Chapter 7 ~ Bellamy
Project make Minho my boyfriend is a go
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I woke up this morning with a solid plan with multiple steps I was excited to execute. Unfortunately, for a brief second, I forgot about one important thing.
Early morning practice.
The cold air of the rink hits my skin like a winter breeze.
I have been on the ice for the last forty minutes, and my legs are burning in that good way, the way that means I am pushing hard enough to forget everything except the next stride, the next pass or who I am pushing into the boards, simply for trying to get in my way and steal the puck.
My hockey stick feels like an extension of my arm as I move the puck when I want it to, and for a few minutes, I let myself just be in it.
We’ve been running drills, breakouts, zone entries and quick passes off the boards.
Noah, my best friend and voice of reason, is on my wing, his tall, muscular frame cutting across the ice with unsurprising speed for a guy with the movements of a sneaky leopard.
He catches a pass from me and buries it top shelf, then circles back with a stupid grin on his face.
“Not bad, Maddox.” He’s breathing hard, sweat visibly dripping from his buzz cut when he takes his helmet off. “For a guy who was probably up all night doing God knows what.”
I skate past him with a wink before tapping his shin with my stick. “Don't tell me you’re jealous because you weren’t invited.”
Noah laughs, but it's the kind of laugh that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.
I don't get the opportunity to ask what’s wrong when we finish our drills, and Coach Walker blows his whistle from the bench, calling the team over for water.
I glide over, grabbing my bottle from where I left it and feel the moment Noah sidles up next to me.
He’s quiet for a moment, simply watching the rest of the team spread out along the boards. Then he says in a low enough voice that only I can hear him. “Talked with Yeseo this morning.”
Ah, yes. Noah and Yeseo, my step-sister, are dating, which I guess is cool since it pisses off her dad, but at this exact moment, I don't know what bringing her up is supposed to mean.
I take a long drink of my water to buy me time. “Yeah?”
“She said you texted her brother last night.”
I cap the bottle and wipe my mouth with the back of my glove. “She wouldn’t be wrong, but did she forget to include the part in which he then called me?”
“Bellamy.” His voice shifts, less teasing and more warning, which I like. “What’s going on between you two?”
I shrug, keeping my eyes on the ice. “Nothing, just fucking with him a little.”
It’s not a complete lie, but I am not telling him the entire truth either. How can I when he might judge me for still having a crush on Minho?
Yeah, Noah knows.
I drunkenly told him once, a few weeks after I learned Minho had transferred to Briarston, knowing it was in part my fault.
“Just fucking with him a little,” Noah repeats the words like he is trying to solve a murder mystery. “The coach’s son, your step-brother, the guy who stopped talking to his dad a year ago because of what you did...are you talking about the one who got away?”
I roll my eyes. “I know exactly who he is.”
“Do you?” He turns to face me fully, and I have to meet his eyes.
They are dark brown and looking at me seriously, the same look Noah gives me before a big hit at the back of my head comes for doing something he deems idiotic.
“Because I have seen you do stupid shit before, Bell. I have seen you pick fights you couldn’t win and charmed your way out of.
But this—” He shakes his head. “This is a different kind of stupid because you aren’t just messing with him; no, you are trying to get a reaction. ”
“Says the guy dating the coach's daughter, knowing he is glaring at you every time he sees you two together,” I point out, and I know I am being childish, but who cares?
“That’s different; I am not her step-brother.”
“So?”
I wouldn’t care if Minho was my dad’s step-son; I’d still want him and would quite literally deal with my shit of a father just to be with him.
“So the coach is your step-dad, he actually likes you, made you captain, and you’re out here—” He gestures vaguely with his hands in front of him as if the words he is looking for are too big to spell out. “... poking at his son like you’re trying to start a house fire.”
I stare at him for a long second, the cold air of the rink biting at my exposed skin—the sound of skates scraping ice filling the space between us.
“I’m not trying to start a house fire,” I say, and my voice comes out quieter than I mean it to. “I’m just...” I stop myself, not knowing how to finish that sentence without revealing that my obsession with Minho never went away; it just lay dormant until I saw him at Bennett and Ink.
I’m just trying to get Minho to look at me. I want him to feel something that isn’t our sparring to the death of a routine we used to fall into so easily, because he hates my gut, and yeah, we are already falling into that trap of a routine. I just—I don’t even know anymore.
I woke up earlier than I needed to and went over what I am calling the project to make Minho my boyfriend. After calling Yeseo about it and hearing she told me Minho doesn’t do relationships because of what I did, I am still optimistic I can pull this shit off.
I have to.
I didn’t wait a year to fail, and thankfully, I have a multitude of people helping me this time. I wasn’t ready last year, but I am now, and so far everything is falling into place the way I need it to.
Noah sighs. “Just be careful, alright? Coach Walker is a good guy, and whatever you got going on with his kid, it's not just going to stay between you two,” he pauses. “Shit like that never does.”
I don't answer. I can’t because he is right, and I know that he is right, and I am going to ignore him anyway. I have waited for Minho, and I am more than ready to try winning him over, this time without fucking shit up in a way that has him packing his bags again.
I will confess, teasing him last night wasn’t part of the plan, but I think it worked in my favour since he sent me a picture I now have as my phone's lock screen.
Obviously, I cropped out the parts I don't need others to see.
But Minho is my lock screen, and he looks so fucking hot and different from what anyone here would remember that I can get away with it.
For now.
I don’t want him to be a secret, and to make sure that doesn’t happen, I need to follow the plan Yeseo came up with, mostly while I listened.
“What are you thinking about, cap?” Noah asks after a while.
