint, using my despised nickname.
Tay smiled, as if saying to me telepathically, See? All the time!
"He's made friends within his own species," cracked Bob from his seat.
"Hanson," I replied. "Isaac, Taylor, Zac, meet Bob, Clint, and Dave, the triplets."
"Um, hey," said Clint, giving a meek little wave, recognizing the name and obviously shocked.
"Hey," everybody else repeated. Isaac, Zac, and their father took seats in the very back of first class, and our Dad sat behind the triplets.
Taylor "So, you a fan?" I asked Scott, half kidding and half seriously curious. Scott shed his denim jacket and took a seat in an empty row behind his dad. I took a seat in the also empty aisle straight across from him.
"Well, sorry to say I've never heard any of your stuff except for-"
"'MMMBop,'" I nodded, smiling and gritting my teeth. Oh, the notoriety of being the "MMMBop" boys. Although I was insanely grateful for the success of the song, it sucked to have the word "MMMBop" and the word Hanson as interchangeable adjectives that went with your face.
"Yeah, that's it." Scott nodded, too.
"Dad, don't they look just like evil twins from a parallel universe?" Zac's voice asked, and he leaned into the aisle and examined me and Scott.
Scott and I just looked at each other. "Yeah, it's weird, you guys really do look alike," remarked Clint, turning around in his seat and getting on his knees. At least, I think it was Clint. The one with the spiky bleached bangs and dark hair?
"Yeah, check it out, Clint, we aren't the only look-alikes in the family," said the one with long, dark hair. Yes, it was Clint. Then the one that just spoke was Bob.
"I think it's safe to say we did get to good looks in the family," agreed Clint.
There was a flapping of a magazine and Dave, the one with the very cool sunglasses with red lenses, smacked each of the brothers over the head with a rolled up Teen People.
"Dave, I'm going to kill you," Clint said, raising up his pointer finger.
"Don't muss up your pretty hair," Dave said. Zac giggled, and Dave shot Zac a grin.
"So, you're doing shows, that's cool, which ones?" I asked Scott, who seemed to be able to carry on a conversation. I assumed he must have been the eldest brother. "Well, first of all, we're playing at the premiere of Never Been Kissed," Scott told me, and then described what all they were going to be doing there.
"We've been invited to that premiere you were talking about," I told him.
"Wow, we're just going to run into each other all over God's creation," he grinned. I grinned, too.
"What instrument do you play?"
"Guitar, both acoustic and rhythm," he said.
Isaac's face appeared over my shoulder. "Who said guitar?"
I laughed hard. Isaac has a thing for guitars; guitars and girls.
"I did. I play it," replied Scott, smiling over his shoulder. The stewardess that had ushered us to first-class seating made an announcement about taking off, so we all buckled our belts in anticipation of this.
"Well, maybe you can teach Tay a few things, because God knows he isn't learning anything from me."
"You suck at teaching!" I retorted, messing up his hair that had been so neatly combed in the taxi on the way here. The plane began to rumble down the freeway.
Isaac wrinkled his nose at me. "You are too young to begin the training. You are impatient."
"Well, I'm trying," I said haughtily.
"Do, or do not. There is no try," Isaac said.
"Shut up, Chewy!" I said, bringing back the old nickname Ike had grown to loathe the more it became associated with wedgies instead of Chewbacca. Isaac slithered back into whatever slimy cave he'd ventured from. "So, what do your brothers play?"
"Well, me, and Clint and Bob all play guitar, but usually, Dave's on keyboards, Bob plays drums and percussion and stuff, and Clint is the bass player," Scott explained.
"Wow, lucky, you have a bass player in the family," Zac said, who had been listening in on our conversation. He raised his voice. "Bump up to Bob the drummer!"