GIN AND JUICE pt 12

It was 6:04 AM when you turned onto Shawn’s street. Your headlights shined on him, sitting on the steps of his wraparound porch, as you pulled into the drive. Getting out of the car, you heard him clicking his tongue impatiently across the lawn, walking toward your car. He stood in the grass with his hands on his hips, a judgmental mother tapping his foot.

“You’re late,” he said, checking his invisible watch, “I run at 6.” You rolled your eyes at him, arching your back and jutting your breasts out to distract him. It didn’t matter that they were covered in an oversized sweatshirt, you were sure he could imagine them just fine. It was amazing  Your suspicions were confirmed when you looked back at him and he was staring at your chest.

“Hey, boyfriend,” you waved at his face, “eyes are up here.” His head snapped up and he blushed hard. Scrubbing the back of his neck, he looked appropriately chagrined, “uhh, sorry. You distracted me.”

You smiled at him, fingers twitching to touch, but quickly pulled back, not ready to maul him just yet. You were determined to get this running over with. If you were being honest with yourself, though you weren’t looking forward to sweating, you couldn’t wait to see Shawn exerting himself in the way that he loved best, sweating and panting and flushed with all the adrenaline. He had been going to open gym hours instead of running in the morning for the past couple of days to spend more time with you, but you had suggested running last night. You knew he preferred the freedom of outside without the possibility of surveillance. You also knew he couldn’t wait to get you grinding the pavement with him.

He promised it would be fun. You were skeptical.

You took turns supporting each other while you both stretched, Shawn teasing and touching your smooth, bare legs when he helped you maneuver into the best stretching positions. When he ran his entire palm from your hip to your ankle, you slapped his hand away, giggling and separating yourself from him. He pouted, sticking his bottom lip out.

“Better watch it, Mendes,” you sidled up to his chest, “you’re about to miss your morning workout if you don’t stop teasing me.” His eyes widened as you came closer, standing on your tiptoes and aiming for his still protruding bottom lip. But, at the last second, as he openly panted, you diverted to place a quick kiss on his nose instead.

“Are we running or not?”

He stood there for a minute longer, mouth gaping, before he closed his eyes, clearly trying to control the situation developing in his loose fitting running shorts. You took that opportunity to bend over at the waist and touch your toes, getting a nice lower back and hamstring stretch. A low gutteral noise sounded behind you, deep in Shawn’s throat. Smiling at the ground, you slowly returned to a full standing position, feeling him draw nearer. Your breathing picked up when you could feel his body heat radiating against your back. He leaned in, his breath tickling the wispy hair at your temples, whispering in your ear, “I hope you can catch up.”

“What do you mean we haven’t even–” You choked on the rest of the sentence, his hand biting across the cheek of your ***. Stars burst behind your eyelids as he sprinted around you, leaving you speechless and rooted to the ground. He was halfway down the block before you could convince your feet to move again, not sure if the heat from your sore skin or from between your legs was more distracting.

For you, Shawn’s pace was blistering, but you could tell that he wasn’t even really trying. He hadn’t even broken a sweat by the first time you had to stop and breathe. You panted and bent over to work out a stitch in your side as he annoyingly ran circles around you. When you continued on, he would occasionally bolt ahead of you twenty yards and then sprint back, losing himself in the rush of endorphins he got when he really let go. You were living for these little wind sprints, watching his muscles move beneath his clothes. His back was damp with sweat, his curls tied back with a headband that made him look endearingly ridiculous.

By the time you rounded the corner back onto Shawn’s street and up to his house, he was already at the front porch, taking a long pull from a water bottle. He removed the headband and shook out his curls, spraying you with sweat. “Shawn! What are you doing?!”

“I’m making you smell like you participated in a workout instead of a thirty-minute power walk and ogling session. Don’t think I didn’t see you watching me,” he eyed you, his pupils dilated. Grabbing you by the wrist, he hauled you into his chest, tracing your jaw with his nose. “Oh, as much as I’d love for you to go to class smelling like me, I think we’d better get you showered.”

