Can’t Handle You | Chapter 10: Lisbon
Can’t Handle You | Masterlist
Warnings: None
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No one was more excited when the tour bus pulled into Lisbon than Shawn. Not only did he love Portugal for the family history there - it’s where his dad grew up - but Shawn’s parents were coming to visit. He hadn’t seen them in almost a month, and he missed them more than he was ever prepared for.
It would be a hectic day, and Manny and Karen wouldn’t arrive until later, so Shawn and the boys hit the gym immediately after deboarding the bus. Shawn looked forward to working out every day, but today he had a lot of nervous energy to burn off.
Maybe that’s why you were surprised to find Shawn’s reply to your note. You had expected him to be too busy and distracted to write back until a few more cities had passed by your bus window.
Shawn’s note wasn’t as long as yours, which was not surprising considering your question (What would you name your boat if you had one?), but you couldn’t help but be excited to read it. You allowed yourself to be momentarily distracted from your usual unpacking-Shawn’s-room duties and sat on the edge of the hotel bed to read.
Who says I don’t have a boat already? Shawn wrote. Well ok, I don’t. But now I kind of want one. I think watching the sun go down over Lake Ontario from the bow (yes, I looked that up) of my own sailboat would be kind of amazing. A sport boat, like the kind you could surf behind, would be cool, too. But there’s something about a sailboat that seems really - is romantic the right word? Not like love-romance, but the kind of romantic where everything just seems perfect and beautiful and a little bit magical. Although, come to think of it, watching the sunset on a sailboat could be pretty love-romantic, too.
Your breath caught in your throat as you read. Growing up so close to Lake Travis, you were practically raised on the water. Your mom’s best friend owned a small boat rental business, and you spent every free moment of the warm seasons wakeboarding behind one of his boats, learning to expertly drive the various sports boats he offered, or laying across the deck of Dave’s own Nautique to work on your tan. You’d turned your favorite pastime into a pretty lucrative high school job, working the counter at Dave’s shop and offering boating and wakeboarding lessons on the side.
You’d always had a pretty romantic, to use Shawn’s word, view of sailboats, though. You often fantasized about sailing out to open sea, standing at the tip of the bow of a catamaran or a schooner, one hand on the jib as you leaned out over the water. That particular image may have come from an old Audrey Hepburn photo your mom had shown you (your mom had an obsession with old Hollywood starlets).
Either way, you felt your heart race a little at Shawn’s words - especially the implication of a romantic sunset cruise. Was he flirting?
Maybe one day we’ll meet, and we can sail off into the sunset together - at this, you stopped breathing altogether; that definitely felt like flirting to you - on The Firebolt. Mischief Managed? Maybe I’d call it The Patronus. I’ve got some time to come up with the perfect name, but it’ll definitely be Harry Potter themed.
We won’t be sailing anywhere before you answer my next question: What exactly is your job? I don’t think I’ve ever had a “handler” before.
You could have been reading and rereading Shawn’s notes for one minute or ten - you lost track of time until you heard the jiggle of a doorknob, and you practically jumped out of your skin. Someone was opening the door to Shawn’s room. For a fleeting second, you wondered whether you should hide. But you knew that idea was ridiculous the moment it crossed your mind - imagine if Shawn opened his closet to find you tucked down beneath his clothes? You would look like a crazy stalker. No, you had every right to be in his room - it was your job to be there - and it was bound to happen anyway. Eventually. You just weren’t ready for it to be today, right now, that you’d meet him.
The door opened before you had time to move, and in walked a tall blonde woman with a large tote bag slung over her shoulder. She was beautiful, and you knew instantly who she was. When her eyes connected with yours, a surprised expression crossed her features. You could see her calculating the situation - you, a woman not much older than her world-famous rockstar son, were sitting on the bed in that rockstar’s hotel room as though waiting for him - and you hastily wanted to correct the conclusion that seemed to settle itself awkwardly across her face.
“Mrs. Mendes!” you exclaimed, jumping up from the bed and stuffing Shawn’s note in your back pocket. You crossed the room quickly, reaching out a hand toward her - to shake her hand or take her bag, you weren’t sure.
“Hello,” she replied cautiously, still confused by your presence in her son’s hotel room. She wasn’t naive by any means, but she was still a mom being confronted by a strange woman in her son’s bedroom. She reached for your hand.
“I’m (Y/N),” you said, shaking her hand. “We spoke on the phone last week.” Realization began to dawn on Mrs. Mendes’ features. “About Shawn? And his laundry?”
“(Y/N), of course!” she beamed, understanding that you weren’t Shawn’s latest hookup but rather an employee. “You’re the one who’s been taking such good care of my son!” At this, she pulled you in for a warm hug, which you happily returned.
