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

senior year

Senior year.

Spring semester is a time filled with excitement and uncertainty. When the future can hold anything. As the weather gets warmer, the graduation gowns are fitted, the kegs are flowing, and everyone is submitting their applications for grad schools or their first 'big kid' jobs. Everyone is making plans for their life beyond everything that they have known for the last four years.

For Travis Kelce, the end of the school year approaching also means the biggest weekend of his life: the NFL draft.

He saw Jason through it two years ago.  Travis was a first-hand witness to the stress and the anxiety of it all. The pacing of floorboards, the pining, the waiting, the hoping... Travis doesn't think he's looking forward to it being his own turn. He wants it to be over, wants to know the result already. Even if it doesn't go the way that he wants it to and he's not drafted into the league, he wants to not be stuck in limbo anymore.

It's been weighing on him. His sweet girlfriend Taylor knows that- she's been extra tender with him lately. It hasn't gone unnoticed, nor unappreciated. The little gestures of love- making him lunch, leaving notes of encouragement around his space, cleaning his bathroom and kitchen for him- it's all meant the world to him.

Today, she's sitting with him in the quad, soaking up the sun and making sure that he stays on task as he studies for his criminology exam, even if his mind has drifted far away.

"Babe," she says softly, "come on. This reading is really important. You've been staring at the book for 10 minutes and haven't turned the page or highlighted anything." She taps his forearm lightly with the capped tip of the orange highlighter. "I wish I could learn it for you, but I can't."

He sighs. "I'm sorry, Tay. I don't wanna let you down."

"You won't ever let me down," she assures him, "but you've gotta get this degree. You really do. You're so fucking close, Trav."

He sighs, rubbing his temple with two fingers. "The NFL isn't gonna care if I've got a criminal justice degree." The words just slip out of his mouth- it's a mindset that he's been fighting off so hard and long. Taylor knows it too. But saying those words aloud... not only is it admitting that he's lost his motivation, giving into the senior slump, but it's also assuming that he's going to make it to the NFL. He might not get drafted, at the end of the day.

Taylor doesn't want to be the one to point out that reality. She knows that he's so aware of it already. Still, he might need a reminder right now. "Trav, babe, if that draft doesn't go the way that we want it to... you're going to have to get a job. You can't stay in school for another semester to make up the classes you failed. Your scholarship is going to run out and you can't pay for the tuition to make it up."

"I know," he sighs. "It's just... we'll know in a week."

She squeezes his shoulder. "It's okay. It's all going to work out the way that it's supposed to, huh?"

Travis swallows. Of their whole graduating class, there's one person who hasn't started thinking about jobs yet. That person is Taylor. A few months ago, when he made the decision to enter the draft, she'd held his hand and promised him they'd do it together. She'd go wherever he goes.

And they really can't wait to start a new phase of their lives, to build it together. Her friends tease her that it just means that she'll never get to have her own bedroom ever again, but really, she wouldn't want it any other way. Still, Travis feels horrible. He feels like he's holding her up. She can't apply for jobs if she doesn't know where she's going to be moving to.

"I'm really sorry, baby," he mutters, reaching his arm around her waist and rubbing her hip. "I'm sorry that I'm putting you through all of this. You're the best ever and you don't deserve-"