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wyattjohnston · 6 days ago

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feeling like the sun never sets - trevor zegras

summary: maybe the player her dad hates the most isn't belle's wisest decision. it's definitely the most fun, though.

word count: 17k

note: this is set in 2022. special shoutouts go to @blueskrugs for hearing about this fic for approx 1000 years, and to @comphy-and-cozy for making sure it makes sense <3

playlist: love by mistake by bad suns | lost in california by little big town | heaven is a place in my head by bad suns | but daddy i love him by taylor swift | swimming in the moonlight by bad suns

“Bold strategy, Cotton,” Belle said, the corners of her mouth lifted. “Too bad it didn’t pay off.”

Belle hadn’t intended to say anything to anyone, perfectly content to sit in her own little corner of the arena and keep to herself the entire weekend, but the words had slipped out of her mouth the second she saw the bright yellow Average Joe’s jersey of Trevor Zegras.

Trevor swivelled and he took a moment to find her behind the crowd of people passing through. His smirk was devastating when he caught sight of her. She didn’t break eye contact even though it was her first instinct.

“I scored, too. Might be rigged.”

“Someone should have made a call to Toronto,” Belle agreed, referring to the review system used for in-game goals.

He was standing right in front of her, looking up at her through distractingly long eyelashes. The electrical box she was sitting on was a great vantage point. She wanted to sit on it all weekend if it meant he looked at her that same way.

“I’m Trevor,” he said, his right hand coming to rest so close to her thigh that she could feel his thumb brushing her skin through her tights.

“Is there anybody here this weekend who doesn’t know that?”

Belle placed her hands on the edge of the box, leaning in closer to Trevor—so close that she could feel his breath fanning across her face. She parted her legs, pressing into his hands where they were still pressed against her thighs, and he stepped easily into the newly created space.

“And what’s your name?”

His question came with a near constant flickering of his gaze between her eyes and her mouth. Belle kept her eyes locked on his, though she did not miss the way he licked his lips.

“Isabella.”

Trevor pressed closer. “I don’t get your last name?”

“No.” Belle couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh at the idea. “You absolutely do not.”

“Why not?”

She hooked her foot around the back of his left leg, delighting in the effortless way he moved just a bit closer. She was still laughing when she said, “If I told you why not, I may as well just tell you my last name.”

“So, you’re someone’s sister?”

“I might be.”

He paused so slightly that she might have imagined it before his eyes glimmered with a mischievousness Belle never wanted to be without. He said, “At least tell me if I’m going to get my ass kicked.”

“Oh, yeah,” Belle said as she nodded confidently, knowing that her face conveyed a challenge he was going to accept. “That’s basically a guarantee.”

Belle woke up the next morning thinking of Trevor and the way his thumb against her thigh had had her stomach flipping, remembering how close their faces had been. She’d dreamt about it. About more. About everything.

She woke up the morning after that feeling the same way, but with an added element of disappointment that she hadn’t seen Trevor at all the day before. She’d stayed clear of the actual All-Star games, as she’d been asked to, and sat in the stands by herself to watch as a fan—even if she was the most casual amongst them.

The day after the game, when Belle had expected everybody to clear out as early as possible to finally get in what they could of a vacation, she wandered into the hotel lobby to see two people drawing the attention of everybody else standing around—the woman in the pair’s white dress left only one conclusion. She stopped to get a better look at everybody around her, to see if she’d missed some gossip, but it looked like everybody had missed the gossip judging by the raised eyebrows.

Belle spotted Trevor amongst the chaos and, desperate for an explanation, beelined towards him—standing casually beside him for plausible deniability if required. He was smiling as she approached, and the gentle hand on the back of her elbow was fleeting. If anybody had seen that, or the tinge of pink that grew on the tops of her cheeks, that plausible deniability would be stripped. Luckily, everyone was distracted.

“The fuck is going on here?” she asked, having to raise her voice to make sure she was heard. “Are they getting married?”

“That’s my best friend!” Trevor shouted, bouncing up and down to get a better look over the crowd, “He didn’t say anything! I have no fucking clue what’s going on. I’ve gotta go—do you want to come?”

She thought about it hard, the energy was contagious, and the need to know what was going on was nearly enough to sway her. Except: “I promised I’d have lunch with my dad.”

Trevor’s face lit up, “Another bit of info to file away. I’m gonna work this out. Call me Sherlock Holmes.”

“Alright, Sherlock,” Belle said with a roll of her eyes, shoving Trevor in the direction everybody was moving in. “Go watch your friend get married.”

Belle took her time answering the door, expecting it to be her father stopping by to say goodnight after having to leave lunch earlier than anticipated. It was a little petty, but he’d left her at the table alone, so he could stand and wait at the door for a minute or two.

She peaked through the peephole first, just to delay a second longer; seeing Trevor on the other side made her increase the speed of her movements.

“You cannot be here!” she chastised, hauling him into the room by the arm and slamming it shut behind him. “Everyone knows what room I’m in. If someone sees you—”

“I’ve been thinking, and I think I’ve worked it out,” he said, unperturbed by her outburst. “If you were Isabella Tortorella that would be pretty funny.”

Belle dropped Trevor’s arm, shifting her gaze to his feet. She said, meekly, “I am. Isabella Tortorella.”

The ensuing silence was palpable, and Belle didn’t want to look up. It wasn’t usually a secret she kept—not usually something that made any difference to her life—but she’d heard the way her father spoke about Trevor both when he was being recorded and when he wasn’t and could only imagine that Trevor was well acquainted with it.

“Only I would get myself into this situation,” Trevor said, slowly. Cautiously.

Belle did look up, then, to see the wry smile that had formed in his face. She sighed, wondering if her fun had been ruined before she even had any.

“Nobody else has hit on me at all. No players, no handlers, no journalists—just you.”

“I’m probably the only one who hasn’t seen you with him.”

“Probably.”

A laugh bubbled out of Trevor’s throat, and Belle was caught up in the sound of it, caught up in the unashamed way he said, “I’m gonna get my ass kicked.”

She was halfway through a step towards him when another knock at the door had every muscle in her body locking up. She put her finger to her mouth, silently telling Trevor to keep quiet, and walked towards the closet.

She mouthed ‘get in’ as she slid the door open, and when Trevor didn’t immediately move Belle again grabbed him by the arm and dragged him towards it. He protested, though managed to stay silent, and she did her best to make her eyes wide in an attempt to beg him to play along.

In a harsh whisper, she said, “If anyone finds out you’re here, we’re fucked.”

He conceded, not before he pressed a rushed kiss to her mouth and smirked when Belle leant in for another after the first ended too quickly. She slid the door closed on his smug expression.

Belle knew she was right to hide Trevor away when her father was standing in the hall on the other side of the door.

“Hey, Daddy,” she greeted tersely, still not impressed about being abandoned for a lunch she hadn’t organised.

John Tortorella wasn’t an intimidating man, not to Belle anyway, but he did have an undeniable presence to him that she recognised might give some that impression.

“I just wanted to come say goodnight and apologise again for leaving lunch.”

“There was a wedding I could have gone to,” Belle said, barely controlling her foot from stomping petulantly. “I know that this is a work weekend, Daddy, but you asked me here to spend time with me and aside from half an hour last night and the world’s shortest lunch I haven’t seen you at all.”

“I know, Bella, and I’m sorry. I bought you something to make it up to you.”

That wasn’t a surprise to Belle, and not just because she could see the Valentino box he was holding; she had a nice little collection of expensive things bought purely as apologies. Inside the Valentino box was a black locò small shoulder bag which he definitely hadn’t gone and bought himself, but the poor person he’d sent on an impromptu shopping trip had chosen very nicely.

“Thank you. It’s perfect,” she said, as sincere as she could manage. “I was just about to get ready for bed, though.”

“I’ll see you for breakfast in the morning. Promise.”

Belle nodded once, stepping out of the door to let it close on her father’s face. His promises were empty.

Throwing her gift onto the bed as she went and not even caring enough to watch it bounce out of its box, Belle slid open the closet door to see Trevor staring at her, waiting.

“Daddy?” His question came so quickly and with so much accusation that Belle rolled her eyes and turned her back on him.

“Lots of people call their fathers that,” she huffed at him as she sat down on the end of the bed with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You’re an adult, though.”

“I’ll call my father whatever I want to.”

Trevor pulled out a chair from the small dining table in the corner and set it down directly in front of Belle. He sat with his legs spread wide, his knees either side of hers. Belle had put her hands behind her and was starting to lean back onto the bed, only to be drawn back closer to Trevor when he rested his elbows on his knees.

“So, your dad is John Tortorella.”

“Is that a problem?” she asked. Even though her voice was not without challenge, she was dreading that the answer would be ‘yes’ even if she would fully understand.

“Not for me,” Trevor answered, easily, without pause. “Is it one for you?”

“He can never find out. I don’t really want to know what would happen if he did.”

Trevor’s eyebrow twitched upwards. “Your dad’s an asshole. Shoulda let him see me in here.”

“It would burn our entire relationship to the ground,” she scoffed. “I don’t ever get to see him, and you want me to parade you around when I finally do?”

“You don’t ever get to see him? Doesn’t he work out of LA?”

Belle averted her gaze. The last thing she wanted was for Trevor to see any of her insecurities, but counting to ten and breathing exercises were sure to give her away. She kept her eyes on the wall behind him, doing her best to keep her voice even when she said, “Sometimes. He’s not usually there long enough to see me.”

He shifted, his hands either side of her thighs, his thumbs brushing at the bare skin exposed by her skirt—the electricity shot through her entire body. He leant in, his weight shifting to his hands on the bed and Belle let her eyelids flutter shut.

“You sure you don’t want to burn that relationship to the ground, Bella?”

“Call me Belle. Please.”

His breath was warm against her lips. “I can do that, Belle.”

