AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, thanks. I need to get back, anyway.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Have fun. I’ll check on you later.”
“Belle?”
“Yeah?” she asked, turning back around to face him.
“She’ll come back.”
“Will she?” she asked him. “How do you know?”
“I saw how she looked at you, remember?”
“That just means she likes me.”
“She’ll be back,” he said. “A father knows. Trust me, I’ve spent your entire life watching you and the people around you, trying to protect you from the bad and help you find the good. I saw that ex-girlfriend of yours look at you, and it in no way compares to how Chandler Wolfe looked at you during that competition.”
“Competition? The invitational?”
“Yes. I don’t have a lot to do here, so I found the videos online and watched the two of you skating together. She’s in love with you, kid.”
“Dad, don’t say that. You don’t know.”
“One day, you’re going to have a child of your own, and you’ll watch them grow up. You’ll see them go to a dance with someone, and that someone’s going to look at them a certain way. You’ll catalog that for later. You’ll watch them date some, bring someone home, maybe, later, and you’ll keep cataloging how all those people look at your kid. Then, you’ll see them with someone else, and all that cataloging will come back to your mind, and you’ll understand why. Your mom knew, Belle.”
“Knew what?”
“Well, we both did, but she knew first. She told me.”
“Told you what, Dad?” she asked and walked back over to him, taking a seat again.
“That you liked Chandler as more than a friend. Your mom saw how you looked at Chandler and how Chandler looked at you, and one night after she’d picked you up from practice, she told me she thought you might like another girl.”
“What? You never told me that.”
“Maybe I should have. I don’t know. You never asked me if your mom knew that you were gay, so I didn’t know for sure if you wanted to know.”
“I didn’t know if I did because there was a chance she might not have been okay with it.”
“Oh, honey. No.” He shook his head and smiled at her. “Your mother loved you. She loved all of you. And she wanted you to be so happy, Belle. She didn’t care if that was with a boy, a girl, or no one else because you wanted to be alone. She just wanted you to have everything you ever wanted. She told me that night that she thought you two might be on the verge of something and that we might need to talk to you about it.”
“Talk about what?”
“Just falling in love. Setting some ground rules. We’d never planned on you having boys in your bedroom alone, so that rule would’ve applied to girls, too. A curfew when you started dating; all that parent stuff you don’t need to worry about until you do. Your mom saw it back then. So, when I tell you that Chandler will come back, it’s because your mom was the smartest woman I’ve ever met, and she knew Chandler liked you. Chandler came back once already. She’ll come back again.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said. “Really. Thank you.”
“Just be patient, okay?”
Belle nodded, kissed him on the cheek again, and went to work, wondering if he was right; and if so, wondering how patient she’d have to be. She already missed Chandler, and it hadn’t even been a full day. They already weren’t talking. Chandler hadn’t texted her back yet, and it had been hours. Belle knew what she’d told her. Still, they’d probably be apart for months at a time and for at least the next year or so while Chandler focused on skating and making the team.
When she got to the arcade and restocked the candy, it made her think of Chandler now. When she walked by the pinball machine, she thought of her. When she went into the locker room to clean, she pictured them kissing on that bench. In her office, she could replay Chandler telling her about Lincoln, and in the parking lot, Belle saw them saying goodbye. She didn’t know how to handle all of that in the one building that felt like home to her, but she had no choice now because Chandler was gone, and she was doing what she needed to do, so Belle had to suck it up and deal because Chandler deserved to have all her dreams come true.
When she got home that night after checking on her dad, Belle took a long, hot shower and thought about how even her shower reminded her of Chandler. Her bed still hadn’t been made, sheets still unclean, and the pillow smelled like Chandler’s shampoo. Belle was breathing it in, trying not to think about how creepy that might look if someone walked in on her doing it, when there was a knock at the door. Expecting no one, she thought it might be a package or even someone meaning to knock on her neighbor’s door, which had happened before. She got up to check, and her breath caught.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Chandler after pulling open the door.
“Hi, babe,” Chandler greeted with a wide smile on her face. “Can I come in?”
CHAPTER 34
