sweetest little part of destiny

chapter 5

Waking up to the sight of Travis's face half-hidden in the pillow on the other side of the bed is surprising, to say the least. Taylor definitely did not expect their weekend to take this particular turn; even as it was happening, as his fingers were peeling down the straps of her tank top and his lips were on her shoulder, even as her own thumbs hooked beneath the waistband of his boxers, she couldn't quite believe she was falling into bed with Travis Kelce. Her feelings about what happened are complex and coloured with a bit of panic, but the experience itself - that was good.

It was, in fact, good twice.

She's only ever been with Joe, until now, and sex with Travis was - of course - different, but it's the ways in which it was different that her mind has acknowledged but can't seem to articulate, not even within the stream of her own thoughts. The gasp-groan sort of sound that Travis made when he was buried inside her, oh Jesus fuck Teddy yes, like she'd made his wildest dreams come true - it'd pulled a high, needy sound from her own throat, and when his mouth crashed against hers, her chest felt warm and full.

She lets her eyes skim over his face for a moment, cataloguing the slight stubble on his cheeks and chin, the gentle flutter of his eyelashes, and the look of his mouth, lips a little chapped from kissing. From kissing her.

With slow, careful movements, she lifts the duvet off of her body, sits up, and sets her feet on the floor. She tiptoes out of the bedroom in her panties and Travis's t-shirt from the day before, and into the bathroom, where she tugs down the shirt's neckline to investigate why her skin feels tender and finds a red splotch of a mark on one of her breasts in the shape of Travis's mouth.

After she's peed, brushed her teeth, and attempted to tame her hair (the ruthless combination of beach-messy and sex-messy making the task nearly impossible), she goes into the kitchen and makes a cup of the instant coffee they purchased on the way into town. She steps back into her shorts from the previous night, which ended up discarded on the living room floor, and then slips out onto the porch again.

It's another beautiful day, the sun already shining. Taylor sits down on the porch swing and tugs the blanket over her lap, cupping her mug in both hands and gazing out toward the ocean as she tries to put her thoughts in order.

How do you feel? she asks herself. The first word that springs to mind is happy, which definitely isn't a bad thing, but she knows it's not that simple. Was last night a one-time, summer-getaway thing? Or was it more - is it worth pursuing a relationship? Does Travis want to pursue a relationship? Has she been out of the dating game for so long that she's misreading the situation and overthinking everything?

She's not opposed to trying to date Travis. It's an odd thing to even think, given that it involves moving him from the best friend compartment of her mind over to the romantic prospects one, but the fact that it's an odd thought doesn't make it an unappealing one. She can see several ways that things might work out well: they're both sort of homebodies, they've already got a great rhythm to their relationship as roommates, she now has the knowledge that he's good in bed, and he's so attentive and aware of her and what she might need. If she wants him to be her boyfriend, he could be a wonderful one.

The prospective of how good things could be does not, however, erase her fear of how bad they could get. If they get together and their relationship falls apart, she'll lose so much. She'll lose more than she lost with Joe, even. Travis is in her very earliest memories. He means the world to her. If their relationship were to go up in flames, she'd lose a close friend she's had for virtually her entire life. And they'd have to continue co-existing in the same space, awkwardly, until she found somewhere else to live. She doesn't think she could bear it.