Professional Publicity Stunt » Shawn Mendes✔️

twenty-six: i know that it's delicate.

"Hey."

I feel a shake on my shoulder.

"Ry."

I open my eyes. Shawn lays facing me, his smile lifting when he sees me open my eyes.

"Hey," I echo, stretching my legs. They're still tangled with his from the night before, the skin-to-skin contact causi.ng butterflies to flutter in my chest. I smooth my hands up his chest, his neck, into his hair, the soft curls fitting neatly through my fingers.

"Good morning," he chuckles, his hand holding onto my wrist.

I smile.

"How do you do that?" I ask, slowly, breath filling the space between my words.

"What?"

"How do you make me forget about it all?"

He pulls my hand down from his hair, lacing our fingers together. "I could ask you the same."

I scoot closer into his chest, cradling his hand against my face. "What time is it?"

"Eight."

I close my eyes. "Why are we awake?" We didn't fall asleep until four – or at least, that was the last time I looked at the clock.

"I don't know," he breathes. I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head. "Go back to sleep."

"Only if you do too."

"I will," he promises, slinging his arm over my body, pulling us closer.

+++

When we wake again, which is just a few hours later, we decide to check out our social media accounts together.

We spend the rest of the morning – and a little into the afternoon – laughing at various headlines and articles, and of course, the fans' reactions to everything. I've seen a few hateful comments from the minority that have found out about my past jobs – which make me seem like a total... "Serial dater," I think, is what they used to call Taylor Swift – but Shawn tries to hide them from me. I still see them, but I don't give them too much weight.

I was right last night, though, because there are quite a few headlines about how Shawn absolutely refused to let me go. Some called it adorable, and others used the resurfaced photographs of mine to come to the conclusion that Shawn had seen them and was trying to protect me – which, for once, the media got that one correct. That is exactly what he was doing.

One comment that does make me laugh is about "Bad Reputation" playing in the distance – a meme, for sure, because they paired the comment with pictures from my old jobs. Shawn even finds it funny and said he would post a video of him singing the song later.

"Wait," I say through laughter, his decision sobering me. "Are you sure?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know," I murmur. "I don't want to make a big fuss about the pictures if I don't have to. I just want it to blow over." I don't want him to get more bad press. Yes, I know any press is good press, but not when I actually care about the person's reputation or appearance. Everyone deserves to know the real Shawn, not a version tainted by my own personal reputation.

"Then I'll just post a video of me singing it because it happened to get stuck in my head today."

"Shawn!"

"Okay, okay," he chuckles, giving me a look. "I won't if you don't want me to."

"I'll see," I decide. "But you can still sing to me."

"My voice is going to be hoarse just from singing to you."

I lay my head back down on his chest, wishing he'd sing now.

"Or from other things."

It takes a moment for his comment to register, but when it does, I gasp, sitting up to shove his chest playfully. "Mendes! That's inappropriate!"

"Never did I think I'd see the day when you tell me something is inappropriate."

"Well you've been inappropriate lately," I tease.

"Oh, you can't blame that on me!"

"No, I can't," I chuckle, turning to look up at him. "Was it okay?"

"Was what okay?"

I give him a look.

His response is to wrap both arms around me, pulling me over on top of him. "It was okay. More than okay."

And damn myself if I don't start blushing. "Okay," I murmur. "I just wanted to make sure."

"Okay."

"So what's next?"

He lets out a laugh. "You never stop, do you?" I shake my head. "Well, we've got a couple days of freedom before I'll have a lot to do in L.A."

"So what should we do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Honestly?" I laugh. "Go to the beach."

"Wait, really?" He moves to sit up, somehow keeping me in his lap as he props himself up against the headboard, arm still tight around my waist.

"Yeah," I shake my head. "That sounds so stupid, though, doesn't it?"

"No, not stupid," he smiles. "I just wasn't expecting that."

"We don't have to," I blurt. "If you had something else in mind."

He chuckles, pulling me closer to press a kiss to my forehead. "We're going to the beach." He kisses my cheek. "A mini-vacation." Then my lips. "Okay?"

"Okay," I nod. "When?"

"Well, as soon as we can get a flight to L.A., I'm guessing. Unless there's a different beach?"

I wrack my brain, running over the many trips to Florida I took as a child. I try to think of my favorite spot, the place my parents didn't like, but I did, but we never really returned. I know the perfect spot.

"How much would you hate me if I said we should go to Florida?"

"Not at all," he grins. "I'm guessing you know the place?"

"The perfect place."

+++

Despite Tampa Airport being fairly small – in comparison to the other airports I've flown in and out of, at least – the fans still manage to catch wind of our entirely impromptu trip to the beach. I don't even know if we have any clothes to wear for this heat, which means we'll probably find ourselves shopping somewhere.

We really didn't think this through.

But in my defense, Shawn didn't give me any time to think! I mentioned the beach and suddenly he was ready to go. How he managed to convince Andrew to let us go – without Jake for security, nonetheless – I have no idea.

But we're here.

And Shawn is taking pictures with fans, as I expected he would do. There's only a few of them, so it doesn't take him long. I stand close enough to hear what they're saying, thankfully none of them mentioning the resurfaced photographs.

They all – of course – think it's adorable when Shawn tells them we're here for a mini-vacation, entirely unplanned. We at least have somewhere to stay, that Andrew was nice enough to book for us, which might be why he was okay with us going because he knows where we'll be staying.

Once Shawn finishes taking pictures, he returns to me to grab his suitcase in one hand and my hand in the other.

And so we embark on this completely unplanned trip to the beach. With no absolute clue of what we should do first.