Chapter Text
A fruity cocktail in hand, the beginnings of a tan on her skin, and the most magnificent view of the ocean. It had sounded absolutely perfect when Blake suggested the getaway to the Bahamas. What she’d desperately needed after three tiring months of performing across Europe.
And it was paradise in the beginning, when they’d first arrived, but it was slowly turning into Taylor’s personal hell. Because who on earth would find it fun to watch their crush and close friend flirt with each other?
Well, maybe flirt should be used loosely. You’d think they were shoving their tongues down each other’s throats with the amount of jealousy sitting in the pit of her stomach. There was nothing more than light touches and smiles exchanged but it was enough for her blood pressure to skyrocket.
God, when did she get to this point? When did she become the person that would get in the way of a friend’s happiness?
But in her heart of hearts, she knew that this was a different case. Travis was different. Sometimes, in her head, she cursed him for making her feel so much. She was perfectly fine on her own after Joe. In fact, she was enjoying the single life! Everything was normal, until Miles invited Travis into the VIP tent for her show in Kansas City and introduced the two of them backstage. That’s when everything went to shit.
Because… look at him! Who could look at that face and not turn to mush? Then she got to know him, really know him, and every little butterfly she had in her stomach transformed into dinosaurs. Not only did he look like he was carved by the gods themselves, but he was also the kindest, funniest guy she’d ever met. He was close with his family; was the right amount of cocky and confident, yet still humble; he was even good with kids! You interact with someone like that and try not to fall head over heels. Impossible.
So, here she was, moping on the balcony as the party carried on inside the house, downstairs. The music was pumping but she could still hear the joyous laughter of her friends.
Funnily enough, she supposed that music was the thing that started this whole downward spiral two nights ago.
It was only their fifth evening away but they treated every night like it was their last on the island. It wasn’t often that they got to have vacation, let alone have a vacation as a group. So, if they were gonna party until the sun came up for 10 days straight, they’d have an absolute blast while doing it and deal with the repercussions later.
They had just finished a game of Truth or Drink, where the questions were so risqué that most players had a buzz going at this point (except for Cara, she was shameless). Ashley decided to put on some music on shuffle to “really get the vibes going”, as she’d said. The tunes varied from Kendrick Lamar to SZA, Beyonce to Shania Twain, and Kanye had showed up once but was very quickly skipped. Then, a classic came on that made one person groan and the rest of the group squeal. A small indie record known as Lover by Taylor Swift.
“Turn it off!” Taylor had whined from her spot on the couch, squeezed between Ashley and Travis, where she was nursing her second G&T for the night. She was proud of her music but she didn’t necessarily want to listen to it in her free time.
But her friends didn’t listen to her and, in fact, turned the volume up so that the guitar strums reverberated throughout the living room. Of course.
Ryan, the culprit of increasing the volume, turned from the speaker he’d been fiddling with and stretched out his hand to Blake, wiggling his eyebrows in silent invitation. She giggled and rolled her eyes as if it was the biggest chore to dance with him, but then fell into his arms like natural.
Then Miles and Keleigh quickly followed suit. Which had left Cara, Ashley, Taylor and Travis to twiddle their thumbs. She could have sworn that she saw, out of her peripheral vision, that Ashley was about to turn to Travis when Cara jumped from the floor. “Ash? Would you do me the honour?”
Her smile was tight when she’d accepted and then Cara winked discreetly at Taylor, as if she knew something that the singer didn’t. Or, perhaps, she’d thought that Taylor knew why she was winking. Well, Cara… she was clueless.
That had left her, and the giant man seated next to her, alone. It was quiet for a few moments until Travis cleared his throat and said, “I-uh, would you like to…” The way he’d gestured to the other couples alluded to dancing together.
That half produced sentence was enough to get her heart pounding like a damn drum. But he’d seemed hesitant and the last thing she wanted was for him to ask merely because he felt compelled. “Oh, you don’t have to-“
“I want to.”
The firm - yet, somehow, still gentle - answer made her inhale sharply. For one of the greatest songwriters out there, in that moment, she’d suddenly lost the knowledge of any lexical item she’d previously known. Her tongue was tied under the intensity of his gaze, so all she could do was nod and stand up.
