Chapter Text
“The paperwork is all in order. Finally.”
Riddle Rosehearts sets the inch-thick stack of papers atop his desk, punctuating his statement, and confidently pushes them across the hardwood tabletop towards his client and longtime friend.
“After submission to the bank, the business loan should be all but yours.”
Trey Clover sits for a beat— for two, for three— staring at the sterile white of the pages as Riddle’s words swim around him. He hesitates, trying not to squirm in the seat of the chair, and gingerly reaches out for the papers. Trey swallows thickly, his delicate fingers flipping through the loan application, but his eyes quickly glaze over the legalese written within.
Finally.
All but his.
Trey leans back, into the plush leather of the office chair, with a breathy laugh. It’s a silly thing, perhaps, to take solace in, but the papers sitting on the desk before him make this all the more real— makes it really sink in.
“If everything goes smoothly,” Riddle continues— a grin breaking through onto his normally stoic face, “Pâtisserie Clover’s new location should be under construction within the next month or so.”
“Thank you, Riddle— for everything. You know how much this means to my family.”
“Of course. My duties as your legal council aside… I owe a great deal to your family, and to you.” Rosehearts hesitates, his eyes flitting to his side, and Trey can read the contemplation behind Riddle’s eyes. The younger man’s brow furrows, his lips parting slightly, and there’s a palpable shift in the atmosphere of the office. Another lingering heartbeat passes between the pair before Riddle commits to whatever is plaguing his mind. “While I was drawing up the papers for this, I— well, how long has it been since you’ve spoken with Cater Diamond?”
The question strikes hard from out of left field, and Trey sputters at the seeming spontaneity of it.
“Cater?” His eyebrows shoot up, and Trey reaches under the bridge of his glasses to pinch at his nose while he racks his brain for the answer to Riddle’s cryptic question. “Must’ve been… Jeez, I guess— not since a little bit after graduation.”
The admission ties a knot deep in the pit of Trey’s stomach. There had been a time he and Cater had been nearly inseparable; they told everything to each other, spent all of their spare time together, and then, one day— they just… stopped.
“Hm.” Riddle breaks Trey’s stream of consciousness with a frown, then reaches to open a desk drawer. He pulls a thin manilla folder from within it and offers it to Trey. “In that case, I suppose it will come as something of a surprise to learn that the two of you are still legally married.”
Time seems to come to a screeching halt.
Trey’s blood runs cold as he takes the folder from Riddle, a choking cough all he can manage to muster in response. There’s no way, he thinks. They had been young, dumb, and very drunk, but there wasn’t any way that the two of them were still—
But Trey flips open the folder and there it is, in black and white. A copy of their marriage license sits before him, neatly displaying the indisputable proof of their youthful stupidity. He scans the page, equal parts reminiscent and skeptical, and tries to remember what little he’s able to from that night. A heartbeat passes and Trey’s eyes fall to the foot of the page, where his and Cater’s signatures lie. Even smashed as he had been, Cater had still taken the care to dot the “i” in his last name with a heart.
A smile tugs at the corner of Trey’s mouth for all of a second.
“If you’ll flip through the folder,” Riddle clears his throat and continues, graciously ignoring Trey’s short walk down memory lane. “You’ll see that I had papers drawn up to dissolve your union. Seeing as how it’s been nearly a decade since the two of you have even spoken to each other, I don’t see a reason for you to have this potential legal nightmare hanging over your head.”
Trey does as he’s instructed, flipping past the marriage license, and is greeted by another wordy document— this one bearing the words “Petition for Divorce” in large, bold lettering.
“You need Cater to sign the forms.” Riddle crosses his arms, a soft sigh escaping him. “If you can get ahold of him, that is.”
Trey struggles to get through the rest of the day.
His mind keeps drifting and, no matter how he tries, inevitably his thoughts always manage to settle back onto Cater. He ghosts through his responsibilities for the remainder of the workday— measuring, mixing, kneading, baking— as if his body were on autopilot, and it’s not until he’s settled into bed for the night that mind and body finally resynchronize.
He tosses and turns against the cool cotton of his bedsheets, utterly exhausted and yet wholly unable to sleep. Riddle had sounded so resolute about the divorce but… Trey had been truthful when he admitted to not having spoken to Cater in nearly a decade. Honestly, he doesn’t even know if Cater still remembers him— let alone the drunken night they wed each other.
With a heaving sigh, Trey gropes into the darkness for his phone— squinting against the light that nearly blinds him as he raises the screen to his face. Absently, he scrolls through his home screen, fixing his glasses back upon his face as he scans for the app he’s hunting for. Finally, the stylized camera of the Magicam app catches his eye, and Trey selects it, opening the brightly colored login screen that prompts him for his username and password.
Shit.
Trey taps the side of his phone as he stares the login screen down. He frowns sternly at it— as if he can shame the app into remembering his credentials for him— and sifts through a near decade’s worth of unused information for the password to his account. He remembers… it comes to him and he huffs, annoyed.
Cater had made the account for him in the first place.
He’d taken Trey’s phone, one day after class, and installed the app himself without so much as a warning. Trey had watched, mildly amused, as Cater created an account for Trey in less than a minute— all while explaining how vital Magicam had become to everyday life. He had gone on to promise Trey the password was an easy one to remember, winking coyly as he typed in the username to his own profile and hit ‘Follow’.
The last thing Trey recalls from that day is the commemorative selfie Cater had insisted the pair take, and how sweet the redhead had looked as he effortlessly edited the picture and posted it to Trey’s account for him.
