Work Text:
Belly Conklin speaks in riddles.
At least to me she does. Or maybe her shiny hair and pretty eyes sparkling in the afternoon light were too distracting.
Sometimes, you’re getting over your past and moving on in the present all at the same time.
The lukewarm water of the shower runs down my back as the phrase swims in my head.
“Does that make sense?” she had asked.
My answer, which in the moment came in the form of a weary head shake, is complicated. I know what I would like her to mean, but that doesn’t mean she was talking about moving on with me. I can’t afford to think that. Especially after spotting the light pink flush in her cheeks after what looked like Conrad stroking her hair, intimately, in the middle of Party City.
Belly's hair looks particularly touchable this summer. Soft, shiny, slightly longer and darker than it usually is. It’s been driving me crazy since the moment I pretended not to notice her walking up the long path to Conrad’s dorm room three days ago.
Conrad. Why does he get to touch it whenever he feels like it?
I suddenly notice a glob of shampoo on my feet and realize I have been angrily gripping the bottle toward the ground for at least 30 seconds.
This is ridiculous, this is the last night I will ever spend in this house and I am wasting precious seconds strangling a shampoo bottle because I’m getting territorial about hair. Hair that does not belong to me in any way shape or form. Because Belly doesn’t belong to anyone.
Except, she does belong to this house. We all belong to it. Me, Conrad, Steven, Laurel, Belly and my mom.
My mom. Tonight is for her.
I lean down to pick up some of the shampoo glob and run it thought my hair, sending the rest down the drain. After rinsing with what’s now cold water, I step out of the shower and start getting dressed. I pull on linen pants and the 70s patterned mustard shirt Conrad so lovingly tossed my way with a “Here, this is what’s left” after he and Steven picked through Belly’s selections. I guess it looks ok with the top two buttons undone. I look in the mirror and let out a contented huff.
“They’re here!” Taylor yells, and I swear, just for a split second, she sounds just like my mom.
Whatever is or isn’t going on between me and Belly can wait. Tonight is about something bigger.
—
So that lasts about two fucking seconds. As soon as I spot Belly from the foyer, I’m done for. The roller skates are doing favors for her legs I didn’t know possible, her makeup brings out a sorely missed brightness in her eyes, and her fucking hair, bouncy and beautiful, is the star of the show. Yeah. Done for.
I quickly slip into the kitchen before I’m caught literally drooling and soon find myself summoned to do shots with some old friends. They’re all “summer” friends. Either Cousins locals or people who don’t live far, but I don’t know any of them outside of the world we’ve built here.
All of them start talking, fast and frantic, as Jumper pours us shots.
“Good to see you, Fisher!”
“Dude this party fucking bangs!”
“Sucks about the house, but you better still party with us this summer!”
“We’re sorry about your mom, that blows.”
I down two shots, some cheap blue raspberry flavored vodka, and smile back at them, but it’s weak.
“Yeah, for sure.”
It’s the only thing I can muster in response to all of them. Maybe I’m not ready to socialize normally yet. Or I need to black out.
Neither seem like appealing options, so I set out to find my brother and Steven to tether me back to reality, when suddenly there’s a girl in my arms.
Beautiful brown eyes help me identify her in the split second I catch her from her fall. Unsurprisingly, as graceful as she looks in those skates, Belly has tripped over one of the wires from the DJ booth. She’s looking up at me, mouth open, her eyes indicating that she’s not too mad about ending up here.
Thoroughly amused and a little turned on by the proximity, and with the help of the blue raspberry vodka, I lean down to whisper in her ear.
“You don’t have to hurt yourself to get my attention.”
I lift her on her feet as she giggles with an emotion I can’t quite place. Embarrassment? Attraction? Both? God please let it be both.
Still flustered, she begins to skate away as she says “I gotta go get another drink, so I’ll BRB.”
Nope. I’m not gonna overthink.
—
Two minutes later, Belly reappears still wobbling on her skates, with Taylor in tow, carrying a tray full of shots. She spots me and waves me over to join her.
“Jereee!” she calls out. “Come here! We’re doing group shots!”
I start toward her and she grabs my hand and laces her fingers with mine. Whether she does this because she wants to or for balance, I don’t know. At the very least, I am confident enough to cross “repulsed by” off of my (ever growing) mental “How Belly Possibly Feels About Me” list. For now.
With my help, she glides into the living room as she yells “Group shots!’ at Steven and Conrad. The later seems in an uncharacteristically good mood, which amplifies the warm feeling aided by the alcohol in my system.
“If this is Gin, I’m killing you.” Conrad points a finger at my chest.
“C’mon, it’s tequila!” I croon.
For the first time in… well… a while… I feel a rush of affection for my brother. At the end of the day, he’s always been there. We’ve always been a unit, especially so at the summer house, however dysfunctional. It compels me to make a toast on behalf of us both.
“No matter how much time passes, or how far apart we are, we’re always gonna love you guys.”
My eyes don’t leave Belly, and I realize I’m directing the toast at her. For her. There is more truth to the statement for both Conrad and I than I can afford to dig into right now.
“Aw Jeremy, you cheeseball.” Taylor chides.
“To the last night!”
We all cheer, and I look forward to this shot quieting some of the overthinking I’ve been doing. I swear I never used to be like this.
—
My “stop overthinking” plan might have worked if Belly hadn’t immediately grabbed my arm to say, “I need to take a break from skating, grab me a beer and meet me on the inflatable couch over there, yeah?”
Her beautiful eyelashes were fluttering in a flirty way she’s only ever used with me a handful of times.
So now I’m in the kitchen, wondering where the hell the beer is and what the hell I am going to do about the fact that I’m half hard just from her fluttering eyelashes.
I’m also wondering what on earth Steven and Taylor were doing in the living room. From what I could see, it included a lot of gyrating.
