An Artist and a Madman: John Mayer/Taylor Swift
Title: An Artist and a Madman
Pairing: John Mayer/Taylor Swift
Rating: Mature
Length: 4,449 Summary/Warnings: This is a story about John Mayer being a Machiavellian creep.
Notes: Written for loveandcoffee/ coffeecommunity. Thanks to liminalliz and pwincess for the betas and the support and for laughing at my Continuum pun. Thanks to John Mayer for being the kind of guy who makes this story almost believable. Title is from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
No I'm not the man I used to be lately
See you met me at an interesting time
If my past is any sign of your future
You should be warned before I let you inside
Hold on to whatever you find baby
Hold on to whatever will get you through
Hold on to whatever you find baby
I don't trust myself with loving you
-John Mayer, I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)
He first sets eyes on her by chance. He’s in bed, preoccupied with a woman whose name will escape him in a few weeks, and the TV is on in the corner, muted commentators silently opining about the upcoming tennis match.
John comes, shuddering, and rolls onto his back. That’s when he sees her on the TV. He’s post-coital, naked, breathing hard, and he watches a tiny little thing in a red dress who hasn’t yet approached puberty. He can’t hear her singing. The nameless woman sighs and shifts in the bed next to him, and he turns his attention away from the TV.
Neither of them will ever know, but the moment becomes an indelible part of their history.
**
Four years later, John’s touring with the Trio and they’re staying in Nashville for a day off. Pino swings by his hotel room and wheedles him into dinner with some producers. John thinks he’d rather order room service and work on a song that’s been rolling around in his head - he wants to start getting serious about another solo album- but he goes along and he’s not sure why.
They get to the café and it looks like there’s an open mic night going on. A young guy in an obviously affected country outfit twangs out a tune from the stage in the corner as John and his group get seated. He hopes that the music will give him a good excuse to ignore the conversation.
Just as John’s steak arrives, the annoying guitarist tips his ten-gallon hat to the crowd and surrenders the stage to polite applause. He’s followed by a little whisper of a girl in a pale pink dress. Yeah, she’s skinny, delicate, but she’s also brimming with confidence. There’s this strange paradox in the way she carries herself, right at an intersection between awkward youthfulness and grace. The way the stage lights shine on her, illuminating her gold ringlets like a halo, she looks positively angelic. He can’t decide if that’s the beginning of a song or just some lame fleeting thought. He also can’t tell how old she is, but he has a feeling she’s too young for the thoughts that are forming in his head about what he’d like to do with her.
The girl adjusts the mic and introduces herself.
“Hi y’all. Thanks for comin’ out tonight. My name’s Taylor, and I’m gonna play you a couple of songs.” She plucks a little at her twelve-string, ensuring it’s in tune, and he can’t help but notice her long, dainty fingers, and the way her arms cradle the guitar.
She launches into a song about finding Prince Charming in a modern world and he’s enraptured. He can barely tear his eyes away long enough to start eating. Then she sings another about the perfect homecoming dance. She’s full of these silly fairy-tale clichés about love, but, he thinks, they fit her. He watches her play, notices her hands, again. They’re hard not to watch, the way she coaxes a tune out of the guitar with them, but he also sees the sway of her shoulders, the way her skinny legs move as she taps out the beat with her foot, and how her mouth forms the words- her lips are just a little pouty and very pink.
“Good, huh?” One of the producers sitting next to John breaks his concentration, and he realizes he’s stopped mid-chew to stare at her. John mumbles an affirmative noise as he swallows.
“They thought she was the next big thing - turned down a development deal with RCA because she wanted more control.” The producer continues, shaking his head. “She’s just 15, though, she still has time to make it.”
Fifteen, John thinks. Shit.
“There’s something about her,” he replies aloud, but he doesn’t know quite how to elaborate, especially not to some sleazy corporate stranger, so he excuses himself. He heads back to the bar and orders a vodka soda. It’s his fifth for the night, and he’s beginning to feel buzzed. He’s not buzzed enough, though, so he orders another, a double please, no ice, and knocks it back in a couple of gulps.
John puts her name into the moleskine he carries everywhere. It’s half full of scribbled song lyrics and chords and half girls’ phone numbers - these things are all points along the same continuum to him. He finds a clean page opposite a mess of thoughts that will eventually become Gravity and writes down “Taylor Swift” in tiny letters. He looks up at her again- she’s grinning and taking a bow to considerably more applause than the previous guy- and then looks back down and writes the words “hold on to whatever you find.”
He goes to his hotel room and writes I Don’t Trust Myself with Loving You in 20 minutes.
**
It’s two years before he hears Teardrops on my Guitar on the radio, but he recognizes her voice instantly.
As her career develops, he makes a point of talking to her managers, producers, anyone who has worked with her. He does it just to keep his name in their heads, to ensure that the idea of John Mayer is a presence somewhere in her life, even if it won’t affect her yet. He does it under the pretense of finding out who is writing her songs, although he’s known since he saw her that night in Nashville that they were hers. Songwriters can tell their own kind.
