Epilogue to this year to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special.
The first half contains smut. My Christmas gift to you 😂
"Too much champagne," Taylor murmurs. She's dizzy, lighter than air. The bubbly and the hot chocolate laced with Bailey's may have been overkill; the room feels slightly off kilter. She isn't drunk, but between the alcohol and the happy buzz of getting engaged, she's feeling no pain right now.
Travis's got her slung over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and they're both giddy, giggling when he opens the door to the bedroom and shushes himself with a finger to his lips.
The entire night feels like a dream. The only proof it actually happened is the stunning ring on her left hand. The way it catches the light in every room makes her incredibly happy, but nothing more so than the beautiful man that gave it to her.
A beautiful man that's going to be her husband. I'm going to have a husband, she reminds herself. I'll be Trav's wife.
The notion makes her want to shout from the fucking rooftops and as he lays her down with a soft landing on the bed, she flings her arms around his neck, grateful that he's hers.
They bump foreheads when he goes to kiss her and that makes them more giggly. Coordination doesn't seem to be in their wheelhouse tonight, but it's okay, makes it more tender, somehow.
"I still can't believe you pulled this off," she says, pulling him on top of her. "The whole thing probably should be in a fucking book for perfect proposals. You set the standard."
"Would you believe if it if I told you I almost didn't?" He laughs. "Can't even tell you how many times I almost blew it."
"Yeah, looking back, you were super sus," Taylor admits, an eyebrow raised. "The hockey stick just about sent me. The fucking pizza?! The kids asking to play pickleball when it's freezing? Oh, my God, perfection."
"I suck at surprises."
He's serious, she realizes, instantly, guilty for teasing. "No way. All of that touch and go stuff made my heart obliterate, Trav. It just showed me how hard you worked to plan everything. I swear to you, I couldn't think of anything more perfect than how you asked me to marry you. And even though I thought you all were possessed with how weird you were acting, I honestly had no idea you were going to propose. Not tonight."
She's babbling. She knows she is. Half of it's the nice, healthy buzz she's got going on, the other half because this marks the most romantic gesture in the history of romantic gestures (and he's done many, too many to count) and she's flying.
"Least I didn't fuck up that part," he grins and she reaches up to kiss him, tugging him towards her by the collar of his sweater.
"You." Her lips go to his neck, tracing the three letters against his jugular, "are. fucking. amazing. And I'm not going to let you think otherwise."
He moans as her teeth scrape along the vein. "Raincheck time?"
"Mhmm, you know it." She goes back up to capture his mouth, curling her legs across the small of his back.
He tastes like the Bailey's and she feels herself smiling into the kiss, enjoying the sensation of his mouth warm on hers, his tongue, how those damn hands work their magic on her body, stroking a pattern down her shoulders until he's palming her breasts under her blouse, his thumbs grazing over her nipples gently (maybe too gently) before she arches her back with an elongated moan.
"Harder."
Travis's eyes go dark and he smiles, halfway between a smirk and a wolfish grin, just the corners of his lips curling up. The power shift turns her on so much; how she'll be in control; he'll let her and then somewhere along the way, the tables will turn, but it's never when she expects it.
Instead of obeying her command, he unbuttons her blouse quickly, discarding it on the floor and then making short work of her bra, unhooking it in record time before he shifts his attention to her breasts, taking his time on her left first.
It's hot, open mouthed kisses over sensitive skin first, across the top and the underside and she's clawing at his back, aware that she's probably leaving fingernail indentations, but it wouldn't be the first time. He'd told her at practice one day when he'd had his shirt off, some of the guys had spied her little "love marks," as she liked to call them and immediately, they ribbed him because they all knew fully well those weren't from any game.
She likes it. She takes a perverse pleasure in marking him as hers, just as her ring is a signal to the entire world she's his. For someone who's felt like a commodity in the past, something to be taken for granted and used up, to have that mutual sense of belonging to another person, in the most beautiful, pure definition of the word felt like a gift.
His lips close over her nipple, dragging the tip of his tongue across a dusky peak, his hand cupping her breast more firmly at her insistence.
The other one gets the same attention, fluctuating between wet kisses and tiny bites, definitely not hard enough to hurt, but just with the edges of his teeth making her so wet, she's sure he's felt it through layers of clothing.
His fingers find the zipper on the side of her skirt, sliding it down over her hips all the while licking descending trails on her torso, across her abs, stopping to relish attention on both hips bones, the fleshy part of her anterior thighs.
The lightheadedness from earlier has carried over from her head to her entire body so that she's feeling like she would imagine an astronaut on a space mission must experience; an odd kind of weightless that transcends logic, just kind of hanging around midair.