It doesn’t look like there’s any beer in here, so I head in the garage. Bingo. I grab two and beeline back to where I left Belly taking off her skates. She smiles as she sees me walking over and my heart jolts.
I hand her the beer, cheersing hers with mine as I sit down, allowing myself to gaze up her legs as mine settle against them on the small inflatable.
I need to calm the fuck down.
Attempting to do the trick with a swig of my beer, I notice Belly looking around. She looks nervous.
“Where is everyone? We need to… uh… take that group picture.”
“I can go track them down if if you want...” Is she changing her mind about being alone with me? This girl makes me crazy…
“Last time I saw Steven…” I think back to them booty shaking to “Party in the USA” and laugh. “He was with Tay Tay actually…”
Belly hums in acknowledgment and I feel bold enough to ask, “So what’s going on there?”
She laughs and puts her beer down, saying nothing. Girl code and whatnot. The lighthearted teenage drama of it all feels like a nice break in the heaviness that’s still seemed to follow me around tonight. So I lean in.
“Yeah, this house has seen it’s fair share of make outs.” Okay, so maybe I’m leaning into other things too, hoping to jog her memory of one particular moonlit makeout.
The way she’s looking at me tells me I might have succeeded.
“You know I had my first kiss in this house…” I offer.
“Really?” She returns.
Feeling the beer, I continue, “…and my second, all in the same night.”
“Wow…” Belly says thoughtfully. “Who’s hearts were you breaking?” The flirty way she says this just damn near explodes mine.
“Do you remember Chrissy Turnduck?" I wince, bracing for impact.
“Turducken?” Belly asks, incredulous but clearly amused.
“Yes, the Turducken.” I confirm, laughing.
I continue, “And uh… our neighbor at the time… what was his name?" I remembered his name. Clay Bertolet. The first boy I’d ever kissed. I don’t know why I pretended not to remember. Maybe I just wanted to see if Belly would.
“Clay Bertolet.” She did.
“No way!” she continues, “You know, he once broke a window in the garage and blamed me.”
I did know that. In fact, he did that because of her, but that’s a story for another time…
“Really?” I play dumb, not ready to play my hand yet, and she’s smiling so beautifully it distracts me. I want to kiss her. I really want to kiss her.
“He was a good kisser though.” I say, looking down at her lips, definitely not thinking about Clay Bertolet.
She meets my eyes in flirty challenge, so I go for it.
“Not as good as you.”
What seems like an eternity passes of us glancing at each others lips and back, as if communicating with our ESP:
Are we really going to do this?
The question is answered with her soft lips on mine, tentative. My body reacts before my mind as I kiss her back languidly, only thinking about getting more of her softness into my mouth. More. More. More.
Her hand cups the back of my neck and pulls the curls softly, which spurs me to open my lips for her tongue and we’re fully making out now, exploring each other in a way that feels familiar and brand new all at once.
I’ve never loved kissing anyone as much as I love kissing Belly. It could have something to do with the fact that as far back as I can remember wanting to kiss anyone, I’ve wanted to kiss her. Even before there were these feelings involved, or before I knew what they were, anyway, I’ve wanted to kiss her. We had always been so close, so comfortable touching and being near each other, it felt like a no brainer to me. She was so soft, snuggly and cute in her Belly way. Maybe a part of me thought things would evolve naturally, like… it would just be me and Belly sleeping in bed one day and then some day we would kiss, and that’s just how it would be.
Things would prove to be a bit more complicated than that, but all that matters is that we made it here, with me kissing Belly, again, finally.
I’m not sure how long we’re kissing before it happens. The inflatable couch jolts beneath us and I remember where we are: in the middle of a party. A party where my brother is very much in attendance. A party where I am very much making out with his ex-girlfriend in plain sight.
I painfully rip my lips away from Belly’s, bracing for Conrad’s disapproving glare, to find Dara looking down at us with a smug, albeit drunk, expression.
“Another brother swap? You go Belly, you little Elena Gilbert!” she slurs.
Reality floods back in as I realize what we just did. Ignoring Dara, I look around to see if anyone more privy to our situation saw us. Doesn’t look like it. I turn back to Belly, who has turned a shade of bright pink. Whether it’s from our makeout, the alcohol or Dara’s comment, I can’t tell, but I follow my first instinct and grab her hand to pull her off the inflatable.
“Eat shit, Dara.” I spit in her direction and lead Belly into the hallway. I spin her around so she’s not facing the crowded party.
“Are you okay?” I ask, cupping her face.
“I’m sorry, Jere.” She says, tears filling her eyes.
I lower my hands back to my sides. Well, here comes the gut punch. The ‘we shouldn’t have done that’ ‘I’m still in love with your brother’ ‘You’re a good kisser but you’re out of your mind if you ever think I would ever feel anything for you.’
I’m bracing myself for it all. Instead she says nothing.
“For what?” I say.
“For the brother swap.” Belly says, a sad, exaggerated, cute frown spreading across her face.
“What?” I say with a laugh. “Dara’s just drunk and stupid and watches too much TV. I’m sorry she said that.”
“No, but I am,” she continues. “I never wanted this…” she gestures wildly with her hands, “mess.”
“I know you didn’t.” I say somberly. I do mean it. Technically, it’s not her fault my brother happened to be her first love. And as much as I’ve been too hurt to admit it, I know first hand how hard it is to resist the pull of a first love.
Because Belly is mine.
“Can we go upstairs?” Belly says with flirty eyes, stroking my bicep, like something ripped out of my many, many fantasies.
“What abou-“ I start to say.
“Can. we. go. upstairs?” She interrupts, punctuating each word with a seductive breath and I think if she asked me to do anything in this way, I would.
So we go, leaving the party behind.