Chapter Text
The thing is, she’s not looking to start a relationship. Not in any sense of the word. The phrase Hot Girl Summer had already been tossed around more than once – and usually after more than a few shots – over the past few weeks within her core group of girlfriends, and she was fully committed to being fully uncommitted and all about the summer of her newfound Independence. The only dates she cared about were the ones she had within a stadium, the glittering lights from tens of thousands of fans filling up her mending heart just as much as she hoped her lyrics filled up theirs.
So when she hears some hotshot professional football player had tried to get backstage and slip her a friendship bracelet – with his number on it, Tay, like, seriously – when she performed at his home stadium?
Well.
At first, she’s just amused. In a detached, sort of distantly curious type of way. It’s creative, she had to give him that, and surprisingly apropos. In her experience, most of the guys that approached her didn’t seem to have an innovative bone in their body, not when it really came down to it. And an NFL player, at that? Not her typical demographic, not by a long shot. She fully expects the moment to pass, as most of them do.
But the story gains an unexpected foothold in the media cycle, and so, there it is.
Really, the first sign that it was going to be something should’ve been the barrage of texts she receives out of the blue, from a menagerie of friends, relatives, acquaintances, and current-wives-of-former-boyfriends that seem to be uncharacteristically invested in this turn of events.
No, she didn’t know that he’d be there. Yes, she’d heard of him, in passing. Her dad played football in college and they lived in Pennsylvania for a good chunk of her childhood years. He had opinions about the latest Super Bowl, ones that he deigned to share with her when he sensed she was too wrung out to talk back. She’s seen the headlines. She’d already fielded a mid-morning call from Tree. She gave him points for originality, but the Hot Girl Summer must go on, no matter how complementary he apparently was about her over a round of golf.
Even Blake calls her up and puts her on speaker as she makes lunch for the girls.
The conversation is largely non-productive, with Inez stealing the phone about halfway through Blake’s well-intentioned rant and suddenly she’s staring up a pair of nostrils and listening to one of her favorite little voices chatter about the goings-on of her concerningly dramatic dollhouse for nearly five minutes before Blake realizes she had been talking to dead air.
“What are you thinking, really?” Blake asks, once she’s wrangled the device back from two surprisingly strong – and sticky – hands.
“I’m thinking that I really don’t want to even talk about this.”
She’d thought she’d been handling it well, the break-up. She’d sent that email with finality, wiped every trace of him off her phone, and realized he’d left absolutely nothing of actual worth behind for her to pack in the boxes her assistant had kindly dropped off to physically purge him from her home.
Then, the anger had hit. Anger that she’d spent the better part of the last six years of her life in a failed relationship. That no matter how badly she’d wanted it, that mythical love she’d written so many words about always escaped her grasp.
Devastation that she’d spent so many years hoping, wishing their stars would align. She’d prayed to higher powers. She’d tried to dim her shine, make herself and everything that came with her more palatable. She’d tried to make him the center of her world, even if she wasn’t the center of his. And yet, she’d still failed.
Not to mention the absolute shitstorm that had happened afterwards.
The nights she spent writing in notebooks until her eyes blurred and fingers ached, the half-frenzied voice notes she'd probably never send over to Jack or Aaron, the stitches of her life and the way things were supposed to be coming unraveled faster than she could weave things back together with her words.
The phone in her hand vibrates again, snapping her out of her melancholia, and she glances down to see that her unread messages had only increased exponentially.
tay babe i’m so so serious rn
you should reach out to him
i can send you his number
he’s a really really really good one
Taylor snorts. If there’s anything she doesn’t need, it’s another sensationalized headline about her and a guy being splashed across every trashy magazine for her mother and everyone with a half-baked opinion to gawk at while they were in line at the grocery store. Being tabloid fodder was nothing new to her, but
i think i’ll pass. embracing independence, remember!
Her well-meaning friend clearly doesn’t like that answer, and her phone almost immediately starts to vibrate again in an insistent staccato, begging for her attention, but she quickly silences it puts it face down on the coffee table as she lets herself get lost in the Law & Order marathon she’d been half-assedly watching for the last several hours.
Somewhere between tearing up watching Elliot pour his heart out finally – although losing points for being under the influence at the time – and earning the wrath of at least two cats by disturbing their slumber to refill her bowl of Cookie Butter ice cream and deciding to take the whole carton instead, she has the bad sense to turn her phone back over.
At some point in her barrage of messages, Keleigh had sent her a link to the podcast clip. She’d given it a cursory watch earlier, but she finds herself watching it again, really watching it.
He’s confident, but not cocky, not in a way that raises her hackles. He comes across bashful almost, the genuine disappointment when he declares she must not have wanted to meet him showing clearly in his voice and on his face. He has an undeniable charm, she'll give him that. And she can't deny that she's impressed at his boldness. Not many people have the guts to call her out so blatantly these days, not between the maelstrom that is her and the omnipresent fear of angering her fiercely dedicated fanbase.