Getting Trevor’s phone number hadn’t really been part of the plan when he’d snuck out sometime in the late hours of their night together in Vegas, though Belle had ended up with it. She’d also ended up with a promise of a repeat performance as Trevor lingered in the door to her hotel room stealing kisses that Belle wasn’t doing much to withhold.

From the phone number came Snapchat. Belle warily accepted that one, having received far too many unsolicited dick pics to think very highly of the app. Trevor had behaved, to her surprise and delight, and the pictures he did send—even the ones no doubt intended as thirst traps—were always sure to brighten her day. She was slowly getting to know his teammates through the photos and videos, none of them looking particularly willing to have the camera in their faces but Trevor loudly announcing their names in an unnatural enough way that Belle knew it was purely for her benefit.

He was the first to suggest they ‘hang out’. Despite how well behaved he had been in the two weeks since the All-Star Game, the ‘u up?’ text had come across as entirely natural and expected. Belle knew long before she received it that she was never going to say no.

Hockey wasn’t, and never had been, a passion of Belle’s. She knew more about it than she cared to admit—both as a sport and as a business—despite having paid minimal attention to it after the age of ten. It was impossible to ignore with her dad being who he is and being incapable of leaving his work at the rink, but everything she’d learnt about hockey as a teenager had been against her will even if she’d retained it all.

Which is probably why it felt so weird to turn on her television and actively seek out a game.

The Ducks weren’t good—and Belle didn’t need to be actively following hockey to know that—but she was interested in seeing Trevor play a real game, not silly three-on-three All-Star games, so she pulled her drafting table and stool within line of sight of the television and went to work.

It wasn’t as productive an evening as she would have liked, but the pencil designs were easily fixable and not at all final, it was just annoying to be halfway through a skirt idea and lose it because the television distracted her for five minutes whenever Trevor’s name was mentioned. Which was a lot. Belle wasn’t sure anybody else was even on the ice for the Ducks. Though, perhaps she just didn’t recognise the other players enough to remember if they were talked about. Perhaps she just didn’t care enough about them.

There was one name she knew as someone who had played for her father rather recently. Her father didn’t particularly like him, either. The feeling was almost definitely mutual.

By the end of the game, Belle had more than a couple rough designs and a plan for a few summer dresses—if she started early enough, they might actually be done come June.

The end result was frankly depressing, and Belle packed up her drafting table to the sound of her father’s post-game analysis.

Belle didn’t find out about Trevor’s birthday until one week before when she got a Snapchat around midnight Sunday—meaning it was nearing 2am in New York—of Trevor wearing a party hat. It was immediately followed by a video of someone forcing a party blower into his mouth and demanding he make it make the noise while someone (or some people) cackled in the background. There was an accompanying high-pitched giggle behind the camera which Belle would never admit to playing over and over.

No response or further Snaps were sent until the next morning when a far too hungover Trevor called her from his hotel bed to let her know he was alive, and that he was celebrating turning 21 with his best friend Jack—and their respective teammates Jamie & Ty. The high-pitched giggle belonged to Jack’s girlfriend. Belle was happy that information came without prompting.

She had coaxed out of him—and it had taken more effort than she’d expected—for him to tell her that the team were going out after their game the day after his birthday. It would be a Monday night, and she had an early class on Tuesdays, but she batted her eyelashes on the FaceTime call and asked if he’d be bothered by her conveniently being at the same club.

“I want you there,” he admitted, mumbling into his pillow. “But you wouldn’t be there for me.”

“I can just be the girl you find and hook up with. Nobody will even know who I am.”

Trevor had, at that, buried his face further into his pillow. Belle waited him out, wrapping her free arm around her body and trying not to let the uncomfortable silence consume her.

After what felt like an age without him responding or even moving, she slowly said, “I don’t have to. We can celebrate your birthday another time.”

“No, no,” Trevor said, and Belle watched his brain come back online. “You aren’t worried about being recognised?”

“Most guys in the league who would know me haven’t seen me since I was a pre-teen, dude.”

“Sonny played for your dad in Columbus like two years ago.”

Belle rolled her eyes. Sonny was the name she’d recognised when watching games. She knew there would come a point, if she continued whatever she was doing with Trevor, that Sonny might become an obstacle. She didn’t anticipate it being a very large obstacle.

“Then we don’t let me be seen by Sonny. Easy.”

And, as a result of that conversation, Belle was getting dressed up on a Monday night and convincing her longest standing college friend, Karla, to join her. Karla didn’t take much convincing—she was typically the one dragging Belle around LA, after all—and Belle would have felt worse about having her exit pre-planned if Karla hadn’t also decided to spread word that they were going out clubbing. If Belle was lucky enough, they’d be on their way to the next venue before they even realised she was missing.

Wearing the shortest dress she’d ever had the courage to whip up and the highest heels in her closet, Belle’s legs were on show to the fullest extent. Any of the—admittedly minimal—insecurities she harboured had disappeared with the pre-game and the stress-free entry into the club that came with no longer needing her sister’s ID.

Karla held her hand as they immediately made their way to get drinks, trying not to get separated in the already incredibly busy crowd. Belle let herself be pulled through people as they weaved, her attention on the VIP booths she knew Trevor would be at. There was no way she was going to walk directly up to them and announce her presence—not with the risk of being recognised—so Trevor would have to find her.

“There are some big guys here,” Karla shouted into Belle’s ear when they had stopped. “You always pick the best nights to go out.”

When she finally had a drink in her hand, the ice cooling her otherwise sticky palms, Belle again let herself be pulled around to a high table someone had managed to secure. There was enough happening around her to prevent her thoughts from getting obsessive; the girls she was with were all creating game plans based around guys they saw, only for the plans to change when the next guy walked past. It was easy enough for Belle to play along without letting on that her plans were set in stone, not when there was an endless parade of good-looking guys who had clocked that they were being checked out and kept walking back and forth.

At least one of them had to be a teammate of Trevor’s, just going on the size of them. If she wasn’t specifically waiting for Trevor, they all would have caught her attention just as much as they had her friends’. There were a few unconscious adjustments of her cleavage, regardless. Complete with ego boost when she noticed that they were looking.

Belle dragged Karla to the bar again for the next round of drinks, and very much wished she’d gone alone when she finally spotted Trevor. He wasn’t close enough to get his attention without drawing the attention of the rest of the club, so Belle did her best to direct Karla to the end of the bar closest to him.

Karla was saying something in Belle’s ear, but she could only hear every third word. She nodded along, hoping that it was the right response, and sneakily manoeuvred her way through a crowd of people lining up for drinks until they were the next in line to order. The timing was perfect.

Belle had looked back over towards Trevor, just as he was glancing around the bar. Their eyes met and his whole face lit up in such a way that the friend he was with immediately looked at Belle, too. She just smiled back at both of them and tracked Trevor’s movements while he was getting the bartender’s attention and pointing towards her and Karla.

Karla was oblivious to it all, ordering their drinks when they were being pushed against the bar’s edge by some impatient people behind them, until Trevor’s bartender put down two shot glasses in front of them.

“A shot of whatever you ladies would like from that guy over there,” he said, pointing at Trevor—and Trevor’s friend who was bemused but no less interested.

“Belvedere,” Karla said without a moment of hesitation. Belle rolled her eyes but nodded when the bartender prompted her for an answer.

It was the smoothest shot she’d ever done and came with a small worry that she’d never be able to stomach a bottom shelf shot again. Trevor didn’t stop watching the entire time.

With the shot done, their original vodka soda orders in hand, Karla was clearly heading back to the others. Belle wrapped a hand around her wrist, tugging her gently so that she could shout in her ear, “I’m gonna go talk to them. Do you wanna?”

“One drink? You are not that easy.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Whatever. I’m not,” Karla said as if it wouldn’t take more than thirty more minutes to have her sitting in someone’s lap. “I’m watching from across the bar. Be safe.”

It must have been on purpose that Trevor’s friend was gone by the time Belle reached him. She was thankful that she didn’t have to pretend to introduce herself, and even more thankful that his arm could settle around her waist as he easily pulled her flush against him.

“You always drink top shelf?”

“Only when we can get some poor sucker to pay for us.”

He smiled—not a smirk, but something between self-effacing and amused—and Belle felt herself leaning towards him before she really knew what she was doing. To her friends, she no doubt looked easy as she melted into his mouth, all space disappearing from between their bodies.

“You good to get out of here?”

“I don’t want to cut your birthday short,” Belle said, her mouth still pressed to his. She added, though it was a struggle, “I can go back to my friends.”

Trevor’s hand met hers, their fingers entwining as if it were second nature. He told her, “I don’t want to go back to mine.”

They didn’t even get close to his friends as they were leaving, just a simple look in their direction across the crowded bar, and Trevor was guiding Belle out the doors and past the bouncer.

“Your friend is hot, by the way,” Belle said as she was pressed up against him, fighting off the cool breeze by tucking herself against Trevor’s front, her hands wrapped around him and in the back pockets of his jeans.

Trevor laughed, “Yeah, he does alright.”

It wasn’t the first time that Belle had been at Alex and Quinton’s place—which was quickly becoming Alex, Quinton and Rio’s place—and it looked like every college dorm or frat house she’d ever set foot in. It never looked any different between visits, even with Rio doing her best to make it feel like less of a biohazard.

Belle had met Rio in her first ever class at UC Irvine, nearly four years prior, and while Rio hadn’t finished her first semester of college they had remained close friends. The introduction of Alex Turcotte into Rio’s life had been a welcome change to their friendship. Alex playing hockey in the LA Kings organisation had put Belle on edge at first, and the few warnings sent Rio’s way about hockey players were ignored for the better.

Rio ushered Belle inside, talking over the raucous being created by the boys in the next room. Before they could go in and Belle could greet them, Rio pulled her aside and into the tucked away kitchen.

“One of Alex’s friends is here, he’s single,” Rio said, her eyes lighting up. “He plays hockey, too.”