You exhaled in a rush, unable to keep the moan that bubbled in your chest quiet. The house was still when he pulled you inside, the rest of the boys definitely still asleep. Quietly climbing the stairs, you could feel the nerves creeping up your neck, hoping and praying that no one caught you in the hallway even though Shawn was right there. When his door clicked behind you, air filled your lungs in a rush. You hadn’t realized you’d been holding your breath. He came up behind you, wrapping you in his arms and placing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“Your heart is beating so fast, are you okay?” You were lost in him. His hands were taking liberties with your front, slipping his hands underneath your sweatshirt, pleased to find you weren’t wearing an extra layer underneath, just a sports bra. As soon as his hands found your skin, all of the anxiety from the hallway melted away and it was just you and Shawn and that was all that mattered.

He lifted your sweatshirt up and over your head and pressed your back flush against his chest, cradling your middle in his strong arms. You swayed with him, his lips leaving a trail of feather-light kisses on your shoulders. When his teeth sank into your flesh unexpectedly, you yelped, “Shawn!”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he licked the bite mark he’d left behind, pulling a moan from your chest. You turned in his arms, resting your chin on his sternum, putting on your best innocent look, not wanting to feel guilty for inviting you in. “Mmmm, it’s nothing,” you guided his hand back to your heart, still beating fast but for a much different reason, “I just really like your hands on my skin.”

His eyes darkened as they traced the blush that bloomed from your cheeks to your chest, disappearing beneath the fabric still covering your breasts. You ran your fingers up your sides, shivering from your own touch, and maneuvered the sports bra off, tossing it onto Shawn’s bed. He panted, staring openly at your smooth chest, jaw dropped and silently begging for anything you’d give him.

“Didn’t you say something about a shower?”

You spun away from him, ridding yourself of the rest of your clothes, a suggestive trail leading the way to his bathroom. Looking over your shoulder, you caught a glimpse of Shawn, mouth still open, chest still heaving, before you disappeared through the door.

By the time Shawn had collected himself and made his way into the bathroom, you were already in the shower with your hair secured on the top of your head, the steady stream of hot water soothing the muscles along your shoulders and neck. He stripped down expediently and stepped in, his strong hands wrapping around your upper arms to hold you steady while he peppered your hot skin with kisses.

It would be easy to justify your feelings in the loud moments—the football games, the Sunday morning explosion when Caroline burst in your dorm while Shawn was still *****, the deep groan he always made before he tumbled into ecstasy. But, the quiet moments with Shawn—here in the shower, in the morning when he thought you were asleep but you knew he was watching you, the hours in the library just sitting next to each other while you both studied—these were the moments you knew for certain what you hadn’t said out loud. You loved this boy. You were desperately, painfully in love with him, and you knew you had been in love with him since that first metal shard had pierced your heart and taken your breath away.

“Shawn,” you whispered, overwhelmed with a sudden need to be closer to him, to be as close to him as possible, “I need you.” He gasped behind you, not expecting the initiative. You’d been surprising him for days, but you couldn’t help it. He made you feel so vulnerable and yet so protected that it was easy to ask for what you wanted, everything that you wanted. With him, there was no anxiety, no risk, you felt safe in a way that you never thought you’d experience with anyone. Before, you thought his armor was what you needed, what you could learn to wield as effectively as he did, but you came to find out that he was the armor. It wasn’t a skill to be learned or an accessory you could take on and off. It was pure and unfettered connection. It was that string, pulling at both your chests, that seemed to tighten no matter how close you got to him.

“Oh, ****,” he breathed, pressing one last kiss to the back of your neck. His hands left you, leaving you momentarily cold and shivering in the hot water, while he stepped out of the shower to dig in a drawer. He came back with a condom, barely concealing the slight shake in his hands from the building anticipation. He stood in front of you, beyond ready, catching your chin between his fingers. His hungry gaze bred instantaneous heat between your legs. There was an intensity in it that you hadn’t seen before, spurred by your increasingly adventurous spirit.

“I want you hold on here,” he pointed to a built-in shelf in the corner of the shower over your shoulder, “to keep you safe. It’s incredibly easy to fall and I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?” You nodded, turning and bracing yourself, making sure you had a good grip. Your legs were shaking with the weight of your arousal and he hadn’t even touched you yet. Running his hand down your back and gently caressing your spine, you shivered and arched down, brushing back against his hips. He hissed, pushing himself backward and away from you.

