Some Things Never Change [SHAWN MENDES]

October 6, 2018

My mum held her glass of white wine up. "I'd like to offer a toast to all of us being together again. It's been awhile. Thank you to our best friends for being willing to celebrate Thanksgiving early so that Shawn can be with us."

The American Music Awards were on Tuesday, which was why we were eating turkey on Saturday instead of Monday. I was flying to Los Angeles tomorrow and then I had a couple final stops on my festival tour. After that I was doing a series of Jingle Ball shows again, which was a good warm up for my 2019 world tour.

"He'd better win an award to make it worthwhile," Eric joked.

I was up for a couple awards, but I was more stoked about performing "Lost in Japan" with Zedd since we'd recently released a remixed version of the song. In August I'd opened the VMAs with "In My Blood" and it was going to be really hard to top that. Several people had told me that my sexy wet MTV performance had propelled me from being a popstar to a rockstar, which was what I wanted.

"Where are all your awards?" Ceci asked. "You don't have them on display at your condo and they aren't up here, either."

"I have a couple in my condo, but they are in my studio. Some are in Andrew's office, and some are packed away in boxes. I feel weird about putting them all out because that's not why I got into this business. The biggest award to me is being able to get up on stage and make people happy."

"You're so beautifully humble," Lisa said as she placed her hand over her heart.

After dinner, we sat around the living room talking until late. It felt good to relax with the people I loved in the midst of the insane schedule that came with my career. I'd learned to let go of my work life in situations like this and just be me, because otherwise I couldn't live in the moment and appreciate how great it was.

It was especially nice being with Ceci. We had only hooked up once since St. Patrick's Day, and I missed being with her. It wasn't just the sex that I missed, because I could get that elsewhere. Just spending time with her was wonderful. There had been quite a few moments of flirty eye contact when no one was looking, so I suspected she'd missed me, too.

"You probably need to get home since you've got an early flight," Ceci said around midnight.

"I don't want you to have to leave because of me. I can sleep on the plane."

I'd driven her to Pickering since it was stupid for us take two cars.

"It's fine. I've got a full day at the architectural studio tomorrow. My design team has a project due on Wednesday."

We both stood up and went around the room hugging everyone before going out to my Jeep.

"I've been looking at new cars," I said after starting the engine. "What are your thoughts on Teslas?"

"I love the concept of sustainability, and electric cars are the future that way. Elon Musk is a bit wacky, but most geniuses are. It's a great choice."

Once we got on 401, I worked up the nerve to ask Ceci what had been on my mind all evening. "Is there any chance that you might come home with me tonight?"

"Straight to the point, huh?" she said with a light laugh.

"Is that a yes?" I asked as I placed my right hand on her thigh.

"Maybe, but I'd like there to be a full-disclosure talk first. Are you okay with that?"

"What's that mean?"

"Before I sleep with you, I'd like to know about your sex life, and I'll tell you about mine. We're best friends, so we should be able to talk about this sort of thing like adults," she explained.