Here With Me - Taylor Swift x Travis Kelce

Chapter 1: Ribs

"So, how do you feel about football players?"

"Hmm?" the blonde singer said, not even looking up from her journal.

Taylor was sitting cross legged on her couch while her publicist tapped away at her laptop at the desk in the corner of the room.

"Football players."

"Tree, why are you asking me this?"

Tree went on to explain the situation - a pair of NFL brothers were name dropping her on their podcast. And one of them was, as you could say, interested.

"Well, there's two options here. One, I can send them a letter and tell them to stop talking about you. Two, I can reach out being ... slightly more supportive of this endeavor." The redhead paused for emphasis on the second option.

The singer laughed at the idea. "you're joking, right?"

"You know I actually think it could be good for you. He seems like a nice guy and after all the press with Matty..." she trailed off.

Taylors face soured at the mention.

"You know why I went out with Matty. Press was the point."

Her "relationship" with longtime friend Matty Healy was a publicity stunt to get the attention away from her ex, Joe. He didn't deserve the media stalking him and at this point in her career Taylor was practically immune to cancel culture. Much to Tree's dismay, she chose to be strategically pictured with the controversial figure and hoped the world would be distracted.

"Well with the new album coming out it could be good publicity. And hey, maybe it will go somewhere?"

Although Tree was technically her employee, they had been working together long enough for Taylor to trust her opinion over pretty much anyone else. Her publicist was one of her closest friends, and always had her best interests at heart.

"Don't do anything about it yet. I'll let you know if I need you to intervene." If something was potentially going to come of this she didn't want it starting through their publicists. Sometimes she thought that was worse than dating apps.

______________________________

Tree had left the apartment around 11pm and Taylor had tried to wind down by showering and getting ready for bed. As she sat in bed with her cats, scrolling through her phone, she couldn't help but be curious about the conversation she had with Tree earlier in the day. She surprised herself when she opened the safari app on her laptop and typed "Travis Kelce Taylor Swift" into the search bar. The clip of Travis talking about his experience at the eras tour had gone semi-viral, as anything with her name tended to do, and it was the first result to pop up.

"Speaking of the Taylor Swift concert, I know you went to the Taylor Swift concert. How was it?" She immediately recognized Jason Kelce - as a long time Eagles fan she knew a thing or two about her home team.

And then the camera switched to Travis. "Well, I was disappointed that she doesn't talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings." Taylor chuckled at the comment. She knew this was the excuse given to anyone confident enough to walk up to security and ask to be let backstage. "So I was a little butthurt that I wasn't able to give her one of the bracelets I made for her."

"You made her a bracelet?"

"Yeah! If you're up on Taylor Swift concerts there are friendship bracelets and I received a bunch of them being there but I wanted to give Taylor Swift one with... with my number on it. Alright nah"

"Your number as in 87? Or in your phone number?"

"You know which one." Travis said with a smile on his face and the older of the two brothers broke out laughing. "She doesn't meet anyone, or at least she didn't want to meet me. So I took it personal."