“Does he know people who don’t?” Belle asked, running through every other time she’d been anywhere with Alex and his friends.

“I mean…” Rio paused to think. “Not in California? Not really, anyway. Most of his friends are his teammates.”

Belle hummed and nodded, unsurprised. As little time as she’d spent growing up in hockey herself, she’d been around it and hadn’t failed to notice that it was insular. She knew enough to understand that it may have been different at a younger age, but once they reached the NHL there wasn’t a lot of branching out. It seemed there was even less branching out if they had spent any time at all in the USNTDP.

She was even less surprised by Rio trying to set her up with one of Alex’s friends. Again.

With a conniving smile, Rio took Belle’s hand and pulled her from the kitchen into the living room where Alex was playing a video game with his friend.

His friend, Trevor.

Trevor looked back at Belle and Rio for just a second before he turned back to the screen. Belle may have imagined hearing the snapping of his vertebrae when he realised who she was and looked at her again. Rio nudged Belle with her hip. Belle pursed her lips and shook her head at Rio. Rio didn’t need any ammunition.

The boys continued to play their game, Belle only able to identify the rapid sound of gunfire coming from the speakers, and she dragged Rio back into the kitchen away from the noise. She let Rio fill her in on the life of an AHL WAG, as she did every time they caught up, before the conversation moved onto Belle. It was harder with Trevor in the next room to be vague about the guy she’d been sleeping with. Normally she was very forthcoming with any and all information that Rio wanted about any of her hookups whether short or long-term, but knowing that there was every possibility that something might give her away or that Trevor might walk in and hear had Belle keeping her mouth shut—it made any conversations about Vegas difficult when Rio had been expecting tales of a debauchery filled weekend only for Belle to brandish the handbag she’d been bought as a platitude as the most exciting thing that had happened that weekend.

“Please,” Rio scoffed. “Your dad buying your love is so far from news. If you’d come back without something, then I’d be surprised.”

“Fine, I guess you don’t want it?” Belle asked, challenging Rio with a raised eyebrow. Rio challenged Belle, direct eye contact being made only moments before her eyes flicked back to the Valentino bag. Her resolve immediately crumbled.

“For real? You’re really gonna give it to me?”

“I don’t need any more bags. He doesn’t even know what this looks like,” Belle said, emptying the few things she had been carrying onto the table. “Merry Easter or whatever.”

Belle collected the items she’d emptied and pushed them into a neat pile at the edge of the already crowded table—her sunglasses, phone and a ChapStick that was definitely going to be absorbed into the mess—whilst Rio inspected the bag in awe. It was then that the boys walked in, Alex rolling his eyes at the sight.

“Don’t be jealous, Alex, we all know I’m her real Sugar Daddy.”

“How am I meant to surprise her with anything when she gets it all from Torts?” he complained, standing behind Rio’s chair to peek over her shoulder. “Trevor, this is Belle. Belle is John Tortorella’s daughter. It’s freaky.”

“My biggest fan. Say hi for me.”

Belle, unsure of how to act like she didn’t already know who she was, just nodded at him with what she hoped was a confused expression on her face. He sat down in the seat beside her, stretching out much more than was necessary, and Alex sat down in the seat closest to Rio—closest meaning that he pulled the seat so that it was basically touching hers. Trevor’s hand dropped under the table as he leaned forward casually, finding Belle’s thigh with ease and splaying his hand across it.

They ordered from Uber Eats, the boys deciding something that would fit loosely within their meal plans, and Belle tried the entire time to carry on their conversation as if Trevor’s hand wasn’t gradually moving further and further up her thigh. The only thing that was saving them from being caught was Rio being enamoured by Alex and Alex being generally oblivious to everything that ever happened around him.

After they’d eaten, they headed out into the backyard to swim. The weather had been growing sunny and warm for the last week and Belle never needed to be asked twice to get into a swimming pool. She pulled her dress over her head without a care as she walked through the sliding doors and kicked her Birkenstocks off to the side as she picked up pace and ran straight for the water.

When she emerged from the water, she saw Trevor standing near the door, bemused, with her dress in his hands. Rio and Alex were less confused only because they’d seen her do the same before. Many times.

“Come on in!” she shouted to all of them. “The water’s fucking freezing!”

The others were slow to enter the water, even the boys taking their time to acclimatise.

“You’re mad at me for buying Rio nice things but you’re too cheap to even heat your pool,” Belle said to Alex as she watched him timidly stand on the steps of the pool.

“I make AHL money,” Alex countered, somewhat aggressively. It may have been because his masculinity was being challenged, but it was equally as possible it was because the water was not very welcoming. “I cannot afford to heat a fucking swimming pool through winter.”

“Get your best bud, Trevor, to help you out. He’s making NHL money, right?”

Trevor grinned. “I knew you know who I am.”

“Mr Michigan,” she said snidely. “Turned my father into a fucking meme.”

“He did that himself—I just scored a goal, babe.”

Belle swam closer to Trevor where he was still standing on a ledge, only knee deep in the water, and let him get caught up in her really, willingly, being in his space for the first time that day. It was enough of a distraction that she was able to take him by the wrist and pull him into the water.

He surfaced after a momentary scramble, spluttering only briefly before realising that he and Belle were inches apart. She tracked his eyes as they darted to her mouth. Belle looked at him and felt an invisible tug drawing her closer to him.

“I might start paying to heat this thing over winter,” Alex said to Rio, oblivious to the sudden splashing caused by Trevor putting a hefty amount of distance between himself and Belle.

When Belle looked back to Alex and Rio, she immediately redirected her attention to avoid the twinkle of delight in Rio’s eyes.

Keeping distance between herself and Trevor became Belle’s main goal for the rest of the afternoon. It had to be done in a way that wasn’t so obvious Rio would notice—and she was noticing everything—and in a way that didn’t have Trevor pouring unconsciously. Belle wasn’t sure she managed to prevent either, and, by the time they finally pulled themselves out of the water, Rio was actively making sure she and Trevor were left alone together. Maybe she was just taking Alex into the shower so they could be alone together. Belle couldn’t be certain.

When they were officially alone—the water rattling through the house's old pipes assuring them of that—Trevor crowded into Belle’s space, his hands on her hips and the cool, wet skin of their stomachs pressed against each other.

“You didn’t want to tell me you were friends with my buddy’s girlfriend?”

“You didn’t want to tell me you were buddies with my friend’s boyfriend?” she countered. “How the fuck am I supposed to know who you’re friends with? You aren’t on the same team. You should hate each other.”

“Babe, I don’t hate anyone. Free love and all that.”

Belle rolled her eyes, ducking the kiss he was about to press between her eyes to wrap a towel around herself. Trevor was visibly disappointed.

“They’re trying to set us up because I once asked her if she could set me up with Quinton.” She started to dry off, every movement of the towel over her body drawing Trevor’s attention from where it had been seconds earlier.

Trevor’s staring didn’t cease, even as he said, in utter disbelief, “He’s Canadian.”

“Oh no,” Belle deadpanned. “The horror.”

Trevor made no moves to dry himself, but he did pull Belle into him and half used her towel to do so. Belle was happy to let it happen as long as she could hear the pipes.

“Why am I here and he isn’t?”

“He’s got a girlfriend. Apparently, my interest in guys is transferable.”

“I mean, it is. You’re already sleeping with me.”

There was nothing she could do but roll her eyes, the arrogance he was exuding was more of a turn on than she wanted it to be.

She struggled to pull her dress over her head, the towel not having removed the final dampness from her skin, but Trevor came to the rescue and once again crowded into her space. His fingers lingered against her ribcage, and he tilted his head down to stare at her with a longing she didn’t want to disappear.

“Come over,” he said, his voice low.

Belle sighed, breaking eye contact solely to stop herself from letting him have his way with her in her best friend’s kitchen, and said, “I’ve got class in the morning.”

“I’ve got skate,” he told her, his lingering fingers leaving her skin to pull her dress down her body. “I’ll drive you to class and pick you up after.”

She met his eyes again, nodded with the smallest smile on her face and, in an instant, Trevor was stepping back and running around the house grabbing as many of his belongings as he could remember.

They didn’t bother to wait for Rio and Alex to resurface from their shower. Trevor was shameless in yelling that he and Belle were leaving and that there was “no need to stop fucking for our sake”.

It was far easier for Belle to follow Trevor out of the street without anyone to take note of her driving the opposite way she was meant to.

Belle stared down at her phone, the Torts (Dad – Emergency) ID sending chills down her spine. In any normal situation, Belle had no issues getting texts from her dad; it was just different when her head was resting in Trevor’s lap, ignoring that he was getting harder and harder by the second so that they could finish another episode of Succession. Trevor’s hand stilled where it had been massaging her scalp, and she knew he’d seen the name.

At least he hadn’t called her, she supposed.

“What does he want?” Trevor asked.

Belle opened the text, sighing when she said, “His travel agent is about to call me. My mom’s birthday is soon.”

“You can’t call the agent on your own time?”

“He knows I won’t,” she admitted. It wasn’t one of her favourite things about herself, but leaving California during the school year hadn’t been something she was known to do since she moved for college. At least not without it being organised for her.

She sat up and paused the show. The travel agent wasted no time in calling—she was probably on the phone to Belle’s dad when he sent the text, and Belle did her best to sound unbothered by the interruption.

Pleasantries were exchanged, though they were kept brief, before the travel agent launched into the beginning of her plan, “The eleventh is a Monday this year, which I know isn’t great for classes—”

“Yeah,” Belle interjected, “it’s nearly Finals.”

“—but I think if you fly out Friday night or Saturday morning and leave first thing Tuesday morning you would only have to miss one day.”

Belle rolled her eyes at how rehearsed it sounded; it was entirely plausible that this was her dad’s plan, and he’d sent someone else to be the messenger.

“Can I just mute for a sec and work out what I’ll have to miss?”

