This week episode of TNT took place in Buffalo as Kansas City met the Bills in the divisional playoff game for the right to advance to the AFC championship. For both KC fans and Swifties, there was a lot to be nervous about. Up to this point, Patrick Mahomes had never played a playoff game on the road. I haven’t f-cked with the NFL in a decade and even I know this because it’s so often repeated. Mahomes had a lot to prove last night and, no doubt, his teammates, including Travis Kelce, one of his closest friends, had a lot to prove for him. 

 

Where Taylor Swift is concerned, well, there’s all that misogyny. All that lovely business that follows a woman around whenever sports is involved. If they lost such a big game with her there, inevitably they’d throw around the curse word and call her a distraction. 

The result then, at least for one city and one fandom, was ideal. Patrick Mahomes led his team to victory and connected with Travis for two touchdowns, and Taylor was there to watch it all go down in the suite, and season one of TNT continues to next weekend when KC heads to Baltimore in the penultimate game before the Super Bowl. And, as Kathleen tells me, because she actually does follow American football and is about as invested in this love story as she’s ever been in any love story, LOL, for Taylor anyway, the pressure isn’t quite as high because KC is going into the game as underdogs. 

But that’s still six days away. All that matters right now is that we will be getting a new episode of TNT next weekend, even though last night’s episode had all the ingredients of a season finale. For starters, Taylor was with all the Kelces. The Philadelphia Eagles loss last week meant that Jason could travel, with his wife Kylie, to support Travis this week, marking the first time Taylor was in the suite with her boyfriend’s brother and his partner. And did he ever put on a show. 

 

First he showed up at the Bills tailgate:

 

Then he ripped his shirt off to celebrate Travis’s TD: 

And the best part about that is Kylie in the background as everyone else is going wild like she’s trying to suppress a yawn, LOLOLOLOL. That’s why people love this couple, especially after watching the documentary. She is unfazed by his mess. 

Still with his shirt off – and it was brutally cold – Jason jumped into the stands at one point. And also picked up a little girl so she could say hi to Taylor. 

 

Eventually he went back to his seat, though he did not put his shirt back on, and can be seen in the background crushing a beer while Taylor and Brittany Mahomes reacted to another Travis touchdown: 

So it was Jason, then, who became the main character of the broadcast from the suite this weekend – and that’s a good thing. It’s also not easy to do. Pulling focus from a global superstar? Not everyone can manage it and not everyone can achieve it with good intentions. I’m not saying that this was a premeditated goal of Jason’s to go out there and clown all the attention away from Taylor but in doing so, in making himself the heatscore, he made it so that she wouldn’t be accused of being the heatscore. He took away what the haters were looking to criticise. Who could possibly say that Taylor was the peacock of the suite last night when Jason was out here with his shirt off making a spectacle of himself? 

 

In my version of the rom-com, this was an act of generosity from a big brother to his little brother and his girlfriend. And Travis reciprocated the love with a kiss and a hand heart towards his box, his community of supporters. I know we want to believe that that was meant for just one person, considering it’s a gesture that Taylor is well-known to have made before, but it’s even better for our rom-com that the kiss and the hand heart was meant for his entire crew, including her. Because that means she’s one of them. And for a dude who, we’re told, is so big on family, that should elicit an even bigger squeal. 

 

What happened after? Well since KC was on the road, we did not get the usual footage of TNT holding hands leaving the locker room. You can see her, partially obscured, in this photo that was posted on social media of Travis revelling in the win post-game:

And now, probably, because it’s been this way for weeks, TNT will likely go quiet until the weekend. If they are spending time together between games they’re being quiet about it, which is smart. These are intense times for an athlete and the focus-police are monitoring every move. Taylor and Travis haven’t been giving them any reason to bitch. She might get photographed mid-week in New York, without him, especially since she’s getting ever closer to resuming the tour and her work is always her priority so I’m assuming rehearsals and other commitments are already underway. And then as we approach the weekend, all the speculation about her attendance will kick up again, along with anxiety about what a potential loss will mean for the story. We’ll worry about that when we need to worry about it. At the moment, our romance is still in its happy first act. 

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