Before she even becomes omnipresent on the gossip sites, he tracks her down anyway. He reads whatever he can about her. Relationships and breakups, her obsessions with the number 13, baking, and cats. Then she releases another album and becomes a household name, and he’s grateful that he can spend hours on a Tuesday morning in bed with his laptop, checking the edits on her Wikipedia article, watching YouTube videos of her concerts, bookmarking pictures from photoshoots where she’s barefoot, wearing a floaty dress, hair a little messed up.
Jennifer calls and he turns the phone off completely.
**
He eases himself into her life, tries to make the transition from talking to her managers and friends to her. He follows her on Twitter, and then he asks her to record with him. There’s this song that’s been lingering around in his head, he wakes up humming it 3 days in a row. It’s stuck in his mind, and he’s sure it intends to stay there until he records it, finishes with it. The song is like Taylor that way.
She’s the type that likes grand gestures and big declarations, so he does the next best thing to blasting In Your Eyes on a boom box in her front yard. He tweets about it. First he says something about the song, how he thinks it’s going to be good. Then he adds “and I want to sing it with Taylor Swift,” not really an afterthought, but not the first priority either.
Her reaction is pretty much exactly what he’s imagining it to be. Her fiddler Caitlin texts her “girl, look at @johncmayer RIGHT NOW.” And when Taylor does she ends up jumping and dancing around the living room for 10 minutes, singing pieces of whatever John Mayer songs come into her head. She has her people find a break in her schedule as soon as possible so she can set up a time to record, and a week later she’s in a car on her way to a studio where she’s going to meet him.
Taylor doesn’t read Playboy, even for the articles, so she doesn’t know just how much she should be avoiding him.
**
She gets to the studio a little early, and he’s already there; he looks a little unwashed, like he might have been in there for the last few days, actually. Still, she offers a big hug and hands him a plate of cookies she baked.
“I bake when I’m nervous,” she offers, half explanation, half introduction. He smiles. He knew that, of course. He’s been looking forward to cookies ever since she agreed to record with him.
“I just write songs,” he answers, “looks like you have me beat by one.” Any awkwardness there might have been dissolves. He sits her down and plays her what he has so far, which is basically the whole song. He lets her tweak a little, play around with the chords and the lyrics and hours later they have a recording he’s happy with. She thanks him and he asks if she wants to come in again tomorrow.
She goes in the next day, and then again a few days after that. They play, they write, they just spend time together. They sit in studios and pluck at their guitars and share their ideas and thoughts. Mostly about music at first, but she starts to opens up about her life, boys that have been mean to her, making the right business decisions, the frustrations with writing and performing that only he’ll understand.
“People are still surprised when they find out I write my songs. Still.” She complains one day in the middle of working out some new lyrics. It’s the one thing that annoys her the most. “Like they see me and it’s so hard to believe that I could write a song.”
“You need to ignore all of that, seriously. They don’t understand.” He’s told her before that they’re a rare breed, that performers and songwriters like them are misunderstood.
“I just… I’m worried this might all be over soon. That people will stop caring.” Never mind that she’s about to leave on a sold-out, year-long headlining tour, that she sold out Madison Square Garden in 60 seconds. “I want to do this forever.”
“Do you know why I asked you to sing on Half of my Heart? It’s because I know you’re going to be around for a long time.” That much is true. Every once in a while, he shares a little piece of himself with her too.
Taylor blushes, and looks back down at her guitar. Reassurances her mother and her manager and Abigail have been giving her for a week didn’t accomplish what John could with one statement.
“Playing with you is like therapy, sometimes.” She answers, and goes back to the line she was working on before the conversation- “mm hmm-mm the name on my lips.”
She calls him the next day asking him to play at her show in May. She’s made him play Your Body is a Wonderland with her countless times in the studio because she loves it, so that’s how he ends up singing a song about sexual discovery to an arena packed with little girls. He tries not to think about the implications, just focuses on playing his guitar and not to giving the lyrics too much meaning while she’s standing there with her fingers mapping out his chords. She strolls over to him just long enough for him to deliver Damn, baby, you frustrate me, directly to her. He knows the meaning is lost on the 20,001 people in the room who aren’t him.
His song ends and then they play White Horse. He didn’t know the song before, but he’s planning to riff on it a little, make it his own. He’s used to audiences singing along with the big songs, but it comes as a genuine shock when the entire arena screams “find someone someday, who might actually TREAT ME WELL” along with Taylor. It feels like an ambush. He doesn’t stick around after he finishes performing.
**
She starts dating some kid from Twilight, but John takes every opportunity to stay on her mind. He tweets at her sometimes, just to remind here he’s there. Demi invites him to her concert in July. Demi is fun and he had enjoyed writing with her, but he only goes because he knows he’ll end up behind the sound booth with Taylor. They watch the show together, standing in the dark and trying to ignore the faces turning away from the stage to peek at them every once in a while. She reaches out and grabs his hand when Demi plays World of Chances, squeezing tight.
**
They’re set to perform at Jingle Ball, the first ever real performance of Half of My Heart. There are tons of acts and space is tight, so, since they’re singing together, the organizers put John and Taylor in the same dressing room.