But now— alone, in the dark of night— Trey pushes his glasses up to rub tiredly at his eyes and admits defeat. Tapping the ‘new user?’ button on the Magicam login screen, he follows the prompts to create a brand new account.
The setup takes only a few minutes but, once he’s in, it takes Trey nearly no time at all to find and navigate to Cater’s profile.
Immediately, Trey gets the feeling that he’s in beyond his depth. A winking picture of Cater stares at him from the top of his profile— warm and inviting in the way that Cater had always been around others. Cater’s bio references him being an “influencer”— which, honestly, is a career that Trey still isn't 100% clear about; he remembers Cater mentioning “influencing” with Magicam while they were still in school, but it wasn’t anything Trey ever really grasped as a concrete concept.
Whatever it is though, it must be working for him.
As Trey scrolls through Cater’s profile, passing photos of brilliantly captured landscapes, (mostly) tastefully advertised products, and lively selfies, a nagging feeling begins to eat at the back of Trey’s brain. He scrolls onto a beach scene; Cater’s face is partially obscured by a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses that reflect the brilliant sunset in their lenses. He’s surrounded by a handful of faces that Trey doesn’t recognize, but the feeling at the back of his brain bites at him— needling at Trey until it’s all he can focus on.
This life Cater has built for himself— Trey doesn’t belong in it.
If Cater even did remember Trey, if he even did remember they were technically married, Trey knows that Cater wouldn’t want Trey and his quiet life in the bakery holding him back. A sigh breaks the silence of his bedroom, and it becomes obnoxiously clear to him: Riddle is right, divorce is the best option for them both.
After some difficulty, Trey manages to open a DM to Cater through Magicam. He’s… honestly not even sure Cater will see the message, but it’s his best shot at getting in contact with him.
@treyclover01: Hey Cater
@treyclover01: It's Trey, Clover? Obviously, aha 😅
@treyclover01: Um, just wanted to try and get ahold of you, I guess. idk if you'll see this but yeah.
He holds his breath as he taps ‘send’ on the screen, cringing at the way his message still manages to sound stilted and awkward. Trey exhales forcefully, setting his phone face down on his chest, and tries to settle deeper into his pillow. At least, with that initial message out of the way, he has a little time to sleep on the situation and what he wants to do about it.
Trey’s about to reach for his glasses, to remove them and finally get some sleep, when his phone vibrates. Once, twice, three times, in quick succession. He lifts the screen back to his face and is surprised to see the Magicam notifications staring back at him. A direct message notice, with Cater’s profile picture grinning at him from the notification banner.
It’s been— what, a minute? Two, at the very most? If it was anyone other than Cater, Trey would be surprised at the immediate reply. He swipes the notification bubble open and pulls up their chat.
@keikun: trey... clover? doesn't ring a bell soz
@keikun: LOL jk! (≧ᗜ≦) long time no chat! whend you start using magicam???
@keikun: did you make a new account btw? what was wrong with the old one?
A tired smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, and Trey can’t help but chuckle aloud as he types his reply.
@treyclover01: haha, don't scare me like that. I was really worried you wouldn't remember
@treyclover01: but yeah, no. had to make a new one
@treyclover01: forgot the login 😓
@keikun: WOW OK
@keikun: guess i shouldnt be too surprised tho, since im the one that had to set it up 4 u in the first place~ ♪
@keikun: you didn't want to come up with a username more um... original tho?
@treyclover01: What's wrong with treyclover01?
@keikun: ...
@keikun: nvm it's perfect for you 🤓
@keikun: sooo whats got you sliding into my dms out of nowhere like this? and at this hour??? you should DEF be asleep rn 💤
@keikun: tbh i wansnt really expecting to hear from you, especially not here, so my curiosity is all kindsa piqued hehe
Trey reads and rereads Cater’s messages at least five times, swallowing thickly as his thumbs hover over the phone’s keyboard. This doesn’t feel right. Not the back and forth between him and Cater— God, for some reason, that feels as natural as it ever did— but the idea of dropping this bomb on him, out of the blue, like Riddle had done to Trey only hours earlier.
That’s not what he would want if he were in Cater’s shoes.
His eyebrows knit together as he stares at the blinking cursor in the textbox, practically willing it to write a response message for him. The quiet of his bedroom quickly becomes deafening, and the smothering silence of it grips at his heart, prodding him to reply. Trey taps out a word, then another, then another— until he’s more or less strung together a coherent message.
@treyclover01: I'm... actually going to be in town in a few days.
@treyclover01: Business stuff
@treyclover01: Was kinda hoping you and me could meet up for coffee? It'd be really great to see you
Admittedly, it’s…not what Trey originally had in mind. In his mind’s eye he can see Riddle, face pink with exasperation, chastising him for drawing this out more than necessary. But— Trey sighs, defending himself to the Riddle that he’s made up in his head— delivering divorce papers over Magicam of all things, feels gross. Even if he and Cater haven’t spoken in nearly a decade, Trey still thinks he should do the decent thing of at least delivering the papers in person.
@keikun: fr????
@keikun: like FORREAL fr?
@keikun: trey!!! ofc
Trey smiles at the screen as Cater goes on in their chat, sending Trey his contact details and asking when exactly Trey’ll be flying in. A sense of… excitement? Nervousness? settles into the pit of Trey’s stomach. He’s not really certain.
At any rate, it would be nice to see Cater again.
The details will work themselves out. Right?