“Nothing,” I reply. “I just—” I stop before I can even finish what I want to tell my best friend. Why is telling his girlfriend I have a crush on Minho easier than telling him that when Yeseo and Minho are related? I rub my glove across my mouth. “I switched into one of his classes.”
That’s a good start.
Noah’s brows shoot up. “You what?”
“I switched into his first class, the one you both are in tomorrow morning,” I tell him, in hopes he will understand how sick and tired I am of playing rival to the man I just want to be with.
I don’t mind a little foreplay, but he has to be mine first. “I’m going to go march into that class and sit down beside him. ”
My best friend stares at me for a long moment as if I’ve grown two heads, then he lets out a breath that fogs in the air between us.
And I swear I can see his mind running through all the reasons this is a bad idea, maybe even sorting every bad idea I have ever had when it comes to Minho into a stack of cards in his head before he picks the one to lead with for a magic trick.
“You’re trying to find yourself in an early grave.” He chuckles. “That’s what this is. The texting, the call and now this... you’re going to poke the bear until it snaps and bites your head off.”
I grin. “Maybe.”
“But why?”
I don’t have an answer. Not one I could say out loud in the rink anyway.
Because the truth is tangled up in things I once didn’t understand myself until I realised tormenting Minho was my way of telling my crush I like them.
And ever since the basement incident, the way Minho looked at me and didn't stop, I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to finally break through those steel walls he built to keep us separated, to find something real on the other side that isn’t just hatred but maybe curiosity for me.
I know he’s thought of it.
The picture in my phone confirms it. He could have hung up, blocked me, but he hasn't. I’ve checked multiple times and sent a message this morning; it's still on read.
Bastard.
I truly do hate him, but not in the same way he hates me. I hate him for making it so easy to want him like some kind of forbidden fruit.
“He ignores me,” I say after a while. “He’s been ignoring me since the moment we met, and when he can’t, he acts superior to me, and I just—” I shrug. “I know I should hate him for the way he treats me, but what I really want is for him to see me.”
Noah’s expression softens, the way it did when he was about to say something he knew I didn't want to hear. “He sees you, Bell, that’s the problem.”
I blink. What the fuck does that mean?
“What?”
“He sees the version of you that took the rivalry too far, and I bet it broke something in him.” Noah shakes his head as if disappointed I haven't already come to this conclusion.
“That’s why he ignores you; it's why he left in the first place, stopped coming home, cut all communication with his dad. Because if he were ever to see you—if he actually let himself see past the version he hates, then he would have to deal with what that means, and he might not ever be ready for that.”
I know that.
God, I do.
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake is getting a test question wrong.” Noah canted his head to the side. “You drunkenly confessed your undying feelings for him, kissed him and then, when he didn’t reciprocate your feelings, you fucked his girlfriend until he caught you both.”
“I know.”
Why is he going so hard on my ass? I know how badly I fucked up; I don’t need a walk down memory lane right now.
“Do you?” He asks flatly. “You had a chance to fix it when he asked you to move out, but you made him look like a spoiled brat in front of his dad, who then took your side when Minho needed his only parent to be on his side. Bell, you took the rivalry too far, and he chose to end it by leaving, and now you want to fuck up his life by trying to get things right? Chances he ever truly looks past any of that are slim, my friend.”
The words hung in the air between us, heavier than any singular anchor that could have pulled me down, more solid than the ice beneath our feet.
I want to argue, to tell him he is wrong, that Minho could forgive me if I tried hard enough, that I am not just an annoyance or a fly my step-brother can swat away, a reminder of everything he left behind.
Last night proved that.
Didn’t it?
There are so many ways I could argue with Noah about this, but I don’t say anything because some part of me, buried deep under the bravado and the jokes, wonders if my best friend is right.
Could Minho truly forgive me?
Before I can ask Noah, the whistle is blown again, a sharp ringing sound that’s followed by Coach Walker’s voice that cuts across the rink, calling us in for the last drill of the day.
Noah holds my gaze for another second, then turns and skates toward the bench without another word.
I follow shortly after, my legs moving on autopilot as I push down all thoughts of Minho until I am out of here.
Practice ends an hour later, and I am stripping off my gear in the locker room, the familiar routine of it grounding me in a way I don’t think too hard about. My sweat-soaked jersey hits the bench, I stack my pads in my locker, and unlace my skates with practised ease.
Noah is two lockers down, already dressed in jeans and a hoodie with strategically placed paintball stains, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He catches my gaze as I pull my shirt over my head, and I tense, already waiting for another lecture.
But it never comes.
“Let’s get dinner tonight at Mama Mary’s diner, my treat,” he smiles. “You’re buying.”
I snort. “That isn’t how treating someone to dinner works, idiot.”
“I know, but you owe me for the migraine your love life is giving me.” He is already walking toward the doors, but he pauses with his hand on the frame. “And Bell? Don’t rush into anything stupid between now and tomorrow morning.”
“No promises.”
Now, when I need Minho in my bed, preferably naked at least by his birthday, which is fast approaching. And I have a lot planned for that, so my plans stay as they are.
Project make Minho my boyfriend is a go after all.
No stopping it now.
Noah shakes his head and disappears through the door, leaving me alone with the smell of sweat and soap from the showers.
I take a seat on the bench in front of my locker for a long moment, my shirt still half off, before my fingers brush over the aching bruise over my ribs, thanks to Chase, one of my teammates.
It doesn’t take long for my mind to drift to the thought of Minho, about the class tomorrow and what I’ll say when I walk in and see him.
I think about the little crack in his armour, the one I have been chasing since I told him how I feel about him and whether I even know what I would do if I truly found a way to break through it.
I pull my shirt the rest of the way on, grab my bag from off the floor and jog to catch up to Noah before he decides to leave my ass stranded here and starving.