They have this easy flirtation going on. She’s a tactile person, so when they’re talking she sometimes rests a hand somewhere on him, his shoulder, his arm, his knee. It makes it hard for him to concentrate on whatever he’s saying when his brain wants to shut down and focus just on the feeling of those fingers of hers resting on top of his thigh. He reciprocates the touching, tucks her hair behind her ear for her when it falls over her face, gives her a hundred hugs.
She draws a tiny 13 on his palm before he goes out on stage. “For luck,” she says, cradling his hand in hers while she embellishes the drawing a little. Her fingers are clutched around the back of his hand, and her thumb is hooked around his, holding his hand flat. She leans over to draw a little flower beside the 13 and he feels her breath warm on his upturned palm. “There we go,” she lets go of his hand and smiles up at him, “you’re going to kill it.”
He grabs his guitar and plays the opening chords of Don’t Trust Myself before heading out on stage. He can’t add it to the set-list, but it has to be played right now.
He performs like he never has before. He’s all soul and nerve and music, losing himself completely. The chords he’s played a thousand times before become new and organic all at once, and he pours every piece of himself out. He closes his eyes for the entirety of Your Body is a Wonderland, giving himself over to the fantasy. The crowd screams and cheers as he finishes, but he might as well have been playing alone in his bedroom for all he notices or cares. This moment is about himself and his music and the girl who drew a lucky 13 on his hand.
He comes back and she’s been watching him from the monitor in the room. “You were awesome!” she squeals, giving him a big hug. His arms wrap around her waist in response and he forgets where he is for a second. Then the stage manager knocks and peeks in- they’re on together in 10 minutes and they have to get to their places- and they break apart.
They get on stage and introduce the world to Half of my Heart. They harmonize and riff, owning the musical trust they’ve built with each other over the past months. Taylor grabs her mic stand, shakes her hips, and looks right in his eyes and he thinks she’s the greatest performer the world has ever seen.
He comes back into the dressing room while she continues her set and someone has put an enormous arrangement of pink and red roses on the side-table next to the door. He smiles, thinking they’re from z100 as a thank you, and pulls the card out of the little plastic ring out of habit. But when he opens it, his heart drops.
Swifty,
You rocked it tonight. Sorry I couldn’t be there, but I’ll see you so soon.
I know you’re going to count anyway, but I promise there are 13 red ones and 13 pink ones.
xxoo Taylor
It’s a miracle he doesn’t smash the vase on the floor. Fucking Twilight kid.
When she comes back in from her set, bright-eyed and glistening, he sweeps her up in another hug. She sees the flowers over his shoulder and gasps.
“Oh my gosh! Roses?” Before he can say anything she kisses him on the cheek and leans over to grab the card. It’s hard to read the emotion in her face as she realizes her mistake; she’s confused and happy and disappointed and conflicted. She raises her eyes to look at him, wordlessly.
That’s when he presses her against the wall and kisses her, hands pinning her waist to the concrete. Taylor’s taken by surprise, but she presses forward, responding to him. He feels her breath and her heartbeat, everything in her body quickening under his touch.
**
She breaks it off with the Twilight kid the next day. It had been almost impossible to tear herself away from John the night before, but she knows she has to choose the quickest and easiest way of breaking Taylor’s heart before she does something stupid.
No one who values their life asks her if her opinion on dumping someone over the phone has changed, although a few of them are thinking it.
**
The new year rolls around and they’re both busy planning and playing tours, so it’s hard to see each other and it’s hard to make time to talk. They make time when they can, dinner in Nashville here, LA there, texts and video chats, and the occasional tweet, thinly veiled. He finally has her where he wants her, but life - and her mother - get in the way all too often, and they never have time to be just themselves.
Whatever they have going on, it doesn’t stop him from hooking up with random girls who hit on him in bars, in hotels, in the audience at his shows. He feels a little bad about it, can’t bring himself to talk to her on the nights he comes back to his hotel room stoned, with lipstick smeared on his dick. If she calls more than once he’ll answer sometimes, but it always ends badly. She gets annoyed and hangs up on him mostly.
Their tour paths finally come close to crossing in March. She goes straight from Florida to Austin in time to catch his show, two days before she’ll be playing the same venue. She watches from backstage, right behind a bulkhead where no one out front can see her, but she can kiss him, quick but deep, when he runs back a couple of times between songs. At the end of the show she’s already waiting for him in the car that will take them to his hotel room.
By the time they get into the elevator and out of anyone’s sight he’s so desperate for her he can barely contain himself. His hands are on her body the instant the elevator door closes, one arm circling her waist, a hand tangling in her hair as he pulls her in and kisses her urgently. She’s just as desperate as he is, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him closer.
The elevator deposits them directly into his suite. They trip and stumble their way into the room, only untangling themselves long enough for Taylor to lift John’s t-shirt over his head and drop it on the floor. He slips his hands under her dress, fingers dragging up her thighs and hooking into the waistband of her panties. He peels them down and she begins to unbuckle his belt.
