Paparazzi
True to our word, Seamus and I stayed in bed as late as we could possibly manage the next day. It wasn’t difficult, really. It was already early in the morning when we arrived and we were both exhausted from the show that night. And he might be even less of a morning person than I am, if that’s even physically possible.
When we did finally wake up, we still lay in bed for an hour or so, just kissing. Neither of us really had the energy to do much more than that. It wasn’t early by any means, and eventually we both conceded that we should at least get out of bed in time to eat lunch at a reasonable, lunch-like hour. Shay suggested that we shower together to save time, but I think we both knew that really wouldn’t be much of a timesaver at all.
Instead, I showered first, got myself dressed and plopped down with my laptop to enjoy a little free wifi while Seamus made himself presentable – a feat that really didn’t take long at all, but I knew he still felt gross from the concert and bus ride.
I knew I wouldn’t have much time, so I hurriedly scrolled through my email inbox and private messages. Nothing stuck out as particularly important, so I decided to come back to those later, perhaps once we had returned from our day on the town and were both too exhausted to do anything more than sit around.
Once that was done, I opened up the folder of pictures I had taken over the last few weeks and tried to pick a few to highlight on the website. I had taken up photography a few months prior, and I knew I wasn’t that great, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, the fans seemed to enjoy seeing the more candid shots from the tour. If they enjoyed it, then it was worth a little time to edit and post the pics I knew I would be taking anyway.
It only took a few minutes to choose my favorites. Most were scenery and skylines I thought looked nice. I threw in a few candid rehearsal shots and some quirky little snaps of the venues we had played. The last picture I came across took my breath away. I had forgotten about taking it a day or two before. It was Seamus, staring out the bus window at god knows what. Nothing particularly exciting about the composition, but the lighting and the look of pure joy on his face made it pretty breath-taking; at least, if you asked me.
I knew, without a doubt, that I had to show off that picture. Even if I didn’t caption it “my gorgeous boyfriend,” I was pretty sure people would get the hint. After all, they already made weird little comments about how many pictures I took of Zac. If they only knew…
I shook my head, trying to stop my brain from going down that particular path, and I nearly succeeded. I double-clicked on the picture of Seamus, making it the last one in the slideshow, and then clicked on the button that would send the post straight to the top of our blog.
“Looking at porn?” Seamus asked, grinning.
I hadn’t even realized that the shower had shut off, but there he was in the doorway, wearing nothing but a towel.
“Mmm, I am now,” I replied, letting my eyes roam up and down his body.
Shay just rolled his eyes at me. He was beginning to learn, I thought, that sometimes it was just easiest to ignore me when I was ridiculous. Which was basically all the time. It was part of my charm, really.
Despite my staring, he somehow managed to get dressed quickly. With one last look at my email, I shut my laptop off and gathered up my things. I was pretty sure I knew where we were going that day, but I pulled up directions on my phone while we waited for the elevator just in case. Getting lost was another of my talents, but I didn’t really think it could be that hard to find a good barbecue place in Kansas City.
While the elevator ticked off the floors, I stared down at my phone, trying to memorize the directions and street names that I hoped would lead us to the little hole in the wall place I remembered having lunch at the last time we came through here. I had this irrational urge to impress Seamus, even if the quality of the food was totally beyond my control. I just needed to prove myself in whatever ways that I could.
“Are we incognito today?” He asked, and I blinked, unsure what he meant. He poke the side of my glasses. “Why haven’t I seen these before?”
“Oh, I usually wear the contacts. I get the ones you can supposedly leave in for weeks, but it can’t possibly be healthy to wear them as long as I do. My eyes were hurting, so… glasses it is, today.”
He eyed me critically for a moment, then nodded and grinned. “I like them. They make you look nerdy.”
“Thanks?” I replied, earning myself a little chuckle from him just as the elevator doors slid open.
I didn’t really want to know if that was meant as a compliment or not, so I didn’t even ask. He hadn’t refused to be seen in public with while wearing the glasses, as Zac had threatened a few times, so I supposed that was something. In fact, Seamus seemed to be all smiles that day, and I found that his happiness was pretty infectious.