Taylor and Travis slotted together, her one hand on his shoulder and his on her waist, just as her voice echoed the first chorus around the room. Their free hands linked and she marvelled at the size difference. She’d always felt like a giant because of her height but he made her seem tiny in comparison. They stood as the middle ground between the other pairs in the living room - they definitely weren’t twirling around quite as animatedly as Ashley and Cara, but they also weren’t as intimate as the two couples.
As someone who was usually quick to crack a joke or something, Travis was strangely quiet. So she told him exactly that.
“A guy can’t be nervous when dancing with a gorgeous woman?”
Oh. She hadn’t been expecting that. Especially the way he’d said it, with nothing but sincerity in his tone, even though his eyes were playful. “Well, said guy has nothing to be nervous for. Especially when said woman is just as nervous,” she replied softly, slightly hoping that he’d pick up on the hidden message between her words.
“Hey, don’t quote me incorrectly! I said gorgeous woman,” he corrected with an exaggeratedly serious frown on his face, as if excluding that adjective was the biggest crime she could’ve committed. “Get it right. I’m not usually good with words so I make sure to carefully pick them when it’s important.” Taylor rolled her eyes at his ridiculousness, but she couldn’t do anything to stop her lips from forming a smile.
Feeling emboldened by his diction, she’d taken the opportunity to move a little closer and readjusted her hands - one to rest on his chest and the other fanned out on the large expanse of his back. Travis tensed for a second or two and just as she was about to awkwardly pull back and apologise for copping a feel, he full on melted. This rock of a man, who felt like pure, solid mass, turned into putty in her arms. It was a feeling so poetic yet indescribable.
He held onto the hand on his chest and wrapped his arm fully around her waist instead of the light grip he’d employed earlier. She was barefoot so she was short enough at that moment for him to rest his head on top of hers. Wow, she’d thought to herself, is this how it was always meant to feel? Safe?
The last powerful notes of the song were belted and everyone in the room came to a standstill. Taylor and Travis peeled away from each other, somewhat reluctantly, and before she could even comprehend what had just happened, Ashley was tapping on her shoulder insistently. “Sorry, girl. Can we talk quick?”
Her tone created the sense that this more of a command than an actual question. Taylor flashed an apologetic expression to Travis before she was swiftly dragged into the kitchen by her elbow. She was about to make a joke about the hell of a grip Ashley had on her but she was beat to saying anything.
“Do you like Travis?”
All of the blood rushed out of her face. It was a simple question but she hadn’t been prepared for it. She hadn’t told a living soul, only her journal, about her feelings for the NFL player. So to say that she was taken aback was a bit of an understatement.
“What?” Taylor asked as a reflex.
Ashley shook her head, “Sorry, that came out a bit harsh.” She exhaled slowly as if to gather her thoughts. “Cara seems to think that there’s something going on between you guys. Is there?”
She sees the telltale signs immediately. The way her voice had become more timid towards the end of her sentence; the twisting of the bracelet around her wrist; the shifting from foot to foot. Oh God. Did Ashley like Travis, too? She wouldn’t have blamed her, not at all. He was the perfect gentleman and then some. But that would make things significantly more difficult for her… because does she choose her friend’s happiness or her own? And who’s to say that Travis likes her and not Ashley? She had seen them interact quite often on the trip, if she thought closely.
She remembered then that Ashley was still waiting for an answer. What would she say? Nothing had technically happened between them, so she supposed she should lead with that. Then maybe hint at her feelings for him. “No, nothing’s going on—“
“Oh, thank God!”
“But, Ash—“
“I’m so glad to hear that! So glad. Because I like Travis and if you also liked him, well…” she trailed off and looked sheepish, “we both know who he’d choose.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. Now was the time for her to blatantly say that, yes, she did like him. Really, really liked him. So much that it made her feel crazy at times and like she could write a hundred songs just about the shape of his lips.
But then she saw the hopeful look in her friend’s eyes, the childish grin, and she couldn’t take that away from her. Ashley had had her fair share of heartbreak and she deserved a win. It was probably going to suck having to watch Travis from a distance and know that she could never do anything about it, but she needed to do the strong thing.
So she kept her mouth shut. “You’re beautiful, Ash, and any guy would be insanely lucky to be with you,” she whispered genuinely, one hand on her friend’s shoulder. It just would have been nice if that guy didn’t have to be the same one that she wanted to be with.