When they make it to the chaise, they’ve left a trail of all their clothing behind them. He gets her on her back instantly. Hovering over her, bowing into her space, he mouths at the hollow of her neck, and she threads her fingers into his hair. He feels her moving under him, her hips shift as he runs his tongue along a dip just above her collarbone. He’s can’t wait any longer- he grasps her, pulling her hips down towards his and guiding her thighs apart.
The moment he slides into her is crystallized in his mind forever. Her eyes flutter closed and she lets out this long, achingly slow breath when he hits home. Her skin is flushed, and her nails bite into his neck as her hand clenches reflexively. He remembers with perfect clarity the sight of her, debauched underneath him; he’ll revisit it for years.
The sex is reckless, visceral. They discover each other intensely, encounter what they couldn’t or wouldn’t have any other way. He learns that she likes having her wrists pinned down, and she happily obliges when he begs her to scrape her fingernails down his back again, harder.
When it’s over, they’ve moved to the bed and they’re drifting off, Taylor thinks about their future. How she’ll tell everyone they were wrong and she found her perfect match in the unlikeliest of places. A song about how they’re the lucky ones starts forming in her head, and she’ll have to remember it tomorrow.
John feels only relief. He’s finished what started 5 years ago at an open mic night in Nashville. He sleeps better than he can ever remember sleeping.
He makes sure to be quiet the next morning when his watch beeps once at 6:30 to wake him. Extricating himself from her arms, he slips into his jeans, gathers up his phone and jacket. He untangles his shirt from her dress, realizing it’s the only thing she has to go home in. He doesn’t leave a note; he doesn’t leave anything. He sneaks out of the room and gets on the bus to Dallas, where she won’t be for another few days, and by then he’ll be heading east while she heads north, tours and lives on diverging paths.
**
He doesn’t answer her calls and never returns them, but he listens to all of the voicemails. When they get vitriolic, he presses 9 to save for a songwriting day sometime later when he’ll need to tap into them. The messages eventually lose their fire, though, and then they stop coming altogether.
**
Keith Urban’s a little surprised when John calls him out of the blue and proposes a collaboration, but he buys the bullshit about crossover appeal and the buzz they’ll both get if they perform together somewhere. From there, getting an invitation to the CMT Awards is cake. John misses Taylor. Not enough to call her and open that can of worms, but enough to orchestrate this unlikely scenario where he’ll be able to sit in a room near her and ignore her if he wants to.
He hangs around the after-party just long enough to feel Taylor’s glare burning a hole in the back of his head. He avoids her expertly for an hour, but he can’t help choosing a route on his way out that will require him to squeeze past her. It’s only a fraction of a second that he brushes his hand against her back, but he feels her tense instantly, and then he’s gone.
**
A week later, Taylor’s being honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. They’ve asked John to introduce her, which is a perfectly sensible choice for an organization that doesn’t know or care about John and Taylor’s non-professional relationship.
He writes her a speech that will hurt. Makes sure to phrase things just right. He wants to get under her skin again, and he only does it like this because he knows that of all the girls on this planet, Taylor will be able to maintain her composure. He knows she’ll look graceful and grateful and humble as she accepts an award from the man who stood on a stage in a crowded room and listed all the things he’s taken away from her.
She does remain composed. When she gives him a hug, she whispers “thank you” in his ear. A tiny, private moment in a huge crowded auditorium. Of all the things she could have whispered secretly to him in this moment, she thanks him. She thanks him in her acceptance speech, too, says it’s an honor to be in the company of the previous recipients of the award, especially John. She stands at the podium with confidence and talks about her true songwriting heroes.
John watches and listens, bemused. He was expecting her to take it in stride, but searching her, he can’t find a trace of the girl who launched a worldwide media campaign to shame every boy who's broken her heart. Something twinges, deep inside of John. Years of following her, learning everything about her, and somehow he still underestimated her. It thrills him a little that she’s standing there, in front of him, exceeding his expectations.
They don’t get a chance to be alone for the rest of the evening. They pose for a few pictures together after her speech and he gives her another quick hug, then Taylor’s caught up in a crowd of photographers, interviewers, colleagues, devotees. She disappears into a car with her mother and assistant and he doesn’t have a chance to say goodbye.
Once she’s gone, he goes too. There’s no reason for him to stay. For the first time in months he thinks about Taylor as he strokes himself off in the shower that night; it feels good.
**
She’s on his missed calls list when he wakes up the next morning. He lays on his back and looks at the phone for a while. The call came at 2 am, a little over an hour after she’d left the party. He hadn’t intended - or expected - to have her on the hook again so soon. Still, he reflects on the night before and how she had taken everything he threw at her, and stood there, totally composed, accepting the award.
He’s ready to have her again.
He taps the voicemail button, and lays the phone on his chest speaker-up lying back to absorb what she has to say.
Instead of her voice, though, he hears a melody being picked out on a twelve-string guitar. It's delicate, and evocative. He could have written it himself, he thinks. The song continues for a while, and then, finally, he hears her voice joining the melody.
"Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress wrote you a song. You should've known. You should’ve known."