“Take your time.”

Belle muted her phone and looked to Trevor expectantly. He raised an eyebrow as unfortunately he had not yet learnt to read her mind. She asked, “Do you know your schedule?”

“Not past the end of this week, why?”

“Does the captain send out a group text every Sunday?” she asked as she started her search for the Ducks’ schedule. Trevor leaned over her to see her screen, his chin resting on her shoulder.

“Not the captain, but, yeah, we get messages. Also, when we need to know about road trips.”

“Looks like you’ve got an East Coast trip they haven’t warned you about yet.”

“Oh, no they did tell me that, sorry. I didn’t realise it was soon.” His apology was followed by him muttering the order of the games, Philly, Carolina, Florida, Tampa.

Belle let him mumble, though she stood up to walk around the room as she flicked between the schedule and her calendar to see what it would look like for her to be gone while Trevor was.

“Who’s your captain?” she asked, mostly to stop Trevor from trying to commit the road trip to memory with his repetitive mumbling.

“Ryan Getzlaf.”

“Oh!” Belle squeaked, pleasantly surprised to hear a name she knew. “He’s been around for ages. He won silver at Worlds in 2008. Second in points for the tournament.”

“How do you know that?” He leant forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “I thought you didn’t care about hockey.”

“I was like seven,” she said with a shrug. “I loved my dad and wanted him to love me, and I thought the way to do that was to memorise stats from Worlds that year.”

“You knowing that is way hotter than you think it is.”

“I’ll tell you all the stats you could ever want to know about it, just let me finish this.”

Belle unmuted the call, turning her back on Trevor just to get through the conversation, and confirmed that the dates she suggested were perfect, that leaving the Friday night was her preference, and hung up after barely saying goodbye when Trevor decided to press himself against her back.

“Are you really turned on by me knowing hockey stats?” Her question was not without a laugh—a laugh that turned breathy when he pressed his lips to her neck. “Babe, you have no idea.”

Belle enjoyed that the Ducks seemingly cared enough about the sleep health of their players that they shelled out for good mattresses in the furnished apartments they organised. It certainly made waking up easy, even if it made getting out of bed hard.

Trevor was nowhere to be seen when she woke, the apartment quiet and peaceful. He was likely sitting at his breakfast bar, scrolling through his phone, but there was the possibility that he’d gone to the gym. She wasn’t quite used to being left alone in his apartment, even though he did it every other time she was over, but it was what it was.

She reached towards the bedside table for her phone—another win for the Ducks, because he for sure wouldn’t have a bedside table otherwise—and then, when her phone wasn’t there, pushed her hands underneath her pillow. When she didn’t feel her phone, she groaned and pulled herself out of bed to rummage through the pockets of her jeans. Then underneath all the clothes they’d left on the floor. Then she pulled the duvet off the bed and threw the pillows onto their clothes.

Glaring at the mess of sheets and the chaotic array of clothing on the floor wasn’t solving Belle’s problem, so she had to admit defeat. She opened Trevor’s drawers and pulled out the first shirt she saw that didn’t immediately appear to have a graphic of some description plastered across it and then cringed as she picked up her panties when the shirt didn’t extend as far down her thighs as she wanted.

It turned out to be a good thing that the shirt hadn’t been quite so oversized to not wear panties when she walked down the hall towards the kitchen and, instead of finding Trevor at the breakfast bar, she found Trevor and a friend sitting on the couch.

Belle stopped in her tracks, staring straight at Trevor, and pointedly not looking at the guy he was sitting with. The guy looked vaguely familiar in a way that all hockey players did.

“I—uh,” Trevor stuttered. “I texted you. To tell you.”

“I couldn’t find my phone. Was hoping you could call it.”

Trevor nodded, pulling out his phone. Belle didn’t move when she heard the very faint ringing of her phone in the bedroom. Her eyes darted to the other person sitting on Trevor’s couch and back to him.

“This is Jamie. Jim. Jameson. Teammate. Best friend. J, this is Belle. Isabella.” Trevor’s face froze for a moment before he said, rather hopelessly, “Belle,” instead of any sort of descriptor.

“I have heard a lot about you,” Belle directed at Jamie, friendly as she could be.

“I’ve heard nothing about you,” he said, entirely unashamed and utterly bemused, “but I think that mighta been on purpose.”

“Yeah, as intended,” Belle confirmed. “The real secret is that I’m John Tortorella’s daughter, so… If you could also keep a lid on it, I’d owe you one.”

Jamie blinked once at Belle, then turned to Trevor. “Do you go out of your way to make your life hard?”

Trevor glanced at Belle out of the corner of his eye before he shrugged at Jamie and said, “Life’s not that hard, bro.”

It lingered in the air, Trevor’s pride, Jamie’s bewilderment, and Belle’s slight annoyance at their secret getting out. She stretched out the early morning tightness in her back, the movement causing the shirt to ride up and draw the eyes of both boys; Jamie’s snapped immediately back up to her face, where Trevor’s lingered long enough that Belle felt her cheeks go red.

“We were gonna get breakfast,” Trevor said, breaking the silence. “Wanna come?”

She shook her head, “I’ve got class. Can you drop me at home on your way?”

“Course. Jimmy’s driving.”

“Sure,” Belle nodded. Whoever was driving, it made no difference to her. “Call my phone?”

Her phone was hidden underneath the bed, so far underneath it that Belle just laid flat on her stomach, staring at it with her arm outstretched, trying to work out when exactly it would have gotten there. She heard Trevor walk back into his bedroom, and felt his hand tap her ass cheek. He was smirking when she emerged from under the bed; they’d be right back on it if she wasn’t going to be late for class.

Jamie drove an old Nissan Altima—and Belle only knew that because her sister had driven the same thing and been kind enough to let Belle learn in it. It wasn’t quite the car Belle expected an NHL player to be driving, and she wondered if that was Jamie quirk or if the league was doing better about teaching the young guys to be sensible with their ELCs. Trevor’s brand-new Wrangler did point to it being the former.

“Are you the girl Z met on his birthday?” Jamie asked. She knew for a fact that he wasn’t the friend Trevor was sitting with at the bar because that friend was approximately a thousand feet tall and didn’t have a contrasting complexion.

“We met at the All-Star Game,” Belle corrected. “But, yeah, I’m the girl from his birthday.”

Belle didn’t see Jamie’s arm stretch out before she heard the thump of his hand against Trevor’s chest and the accompanying yelp out of Trevor’s mouth. Jamie said, “I finally get why you didn’t say a fucking thing about Vegas.”

“I told you about the game,” Trevor argued, “that Machine Gun Kelly was there, and about Jack’s wedding.”

“Yeah,” Jamie snorted, the incredulity in his voice causing Belle to snigger, “and not a single fucking word in there about wheeling any chicks.”

“I was not wheeled,” Belle said, disgusted, cutting over Trevor’s weak rebuttal. “I wheeled Z.”

“I’d believe it, yeah.”

Belle, letting a real laugh bubble out of her chest, held a closed fist in between the front seats and nudged Jamie with it to get his attention. “Dirty fuckin’ dangles, boys.”

Trevor protested loudly, flailing an arm out to swat Jamie’s hand as he fist-bumped Belle. He missed in his frustration.

As they pulled up outside of Belle’s apartment building, Trevor opened his door and got out of the car. Belle furrowed her brow, more of face contorting when he let the door fall shut behind him and he waited for her to get out, too. Jamie didn’t appear at all confused by the scenario, just started clicking next on every song that came up on his playlist.

“You gonna walk me to my door, or…?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, not without some tightness in his voice. “I know you didn’t want anyone to know.”

His actions clicked into place. Belle scoffed, wrapped the arm not carrying her bag around his neck and pressed their lips together.

“It's fine,” she assured him, even if she wasn’t totally sure of it herself. “Jamie’s cool, right?”

“Course. The coolest.”

“Then we’re cool, Trevor.”

His shoulders loosened underneath Belle’s arm, and he leant down to kiss her again. There was a moment where it was verging on deepening, on Belle pulling him up the stairs and into her apartment, but it was fleeting as Jamie’s palm landed on the car horn.

Belle, after fighting with her slightly dodgy lock as per normal, pushed open the heavy front door and stood in its way so that it wouldn’t shut on Trevor and all of the food she’d so kindly let him carry up from the car. He turned to her after she’d let the door shut, silently asking for where exactly he was meant to put everything down and Belle cringed as she looked between her dining table and kitchen counter and the distinct lack of space on both of them.

“We may have to eat outside,” she said sheepishly, bundling Trevor to her small balcony so that he could put down their food.

She disappeared back into the house, re-appearing with some spray and paper towel to clean off the dust from the table and the chairs.

A little out of breath after running the cleaning products back inside, she apologised as she sat down, “I promise it’s not usually that bad I’ve just got like three projects going right now and nothing else has a home. I’m untidy, but it’s not a biohazard. I swear.”

“Babe,” Trevor mumbled through a mouthful of fries, “You’ve seen my place; there’s probably at least three biohazards in there.”

That would be true if he didn’t have a cleaner come through once a week, but Belle appreciated the sentiment, nonetheless.

She kicked her feet up under the table, rested them in Trevor’s lap, and watched in amazement at the frankly inhuman speed he ate a larger order of In-N-Out than she’d ever seen anyone order before. They were empty calories, too, so she knew he’d be rooting through her fridge for something to eat later—the mental checklist of her fridge happened quickly, she wasn’t sure there was much in there, but they would make do.

“You said before that you’ve got three projects going on—I know you said you sew stuff, but I thought it was just like… fixing stuff.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I can do that no problem,” Belle said, quickly swallowing what was left of her burger and pushing the remainder of her fries towards Trevor who took them without a second thought. “At the moment I’m making a sundress and then a dress each for me and my friend for graduation.”

Trevor perked up, “Can I see?”

“They’re just dresses,” she shrugged. “They’re not that impressive.”

