*from my Tumblr*
www.graceelizabeththefab.tumblr.com
Shawn and Alessandra
I tried to reposition myself into a comfortable spot in my seat on the airplane, but I couldn’t. The flight from Chino to DC was just too long. I’d only been sitting here for three and a half hours and I still had another hour and a half of either listening to Cameron’s music which was way too loud for my liking or staring at the screen of my dead phone. I’d been scrolling my Tumblr on the plane’s free Wi-Fi network, but all too soon, my battery died, leaving me with nothing to do.
My best friend, Cameron, and I were flying to Washington DC for Magcon; we were both part of the main event. I’d never met any other the other guys except for Nash, who came to visit us a lot. But the rest of the guys were strangers to me. I was a little hesitant when the Magcon director guy, Bart Bordelon, asked me to attend. I was the only girl in the group and that was a little awkward for me. I also only went to the third day of the Dallas event, and that was still huge for me. All of the girls screaming in my face, asking for pictures and autographs. It’s not like I’m famous. Well, at least I don’t think so. I just made funny six second videos with my friends. I don’t actually have any talents. But Cameron, being the pushy person he is, encouraged me to go. So now I had to sit through five hours and ten minutes worth of airplane 20,000 foot suspension in the air. Fun.
After an hour and half longer of agonizing boredom, Cam and I finally got to get off of the horrid airplane. Cameron grabbed our bags from the baggage claim conveyor belt and we headed out, out hotel right next to the airport. We jogged across the street, thankfully with no one noticing us. It was still Thursday morning, so the girls attending the event must not be here yet. We scrambled into an empty elevator and rode up to the sixth floor, where everyone was meeting in a conference room.
I looked into the elevator mirror and fixed my hair, smoothing the tangles with my fingers. “Don’t worry, Ally,” Cameron said, “it looks fine.” I smiled at him before he bent down to kiss me on the lips. I know I said we’re just best friends, and this was a normal thing for him to do. I guess people could say we were friends with benefits, but he just likes to kiss me to make sure that he doesn’t like me that way. They’re just friendly kisses.
“Finally we’re here,” I screamed as the elevator doors opened. I flung my bag out of the doors and fell straight on top of them, exhausted from having to get up at 5am. Cameron kicked my butt.
“Come on, lazy girl. Let’s just go throw our stuff in the room,” Cam said, dragging my bag with his. I reluctantly trudged behind, and followed him to the room.
After putting away our things, we looked through the hallways of floor six and found the conference room. A bunch of people were already piled into the tiny room: a man sitting at the head of the long table, a couple boys standing by the window (who I recognized to be Jack Johnson, Jack Gilinsky, Carter Reynolds and Aaron Carpenter), two boys sitting on the floor against the wall, laughing (Nash Grier and Taylor Caniff), and two boys standing in the back of the room. One was facing me, and I could tell that it was Matt Espinosa, and the other I couldn’t see his face. But from the guitar standing against the wall next to him, I knew it was Shawn Mendes.
When Cam and I slid the door open, everyone’s heads snapped around towards us, greeting us with cheerful smiles. “Ahh! There you are! Cameron and Alessandra! Good to see you guys again,” Bart said, giving us a pat on the back. Nash came next, giving each of us a huge hug, lifting me up off the ground. I gave hugs to the rest of the guys until I came to Shawn.
“Hi…” I said, mesmerized by his gorgeous smile. He was absolutely stunning in person. I just stood warily, staring at the boy for a couple seconds. I wasn’t that awkward; he was staring at me, too. It wasn’t until Matt cleared his throat that I looked down, blushing madly.
“Hi,” Shawn said breathlessly, pulling me in for a hug. My body crashed against his, feeling good against his sweatshirt. It felt perfect to me. Just perfect. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered to me, barely audible so the others wouldn’t hear. I looked up at him with wide eyes when he nodded.
But then, Bart clapped his hands, beginning the meeting.
Later that night, I was sitting in the middle of Matt and Taylor’s shared room, in a circle with the rest of my boys. Some were scrolling through their Twitter feeds, Instagrams, etc etc etc. Some were eating; Shawn was sitting tinkering tunes out on his guitar. I stared at him, listening to his beautiful music. Jack Johnson had finally had enough of the boredom and yelled out to everyone in the room.
“GUYS! I’m bored. Let’s do something,” he said, emphasizing every word. The guys sighed, putting down their phones finally and taking their last bites of pizza. “I know,” Jack said, his voice sinister, “Let’s play truth or dare.” He gave a maniacal laugh before sitting down. Everyone else nodded at the idea, sitting up a little straighter.
“I’ll go first,” Taylor said from my left. “Matt, truth or dare?”
“Dare!” He shouted, trying to sound brave or something. It wasn’t working.
“I dare you to lick the bottom of Jack’s foot!” He said, pointing to Jack G, who was sitting on the bed across from me, next to Shawn.