He places a solitary kiss to her pubic bone, his fingers drawing urgent, nonsensical patterns across her inner thighs. When he parts them with the heel of both hands, unexpectedly, she gasps, automatically rutting against him.
They've developed a mutual understanding over the past sixteen months, when to go slow and savor each other and those times someone or both of them were too impatient to drag it out.
There would be plenty of opportunities for leisurely lovemaking another time; she was full of adrenaline, on the high of getting engaged to the person of her dreams and his hands on her told her that torture wasn't going to be on the menu.
"I love you," he makes sure to articulate. His breath is hot on her core and she shivers underneath him.
If she had to pick a way to die, she thinks it would probably be just like this; Travis's head between the apex of her thighs, his hands cupping her, fingers pressing into the spot between her lower back and the top of her ass, his mouth worshipping her clit, sucking gently and then harder, keeping up the pressure he knows that will make her scream.
"Fingers, baby."
He lifts his head, face and beard glistening with her juices and the sight almost makes her cum on the spot.
"My baby girl gets whatever she wants."
"Oh, fuck." She covers her mouth with her palm, realizing a little too late how loud she is.
She watches those long fingers pump in and out of her, his head dipping back down, dragging his tongue over her nub, again and again so that she's crying out, muffling the sound with a pillow pressed over her face. His licks get a little more frantic and he grunts, his dick rock hard against her leg as his fingers match the rhythm of his mouth.
It all feels so overwhelmingly good; her senses are in overdrive. His fingers curl at the last minute, hitting that sweet spot, purposely, she knows, to bring her home.
"Trav---"
"That's it, baby."
His lips skim over her earlobe and she's tightening around his fingers, riding out the aftershocks of her orgasm against his face with a low, growled curse.
"I love feeling you," he's breathless and glassy eyed, raining kisses on her belly, her knees. "You're so beautiful like this, Tay."
"Too many clothes."
It's mumbled in a haze, but he hears her, instantly tugging his sweater up and over his head, placing her hand on his fly and guiding her to push his pants down. It makes her bite the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood, his hands going on her again as they kiss.
She admires his body, taking in the strong arms, muscular thighs and calves, running her fingers over his chest. It's not as though she takes for granted what a good looking man he is...but sometimes it clocks her over the fucking head how incredibly hot he is.
"Let me touch you," she pulls him to her once more, caressing where her eyes had been, drawing fingertips over sinew and bone while he licks her sternum and the sheen of sweat that had pooled there.
He concentrates on her collarbones, making her shudder and cling to the top of his shoulders, his mouth suddenly on her breasts again before he grasps her hips.
"You're everything."
She brings him close as he slips inside her, kissing him hard, her eyes shutting of their own accord.
"You feel so good, Trav."
His response is a muffled sigh into the curvature of her neck, picking up his rhythm so that their hips crash into each other like a storm on the sea and he's holding on tightly to her, tethering them both.
He brings her legs up and around him, going deeper and she moans, not bothering to muffle it this time around. The ending is right there, right at the tips of her toes and he reads her mind, reaching in between their connected bodies to rub circles over her clit.
"Cum for me, Taylor."
The husky command, his thumb on her, coaxing her to orgasm, the way the rotation of his movement shifts to hit a certain spot is irresistible, even if she'd wanted to hold out.
"Oh, my God. Fuck. Travis---"
She's panting now, unable to chase the breath, so fucking close and all it takes is a "good girl," murmured against the shell of her ear and she's gone, off to some other goddamned astral plane.
Flushed, she feverishly pushes herself up to meet him, setting a pace that's somewhere between frenzied and even.
The little signs he's getting closer...the subtle shift in breathing patterns, the urgency in the way he claims her mouth and the sloppy kisses to her neck, the way his soft groan reverberates against the hollow of her throat when he softly bares down.
"I wanna feel you, babe," she manages to push out, "I want ---"
"Taylor."
Her name falls from his lips; a plea, a prayer and he's falling apart, his hands still on her hips, bucking gently as he comes down.
His head goes to rest on her belly, placing a kiss by her navel. She runs her fingers over his damp forehead, scratching his scalp gently.
"Merry Christmas, baby," he grins up at her lazily. "It's gotta be after midnight now."
"Going down in the history books as the best Christmas ever." She runs the hand with her ring across his back, stopping to admire how it glitters in the soft lamplight.
"Are you gonna keep staring at that?" Travis teases and she laughs, kissing him as he moves up to eye level.
"Actually, I think I am. What are you going to do about it?"
His eyes shine, "I'm just happy you like it. I'd hoped you would."
Again, the sweet earnestness gets to her. She adores that about him; how his personality is a symbiosis of confidence and vulnerability.
"I love everything about it."