“Don’t,” he warned, ripping open the foil packet and throwing the package onto the shower floor. He let go of you briefly, rolling the condom on, and positioned himself behind you. Making sure you were ready, he reached around your front and toyed with you, his fingers teasing your lower lips and further inside. When he pulled his hand away, it glistened with a substance more viscous than the hot water running down your body. He moaned, catching your attention, you looked back just in time to see him bring his hand to his mouth and lick as his eyes fluttered shut at the taste, your taste. It was the most erotic gesture you’d ever seen and you rewarded him with a loud mewl. He smirked, lining himself up.

Your knuckles gripped white against your handhold in the wall as he pushed inside you. You had had sex a couple of times since the first night, but you were never fully ready for the feeling of him, his strong body filling yours, making you feel whole again. His broken armor always seemed to press deeper into your heart in these moments, when you felt the closest to him.

When he stilled, completely inside, he leaned over your body and twined his fingers with one of your hands, bringing it to rest against the tile palm down. He held it there as he began to move again, pulling backward almost all the way out of you before pushing back in, establishing a steady rhythm. Your head fell forward, the muscles in your neck giving out, overwhelmed by the heady mixture of pleasure with the feelings you were only beginning to name. Wrapping his arm around your middle and grazing your breasts with his hand, he tugged your body toward him, driving your back into the firm muscles of his chest. You exhaled in a rush, not expecting his urgency, but finding that you liked it.

“Harder, Shawn,” you pleaded, snaking a hand above you and into his curls, pulling his mouth to yours. He growled against your lips, driving his hips into you. Your bodies were so intertwined you weren’t sure if there was any space between you, save the momentary separations between Shawn’s needy thrusts. The feeling that always came when you were close, when he was close, crept up along your spine, covering your ribs, enveloped your body like a second skin—the feeling that rattled the pieces of him already lodged in your heart, keeping you from bleeding out. You once thought that crawling inside of his armor was the only way to become stronger, to become human again, but with each successive release, it had become clear that letting him into your body, letting him lock himself away there for brief moments at a time, was the most humanizing action you could take. You felt like his home.

“Baby, I’m not going to last much longer,” he gasped as his thrusts faltered. Your legs were already shaking, clenching around him. You captured his mouth one last time, opening fully and inviting his tongue inside to clash with yours. When you separated, you were panting, moaning for him, on the bow of the ship about to fly. You reached back and held on to his hip, grasping the fingers still curled around yours against the tile. Your toes curled and your eyes closed, scrunching at the corners against the coming wave. He turned his head, brushing his lips against the shell of your ear, and whispered, “let go.”

Your eyes flew open wide and unseeing. A scream approximating his name gurgled in your lungs and forced its way out of you. He held you, one arm around your middle and the other cradling your head, as he pushed inside one final time and emptied his own shouted release into the condom. You both wobbled, surfacing together for the first time. A laugh bubbled in his chest.

“That…was incredible,” he ran his nose along your neck, trailing wet kisses in his wake. You hummed your assent, unable to form coherent words. He supported you while you regained your faculties, his hands all over your skin, unable to control their featherlight touches. When you felt like you could stand on your own again, you both washed your bodies, rinsing off the sweat of the morning. You may not have retained his sweaty musk, but as you pulled on yet another one of his sweatshirts, you still smelled like his body wash. He grinned the entire time and you suspected that he liked you here in his environment, in his clothes, wrapped in his scent.

You snuck back downstairs, hand in his, hearing the usual commotion in the kitchen before the boys left for morning practice. He walked you all the way to your car, making sure you got in, an excuse to hold your hand until the last possible second. He leaned down and gave you several more kisses than were strictly necessary before you could finally shut the door.

“Oh!” You rolled the window down, catching him before he turned back to the house, “I almost forgot.” You turned and grabbed the novel from the passenger’s seat and passed it out the window opening to him. He took it from you with a blank expression.

“Pride and Prejudice?” He creased his brow.

“Listen,” you gave him a pointed look, “it is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone should read this book.” His brow was still creased. You rolled your eyes and shrugged, “just try it. I ran today. You have to hold up your end of the bargain.”

When you backed out of the driveway, you saw him open the book to the first page and grin, getting your earlier reference to the opening line of the text. You shook your head, reversing into the road and driving away, knowing you just had to wait a few more hours until he’d text and you’d see him again.