“Bullshit. Show me, I wanna see.”

His enthusiasm was, as always, contagious, and Belle agreed to show him what she’d made. It was no longer impressive to her that she made her own clothes—or at the very least, tailored anything she might have bought—because she’d been using a sewing machine since the age of thirteen when her Nonna had given up on teaching Belle’s older sister, Nicola.

Trevor was made to wash his hands before he got close to her overcrowded dining table, just as Belle did herself, because there was no risking any grubby fingers touching the carefully selected fabric. The sundress wasn’t a big deal; it was the graduation dresses that she didn’t want to risk having to start over.

“These are the bodices for my friend’s dress—the top bit,” she clarified, gesturing to her torso. “I’m at the point where Karla needs to come over and I need to pin everything while she’s wearing it, so I know it’s perfect. That probably needs to happen soon.”

“And yours is there?” he asked, pointing to Belinda, her dress form.

“Yeah. Mine will be a bit easier because she’s made to my exact measurements. I just can’t ever gain or lose any weight until the end of time.”

So fast that Belle didn’t see it coming, Trevor’s hands were on her hips, and she was being spun so that her back was pressed firmly against her chest.

He said, into her ear in a low, husky voice, “Good thing you’re already a fucking rocket.”

The season had ended—early and poorly for the Ducks—and Trevor had disappeared off to New York. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d done so, and Belle hadn’t expected him to stay behind just for her. Especially when her parents and sister had flown into Los Angeles for a few days.

She also hadn’t expected Trevor to be on the phone with her from the minute she finished showering to the second she walked out her front door. She knew that at least a small part of him wanted to be there to watch her graduate, it just wasn’t feasible. So, instead, he’d kept her calm as she dressed and did her make up, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head as he got to see the final dress she’d crafted from scratch.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re hot?”

“Just this one guy,” she said, quickly and mindlessly, mostly focused on her reflection where she was trying to get her dress to sit right. “It’s getting a bit weird.”

After silence hung in there, Belle turned her attention back to her phone to see if the call had disconnected, just in time for Trevor to ask sheepishly, “You’re talking about me, yeah?”

She grinned, “Yes, babe. I have to go; I’m already kinda late. I’ll call you later. I might be drunk.”

“You better be wasted when you call.”

“I will be!” she exclaimed, blowing kisses through the phone as she pressed the red X multiple times whilst also trying to wrestle open her front door and push the phone into her purse.

She ran down the stairs of her building, chunky heels saving her from toppling as she had no hands free to grab hold of the railing. Her graduation cap was nearly blown away in the wind, and the garment bag holding the robe was close to getting tangled around her legs—that was typically not of note, except that her mother and sister were standing at their rental car looking exasperated.

“Are you trying to trip and break your nose this morning?” her mother sighed, taking the garment bag and placing it into the trunk.

Belle ignored her, distracted by her sister grabbing onto her, complimenting her dress and being kind enough not to hug her and crease it.

“You’ve really outdone yourself with this one, Bella,” Nicola said, standing back to take in Belle’s creation.

Belle curtsied, dramatic and lavish, delighting in Nicola’s applause.

It hadn’t escaped her that her father was still sitting in the car, and she could hear him talking on the phone gruffly and with rising volume, but she let Nicola keep complimenting her so that she couldn’t dwell on it for longer than a few seconds.

She was hurried into the car by her mum so that she could drive rather recklessly to campus so that they would only be a little bit late for the time Belle was told to arrive. They arrived just as her father was ending his phone call, and there was just enough time for a hug and a compliment about graduating before Belle was running off.

A BA in Business Economics from UC Irvine wasn’t as prestigious as Nicola's BA in Psychology from Princeton—and was even more undermined by Nicola’s dedication to a PhD—but a boring office job in economics of any type was far from Belle’s goal. It was a means to an end if she wanted to be able to live off her own designs and creations.

In the scheme of things, a surname beginning with T wasn’t the greatest thing for a Graduation ceremony, but she did get to sit beside Karla. Their complementary dresses were hidden by their robes whilst sitting down, but it was evident as they walked across the stage—Karla first, then Belle—it was a nice extra flourish on an early important moment.

The best flourish, the true capstone moment of the day, was the text waiting for her when she was finally back to her phone. Trevor had pulled up the livestream on the television in his family phone and apparently gotten his family around to watch for her—someone they had never met.

Belle truly had no expectations that Trevor would actually show up at La Guardia to pick her up; had been waiting for a text to come the entire flight with an apology for not being able to make it.

It never came, though, and Trevor was standing at baggage claim with his hands low in his pockets. Belle spotted him first; he wasn’t looking at anything in particular, seemingly just staring into nothingness and ignoring the buzz around him. It meant that she was looking at him when he noticed her, his eyes lighting up and a smile taking over his face. Hers did the same on a less grandiose scale, and her chest lightened with the final confirmation that he hadn’t left her to fend for herself.

She wheeled her carry-on to him, letting it drift away as she reached him and wrapped her arms around his waist, his arms over her shoulders, and buried her face into his neck.

“You got a haircut,” she said solemnly as her fingers reached up to play with the hair on the back of his neck—or the hair that used to be there.

“I told you I was.”

“I know,” she moaned petulantly.

She stepped away with a sigh when the conveyor belt started to move and then swayed into him until he tucked her under his arm.

It was disgustingly domestic and not something Belle could say she was used to, or that she was totally ready for or comfortable with, but it would hurt to take away from the moment if she dwelled on it.

Having Trevor pick her up and drive her to Bedford was for the best, as it meant that she wasn’t able to dwell on the fact that she was about to meet his family—she’d done enough of that on the plane. She wasn’t going to ask out loud if Trevor thought his parents would like her even if the thought had lingered through her head for hours. Days.

She let herself get lost in the urban landscape of The Bronx, rolling her eyes when she realised that Trevor had taken them slightly out of the way just so he could excitedly point out Yankee Stadium to her.

“I was born here,” she said pointedly. “We moved to Tampa not long after, so claiming that doesn’t feel super right, but we came back for a few years and lived in Manhattan.”

“You’re a Yankees fan?” Trevor asked, taking his eyes off the road with a dramatic head turn.

Belle pointed back to the road and rolled her eyes, “No. Devil Rays, baby.” She threw up some devil horns just to make Trevor laugh but it did not elicit that reaction she expected.

“No.”

“‘No’? What do you mean ‘No’?”

“You grew up in New York!” he exclaimed, as if she hadn’t just told him about that. “You can’t grow up in New York and not be a Yankees fan.”

“Mets fans across the city just felt the sudden urge to commit murder,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I grew up in Tampa. I was like eight when I moved to New York, my allegiances were made. If it was going to be any other team, it’d be the Red Sox because of my dad.”

A full body shiver seemed to overtake Trevor’s body, and Belle laughed at the dramatics. She took the opportunity to go on a slight rant about how seriously men took sports that Trevor was unable to make a good argument against.

It was over by the time they'd left the city, not even really real to begin with, but it all seemed inconsequential as the city gave way to the suburbs. None of it was shocking—it’s not like they were in the middle of nowhere—but it was different to Los Angeles, and it wasn’t something that Belle usually mentioned even when heading to see her parents’ in Connecticut. Was nothing like what she had gotten used to seeing in Columbus.

“You got the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, American Dream childhood,” she said, not even noticing that she’d said it out loud until Trevor glanced at her briefly and made a confused noise.

“Huh? So did you.”

“In Tampa and Manhattan? No. And Columbus is a shithole,” she said, unapologetically. “I guess the one year in Vancouver was the closest I ever got, but my dad wasn’t around. He was on the road. Or at an arena somewhere. Your parents gave a shit.”

“I mean… I guess? That’s not my fault, though.”

“I’m not—I’m not mad. I knew, like, somewhere in my brain. You’re a white hockey player from New York, who got shipped off interstate to play hockey before you graduated high school.”

“Your dad has coached multiple NHL teams. You came from more money than I did.”

“Oh, no, that’s… actually not what I meant. Just that, like, both your parents put a lot of effort into getting you here.”

“Your parents love you,” he said softly. Belle knew it was just a generic something to say in that part of the conversation, and she would have expected it from anyone.

She sighed, and shrugged, before saying with a feigned laissez-faire attitude, “no, I know. I’m just realising that it’s in a different way to yours loving you.”

Trevor’s hand came to rest on her knee, a light squeeze to let her know that he didn’t know what to say but that he was there.

The rest of the drive was mostly quiet aside from the music Trevor had playing. Belle was horrible company in that moment, and she knew it, but it was combining with the heaviness in her stomach at the knowledge that his parents weren’t too far away.

Trevor provided no peptalk in the car when they pulled up to a nice two-storey house—distinctly lacking traditional picket fence—and Belle didn’t have time to decipher if that made her feel better or worse, because he was opening her car door and gesturing for her to go towards the house even as he was heading back to the trunk to grab her cases. The multiple cases. She knew when she was packing that she would be going straight from Bedford to her parents’ place in Connecticut; she hoped his parents knew that. It looked like she was about to move in.

She needn’t have worried, though, because his parents were waiting for them, opening the front door before they could even reach it, and she was being embraced by hugs and kisses and welcomed inside for something to eat.

“We are so excited to have you,” Julie assured her, likely noticing Belle’s hesitation. “Trevor hasn’t stopped talking about you since he got here.”

“Mom.”

“Now, not to have this talk right away but if we can get it done we don’t have to have it again—you are welcome to stay with Trevor in his room. We’re not stupid, we know what young adults get up to—”

“Oh my god.”

Julie powered on through Trevor’s protests, “—but we aren’t ready for grandchildren just yet and would prefer not to be woken up by the practice of any being made.”

“Just fucking kill me now,” Trevor all but shouted, taking Belle’s hand and pulled her directly up the stairs and away from his parents.

