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

where you are

There was a time when London was Taylor's favorite place in the whole world. When she was a teenager and in her early twenties, she would dream about buying a place there, staying there forever. In the spirit of full disclosure, it was part of the allure of the string of British men that she dated. The thought that she'd get to spend more time in London.

Then, one day, she woke up in London and realized that it had become her prison. A place where she was trapped.

There's a lot of good memories that London holds. She'd reached her goal: it had been her home for several years. Some of those years were good years, too. But after the shiny glow wore off, the 4:00 sunsets in the winter, the constant clouds and rain... it got to her. Or, those are the thing she would blame it on when her mom would ask her why she just hadn't been herself lately. When her dad had asked her why the color had left her face. Seasonal depression.

Truth of the matter was that she was feeling suffocated. By the end, she felt manic, like a zoo animal gnawing at the bars of the cage she had been relegated to spend her days in. And the feeling in her gut that she had to change something... it eventually became too strong to ignore. So, she pulled the floorboards out from underneath her whole life. Not only her whole life, but Joe's. She knows that she ruined a lot of his plans, but for once in her life, she allowed herself to be selfish and do what was right for her, disregarding what he wanted, or what might have been right for him.

And since then... Taylor hasn't really had a place she called home. She left London heading right to Arizona for a few weeks to rehearse and open the tour. Then, she spent several months floating from city to city, never really taking a moment to breathe. But as the blazing sun of summer turned into early autumn breezes and yellow leaves, something started to change. For the first time, Taylor started to feel at home again.

It is all very weird because any moment of down time, she's been spending in Kansas City- somewhere she'd never given two shits about before meeting him. Now, wherever Travis Kelce is, that's where Taylor wants to be. It's the only explanation for why she suddenly finds herself wasting away her free days in Kansas City. It's also why she's more excited for Argentina than any of her other tour dates in South America.

When Travis first asked her if he could come down on his bye week to see her show, she had honestly thought that she was joking. She'd reminded him how many people were going to be watching and how long of a flight it was, but he'd only taken her hand and told her that there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be. That's something new for her.

And suddenly, she finds herself sitting on the kind-sized bed in a Buenos Aires hotel room, unable to remember the last time that she was quite this giddy. Travis is here. He's in the building, he's picked up his key from the front desk. Then, the updates stop for a few minutes. Taylor's on edge, bouncing her leg as she waits for him to burst through the door of the hotel room, but he doesn't come. The only thing that happens is that her phone starts to vibrate from its resting position on top of the duvet.

"Hey," she says, picking up Travis's call, "where are you?"

"I was gonna ask you the same thing," Travis's voice says through her speaker. "I thought you said you were in the room."

"I... am..."

She only hears the clicking of a door knob. "Well, I'm in the room, and you're not here, and you're not hiding in the closet, or in the bathroom... so maybe you should share your secrets with me."

Taylor is confused. "I'm standing right beside the bed and you're not here." She quickly checks his location. "You're in the right building. Are you... what room are you in?"

"428, why?"

Taylor laughs. "No, Trav, I'm on the fifth floor. Room 517. You... must've gotten the wrong key. I'll call down to the desk in a little bit and sort it. You just come here. I want to be in your arms right now."