* * * * * * * * * *

They settled into a routine over the next couple of days. Unless they were in class or Shawn was in practice, they were together. It was all very clandestine. He was always wearing a hoodie and sunglasses to sneak into her dorm. They met in the library at staggered times so no one saw them together. She came over to his house during times he knew his roommates wouldn’t be home. Sometimes they did homework. Sometimes they had sex. Sometimes they just drove around in his Jeep together, holding hands and listening to music. She had become more adventurous around him, but nothing approaching public.

Thursday night, before his last home game of the season, he was in her bed with his laptop reviewing for an organic chemistry test while she read yet another British novel, leaning into his side. He looked over at the title and it said something about Expectations, a topic he hated so he decided to leave her to it and not ask her to read to him. Honestly, he just liked hearing the sound of her voice, but he did really need to cover this O-chem material. Their sneaking around had really cut into his usual lonely study time. She hummed quietly to herself and played with the curls at the nape of his neck. It was distracting, but it felt too good to ask her to stop.

Abruptly, Caroline burst through the door. Shawn felt her jump nearly out of her skin when she saw her roommate stop dead in her tracks and slam their door shut, then quickly open it again to stick her head out.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out,” Caroline persuaded, “it’s nothing. My roommate is just ***** LIKE A WEIRD PERSON. It’s fine. No really, Naomi, it’s fine.” Shawn pinched his lips together to keep from laughing. She had immediately dove under her comforter, as if hiding herself could hide the fact that a six-foot-three college quarterback was in her bed. Her ***, covered in tiny sleep shorts, still stuck out of the blankets. Grabbing her sides, he coaxed her back to the land of the unembarrassed.

“Caroline,” she tried to catch her breath, “you can’t do that to me. You have to TEXT NEXT TIME.” Her hands held her heart like it was going to beat out of her chest. He rubbed her back, tucking her into his side. She relaxed a little, finally feeling like no one else was going to pop into the room out of nowhere. She turned to him, her eyebrows drawn together, “and you! You’re not allowed to laugh!”

He leaned into her side and whispered in her ear with a smile, “but you’re so cute when you’re scared.” She slapped him in the chest. He just smiled wider.

“Y’all are going to make me throw up,” Caroline interjected, “yeah, hey, I’m in here now. STOP TOUCHING EACH OTHER. I’m just grabbing my crossbody so I can hit Party Row tonight without worrying about a real purse.” She looked at the two of them, back and forth like the world’s closest ping pong match, “yeah, I’m not even going to ask if you’re going out because that’s an obvious NO.” She grabbed her bag and flitted out just as quickly as she had flitted in—loud and with maximum wind speed.

“Hey,” she said, her head resting on her folded knees, “why don’t you go out? Aren’t you like, contractually obligated to make appearances?” Shawn rolled his eyes, closing his laptop. His concentration loop had been disrupted and studying felt like a lost cause with her so close to him on a bed. “No, I am not contractually obligated to make appearances,” he scoffed, “trust me, I’d rather be here with you than out there with all those drunk fools.”

She was quiet, her lips pursed, obviously holding back what she wanted to say. He thought he knew the question in her mind, seeing as he opened the door for it himself, what seemed like weeks or months ago but was actually only a matter of days. Aren’t you one of those drunk fools? He internally shrank from those memories, or lack thereof, especially of the night he met her. That night was such a blur apart from their two minute run-in and her wide blue eyes and he had tried so many times to remember their second meeting. Those precious hours were lost to him forever. It was a new feeling, regret. A feeling he’d never, in all his nights of binge-drinking, experienced. He’d always felt the dark was more a friend than the light.

But her light had exploded into his life, and now, instead of chasing the blackness that came with drinking, he found himself chasing the blinding radiance that her presence brought him. He remembered every second of their time together with vivid clarity and that was how he liked it. His life felt revived by her, restored. He was no longer ambling around in a haze just trying to make it from one game to the next, no. He was trying to make it from one moment to the next, from one minute to the next, until he could be with her again. Their time apart was an acute kind of pain that followed him until he had her in his arms again. It was this agony, this anguish when he was separated from her that confirmed his deepest truth—he loved her.

“Where did you go?” she asked, brushing away a curl that had fallen in his face. He refocused his eyes, seeing her curious face in sharp relief. He smiled, “I’m here. Just thinking. You know I haven’t had a drink since that night you came to my house.”

“Oh yeah?” She looked shocked by this confession, even though he was sure she had to know. He had basically been with her every waking moment since that night. “Yeah, I just haven’t wanted to. When I’m with you, I want to be with you. There isn’t much I want to forget right now.”

