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

contracts

She walks into her apartment building and breathes a sigh of relief. She's made it through the lineup of cameras, the flashing lights decorating the path to her building. The superstar runs her hand through her hair as she stands in the elevator, the football player beside her, maintaining a distance between the two. Just like the contract said- handsy in public, and several feet between them at all times in private. They can put out the news stories and both of them can get some press. They'll be the perfect all-American pair. He'll get the boost in his career that he was hoping for, just a few years short of retirement. She'll reclaim her title of 'America's Sweetheart.'

She lost that one when she moved to England for six years, that's for sure.

Their relationship is a PR stunt, that's it. But it's a damn good one. And she genuinely enjoys his company. So, after the paparazzi were particularly bad tonight, screaming at them and peering in through the windows of the restaurant with a long lens, she turns to him. "You're welcome to come in for a drink if you want. I've got a fully stocked bar and took up mixology over the pandemic. I make a damn good drink, if I do say so myself." Her heart is beating fast as she speaks, as though it took every ounce of courage within her to utter the words.

His face flushes a bright red as he stands with his hands in his pockets. "Taylor, I..."

"No, I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head, realizing the mistake she's made almost as soon as she'd made the invitation. "I shouldn't have asked."

She berates herself in the private of her own mind. Of course he's not allowed to do that. It's in the contract he signed- he must not step foot inside of her apartment. Those walls are confines of privacy. It was a clause that she put into the document herself.

So why is it that when she walks in, she finds herself wishing he was still there?

The last few months have been a certain type of lonely that she hasn't felt in a very long time. That she thought she'd never have to feel again. She thought she was going to be with Joe for life, honestly. Sure, they had their differences. Every couple did. But they were easy to overlook... until they weren't. That's when she knew it was over... well before she actually worked up the courage to tell him to get out of her house.

When he left, that's when the loneliness took over. It came in unexpected ways. In how the buzzing of the refrigerator somehow always seemed louder. It tormented her some nights, a buzzing that could drive her to madness. She's had to stick a pair of earplugs in on more than one occasion, just to get it out of her head.

She hates the feeling of her cold bedsheets now. The sensation of the linen on her freshly shaved and moisturized legs used to be one of her favorite feelings. She'd relish in it, wiggling about to maximize the experience each night. Not anymore. It's just a reminder that the other side of her bed is empty. That she won't fall asleep to cuddles or wake up to butterfly kisses and a glass of orange juice on her bedside table.

As the months have gone by, it's all gotten worse. The further removed she is from the breakup, the more she finds herself wondering if she even did the right thing by ending it. They'd worked through problems in the past, and maybe they could've done it then, too. She wonders if he was it for her- if she'd never find something just as good or better. If the way that her life was, would prevent that. Several times now, she's thought of calling Joe. Her finger hovering over his contact, only being stopped by the thought of her mother's voice in her head, assuring her that she did the right thing by leaving. But Andrea Swift wasn't in that relationship. And Taylor, she just isn't always quire sure.

That's really why she'd asked Travis in tonight. For companionship. Another human voice to fill the silence of her apartment, something louder than the scurrying of her cats in the dark of the night. She'd yearned for some company so much that she'd forgotten all about the contract. He was simply a man and she was simply a woman. And sometimes, when a man and a woman are lonely, it's only natural that they could have a drink together.