The line goes silent.
Pairing: John Mayer/Taylor Swift
Rating: Mature
Length: 4,449 Summary/Warnings: This is a story about John Mayer being a Machiavellian creep.
Notes: Written for loveandcoffee/ coffeecommunity. Thanks to liminalliz and pwincess for the betas and the support and for laughing at my Continuum pun. Thanks to John Mayer for being the kind of guy who makes this story almost believable. Title is from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
No I'm not the man I used to be lately
See you met me at an interesting time
If my past is any sign of your future
You should be warned before I let you inside
Hold on to whatever you find baby
Hold on to whatever will get you through
Hold on to whatever you find baby
I don't trust myself with loving you
-John Mayer, I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)
He first sets eyes on her by chance. He’s in bed, preoccupied with a woman whose name will escape him in a few weeks, and the TV is on in the corner, muted commentators silently opining about the upcoming tennis match.
John comes, shuddering, and rolls onto his back. That’s when he sees her on the TV. He’s post-coital, naked, breathing hard, and he watches a tiny little thing in a red dress who hasn’t yet approached puberty. He can’t hear her singing. The nameless woman sighs and shifts in the bed next to him, and he turns his attention away from the TV.
Neither of them will ever know, but the moment becomes an indelible part of their history.
**
Four years later, John’s touring with the Trio and they’re staying in Nashville for a day off. Pino swings by his hotel room and wheedles him into dinner with some producers. John thinks he’d rather order room service and work on a song that’s been rolling around in his head - he wants to start getting serious about another solo album- but he goes along and he’s not sure why.
They get to the café and it looks like there’s an open mic night going on. A young guy in an obviously affected country outfit twangs out a tune from the stage in the corner as John and his group get seated. He hopes that the music will give him a good excuse to ignore the conversation.
Just as John’s steak arrives, the annoying guitarist tips his ten-gallon hat to the crowd and surrenders the stage to polite applause. He’s followed by a little whisper of a girl in a pale pink dress. Yeah, she’s skinny, delicate, but she’s also brimming with confidence. There’s this strange paradox in the way she carries herself, right at an intersection between awkward youthfulness and grace. The way the stage lights shine on her, illuminating her gold ringlets like a halo, she looks positively angelic. He can’t decide if that’s the beginning of a song or just some lame fleeting thought. He also can’t tell how old she is, but he has a feeling she’s too young for the thoughts that are forming in his head about what he’d like to do with her.
The girl adjusts the mic and introduces herself.
“Hi y’all. Thanks for comin’ out tonight. My name’s Taylor, and I’m gonna play you a couple of songs.” She plucks a little at her twelve-string, ensuring it’s in tune, and he can’t help but notice her long, dainty fingers, and the way her arms cradle the guitar.
She launches into a song about finding Prince Charming in a modern world and he’s enraptured. He can barely tear his eyes away long enough to start eating. Then she sings another about the perfect homecoming dance. She’s full of these silly fairy-tale clichés about love, but, he thinks, they fit her. He watches her play, notices her hands, again. They’re hard not to watch, the way she coaxes a tune out of the guitar with them, but he also sees the sway of her shoulders, the way her skinny legs move as she taps out the beat with her foot, and how her mouth forms the words- her lips are just a little pouty and very pink.
“Good, huh?” One of the producers sitting next to John breaks his concentration, and he realizes he’s stopped mid-chew to stare at her. John mumbles an affirmative noise as he swallows.
“They thought she was the next big thing - turned down a development deal with RCA because she wanted more control.” The producer continues, shaking his head. “She’s just 15, though, she still has time to make it.”
Fifteen, John thinks. Shit.
“There’s something about her,” he replies aloud, but he doesn’t know quite how to elaborate, especially not to some sleazy corporate stranger, so he excuses himself. He heads back to the bar and orders a vodka soda. It’s his fifth for the night, and he’s beginning to feel buzzed. He’s not buzzed enough, though, so he orders another, a double please, no ice, and knocks it back in a couple of gulps.
John puts her name into the moleskine he carries everywhere. It’s half full of scribbled song lyrics and chords and half girls’ phone numbers - these things are all points along the same continuum to him. He finds a clean page opposite a mess of thoughts that will eventually become Gravity and writes down “Taylor Swift” in tiny letters. He looks up at her again- she’s grinning and taking a bow to considerably more applause than the previous guy- and then looks back down and writes the words “hold on to whatever you find.”
He goes to his hotel room and writes I Don’t Trust Myself with Loving You in 20 minutes.
**
It’s two years before he hears Teardrops on my Guitar on the radio, but he recognizes her voice instantly.
As her career develops, he makes a point of talking to her managers, producers, anyone who has worked with her. He does it just to keep his name in their heads, to ensure that the idea of John Mayer is a presence somewhere in her life, even if it won’t affect her yet. He does it under the pretense of finding out who is writing her songs, although he’s known since he saw her that night in Nashville that they were hers. Songwriters can tell their own kind.