When he looked down, he saw the tears swimming in her eyes, overwhelmed by his attention. Tutting, he picked her up to curl into his lap, letting her cry into his shoulder. “Shhhh, I’m here; I’m not going anywhere,” he cooed, “I love you.”

She gasped, her eyes blown wide. Her fingers traced the strings hanging down from his hoodie, avoiding his eyes. He started to get self-conscious, not expecting his own mouth to **** him over so smoothly. He couldn’t believe he had admitted it out loud, they’d only known each other a few days, what was he think—

“I love you, too.”

* * * * * * * * * *

You woke up the next morning earlier than your alarm. Shawn had left hours ago, boarding the bus to do team bonding before the game tomorrow. It was the last home game of the season and you were actually thinking about going. You hadn’t told Caroline yet, not wanting to get your hopes up, but you really wanted to see Shawn play in the flesh. It would be the most people you’d ever been surrounded by, but you knew it would mean something to him for you to be there.

You’d used to L word last night. It was a big step. A crazy step. But it was true. It was real. You loved him, needed him, wanted him. This boy you could talk to for hours and read to out loud. This boy you could kiss all day and sleep soundly with at night. When you had reciprocated his declaration, he had been so radiantly happy. You were glad you were both being honest with each other, and you couldn’t wait to see him tomorrow night after the game to tell him again and again and again.

You got out of bed, grabbing your robe, and turned your shared Keurig on, needing a cup of coffee after your late—but fun—night last night. Over the quiet din of the coffeemaker, you overheard mumbled voices in the hall, much louder than the usual morning whispers. You looked at the door curiously and jumped three feet in the air when Caroline burst through it.

“Jesus, Caroline! We have got to talk about you barging— Caroline?” Her face was stark. She was still in her party clothes from last night, which gave you a moment of panic. “Caroline, are you okay? Did something happen to you?”

Her face gave way to a moment of confusion, then to realization, “oh, no I’m fine. But, you need to sit down.” You looked at her, totally bewildered, but sat down at your desk chair, mechanically wrapping your robe tighter around you. “What’s wrong?”

She held out the school paper. Shawn was plastered on the front page, a common occurrence before a football weekend, but that wasn’t what caught your eye. Above his perfect face was a headline in big, bold letters:

ANATOMY OF A POSTER BOY:

Shawn Mendes talks family, his future, and a secret girlfriend?

by Molly Parker

You snatched the paper from her and began skimming.

On the outside, Shawn Mendes seems like he was made to be a poster boy. He’s tall, he’s built, he’s handsome, and he has a God-given talent to play football. He’s a marketing dream.

But what’s beneath the smiling image we see see plastered across every wall and every screen on campus? I caught up with Shawn at last week’s Media Day to scratch beneath that seemingly perfect surface.

He talked about his parents at first, his fierce protectiveness for his hockey-playing sister, all things he knew. He talked about football, about his future, his odds at winning the Heisman, and what it would mean to him if he realized all of his dreams. You frowned at some of it, knowing that the answers were crafted, not by the Shawn that you knew, that you loved, but by the man that still called up his fractured armor, piecing what he could together from its shattered fragments, in order to make it through these interviews. Finally, you reached the part of the interview that concerned you, both literally and figuratively.

A Bachelor, or nah?

Shawn Mendes has notoriously been single for the last year and a half, having left behind a girlfriend at home to come to college unattached. But, just because he doesn’t have a girlfriend that we can see, doesn’t mean he isn’t sneaking around.

According to numerous sources inside the team, Shawn may have a secret girlfriend that he hasn’t gone public with. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, during practice the Sunday before Shawn missed the first half of last weekend’s game, witnesses said they saw Shawn punch a teammate over a mystery woman. His violent actions seem to be the root cause of Coach Bradford’s head-scratching move to start the third-string quarterback at such a pivotal moment in the season.

Now, whether or not this woman meant (or means) anything to Shawn is still unconfirmed, but we here are dying to know: Shawn, do you have a girlfriend?

When asked at Media Day, he ducks his head toward the tape recorder and turns bright red before uttering a hesitant, “no comment.”

Now, we don’t know about you, but that sounds more like a confirmation than a denial, doesn’t it? Secret girlfriend, indeed.

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