Thankfully, the directions my phone gave were accurate, and my own fucked up sense of direction didn’t steer us wrong, either. It was only a short walk to the restaurant, which looked utterly unassuming from the outside, but which I knew was positively the best. Shay looked dubious, but he followed me inside anyway.
We talked about so many things over our pork barbecue sandwiches that I honestly couldn’t even begin to list them all. It seemed to occur to both of us simultaneously that, after two weeks on tour together and a week of dating, we really didn’t know each other at all. Sure, he knew a few of my deep dark secrets, but there were huge gaps in our basic knowledge about each other.
By the time I was full of barbecue, I had learned, among other things, that his middle name was Eoin and his favorite color was yellow.
When we walked back out onto the street, I had to resist the urge to grab his hand. I didn’t know why I suddenly felt the need to be so publicly affectionate, but I did. He didn’t seem to notice the internal struggle I was facing, though. Instead, he practically took off at a sprint down the street, evidently interested in some shop he had spotted in the distance.
These were the perfect days. We had had a few others like it, just exploring some city together. I knew he hadn’t toured much before, or with such a nice schedule as our tour had, so this was truly an adventure for him. I really enjoyed – felt privileged, even – to be by his side as he took it all in.
I started getting a nervous tingle on the back of my neck in the third store, but I tried to brush it off and enjoy Shay’s impromptu hat fashion show. He looked so damn good in all of them that I was totally useless at helping him decide which one to buy. I was halfway tempted to just put them all on my credit card, but I didn’t think we really had room for ten random hats on the bus. Someone was bound to get pissed off when we arrived with all of them.
The nervous tingle only increased when he started putting hats on me, and dragging me around to admire his handiwork in a mirror. I had to admit, his choice did look good. It was a newsboy cap, the sort that Isaac insisted made me look like someone’s grandfather, but I couldn’t help liking it.
“Was that a camera?” Seamus asked, craning his neck to look around.
I frowned. “What, that wasn’t you taking a picture of your new model?”
“No,” he replied, chuckling, then nodded his head toward a rack of jewelry on the opposite wall. “I think we have paparazzi.”
I followed his nod and wasn’t particularly surprised to see a couple of giggling girls with cell phones and cameras in their hands. The dead giveaway was the fact that one of them was wearing a shirt from our last tour.
“Not paparazzi,” I said, giving Shay a wry grin. “Fans. And let me guess, they’re already walking this way.”
He glanced over my shoulder. “Correct.”
“Then put on a nice hat and smile pretty,” I replied, bracing myself for the fans’ arrival.
If I sounded bitter at all, it was because I didn’t want anything or anyone to interrupt what was really a perfect little date. It didn’t matter that it was fans; I really do appreciate them, but it can get a bit tiring to always have to turn my persona on and pose for the perfect picture. The fact that they had already been snapping pics of my date didn’t really make me feel any better.
But I still spun around and smiled as soon as Seamus gave me a nod and I heard one of the girls clear her throat.
“Umm, hi, Taylor? Can we get a pic?”
“Sure,” I replied, then cast a quick glance at Seamus.
His smile looked totally natural, even though I had a feeling this was first time he’d had this sort of encounter. With a quick look at me, then at the girl who had asked, he said, “I can take the pic, if you’d like.”
“Oh, actually I’d like a pic with you, too,” the second girl spoke up. “I was at the show in St. Louis. You were really good.”
“Well, thank you,” he replied, his smile only growing.
I was seriously beginning to think that my boyfriend was perfect. There was just no other explanation.
After shuffling around cameras and phones and taking several versions of nearly the same picture, the three girls seemed satisfied. With a promise to put on a good show for them later, we finally bid them goodbye. Their giggles seemed to echo around the store even after they finally walked away and I was able to let out a long breath.
“Fans, hmm?” Seamus said, chuckling. He was already trying on another hat, and balancing a second on his fingertip.
Yeah. Definitely perfect.