“Ewww!!” screams erupted across the room, but soon died down as Matt got onto his knees and licked his tongue up and down Jack’s foot. I covered my eyes with my hands, scrunching up my nose in disgust. Matt made a grossed out face before taking a swig of water and sitting back in his seat. “Ew,” I repeated, looking over at Shawn who was shaking his head, laughing. As soon as I glanced at him, his eyes were on me, smiling. We’d talked a lot after the meeting, and I had taken a strong liking towards him. I’m pretty sure he liked me a lot, too. I could tell by the way his face lit up when he saw me. I took my eyes away from his gaze after a minute or so, and watched the game continue.
“Jack, truth or dare?” Carter asked, looking at Jack Johnson.
“uhh… truth…” he said, playing it safe.
“Are you a virgin?” He asked in all seriousness.
“Yea! Obviously…” Jack said, trailing his words off. “Whatever. Ok, Nash, truth or dare?”
“Dare, kid, dare!” Nash said, screaming his blue eyes wide.
“I dare you to open that window,” Jack said, pointing to the hotel room window that led out to a busy street, “and scream ‘I wanted McDonald’s not KFC, you nigga!’” I cracked up laughing. Nash sighed, obviously not wanting to do it, but didn’t hesitate. He stood up and walked over to the window and did exactly what he was dared. After receiving a couple of honks from passing cars and trucks, he shut the window and started the walk of shame back to his seat.
I stopped my fit of giggles when Nash pointed at me, narrowing his eyes with an evil look in them. I made a terrified face. “What?” I asked.
“Truth or dare, Ally?” he said, menacingly.
“Uh… truth?” I asked. A couple of the guys booed me.
“Don’t be a baby... come on, ally… toughen up…” they all said.
“Fine, fine! Dare!”
“I dare you to kiss Cameron,” Nash said, laughing. I looked at Cam. It wasn’t that big of a dare, I mean Cameron kissed me all the time. They weren’t serious.
“Fine, then.” I leaned over and planted a huge kiss on Cameron’s lips, my hands on his neck, sitting on his lap. He kissed me back sweetly, knowing that it was still just one of our friendly kisses. I pulled back and giggled, looking at my best friends. Every single one of the guys in the room was quiet, their eyes wide and mouths hanging open. Shawn looked at me, his eyes glassy from tears. He ran a hand through his hair before sprinting out of the hotel room. I looked at Cameron who gave me an apologetic look.
“Go… Ally, go,” he said, pushing me towards the door. I took off in a run towards where I thought Shawn had gone. I raced down the hallways. I didn’t see anything, but I could hear sniffles and quiet sobbing from up ahead near the elevator. It was round 2:45 in the morning, so a lot of the people were probably already asleep. My feet pounded against the floor, aching from my lack of shoes, until I reached the elevator doors. They were about to shut on a boy in a grey sweatshirt until I reached my arm out to the space between the quickly closing doors. I caught it just in time and climbed inside.
Shawn turned his back towards me. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked, his voice trembling. I couldn’t stand seeing him like this. I couldn’t stand making anyone cry.
“That was nothing,” I tried to tell him, reaching out to his arm. The doors were closing once again and the elevator was slowly but surely making its way up the elevator shaft.
Shawn whipped around, his eyes angry and sad. “That was not nothing! You were practically sucking his face off!” he yelled. I grabbed his hands, trying to calm him. He sunk to the floor, his back pressed against the elevator wall. He closed his eyes.
“I swear, it was nothing. Cameron and I are just really good friends. He just kisses me a lot… because he cares about me. We’re just friends. And we never have nor will be anything more than that. You can trust me, Shawn. You can,” I said quietly, my eyes looking down at my tiny hand in his. My long hair hung in my face and I quickly pulled it away so I could look at him.
“Oh…” he said, his voice calmer now. “I’m sorry, Alessandra. Really. I shouldn’t have freaked out. You must think I’m an idiot now,” Shawn said, looking at me.
“No, no, no.” I pulled him into a deep hug, a couple tears slipping out of my eyes. I rubbed his back and tried to get him to talk.
“I just… I really like you, Ally. You’re perfect. Beautiful, funny, smart, everything I ever wanted in a girl. But now that I’ve gone all freak on you, you probably don’t want me anymore. I understand if you don’t wanna talk to me,” he said sadly.
“No, Shawn. I really like you, too. And it’s okay. If you kissed someone else, I’d probably be seriously mad too. Don’t worry about it,” I told him. I pulled away from the hug and looking him in the eye. He stroked my cheek with his thumb. I held onto his wrist, not wanting to break eye contact.
Shawn leaned in. Slowly, so I could have a chance to react. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips onto his gingerly. He smelled sweet, homey. The way you want your husband to smell when you climb into bed with him for a good night’s sleep. His kisses weren’t like Cameron’s. They were meaningful, they told me that he wanted exactly what I wanted. He slowly pulled away and opened his eyes to mine. Our heads were still close together, foreheads touching.
We stared at each other for a couple minutes until the elevator dinged and opened up to the beautiful rooftop of our hotel. Shawn and I got out of the elevator and spent the rest of the night sleeping together under the stars.