Belle didn’t truly comprehend what had happened until they were alone again, and she couldn’t keep her mouth from hanging open.

“Ignore her,” Trevor stressed. “Two seconds that took. Two seconds for her to be the most embarrassing mom ever.”

They didn’t spend much time with his parents while Belle was in Bedford, which made sense in that Trevor was twenty-one years old and probably didn’t want to spend the entire day with his parents—though he had been particularly lenient in letting his younger sister, Ava, crash most of their days. Julie and Gary were always sitting in the living room when Trevor and Belle got in, though, even on the nights when they walked in after eleven. Belle wondered if that was purposeful, if they were waiting to make sure all their kids made it home safe, or if it was part of their normal routine. Trevor never seemed surprised by it.

As they entered the house after a long day trip to Coney Island, they popped their heads into the living room to say hello and goodnight.

“I love your dress, sweetheart,” Julie said, causing Belle to twist a little and fan out the bottom of her sundress. “Did you make that, too? You and your friends’ dresses at the graduation were gorgeous.”

“I did, yeah,” Belle beamed. Thank you.”

“I always wished I’d learnt to sew. Being a seamstress would certainly have come in handy over the years, I think.”

“I’m not really a seamstress. Mostly a wannabe fashion designer? The making just kind of happens as an extension.”

“Either way, Belle, you’re excellent at it and I am jealous of your talent.”

“I could make you something,” Belle said excitedly. “Like, it wouldn’t be hard—well it might be because I’d have to take your measurements here and then make it back in LA without you being able to try it on. But, anyway, we can if you want. I think everyone should have at least one piece of clothing made just for them.”

“Ava will kill me, you know.”

“It won’t be quite the same, but I’m sure I have something in my suitcases that I can tailor for her. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Julie smiled, a disbelieving type of smile that Belle was grateful for because it would definitely take too long to change a dress by hand and it seemed like Julie wouldn’t hold her to it. Belle would make something for Ava another time.

Gary shooed the pair off to bed, shortly after, reminding Trevor that he’d booked an early tee-time and that he didn’t want him slowing down the game just because of a poor night’s sleep. Julie rolled her eyes at Belle, promising that they would get brunch.

Up the stairs, Trevor watched Belle change from the bed, his eyes never leaving her for a second—she wasn’t even sure he blinked. She wasn’t even putting on a show for him, the day having been too warm and long to put in more effort than she needed to change into one of his shirts.

“You don’t have to make her a dress to make her love you,” he said when she’d turned her back on him to apply the final steps of her skincare routines in his tiny excuse for a mirror.

“I like making clothes for people,” she said with a shrug, looking at him in the reflection.

She caught him pouting when he said, “You haven’t made me anything.”

“What do you want?” she asked, turning around. “Matching summer set?��

“What?”

“Like shirt and shorts from the same fabric. Matchy matchy.”

She took a few steps toward him; into the grabby hands he’d extended out towards her.

“Will you wear a dress from the same fabric?”

Belle bit into her lower lip, shaking her head dramatically to show him that she had to think long and hard about it. She pushed her full weight onto him, his hand moving to her ass without hesitation, and pressed her mouth to his. It was hardly a kiss with both their mouths broken out into full smiles, especially as she squeaked out a ‘maybe’ that had him rolling them over so that he could tickle her sides in protest.

Going to Michigan to hang out with Trevor and his frat boy friends would have been easier than fronting up at her parents’ place in Connecticut, but Belle only realised that when Nicola, her older sister, pounced the second they were alone in the same room.

Their parents had welcomed Belle in happily, her mother pulling her into a hug and her father with a perfunctory kiss to the top of her head, before shooing her up to her old bedroom to unpack her bags. They meant well, she knew, but their welcomes never felt like the homecoming she knew her friends got. Or like the one she’d gotten in Bedford.

Nicola, on the other hand, never left Belle alone. They had been inseparable throughout their lives and only the distance between Princeton and UC Irvine had changed that.

Despite the load of washing Julie had let her do prior to leaving New York, Belle still had no shortage of unwashed clothes in her suitcase. It did have her wondering just how many times she changed clothes throughout the day—she’d only spent a week with Trevor’s family, but her laundry pile looked like the far side of a four-week vacation. Nicola noticed, judging by how carefully she watched Belle sort everything into piles from where she sat on the bed.

“Where did you come from?” Nicola asked as Belle was nearing the end of her first suitcase.

“Garfield?” Belle answered, trying to keep a waiver out of her voice and purposely not looking anywhere in Nicola’s directly.

“Bullshit,” Nicola countered, with enough vigour that Belle was sure their mother would have heard it from downstairs. “You did not come from Cali. You haven’t seen real sun in weeks by the look of you.”

Belle tried to deflect, “Nobody—”

“—from California calls it Cali,” Nicola mocked. “Where were you?”

Belle sorted three more items of clothing to allow herself time to decide if she really wanted to tell Nicola the truth. She always did tell her the truth, though, so it wasn’t much of a decision. It was even less of a decision when she finally looked at Nicola who was staring back at her looking sad and betrayed.

Belle sighed, “New York.”

Somehow—and Belle would never know how it was possible—Nicola’s face shifted into an even sadder expression as she asked, “You went to New York without me?”

“Not the city,” Belle assured her. “Just… New York.”

Nicola was sitting perfectly straight on the bed, still staring at Belle. Belle knew that she was expected to say something, to provide additional information that she did not want to speak out loud, though she kept her mouth shut and returned to sorting out her laundry.

“Are you seeing someone?” Nicole pressed, finally realising that she’d need to prompt any answers from Belle.

“No,” Belle said as she pulled out the dress she’d been wearing when Trevor ate her out in the bathroom of his friends’ restaurant. Her cheeks were definitely warmer for the thought.

“What’s with the hickey then?”

Belle’s hand slammed onto the side of her neck as she silently cursed Trevor, but at least she had a reason to be turning bright red.

Through gritted teeth she told Nicole, “It’s just sex.”

“If it was just sex, you’d tell me. Fuck, you’d tell me if you were seeing someone. Like, what are you hiding? Is it a hockey player or something?”

A beat of silence filled the air.

“Why would it be a hockey player?”

Another beat.

“You’re dating a fucking hockey player.”

Belle’s head snapped so quickly to look at her sister that she felt a twinge, though she still managed to snap, “I’m not dating anyone.”

“No, you’re just sneaking around and going to New York for dick appointments. Who is it?”

“No one.”

“Bella… Why won’t you tell me? We used to tell each other everything.”

“Because it’s bad.” Belle grimaced. “If Dad finds out then it’s even worse, so…”

“The only players I’d imagine him caring about are Dubois or Zegras.”

Belle stared at Nicola unwaveringly, her mouth pulled tight.

“Bella… No…”

“It’s not a big deal,” Belle said, her voice pitched high and her shoulders pressing up against her earlobes. “It just is what it is.”

Nicola was staring straight through Belle, her eyes tracking back and forth over the imaginary line between Trevor Zegras and Pierre-Luc Dubois. Her eyebrows pulled together when she asked, “Which one is it?”

Belle’s inhale was audible throughout the room. “Zegras. Trevor.”

Nicola whistled low, her eyebrows no longer knitted together but now in her hairline. Belle looked away again, and she was glad she did when Nicola’s next words were: “Dad’s gonna kill you. The both of you.”

“You can’t tell him,” Belle pleaded, earning a low laugh from Nicola.

“I’m not gonna be the one to fucking tell him.”

For all the faux arguments Belle and Trevor continued to have about which baseball team was the right choice, heading out to a Dodgers game to see them take on the Astros wasn’t really that hard of an ask.

It was mid-September, the regular season nearly at an end, both teams were top of their division, and the weather was so perfect that Belle couldn’t have said no if she’d wanted to.

The perks of Trevor being Trevor was that they were given Loge seats behind home plate. For two people who weren’t Dodgers fans, they had done alright. She hadn’t even had to fight too hard for him to not wear his Yankees cap.

Of all the things that had been hardest for Belle to get behind was Jamie not making an appearance. Trevor and Jamie had moved in together the moment they were both back in California, and Belle had gotten accustomed to Jamie being around 24/7. Even if it was just to divert some of Trevor’s energy.

Belle returned to her seat and handed Trevor a beer. She sat back next to him, settled into the arm he had thrown over the back of the seat and prepared herself for the next innings.

The Kiss Cam was running. Despite her eye roll, Belle’s eyes were glued to the screen and the people on it who all took far too long to realise they were being filmed.

Her judgement was misplaced.

Despite staring straight at the screen, it took the loud raucous of the crowd around her and Trevor’s leg nudging playfully against hers for her to realise.

“No, no, no,” Belle said when she saw her face etched across the big screen with Trevor’s right beside her.

She turned her head just in time to see Trevor leaning towards her, preparing for a show-stopping kiss no doubt. She was out of her chair in a heartbeat and didn’t even look back to see Trevor’s reaction as she stormed away.

The crowd was deafening with people jeering at her as she retreated up the stairs as quickly as she could. It would have been even more embarrassing if she tripped up them, and she felt her stomach completely bottom out as the toe of her shoe clipped one. It was only a slight tumble, but enough that more than one person nearby laughed.

The people on the concourse were luckily none the wiser, so she was able to slow down and walk at a normal, less attention-grabbing pace which was all well and good until Trevor started shouting her name and it bounced off every concrete wall to become head achingly loud.

Pulling him into a stairwell felt like her only option, even though it offered no real privacy. There was no conversation she wanted to have in that moment because getting out of the stadium and away from everything was top of her mind but Trevor’s hand on her wrist was keeping her in place.

“Did you know they were going to do that?” she asked, tired and stoic, before he could open his mouth to stay anything else.

“What are you so worried about?” he asked, uncertainty and disbelief pouring off him. “Your dad’s not going to find out.”