Before she even becomes omnipresent on the gossip sites, he tracks her down anyway. He reads whatever he can about her. Relationships and breakups, her obsessions with the number 13, baking, and cats. Then she releases another album and becomes a household name, and he’s grateful that he can spend hours on a Tuesday morning in bed with his laptop, checking the edits on her Wikipedia article, watching YouTube videos of her concerts, bookmarking pictures from photoshoots where she’s barefoot, wearing a floaty dress, hair a little messed up.
Jennifer calls and he turns the phone off completely.
**
He eases himself into her life, tries to make the transition from talking to her managers and friends to her. He follows her on Twitter, and then he asks her to record with him. There’s this song that’s been lingering around in his head, he wakes up humming it 3 days in a row. It’s stuck in his mind, and he’s sure it intends to stay there until he records it, finishes with it. The song is like Taylor that way.
She’s the type that likes grand gestures and big declarations, so he does the next best thing to blasting In Your Eyes on a boom box in her front yard. He tweets about it. First he says something about the song, how he thinks it’s going to be good. Then he adds “and I want to sing it with Taylor Swift,” not really an afterthought, but not the first priority either.
Her reaction is pretty much exactly what he’s imagining it to be. Her fiddler Caitlin texts her “girl, look at @johncmayer RIGHT NOW.” And when Taylor does she ends up jumping and dancing around the living room for 10 minutes, singing pieces of whatever John Mayer songs come into her head. She has her people find a break in her schedule as soon as possible so she can set up a time to record, and a week later she’s in a car on her way to a studio where she’s going to meet him.
Taylor doesn’t read Playboy, even for the articles, so she doesn’t know just how much she should be avoiding him.
**
She gets to the studio a little early, and he’s already there; he looks a little unwashed, like he might have been in there for the last few days, actually. Still, she offers a big hug and hands him a plate of cookies she baked.
“I bake when I’m nervous,” she offers, half explanation, half introduction. He smiles. He knew that, of course. He’s been looking forward to cookies ever since she agreed to record with him.
“I just write songs,” he answers, “looks like you have me beat by one.” Any awkwardness there might have been dissolves. He sits her down and plays her what he has so far, which is basically the whole song. He lets her tweak a little, play around with the chords and the lyrics and hours later they have a recording he’s happy with. She thanks him and he asks if she wants to come in again tomorrow.
She goes in the next day, and then again a few days after that. They play, they write, they just spend time together. They sit in studios and pluck at their guitars and share their ideas and thoughts. Mostly about music at first, but she starts to opens up about her life, boys that have been mean to her, making the right business decisions, the frustrations with writing and performing that only he’ll understand.
“People are still surprised when they find out I write my songs. Still.” She complains one day in the middle of working out some new lyrics. It’s the one thing that annoys her the most. “Like they see me and it’s so hard to believe that I could write a song.”
“You need to ignore all of that, seriously. They don’t understand.” He’s told her before that they’re a rare breed, that performers and songwriters like them are misunderstood.
“I just… I’m worried this might all be over soon. That people will stop caring.” Never mind that she’s about to leave on a sold-out, year-long headlining tour, that she sold out Madison Square Garden in 60 seconds. “I want to do this forever.”
“Do you know why I asked you to sing on Half of my Heart? It’s because I know you’re going to be around for a long time.” That much is true. Every once in a while, he shares a little piece of himself with her too.
Taylor blushes, and looks back down at her guitar. Reassurances her mother and her manager and Abigail have been giving her for a week didn’t accomplish what John could with one statement.
“Playing with you is like therapy, sometimes.” She answers, and goes back to the line she was working on before the conversation- “mm hmm-mm the name on my lips.”
She calls him the next day asking him to play at her show in May. She’s made him play Your Body is a Wonderland with her countless times in the studio because she loves it, so that’s how he ends up singing a song about sexual discovery to an arena packed with little girls. He tries not to think about the implications, just focuses on playing his guitar and not to giving the lyrics too much meaning while she’s standing there with her fingers mapping out his chords. She strolls over to him just long enough for him to deliver Damn, baby, you frustrate me, directly to her. He knows the meaning is lost on the 20,001 people in the room who aren’t him.
His song ends and then they play White Horse. He didn’t know the song before, but he’s planning to riff on it a little, make it his own. He’s used to audiences singing along with the big songs, but it comes as a genuine shock when the entire arena screams “find someone someday, who might actually TREAT ME WELL” along with Taylor. It feels like an ambush. He doesn’t stick around after he finishes performing.
**
She starts dating some kid from Twilight, but John takes every opportunity to stay on her mind. He tweets at her sometimes, just to remind here he’s there. Demi invites him to her concert in July. Demi is fun and he had enjoyed writing with her, but he only goes because he knows he’ll end up behind the sound booth with Taylor. They watch the show together, standing in the dark and trying to ignore the faces turning away from the stage to peek at them every once in a while. She reaches out and grabs his hand when Demi plays World of Chances, squeezing tight.
**
They’re set to perform at Jingle Ball, the first ever real performance of Half of My Heart. There are tons of acts and space is tight, so, since they’re singing together, the organizers put John and Taylor in the same dressing room.