She frowns and he takes her hand. "What's wrong?"
"Now we've got to decide on a date. And a location...you've got the rest of the season to worry about. I don't want you to put any undue pressure on yourself, Trav."
"Is that what you're worried about? We're absolutely fine, honey. I know that guys usually propose during off season, but I know this is your favorite time of year and I didn't want to wait. We can figure everything out when we're ready. There's no pressure."
Her insecurities tend to rear their ugly head when something amazing happens and instead of pushing them down as she might've done in the past, she brings them to the forefront, opening up a discussion.
"I don't want to wait too long, Travis. This feels so right. It's felt right from the very beginning and to have a long engagement...I don't know."
She takes a deep breath, sliding her fingers over his. "What do you think? Am I insane?"
The smile that spreads across his face immediately sets her at ease. "How would you feel about a spring wedding? Maybe...May?"
"May, as in five months from now, May?"
"Not a long engagement. Cuz' truthfully? I don't wanna wait, either."
"Do you think we can pull off a wedding in five months?"
"I think if we find a planner that operates like Tree, we could pull off a wedding in five minutes, if we wanted to."
"Oh, God," she smiles, "so true. Our moms might give us grief, though. Say it's not enough time."
"I love both of them, but we're definitely gonna do this our way, whatever that means. Okay?" He's gently insistent and she loves him for it. The people pleaser and the guy who marches to the beat of his own drum make a perfect pair, balance each other out in the best way.
She settles back into his arms comfortably. "I'd marry you right now, you know."
"Mmm, that's the champagne and the sex talking now."
"Stop. It is not. Just the truth. You've made me so happy tonight."
"More where that came from, baby." Travis kisses her. "I plan to make you this happy for the rest of our lives."
🎄 🎄 🎄 🎄
Christmas, 2026
There was not sleeping and then there was newborn sleep deprevation, the kind where you felt vaugely delusional because it's been so long since you actually went into REM, you're starting to hallucinate.
Taylor is well aware just how incredibly fortunate she is, graced with access to help that most people don't, coupled with an amazing partner who's been incredibly hands on from the instant she had a positive pregnancy test.
Even with the support, it ultimately comes down to the simple fact Zoey is theirs and she's always felt that the celebrity notion of allowing the nanny to raise your children is bullshit. Her parents, like Travis's, like her brother and sister-in-law, were always hands-on, did the child rearing themselves and they both feel strongly, especially when Zoey is a newborn, that night feedings and diaper changes are only going to further cement their bond with her.
Besides the exhaustion, it's worth it to hold this tiny human that they made together, debate whether her eyes will stay blue like Taylor's or shift to a pretty hazel like her father's, marvel over the perfectly shaped rosebud mouth, her little fingers and toes, sit there and go absolutely batshit crazy when she does something cute, like yawn or search for her fingers to suck on.
She's the perfect mixture of she and Travis and it's almost hard to believe this is the girl who kicked her ribs at two in the morning nearly every single day like clockwork, whose heartbeat she'd recorded when they'd heard it for the very first time. Her living, breathing miracle, right there in front of her.
Born five days before Christmas, ten minutes to midnight, Zoey is her late birthday gift; the ultimate present. All the pain of a 12 hour labor that had ended in an emergency C-section ("gotta make an entrance, just like her Mama," Travis had joked at the time), all the aliments of pregnancy forgotten the instant the doctor placed her in Taylor's arms.
If she's over the moon to be a mother, her husband is equally as thrilled to be a dad. He'd cried when he'd held her for the first time, cried when he cut the cord, cried when they lifted her tiny body over the sheet so that they both could see her.
It made perfect sense. He'd cried on their wedding day, too, big, fat tears when she walked down the aisle on Scott's arm, beaming and radiant, surrounded by just their closest friends and families.
It's a core memory that exists in line with the day he'd proposed and now the night of Zoey's birth...three of the best moments of her life.
There wasn't to say, coexistent with the joy was the scary reality that they were fully responsible for raising a human, making sure she was a good person who wasn't negatively influenced by who her parents happened to be and above all, keeping her safe. It was nothing they hadn't discussed at length before deciding to try and she felt well prepared, but her mother was right, nothing can fully prep you for parenthood until that baby is in your arms.
Still, bringing her home, just in time for Christmas, is a dream and marks the second time the house will be filled with the entire family; both of their parents, Taylor's brother, Jason, Kylie and the girls. They'd spent the immediate days after her birth just the three of them, getting acclimated as a family before everyone met her and she's thankful for it.
Travis had taken care of everything; hotels for their families, knowing just having had major surgery, she wasn't in a position to host, the menu, making certain the house was in good shape and he was instrumental in taking care of the baby, bringing her to Taylor because she was nursing, but he'd dove right into the more physically demanding things (diaper changes and bathing) with his typical confidence. He was definitely a natural.