She remembers that night, remembers the way she flubbed Last Kiss, and not even just once, but twice. She tries to remember if her father or someone else from her team had mentioned anyone wanting to meet her that night, football players or otherwise. But lately, most of her time before and after shows had been primarily limited to her actual friends and family, and the occasional more professional acquaintances that she'd at least had some kind of pre-established friendly relationship with and their guests. It wasn't just the safety aspect, although her security team definitely appreciated the increased discernment. As much as she loved - thrilled in, really - being able to see some the unfamiliar faces she'd stared out at in the crowd up close, while she deeply mourned the meet-and-greets she'd been so lucky enough to be able to have throughout so much of her career, not having to be on before or after a performance was a luxury she'd rarely partaken in. And it had been something she sorely needed. She remembers the way she nearly fell into her dad’s arms after the show, wanting nothing more than to crawl into her own bed for a few blessed hours before sending another round of lyrics and voice recordings over to Jack. She'd already said quick goodbyes to the random assortment of family members that had driven over from St. Louis for the weekend, and had climbed into the back of the SUV that promised to take her to the airport without even bothering to change out of her bodysuit. She was in the air before the stadium had fully emptied.
Still, she wonders.
***
The second sign comes from inside the proverbial house by way of her mother, of all people.
“Hmm,” Taylor can practically hear her raised eyebrows through the phone, where it lays on her coffee table next to a small mountain of cotton balls soaked in acetone as she prepares to repaint her nails yet again. She last saw her mother only a few days ago, will see her again in even fewer days for the next run of shows. And somehow, despite her mother's general distaste for discussing whatever the headlines concerning her daughter were on any particular day, their daily phone call had taken a turn towards that near-infamous podcast. “That name...you know, I think your cousins took a bunch of pictures in front of his locker before the show there.”
Taylor pauses her efforts of removing a particularly stubborn piece of purple glitter polish from her middle finger. “They did what?”
Her mother hums again, “Here, let me find them. I think your aunt sent them to me. Speaking of, did you know -”
And even though Andrea spirals into another tale involving her daughter's namesake, Taylor's phone vibrates a few moments later, and she swipes to indeed find a series of increasingly goofy selfies featuring her younger cousins in front of what indeed does appear to be a locker, one with the name Travis Kelce emblazoned above it on a bold red background.
They don’t linger on the subject, but she’s distracted for the rest of the conversation, and she knows her mother notices. Her mother notices everything, even if she doesn't say something about it at the time. Especially if she doesn't say something about it at the time.
***
The third sign comes straight from one of her own dancers, just before showtime in Santa Clara.
“You know, Kelce’s cool.” Kam says, a little too casual to be truly so. “A really good dude.”
“Yeah?” Taylor says, only half paying attention as she fiddles with getting her in-ears to fit just right.
“I mean, you know Khalen played for the Chiefs last year. Won the Super Bowl.”
She grins. Kam was nothing if not a proud brother, and meeting his enthusiastic family at an earlier tour stop had been memorable. “I do recall that, yes.”
“You should give him a shot – I know, I know,” Kam rolls his eyes. “I hear you girls talking, I have ears. Hot Girl Summer. But you never said Hot Single Girl Summer.”
“It was implied.” She argues lightly, untangling her hair from where it wrapped around the cords going to her ears.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just remember: good dude.” Kam pauses for dramatic effect, raises an eyebrow. “Great ass.”
***
Even her dad has an opinion he deigns to share with her, despite the lingering bitterness he’d held over his beloved Eagles and their Super Bowl loss.
“Hell of a player. Real Hall of Fame material.” He says around a mouthful of popcorn as they sit on the couch in her hotel suite. She'd sent her mother down to the spa, but Scott had turned down the sauna to watch whatever 80s show reruns were on cable. “You remember meeting his head coach, don’t you? He coached the Eagles back then, hell of a coach, too.”
No, in fact, she did not. But he digs up the photo and sends it to her after they've both flown to their respective homes after the last show, and she blinks at her screen at the much younger, round-faced version of herself beaming at the camera with a toothy grin and an Eagles green jersey on, arm around a portly man with an impressive mustache.
***
All of this to say – she was okay.
She was. She had the unwavering love and support of her family, a core group of friends that she treasured, and she had her cats, her tour, and a brand-new battery-operated boyfriend for when she started feeling a little too sorry for herself again.
She was fine.
So what if performing on stage felt a bit like putting her whole soul on display some nights? So what if it was sometimes the only thing she felt sure about, the only thing that felt right, even if it was also tearing her up inside? So what if her friends were worried enough, some days, that they’d fly across the country just so she’d see their familiar faces out in the crowd?
It was fine.
So, fine. She could admit to herself that she was more than a bit curious now.
***
She Googles him.
For research purposes only, of course. The tabloids were going to run with this story for at least one full news cycle, if experience told her anything, so she might as well get a sense of who this guy even was, outside the glowing reviews he seemed to be getting across the board. He was cute, she had to admit to herself. Though, the facial hair could be a bit of a tough sell in certain stages. His fashion sense was certainly bold, and she had to admire that he wasn’t averse to taking chances on mixing a pattern or two or three. But he had a nice smile, one that reached his eyes, and he at least didn’t seem like a totally egotistical nutcase.
“What the hell.” She mumbles to herself, opens up a conversation she’d been hellbent on still ignoring only a few minutes earlier. She still wasn't committing to anything, not really.
on second thought, could you get me his number?
***