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Ah, that period of time of finishing an album was upon Shawn once again. That final push before it all came together. He didn’t know if this was the case with most singers, but for him, this meant staying at the studio three times longer than usual. This meant three times less time spent with his girlfriend.
Shawn smiled at himself at the thought of Y/N, grinning into the cup of water in his hand. His team was currently taking a five minute break after a non-stop evening of listening and re-recording parts he didn’t like. He was so excited for his third album. In his opinion, this was really his “coming of age” album. Handwritten was cute, and Illuminate was nice but this one was worlds more mature. He couldn’t really explain how a year could have made him realise so many things.
His thoughts raced back to Y/N. He had met her a year ago, and well at first, he hated her. Funny how things change, he chuckled to himself.
“Do you have to be so fucking rude?” Shawn spat out his words at her.
“Let me run over you and almost kill you, see if you’ll still be acting like a pretty polite boy.” Y/N slumped back into the passenger seat.
Shawn really didn’t mean crashing into Y/N’s car. Truly. He was well focused on the road, when out of nowhere a girl in a bright red sundress stepped onto the road. His eyes admired her before he realised his foot hadn’t hit the brake yet.
“I’m so sorry, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah I’m good you doofus. Thanks for the ride back home.”
“Anytime. As long as you remember to look left and right before crossing the street.”
“I will when you remember where the brake pedal is.”
Shawn laughed again, shaking his head in disbelief. What a terrible way to meet someone, hitting her with his car. He thanked every god that he slowed down however, so Y/N had no significant injury. He thought back to the friendship phase of their relationship. Wow, that as a lot of teasing they pretended was just “friendly banter”.
“Gah it’s all white and sticky. You had to get some all over my hands right?” Y/N said, grabbing a towel to wipe the vanilla cake batter off her wrists.
“That’s what she said.” Shawn snickered, earning himself a smack on the chest.
“I swear to god Mendes. You can be as wise as Yoda sometimes, and at other times, as immature as a fucking fourteen-year-old.”
“Yoda seriously? That’s the best example of wisdom you can come up with?”
Shawn laughed even more when he saw you inhale deeply through your nose in annoyance. There was something about you when you were irritated that made you so incredibly adorable, even more than usual.
“Is your sole pleasure in life to harass and make fun of me?” Y/N asked.
“Yeah, that and making dirty jokes.” Shawn wiggled his eyebrows jokingly, licking frosting off his finger suggestively.
Shawn suddenly had a craving for vanilla cake icing. He hopped onto his feet and walked across the studio room to take a look at the track list. His eyes glanced over the word “red”. Memories of first realising Y/N was more than a friend flashed in his head.
Y/N was an attractive girl. In Shawn’s mind at least. Hell, that was the whole reason he almost ran into her by accident the day they met. But that’s all she was, attractive. Right? Wrong, Shawn.
He first felt oddly warm, tense, butterflies-in-my-stomach-y one summer. It was a hot day, and it being Y/N’s first time in Los Angeles she wasn’t accustomed to the heat. Y/N was well into her third popsicle of the day. And Shawn was so perplexed. Were her lips always that shape, a shape so kissable? And were they always so pink, despite them being makeup-less? No, it was just the popsicle staining them, and his sweating was because of the heat. But the popsicle was coconut-white and they were indoors in the air conditioning.
The second time this weird wiggly feeling came back was out at dinner. They went out all the time, and had gotten to fancy places often. Fancy, as in fancier the couch, them being in sweatpants with five liters of ice cream and a Harry Potter marathon playing on the TV. Y/N had accompanied him to many birthday dinners, soirées, galas but had she always chosen tight dresses? And why did she look so different from the other girls in equally clinging material? His dinner that night mostly consisted of longing peeks at her. He never realised the shape of her body, but now that he did, he had never seen a more beautiful body.
The song right underneath it was “she’ll be the one”. Shawn remembers writing that one clearly. He had just realised that what he felt for Y/N was beyond physical, and he was willing to give her everything, even if that could ruin him one day.
“Wait. Shit, I forgot my gloves!” Y/N stopped in the middle of tying her skates.
Shawn took his off immediately and handed them to her.
“What? Don’t be silly Shawn, you’ll freeze.”
“I’d rather freeze than watch you freeze.”
After quite a lot of protesting, Y/N pulled on his red warm woolly gloves with a maple leaf on them. It was snowy outside, the ice rink surrounded by big snow banks and speakers playing soft piano. Shawn’s hands at the end of the day were red from the cold but warmed up at the thought of Y/N clutching onto them for dear life as she navigated her way unsteadily on the ice.
“Yo we’re back!” Two voices said, making Shawn’s head turn towards the door. “We got you a latte.”
“Thanks. So do you guys think we have much longer tonight?”
“Dunno, why?”
“Miss Y/N, that’s all.”
+
Shawn closed the door to his home with the utmost care. Shrugging off his coat, he kicked off his shoes in silence as well. He looked around for Y/N. Of course, he didn’t expect Y/N to be awake. Sometimes though, she’d promise him to stay awake but then he’d find her on the couch passed out while the TV still played, or at the kitchen table with her phone still in her hand. Tonight, she was nowhere to be seen. He tiptoed up the stairs and turned to their bedroom. There she was, fast asleep, wrapped up in at least three blankets. Her hair covered her cheek and her arm and leg were wrapped around a body-sized pillow.
Shawn loved his job, really it was a dream. But he hated the fact that his girlfriend had to fall asleep alone and hug a pillow pretending it was him. He hated how they would spend months’ time apart only seeing each other through a screen. He hated how Y/N had to live with the constant false buzzing of him dating any girl he said hello to.
As much as he desired to crawl up right next to her, all warm, he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Then, he crawled into the bed. He stayed at a distance from Y/N, not wanting to startle her. There she laid, and my did she look like an angel. Shawn physically ached when he thought of how much he loved her. How he loved her when she made him mad, when she was complaining about her acne scars, when she was pale from a flu she caught, when she was coughing out what she ate from laughing too hard.
His hand went to pull up the covers to cover her shoulder better. Y/N stirred. Her eyes opened and met his. The fraction of second of panic of seeing someone in her bed got replaced by happiness when she recognized him.
“You’re back.” She stretched out her arms and threw the pillow on the ground. “How’s the album doing?”
“You’re gonna love it.”
“You can sing about chipmunks and I’ll still love it.”
“Damnit, that’s one of the songs how’d you know?” Shawn said, getting closer to her.
Y/N chuckled softly, half of it disappearing because of sleep still taking over her body. Slowly, her soft snores restarted.
“I love you.” Shawn said.
He didn’t know if it was just him imagining things because he slowly succumbed to sleep as well, but he heard a faint “I love you too.”