“Wanna bet? Trevor, I know how social media works. What’s going to happen is that somebody has got the entire kiss cam recorded and then somebody recognises you, so it gets shared to hockey Twitter. From there, all it takes is one person recognising me before everyone’s blowing up Torts to tell him.”

His voice turned incredulous. “Who? Who is going to recognise you and care enough?”

A bat connected with a ball, the sound resonating throughout the stadium quickly followed by the roar of the crowd. Belle didn’t even flinch.

“Paul fucking Bissonnette,” she answered, unable to resist the eye roll.

“Biz?” Trevor asked, the disbelief and incredulity increasing tenfold as he finally dropped her wrist to throw his hands in the air. “Why the fuck would Biz know who you are?”

“Because he wants me on the fucking podcast to share secrets about Torts. I’m gonna ask you again: did you know they were going to do that?”

Trevor grew small, and Belle’s stomach sank.

“They said they might.”

“Jesus, Trevor… I asked for one thing.”

“One? Belle, it’s been six months, and half a dozen people know we’re together. It’s insane.”

“We’re not—” Belle paused when her phone started ringing, the vibration sending shockwaves through her entire body. “We’re not together and we never were.”

The caller ID that flashed up was, unsurprisingly, Torts (Dad – Emergency).

Belle didn’t say another word to Trevor before she answered the call and walked away.

It was too warm for Belle to be curled up on her bed and tucked under the duvet—she’d spent a lot of time in that position, though. With no classes to go to, no job to be at and no Trevor to take her anyway, she had become a recluse in the week since the baseball game.

Her phone was on speaker beside her, Nicola telling her about something that had happened during her classes, but Belle was desperate to know something else.

“Has he… said anything to you?”

“No,” Nicola answered, quietly.

Her dad hadn’t tried to talk to her at all since he called after the Kiss Cam. It was an embarrassing conversation to say the least, made worse by the looming shadow of Trevor in the stairwell as she walked down it.

“He’s pretending I don’t exist, isn’t he?”

“There might be a bit of that…” Nicola admitted. “What happened when he called, Bella? I want to help, but I can’t if neither of you are telling me.”

“You can’t help,” Belle told her morosely. The reflection of her in the mirror near her bed was too much to bear with the conversation having shifted, so she rolled over and tucked herself further under the covers. “He asked me if I had made it my life’s mission to embarrass him. He asked what he’d done for me to spite him. He thought he raised me better than to date a hockey player, and definitely better than to be with someone like Trevor Zegras. You know, I’ve never heard him say a person’s name with so much hatred and we watched him throw JT Miller under the bus when he was his coach.”

Nicola’s poorly stifled laugh filtered through the phone and Belle wanted to crack a small smile but couldn’t find the energy to do so.

“You know he doesn’t hate anybody, Bella,” Nicola said after recovering, her voice soft yet serious. “He’s just a hard ass who doesn’t know when he crosses the line with tough love. He certainly didn’t hate Miller outside of hockey.”

“Well, he crosses that line when somebody fucks his daughter.”

“Which can’t be a surprise…”

“No.”

“We had that conversation when you got back from your little vacation with Zegras’s family.”

“Yes, I know, Nicola. I just… fuck. I don’t know how to make any of this better.”

The phone line went so quiet that Belle checked if the call had failed, but no, Nicola was still on the other end. A few moments passed without either sister saying a word, just listening to the nothingness in the air.

“Are you sad about Dad or are you sad about Trevor?” Nicola asked, her voice tentative like she was expecting Belle to reach through the phone and ring her neck.

No response was given; Belle didn’t know.

Belle couldn’t have said what she was expecting when she showed up at Rio’s house. It absolutely wasn’t for Alex to walk past her as she stood at the front door and mutter ‘bitch’ under his breath.

After finally pulling herself out of bed and half-heartedly searching for some jobs—she would need one if she was cut off by the father who still wasn’t speaking to her—she realised that maybe she should call back the friends who had been trying to talk to her. Karla’s photos from somewhere on the Tenerife Sea were easy to react to with a heart, but Rio’s increasingly concerned texts and voicemails required a personal visit.

Rio was standing in the kitchen, waiting for Belle, who couldn’t get Alex’s face out of her head.

“What did I—” Belle took in a steadying breath when her words were caught in her throat. “What did I do to Alex?”

“Made one of his best bros cry. A lot.”

“Trevor’s been here?”

Rio nodded and Belle sighed to herself. It hadn’t been top of mind that Trevor might have been around. They hadn’t been together in Rio and Alex’s presence since the time Rio had been trying to set them up. As far as Belle was concerned, Rio still had no idea that they already knew each other.

That cat was out of the bag, though.

Rio said, not unkindly, “I’m finding it really hard not to take his side, Belle.”

“I didn’t know there were sides to take.”

“I didn’t even know you were together,” Rio said pointedly, “and, all of a sudden, you’re broken up and he’s getting drunk on my couch, and we have to call Drysdale to pick him up, so he won’t be late for practice. Like, mija, he’s not okay.”

“Don’t you think that this mess is exactly what I was trying to avoid?” Belle’s voice was rising with every word, her frustration with the whole situation only amplified by the safe space she thought she would have having been co-opted by Trevor. “Nobody could know because if people knew then my dad would find out and we end up in this exact same scenario.”

“Do you? Because I think there’s a scenario where he finds out and you and Trevor get through it together.”

“There’s no scenario where he finds out and it’s all sunshine and roses, Rio. Before I’d even left the stadium he was on the phone, chewing me out, and now he’s not talking to me. Nobody’s talking to me.”

Despite the heat in Belle’s voice, a month of sadness and solitude being forced out of her at pressure point, Rio’s expression and body language didn’t change. She was being pointed and matter of fact but not mean.

“I’m sorry that he reacted that way, and I’m even more sorry that it was a predictable outcome. You know I’m sympathetic about him and how he acts,” Rio said with complete, utter sincerity, loosening Belle just a little, only to come in and ruin it immediately with: “That doesn’t mean I see in any of this how Trevor is the bad guy.”

The pressure point getting ever closer, her entire body leaning back into the kitchen counter with the effort that went into snapping, “He coordinated the kiss cam with the Ducks’ and Angels’ media teams. He knew I wanted to keep us quiet.”

“He had no idea why, Belle. Tell me if he’s been lying to me and I’ll take it all back, but I think he’s been telling the truth when he’s said that you never really explained why.”

“Because my dad is John Tortorella.”

Rio sighed and Belle knew it wasn’t at her specifically only because it was a sigh she’d heard many times before where he was concerned.

“In Trevor’s head you were keeping it a secret because you were ashamed of him because you know your dad thinks he’s an idiot. He thought you just didn’t want to be seen with him in public, not that your dad would blow up. He still doesn’t know that.”

“I’m not—” Bell shook her head, the idea playing out in her mind utterly unbelievable. “I’m not ashamed of Trevor.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

The sinking feeling that had been slowly growing in her stomach took hold in a split second, because of all the possibilities about why Trevor was avoiding her that hadn’t been a consideration. As she counted some deep breaths and fixated on the backsplash behind Rio, she realised for the first time that there was maybe no coming back from where she had taken them–and that thought led to her realising that she wanted nothing more than to go back.

“I’m gonna go,” Belle whispered, taking a few short steps. “Thank you for letting me come over. Sorry for lying to you for so long, and sorry for causing Trevor to be here so often.”

“¡Dios mío!” Rio exclaimed, stepping in front of the door so that Belle couldn’t leave. “Belle, mija, you are my friend. I just want you to be happy.”

“I didn’t get that vibe while you were reading me the riot act.”

“You’ve been so happy for months and I didn’t know why, but now I know it was Trevor, and I don’t want that to end if it doesn’t have to.”

There were no words Belle could conjure that would convey the millions of possibilities flowing through her mind, especially when not a single one of them felt like they would end in anything positive, so Belle merely nodded to appease Rio before slipping out the door.

Finishing Julie’s dress was just as satisfying as finishing any other dress, something checked off her to-do list but with an actual item in front of her to show it. She’d put as much care into that dress as she had her graduation dress, even if it was just meant to be a casual summer dress—even if she didn’t know whether Julie would get to see it, let alone wear it.

Despite not having spoken to Trevor since September, three months prior, with no communication outside of the little snippets she got from Rio, Belle knew she would be doing herself a disservice to not even try to get it to the person it was made for.

Sending the text was difficult, and it was even more difficult having to wait for him to respond.

He didn’t respond instantly like he once would have—oftentimes she had barely hit send before he’d texted back, as if he had their texts open, waiting. He didn’t even respond within the hour.

Or the same day.

The dress was taunting her where it was set up on her bodice. It hadn’t been so bad as she was making it, but when it was sitting there as a reminder that she was being ignored it was a lot harder to stomach. On the third day of silence, Belle tucked the dress into a garment bag, hung it up in her closet and began to consider how long she should keep it before pulling it apart to use the material in another project.

On the fifth day a text came with just a date and a time. It was such a contrast from the last text he’d sent her, still on the screen and tormenting her—him begging her to talk to him. Maybe she deserved the silent treatment. That didn’t matter, though, because it was an olive branch of sorts and one that she had all but given up on.

She put more effort into her appearance on that day than she had in months, without even really expecting it to do anything. Not when Trevor had seen her in all states of being—from incredibly drunk and falling over her own feet, to sobbing hysterically during Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to ugly laughing at he and Jamie arguing over who was smarter when the answer at that point in time was obviously neither. It made her feel better, though, to look good. Feel confident. Fake it ‘til you make it.

Not once since meeting him had Belle been nervous showing up at Trevor’s place, so it was confusing to be fidgety and tight-chested as she pushed the doorbell and waited.

Waited until the door opened and Jamie appeared in front of her, silently raising his eyebrow.

“I—uh… Trevor?”

“Trevor’s not here,” Jamie said, his body taking up the entire door frame and his eyes scrutinising the garment bag she was carrying.