They have this easy flirtation going on. She’s a tactile person, so when they’re talking she sometimes rests a hand somewhere on him, his shoulder, his arm, his knee. It makes it hard for him to concentrate on whatever he’s saying when his brain wants to shut down and focus just on the feeling of those fingers of hers resting on top of his thigh. He reciprocates the touching, tucks her hair behind her ear for her when it falls over her face, gives her a hundred hugs.
She draws a tiny 13 on his palm before he goes out on stage. “For luck,” she says, cradling his hand in hers while she embellishes the drawing a little. Her fingers are clutched around the back of his hand, and her thumb is hooked around his, holding his hand flat. She leans over to draw a little flower beside the 13 and he feels her breath warm on his upturned palm. “There we go,” she lets go of his hand and smiles up at him, “you’re going to kill it.”
He grabs his guitar and plays the opening chords of Don’t Trust Myself before heading out on stage. He can’t add it to the set-list, but it has to be played right now.
He performs like he never has before. He’s all soul and nerve and music, losing himself completely. The chords he’s played a thousand times before become new and organic all at once, and he pours every piece of himself out. He closes his eyes for the entirety of Your Body is a Wonderland, giving himself over to the fantasy. The crowd screams and cheers as he finishes, but he might as well have been playing alone in his bedroom for all he notices or cares. This moment is about himself and his music and the girl who drew a lucky 13 on his hand.
He comes back and she’s been watching him from the monitor in the room. “You were awesome!” she squeals, giving him a big hug. His arms wrap around her waist in response and he forgets where he is for a second. Then the stage manager knocks and peeks in- they’re on together in 10 minutes and they have to get to their places- and they break apart.
They get on stage and introduce the world to Half of my Heart. They harmonize and riff, owning the musical trust they’ve built with each other over the past months. Taylor grabs her mic stand, shakes her hips, and looks right in his eyes and he thinks she’s the greatest performer the world has ever seen.
He comes back into the dressing room while she continues her set and someone has put an enormous arrangement of pink and red roses on the side-table next to the door. He smiles, thinking they’re from z100 as a thank you, and pulls the card out of the little plastic ring out of habit. But when he opens it, his heart drops.
Swifty,
You rocked it tonight. Sorry I couldn’t be there, but I’ll see you so soon.
I know you’re going to count anyway, but I promise there are 13 red ones and 13 pink ones.
xxoo Taylor
It’s a miracle he doesn’t smash the vase on the floor. Fucking Twilight kid.
When she comes back in from her set, bright-eyed and glistening, he sweeps her up in another hug. She sees the flowers over his shoulder and gasps.
“Oh my gosh! Roses?” Before he can say anything she kisses him on the cheek and leans over to grab the card. It’s hard to read the emotion in her face as she realizes her mistake; she’s confused and happy and disappointed and conflicted. She raises her eyes to look at him, wordlessly.
That’s when he presses her against the wall and kisses her, hands pinning her waist to the concrete. Taylor’s taken by surprise, but she presses forward, responding to him. He feels her breath and her heartbeat, everything in her body quickening under his touch.
**
She breaks it off with the Twilight kid the next day. It had been almost impossible to tear herself away from John the night before, but she knows she has to choose the quickest and easiest way of breaking Taylor’s heart before she does something stupid.
No one who values their life asks her if her opinion on dumping someone over the phone has changed, although a few of them are thinking it.
**
The new year rolls around and they’re both busy planning and playing tours, so it’s hard to see each other and it’s hard to make time to talk. They make time when they can, dinner in Nashville here, LA there, texts and video chats, and the occasional tweet, thinly veiled. He finally has her where he wants her, but life - and her mother - get in the way all too often, and they never have time to be just themselves.
Whatever they have going on, it doesn’t stop him from hooking up with random girls who hit on him in bars, in hotels, in the audience at his shows. He feels a little bad about it, can’t bring himself to talk to her on the nights he comes back to his hotel room stoned, with lipstick smeared on his dick. If she calls more than once he’ll answer sometimes, but it always ends badly. She gets annoyed and hangs up on him mostly.
Their tour paths finally come close to crossing in March. She goes straight from Florida to Austin in time to catch his show, two days before she’ll be playing the same venue. She watches from backstage, right behind a bulkhead where no one out front can see her, but she can kiss him, quick but deep, when he runs back a couple of times between songs. At the end of the show she’s already waiting for him in the car that will take them to his hotel room.
By the time they get into the elevator and out of anyone’s sight he’s so desperate for her he can barely contain himself. His hands are on her body the instant the elevator door closes, one arm circling her waist, a hand tangling in her hair as he pulls her in and kisses her urgently. She’s just as desperate as he is, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him closer.
The elevator deposits them directly into his suite. They trip and stumble their way into the room, only untangling themselves long enough for Taylor to lift John’s t-shirt over his head and drop it on the floor. He slips his hands under her dress, fingers dragging up her thighs and hooking into the waistband of her panties. He peels them down and she begins to unbuckle his belt.