The night before Christmas Eve, they have a simple dinner, relaxing on the couch watching "Elf," while Zoey snoozes in her Moses basket nearby. The lights from the tree cast a comforting glow over the room, the only illumination.
She feels her head get heavy, starts to doze and Travis's hand goes to her shoulder.
"Wanna head to bed? You're exhausted, baby."
"No, no," she tries to protest, "I'm fine. What if she wakes up?"
"She just ate before she knocked out. You've got at least two hours. If she's up before that, I'll bring her to you. Promise."
"Okay. I guess a nap won't hurt. I've actually never been more exhausted in my life and that includes the entire time I was on tour," she admits, flexing her feet out in front of her. "It's actually insane. You don't know until you know." She reaches out to put her hand on his knee. "You've been pulling night duty, too, Trav. You must be dying."
"I'm doing okay, actually. Adjusting better than I thought. Besides," he strokes her hair, "you did all the hard stuff, Taylor, least I can do is my part."
She kisses his cheek. "You're the best. I couldn't do any of this without you."
"I'm her dad. It's my job." He returns her kiss, brushing his lips across hers. "And yours right now is to get some rest. You aren't gonna be any good to Zo if you're not taking care of yourself."
She can't argue with that logic, so she kisses him once more, stopping to check on a slumbering Zoey before slowly making her way up the staircase and underneath the covers.
For some reason, she figures she'll have trouble falling asleep at first, knowing her body is usually poised on full alert to listen for the baby, but to her surprise, she tumbles into the blackness fast.
When she wakes up, she's disoriented, no idea what time it is and for a half a second, she panics, thinking it's got to be time for Zoey to eat again and wondering why Travis hadn't gotten her.
She's probably just fine, she tells herself, peeling the covers back. Travis definitely would've brought her up.
The way down is just as carefully executed as the way up and she's determined not to do anything that would rip a stitch and extend the recovery process. It was extremely frustrating as it was not to be able to do everything at one hundred percent, so slow and steady it would have to be.
She hears Trav as she hits the last step, his voice moving as though he were, too.
"Here's your first Christmas tree, Zoey. See these ornaments? That one, your mom got me for our first Christmas together, that one right there, that mini Superbowl trophy is from her, too, when we won again last year. Best season ever. And that one," he points to the cat bride and groom, "is a wedding present from Uncle Pat and Aunt Brittany. This one, though," he reaches up to take a sterling silver baby rattle off a branch, "this one is my favorite. From Grandma and Grandpa Swift. Baby's First Christmas, 2026. That's your name, see? Zoey Finlay Swift-Kelce. I know, long name for such a little person. You'll grow into it. For now, Zo works, huh."
Her eyes tear and she stays out of view, watching her husband walk slowly with their daughter cradled in his arms, speaking in hushed tones.
"Your mom said I couldn't top the Christmas I asked her to marry me and maybe I couldn't, but you did. Yeah, you did," he caresses the baby's soft cheek. "You made us complete. Three Superbowl wins felt good, but they have nothing on you and your mama. You're the best things that have ever happened to me. No lie."
Taylor can't believe how quiet Zoey is, as though she's fully engrossed listening to what her daddy has to say. She's mentioned before how Zoey knows his voice from the way she used to kick for him when he spoke to her from the womb. A daddy's girl already, through and through, just like her.
"Speaking of your mom, she's an angel, Zo. And I know how girls can kinda butt heads with their mother's sometimes, but trust me on this: you're so lucky she's yours. You have her in your corner, she's there for keeps. I should know. She's the greatest to have back you up. I'll always be around to protect you, too, sweetheart, but yeah, your mom is the real MVP. Try to remember that when she takes your phone or something in a few years, okay?"
Taylor steps out then, wiping the corners of her eyes. "Taking a late night stroll?"
He flushes. "Yeah. It was almost time to wake you up and she was fussing a little, so we decided to take a walk."
"You're the cutest. God, I love you both so much," she puts her arms around them, moving close.
"And you're right, Trav. We've had some beautiful Christmas's together, but I think this one feels different. Complete."
"It is. I've got everything I need, right here," Travis kisses her, the baby between them.
They stay like that for a minute longer until Zoey lets out a cry that can only be interpreted one way.
"Think she needs a nightcap. I'll go get you some water so you can have a cold drink. Two for one."
She settles on the sofa with the nursing pillow, ghosting her palm over the tuft of downy hair. As Zoey begins to eat and Travis returns with the water and settles next to her, the feeling is overwhelming, takes her over like sand warmed by the sun.
Peace.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!!!