the stars in your eyes | t.s. one shots

emergency contact

She smiles as he rubs her arm lightly. She can't help it. It's a reflex, more than anything. Taylor can't help but smile every single time that his skin makes contact with hers. Their day has been nothing too exciting, nothing out of the ordinary. They're just at home, both getting some work done. Relishing in the ordinary, when neither of them are usually ever able to use that word to describe their lives.

Travis looks up from his laptop and his eyes fall to the woman sitting next to him. He's filling out some forms before his game this weekend... typical stuff. Things he has to do every week. But this week... he's got to ask Taylor's permission for something before he keeps filling it out. He's decided. This is the week he's going to ask her.

It's going to be the second game that she's attended. He didn't want to put the pressure on her at his first game... but now that she's got an idea of what's going to happen, what it's all going to be like... he wants her to be his emergency contact. If, God forbid, something happens, he wants her to be the one with him in the medic's room. He knows that. He knows that nobody else has the ability to calm him like she does, the ability to balance him out and help him to breathe through it all if need be. His mom is great. She was his contact person for the last game that Taylor was at, when the two were in the suite together. But he knew, deep down, that if he were to truly get hurt... his mom would freak out. She'd be too worried about her youngest son to keep a level head. And... he's already been injured once this season. It was an injury at practice, so he was all alone. But, when he was down in that room with the medics, he wanted nothing more than to have her by his side. Of course, that was back when everything was different. It was before anybody knew about them. But now that everybody knows... he wants to have her there.

So, he takes in a deep breath, filling his lungs with air. She feels his ribs shift and looks up from her iPad to see what's going on.

"Tay," he says. "I have a question for you. And... you can say no, if you want to. Seriously."

Taylor looks at him, questions swimming in the blue ocean of her eyes. "I'm intrigued. Hit me with it."

"Every week, I've gotta fill out this form before the game with specifics of what my injury plan should be. It's always different because I've got different guests every week... but I need to put down an emergency contact. Someone who's going to be in the stands, who they can call down if I've gotta get checked out. It's the only other person who is allowed in the room with me, other than the medics... and... I was wondering if I could put you down?"

As he speaks, the butterflies in Taylor's stomach intensify. The way he looks at her, speaks so tenderly... but she can tell by the look in his eyes, that this is a big deal.  This is something that's really important to him. There's always immense hope that he isn't going to get injured. Of course that's the goal. But there's also always the chance... and Taylor knows that an injury is a scary thing. He wants her to be the one by his side in a vulnerable moment.

She's grown to realize, very quickly, just how important she is in his life. He's all in. He told her, back at the beginning of the season, when they'd only been dating a few short weeks, that if she wanted to, she was more than welcome to join the all-very-official, on-paper "group" of important women in the lives of the Chiefs players. He had said that there was no pressure, but he would be so happy to see her immersed into their lifestyle right away. So, she'd paid her dues. She was in the group chat, helping to plan the events, and hanging out with the other women, who have quickly become dear friends. She loves it, but she'd said from the very beginning how intense, how serious it all feels.

But being asked to be his emergency contact... it confirmed it all. She feels a lot more like an "honorary wife" than just a "girlfriend." And somehow, that's not scary to her. She'd always thought that it would be, feeling that transition in a relationship, when she knows she's found the one. But every step of the way with Travis couldn't feel more natural. In fact, she loves it. She loves being so important to him. She loves the way that, in whispers of solitude during the witching hours, she is able to try on the word "wife." See how it feels on her tongue, in hopes that someday, she might actually be able to use it to describe herself. Though she knows they've not been dating for that long, and it will be a while before she can use the word outside of solidarity, she knows how right it feels, even now.