Chapter Text
The beautiful part of hand off from such an early age is that Honey never learned that thing that recognizes what might make a parent sad and doesn't try to tiptoe around anyone. Placing the overnight bag on the buffet in the entryway, Trent has to scoot to the side to let her bound off in search of her mother, wild curls flouncing as big as her energy. He just manages to catch her rucksack before she drops it to the floor and joins it to the other bag.
Thinking he might quietly turn heel and head right back out, he is surprised when Zelda's head pops into view, still in her dressing gown and bonnet. "How was he, luv?"
Naturally, Honey bounds back into the hallway and grabs his hand to pull him into the kitchen with them. "I don't think he recognized dad, mum."
With an overemphatic furrow of the brow, Zelda turns her head to size him up, her bonnet waving behind her with the commotion. "Didn't recognize you?"
It sounds impossible. Unlikely at least. But Trent had taken every precaution to not take any attention away from anyone. He was wearing Richmond gear, for Christ's sake. The right person might drop dead if they realized what they were looking at after ages of neutrality. And aside from that, he'd moved to sit as inconspicuously as possible, choosing somewhere closer to the ends. He didn't want to overhear anything. Didn't want to be recognized. Simply wanted to watch the competence of all these young ladies and have a cogent conversation with his girl, who was twice as obsessed with women's football than he had been when he was her age, about the structure of a good football team.
Waving away her disbelief, Trent scoffs, "They were open trials. It was chaos."
"Surely the football manager who disappeared for three years couldn't take a moment to look around and acknowledge the very people who brought him back?" Trent swears her Nigerian accent grows sharper whenever Zelda gets indignant. Be it silly or not. It is both horrifying and incredibly comforting when she does this. Plays along like he's actually expressed his true feelings. This is how she is with her family, and it's nice to know she's come to consider him her family after all this time.
Honey, however, not having entirely wrapped her head around when her mother is being facetious, breaks in, "The Manager didn't know we were coming! And it's not like he invited us personally. And then we were seated so far away the bloke next to us got an actual nosebleed. It was horrid."
Zelda's genuine wince at that feels worse than watching the ordeal of that man holding his face as he ran off to the toilets.
Instead of letting Honey go on about the man, Trent continues with their actual conversation. "I didn't want to attract attention."
It is Honey's turn to look at her father with suspicion. "No. He looked into the crowds. He even looked right at you."
It's true. For a lingering, heart-stopping moment, Ted had looked right at him. To the point that it had set Trent's entire being to perspire. If there hadn't been so much space between them, he might have thought Ted had looked him right in the eye…and not seen him at all. There was no nod. No wave. No acknowledgement at all, in spite of the fact that Trent couldn't have hid the broad smile that had overtaken his entire being buried ten feet underground. If it's the hope that kills you, Trent might very well be a walking zombie right now.
There is no mark on the floor he could possibly be toeing at, but he still mimics the action, avoiding Zelda's eyes then. Speaks low and quiet when he says, "Let's not pretend I was ever anyone very special."
Stopping mid-turn to her espresso machine, Zelda swipes a warming espresso cup from the top and points it in Trent's general direction. "Bollocks!," Honey backs up, wide-eyed at her mother's combustible temper. Zelda smiles sweetly and reaches a gentle thumb to pet over Zelda's cheek, "Excuse my strong language, luv." The return to her former fuss is without flinching, "You wrote a bloody book about the man. Does he not read? Followed him like a simpering puppy for a season. Was he blind?" Placing the espresso cup on the metal ledge with a terrible clanking, she moves to place her hands on her hips, incredulous, the movement exposing the glorious glowing skin at her clavicle.
It had always made him jealous, just how perfect her skin was when his own was a lovely golden. Taken care of just as intricately. Actually. It probably should have been one of many signs he should have recognized before things had grown so complicated. As Honey attaches herself to his side, Trent brushes a thumb across the very same cheek, and she smiles, blushing brown sugar skin. He places an arm around her spindly shoulder and gives her a squeeze.
"It's been three seasons since," Trent reasons, "Who knows how much life he's lived in those three years. Would we say simpering?"
"Yeah," Honey comes to his rescue, looking up at him with a mischievous smile, "Maybe he has selective amnesia." Dissolving into giggles beside him, Trent reaches up to hide her face away with his hands. She's such a joker. He adores her sense of humor.
"No– No. Don't be daft. What do you know about selective amnesia?"
The steam wand on the espresso machine screeches to life, disrupting their silliness, "Honey, luv, your dad's probably right. Ted probably just didn't recognize your dad. He's shorn all his lovely hair. Let his stylist hack away at it like Delilah did to Sampson. All the love from God, all his power is sitting at the bottom of some bin in Marleybone."
The fun of all this falls like water down a duck's back. Reaching up, he knows it's in some awful middle stage. It was maybe cut a little too short, but no one needs to tell him. He was powerless to watch it happen in the mirror. All he can do now is never go back to that stylist ever again. "Fuck off. It looks good…and it's growing." There is his emergency hat in the boot of the car.
"So much for any residual, plausible deniability."
"Mum?"
Pouring the steamed milk into her cup, Zelda pauses and looks Trent squarely in the eye, "It means your dad can't deny he's trying to hook that man like a fish on a line."
There it is again. The full body flop sweat. The panic. The rise and fall of all hope so quickly.
Of course there is a part of him that would so easily welcome any attention from Ted. Friendly or otherwise. But this first encounter seems a bit…well, it makes it all feel like some nonstarter. Because what if Ted had realized it was him and made the attempt to remain nonreactive? A red hot heat crawls up Trent's neck. He needs to step out of this conversation. Find anything to distract from how this all makes him feel.
"Oh. Well. He is fit." Trent and Zelda stop in their tracks, staring so hard at Honey their eyes both twinge with pain. "I still don't understand. Why did we sit so far away?"
Trent shirks then, shrugging at Zelda, who looks at him like he's responsible for all this insanity coming from their previously perfect daughter. "I'm going. Honey, give your dad a squinch."