When they make it to the chaise, they’ve left a trail of all their clothing behind them. He gets her on her back instantly. Hovering over her, bowing into her space, he mouths at the hollow of her neck, and she threads her fingers into his hair. He feels her moving under him, her hips shift as he runs his tongue along a dip just above her collarbone. He’s can’t wait any longer- he grasps her, pulling her hips down towards his and guiding her thighs apart.
The moment he slides into her is crystallized in his mind forever. Her eyes flutter closed and she lets out this long, achingly slow breath when he hits home. Her skin is flushed, and her nails bite into his neck as her hand clenches reflexively. He remembers with perfect clarity the sight of her, debauched underneath him; he’ll revisit it for years.
The sex is reckless, visceral. They discover each other intensely, encounter what they couldn’t or wouldn’t have any other way. He learns that she likes having her wrists pinned down, and she happily obliges when he begs her to scrape her fingernails down his back again, harder.
When it’s over, they’ve moved to the bed and they’re drifting off, Taylor thinks about their future. How she’ll tell everyone they were wrong and she found her perfect match in the unlikeliest of places. A song about how they’re the lucky ones starts forming in her head, and she’ll have to remember it tomorrow.
John feels only relief. He’s finished what started 5 years ago at an open mic night in Nashville. He sleeps better than he can ever remember sleeping.
He makes sure to be quiet the next morning when his watch beeps once at 6:30 to wake him. Extricating himself from her arms, he slips into his jeans, gathers up his phone and jacket. He untangles his shirt from her dress, realizing it’s the only thing she has to go home in. He doesn’t leave a note; he doesn’t leave anything. He sneaks out of the room and gets on the bus to Dallas, where she won’t be for another few days, and by then he’ll be heading east while she heads north, tours and lives on diverging paths.
**
He doesn’t answer her calls and never returns them, but he listens to all of the voicemails. When they get vitriolic, he presses 9 to save for a songwriting day sometime later when he’ll need to tap into them. The messages eventually lose their fire, though, and then they stop coming altogether.
**
Keith Urban’s a little surprised when John calls him out of the blue and proposes a collaboration, but he buys the bullshit about crossover appeal and the buzz they’ll both get if they perform together somewhere. From there, getting an invitation to the CMT Awards is cake. John misses Taylor. Not enough to call her and open that can of worms, but enough to orchestrate this unlikely scenario where he’ll be able to sit in a room near her and ignore her if he wants to.
He hangs around the after-party just long enough to feel Taylor’s glare burning a hole in the back of his head. He avoids her expertly for an hour, but he can’t help choosing a route on his way out that will require him to squeeze past her. It’s only a fraction of a second that he brushes his hand against her back, but he feels her tense instantly, and then he’s gone.
**
A week later, Taylor’s being honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. They’ve asked John to introduce her, which is a perfectly sensible choice for an organization that doesn’t know or care about John and Taylor’s non-professional relationship.
He writes her a speech that will hurt. Makes sure to phrase things just right. He wants to get under her skin again, and he only does it like this because he knows that of all the girls on this planet, Taylor will be able to maintain her composure. He knows she’ll look graceful and grateful and humble as she accepts an award from the man who stood on a stage in a crowded room and listed all the things he’s taken away from her.
She does remain composed. When she gives him a hug, she whispers “thank you” in his ear. A tiny, private moment in a huge crowded auditorium. Of all the things she could have whispered secretly to him in this moment, she thanks him. She thanks him in her acceptance speech, too, says it’s an honor to be in the company of the previous recipients of the award, especially John. She stands at the podium with confidence and talks about her true songwriting heroes.
John watches and listens, bemused. He was expecting her to take it in stride, but searching her, he can’t find a trace of the girl who launched a worldwide media campaign to shame every boy who's broken her heart. Something twinges, deep inside of John. Years of following her, learning everything about her, and somehow he still underestimated her. It thrills him a little that she’s standing there, in front of him, exceeding his expectations.
They don’t get a chance to be alone for the rest of the evening. They pose for a few pictures together after her speech and he gives her another quick hug, then Taylor’s caught up in a crowd of photographers, interviewers, colleagues, devotees. She disappears into a car with her mother and assistant and he doesn’t have a chance to say goodbye.
Once she’s gone, he goes too. There’s no reason for him to stay. For the first time in months he thinks about Taylor as he strokes himself off in the shower that night; it feels good.
**
She’s on his missed calls list when he wakes up the next morning. He lays on his back and looks at the phone for a while. The call came at 2 am, a little over an hour after she’d left the party. He hadn’t intended - or expected - to have her on the hook again so soon. Still, he reflects on the night before and how she had taken everything he threw at her, and stood there, totally composed, accepting the award.
He’s ready to have her again.
He taps the voicemail button, and lays the phone on his chest speaker-up lying back to absorb what she has to say.
Instead of her voice, though, he hears a melody being picked out on a twelve-string guitar. It's delicate, and evocative. He could have written it himself, he thinks. The song continues for a while, and then, finally, he hears her voice joining the melody.
"Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? The girl in the dress wrote you a song. You should've known. You should’ve known."
The line goes silent.