“I do what I can,” you said bashfully. “Let me take that for you,” you said, motioning toward the bag on her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she replied kindly. You took the bag and set it gently on the desk for her. She went to the bag and opened it, pulling from it a few objects you assumed were meant to make Shawn feel at home. “I couldn’t resist,” she said, indicating the device she had pulled from the bag. “I miss taking care of my boy,” she said in her charming Canadian/British accent.
“I understand, Mrs. Mendes.”
“Please, (Y/N), call me Karen. We’re on the same team, after all.”
You beamed. “What is that?” you asked as Karen plugged in the device.
“It’s a diffuser for essential oils,” she responded. “I live by my oils.” You thought you understood, now, where Shawn got his penchant for all things natural.
“I can see why,” you smiled. “I’m never doing laundry without lavender oil again.”
“You like it?” Karen asked, pleased.
“I love it! I couldn’t believe how good the laundry smelled when it came out of the dryer. I did Shawn’s and mine with lavender and I’ll never go back to regular dryer sheets.”
“So you really do Shawn’s laundry?” Karen seemed surprised. “He’s really getting the rockstar treatment now.”
You weren’t sure how to respond. Karen seemed disappointed by this information, and for some reason, the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint her. “Part of the job,” you muttered uncomfortably.
Karen sensed something was wrong. “Don’t get me wrong!” she said apologetically. “I often do Shawn’s laundry back home. I just worry about him,” she confessed. “This has been his life for so long,” she indicated the ritzy hotel room, “I worry about how we’re going to keep him grounded. You hear so much about the other child stars, I sometimes think that if they did their own laundry, they wouldn’t turn out so...” She trailed off, but you knew what she meant.
“I don’t think you have to worry about Shawn,” you replied in the most reassuring voice you could muster. “He seems really humble.”
Karen didn’t answer right away, distracted by the tiny bottles of oils she was pulling from her bag. You wondered what they were each supposed to do, and thought learning about essential oils might be the next task to keep you busy on a long bus ride.
“Seems humble?” she finally asked. “What do you mean?” She looked up at the mirror above the desk to your reflection, and it felt, somehow, as though she were looking right through you.
“Well, I just mean,” you stammered, “that it always looks like he puts everyone else first. It doesn’t ever look like he thinks he’s the center of the universe. Which is pretty impressive, considering this tour is all about him, really.”
“Does he put you before himself?”
Your stomach did a flip. How could you explain your friendship-that-wasn’t-a-real-friendship to Shawn’s mom?
“I think he would,” you replied uncomfortably, “if we ever talked to each other.” There. It wasn’t quite a lie - you’d never had a conversation with Shawn. Only notes written on scraps of hotel paper, passed back and forth between you via the pockets of jeans and the lining of bags. “I work sort of in the background,” you finished lamely. “I’ve never actually met Shawn.”
At this admission, Karen turned to face you. “I know,” she replied. “I just don’t know why.”
This would be harder to explain, but you found yourself trying anyway. “To be honest, I’m not sure there’s a really good reason anymore,” you started. “When we left for Amsterdam, I asked Andrew - he’s my boss - to hold off on introducing me to Shawn. I wanted to spend some time observing him to get to know him first. Shawn seemed like the type of guy who would go out of his way to take care of other people, and, well, it’s my job to take care of him. I think that would make him uncomfortable, and ultimately make my job harder.”
Karen nodded her head in understanding. “You’re right about that,” she admitted. “But what about now?”
You had to think about this one. You had observed Shawn enough by now to be able to anticipate his needs and wants pretty well. He knew you existed, and he knew you were the one who followed him around, packing and unpacking his luggage, washing his clothes, shopping for him, prepping the green rooms at stadiums across Europe. He’d hinted in today’s note that he wanted to meet you. “I guess it just seems easier this way,” you said lamely, knowing this wasn’t a real answer.
“He talks about you, you know,” Karen said, catching you completely off-guard. Your head snapped up to meet her eyes, the eyes you’d been avoiding as you answered her question. “He tells us about the things you’ve done for him.” You could feel your cheeks heat up. “You’ll have to give me that tea recipe, he went on and on about it. Said it was a miracle.”
“I can write it down for you,” you said, happy for the change in subject.
“Just text it to me,” she said. “You have my number, right?” You nodded. “I do hope you’ll use it.”
You knew why Shawn loved his mom so much. It was true that he probably couldn’t get away with anything around her; she was too smart, too observant. But despite the fact that she could apparently see right through you, she didn’t push. She told you just enough to let you know she knew there was more to your story, but didn’t pry or make you feel bad about holding back. You knew she would listen if - when - you wanted to talk.
---------------------------------------------------
Shawn was on a high unlike any other when he finally crashed in his hotel room that night. The show had been as perfect as a show could get, and his parents had been there to see it for the first time. They’d had an incredible dinner together, and he’d hugged on both of his parents enough to satisfy him for the next month on tour. He fell into his bed, grinning from ear to ear. What a night.
He was almost too distracted to notice that he didn’t get a reply from you. He went to sleep wondering where he would find your next note.
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