Belle did her best not to stutter again. “I’m just dropping off something I made for his mom.”

“Sure.” Jamie reached out, ready to take the bag but Belle kept it clutched in her hand.

“Is he really not here? Or does he not want to see me?”

“Pretty sure he went to see Turc.”

“Yeah,” Belle sighed, dejected. “Alex hates me.”

“Don’t know if you have too many fans, right now.”

Jamie was just stating a fact, his voice steady, but, just like it had been with Rio, it hurt Belle in a way she’d not imagined. It felt worse coming from Jamie.

“No. I guess I don’t.” She inhaled, handing Jamie the garment bag. “If you could just tell him that I’ll make any adjustments Julie needs. And also tell him I’m sorry.”

Jamie took the bag silently, looking down at it as though it was going to burn his hand. Belle smiled sadly as she turned away because she didn’t know what else to do.

“You don’t think you overreacted?” Jamie asked before she reached the end of their path.

“No,” Belle answered simply as she turned. Jamie’s face contorted. “Look, my dad wasn’t mad that I was seeing someone and that I’d kept it a secret. He wasn’t even particularly mad about the secret part. He was mad specifically about the Trevor part and didn’t talk to me for a few months.”

“He hates Trevor that much?”

“It’s exactly what I said would happen.”

He didn’t believe her—just like Rio hadn’t, like Nicola had struggled to—but Belle was beginning to wonder if that even mattered. It wasn’t a secret to anybody in the hockey world that John Tortorella had a high disdain for Trevor Zegras, so Belle couldn’t work out why everyone was surprised by any of it.

Jamie wasn’t speaking, his face saying all it needed to. He must have known John Tortorella’s reputation, he definitely knew what had been said about Trevor publicly. Maybe he was coming around to understanding.

“I miss him,” Belle told Jamie, her shoulder shrugging sadly. “My dad actually called me last week to make amends. All I could think the entire time was that Trevor made me happy and—not to get super fucking Freudian—my dad didn’t.”

“Shouldn’t you be telling Trevor all this?” Jamie asked, his voice having changed from its matter-of-fact nature to something softer.

“Yeah, well, I told him that that was done and asked when I could drop it off, and he told me to come this afternoon, so.” Belle swallowed the bubble that was growing in her throat. “Made it pretty clear.”

Jamie nodded, once. “I’ll let him know you came around.”

Belle turned back around, continuing back to her car. She managed to keep somewhat composed as she walked, though her chest did begin to heave the further she got from Jamie. She hadn’t heard the door close, but with her heartbeat beginning to thump in her ears she couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t happened.

The floodgates opened when she was securely inside her car, her shoulders shaking and a sob wracking her chest. Tears formed in her eyes with such ferocity that all she could do was hunch over the steering wheel and wait until they had subsided before she could leave.

The text came through the next day. Belle wondered how long he had been home before he sent it.

The dress is great. My mom will be in town next week. You should give it to her.

Belle’s nerves had been at an all-time high for more than a week. She hadn’t even been so nervous when she went to take the dress to Trevor in the first place—Jamie had confirmed what she’d already assumed, but the confirmation that Trevor hated her enough to purposely have her deliver it when he wasn’t home had her worried for what would happen when he did see her.

If anything would happen.

Maybe she would just be there for Julie to see the dress and then be marched out the door never to be seen again.

All possibilities needed to be considered.

She pulled out a dress she’d been making in tandem with Julie’s dress, one that she’d finished purely to distract herself from everything that had been happening. One that she’d worked on when she was too strung out to put the required attention into Julie’s dress.

The house looked no different than it had when she’d been met with Jamie at the door, aside from Trevor’s car being parked in the drive which was a relief but still only helped a little to ease the crushing weight on her chest.

She was walking towards the house when the door opened and Trevor walked out, his gaze mostly fixed on the ground. Belle froze mid-step.

“We can probably go have a talk before?” Trevor suggested as he got closer to her, finally looking directly at her. His hand started to rub at the back of his neck. “Like, not in front of my parents?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can. Are we… Do you want me to drive?”

“Just a walk?”

Belle didn’t want to go for a walk—her dress wasn’t made for it and her sandals prioritised form over function—but she wanted even less for Trevor to give up on her before she’d even had a chance to talk, so she nodded hastily and only turned her back to him to unlock her car and throw her bag inside.

There were a few moments of silence to begin the walk; not an awkward silence as she had expected but it still lingered as they waited to see who would talk first.

Belle knew that it probably had to be her.

“You didn’t have to talk to me,” Belle said tentatively, one hand clenched tightly around her car keys to keep her focused. “You could have just given her the dress.”

Beside her, Trevor’s hands were buried deep in the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched. “Jamie yelled at me a bit for getting you to come over when I knew I wasn’t going to be there.”

“Everything everyone has said to me since September… I deserved it. I’m not surprised you didn’t want to see me.”

“That’s kind of the problem, though,” he said. Belle hated that she could hear wetness creeping into his voice. “I did want to see you; I just didn’t know what you would do. I didn’t want you to yell at me again.”

“I shouldn’t’ve done that,” she admitted. “At the game.”

“Jamie said that Torts didn’t speak to you for ages,” Trevor told her, confirming that Jamie had spilled everything. She wasn’t mad about it or even surprised. “I guess I get why you were mad.”

“But you didn’t get why I was mad until he told you what I told him, right?” she clarified, her conversation with Rio running through her mind. “Because I hadn’t made it clear enough why I didn’t want anyone to know about… About us.”

“I still don’t really get it.” He took a half step, almost as if he had forgotten to walk momentarily. “You said right at the beginning that you didn’t want him to find out, and I guess I thought you were joking just because it’s kinda funny.”

“I embarrassed him, apparently,” Belle said, her eyes rolling. “Because of all the hockey players in the country, or even in California, I had to pick the one he’s got a public grudge against. Like, as if it matters to his image who I let put their dick in me. It’s none of his business, you know? And sure, I don’t want my dad to hate me but fucking Christ he doesn’t need to be so dramatic.”

“Is that all it was?”

“You make it sound like getting yelled at by your dad for embarrassing him on a national scale is a daily occurrence.”

“No—I’m just the guy you let put their dick in you?”

Belle stopped walking, the questioning taking up so much of her brain power that she couldn’t be trusted to move her legs as well as think it over. Too much effort was going into churning the words over and reaching out to wrap her hand around his forearm and stop him in his tracks. His eyes, flickering between her arm and her face, brimming with tears.

“I know that I said we were never together.” She sighed. The whole conversation at the baseball had been on a loop in her head for months. “I was wrong. I was mad and I’d like to think that if it had been brought up in any other moment I wouldn’t have said it, but I did. I’m sorry.”

“It was the most serious relationship I’ve ever been in. I took you home to meet my parents.”

“It was the most serious I’ve been in, too. I know that I didn’t introduce you to anyone or anything, but I wish I had. I wish people knew. Like Rio. I wish she and Alex had known.”

“I didn’t tell him. Well, until after. When he found out from Twitter anyway.”

“I—I know,” Belle stuttered. As much as she had known that Trevor had kept everything to himself just as she had asked, it was something entirely to hear him say it out loud with a tightness in his voice that she couldn't bear. “I shouldn’t have asked you to keep it from your friends like that. I don’t know what I’m doing. Ever. And I really fucked this up.”

“I’m sorry, too. For last week. For not realising that your dad is actually a bigger asshole than I thought.”

“What would you have done if you’d known that? It doesn’t change anything.”

“Sure, it does. I would have let him see me in Vegas. I would have burnt it down then and gotten it out of the way. He shouldn’t have that control over you.”

The only thing Belle could do was shrug. She didn’t disagree, but realistically it wasn’t something she would ever have let happen. Things may have changed since Vegas, but at that time it wasn’t a possibility.

Moving along the sidewalk felt appropriate, and Trevor quickly fell back into step beside her. It also made it easier to not be looking directly at him when she asked, “So, what are we doing?”

“What do you want?” he asked back, cautious and slow.

“Being one hundred percent honest? For you to forgive me and magically forget that any of this ever happened.”

So much time elapsed between her statement and Trevor’s response that Belle started taking deep breaths and preparing herself to be told that not only was that the dumbest thing anyone has ever said, but that Trevor was ending their conversation. She kept her eyes forward, focusing on the house at the end of the street and the guy on his roof trying to string up Christmas lights, and squeezed her hands into fists so tight that at least one of her nails was breaking skin.

“I don’t know if I can do all of that just yet, Belle.”

“No, I—I get that. I shouldn’t have said that. It was so stupid.”

Trevor cut her off, “I want you to come back and see my parents and hang out and maybe take it a little slow.”

“Yeah, yes!” Belle said, quickly and loudly, so that Trevor wouldn’t have the time to take it back. “We can do it however you want. I—I missed you so much.”

Everything around Belle seemed lighter in that moment, and the Christmas lights at the end of the street turned on at the perfect time. She bounced on her toes, spinning around to wrap her arms around Trevor’s neck, pulling him close and revelling in the easy way his arms wrapped around her waist. The even easier way he pulled her closer. She may have imagined the press of a kiss against the side of her head but she really didn’t think that was all in her mind.

Back at his house, after doubling back on their walking path hand in hand, Belle did her best to be comfortable around his parents. Trevor told her that he hadn’t said anything to his parents about what had happened and had brushed off the Kiss Cam things they’d seen as no big deal. Julie, after complimenting Belle on the dress, commented that that afternoon was the happiest she’d seen Trevor since she arrived in California.

Trevor didn’t deny it, just smiled even wider with his eyes firmly fixed on Belle.

One Week Later

would love to hear your thoughts, this one took forever <3

#some fun facts absolutely nobody asked for:#the only baseball game I have ever been to was the Yankees vs. the Rays at Yankee Stadium #and actual fic lore: the friend with Trevor at the bar was Lukáš #shameless self promotion

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