Sage had the coolest car that Belle had ever seen in her life which was a fact she had awkwardly blurted out the moment she'd seen it. He was so nice about it, though. He just smiled with that really cute grin of his that she remembered from his role in Two For a Penny where he'd played a single dad looking for a stepmom for his daughter Penny. She and Ruby had seen it in theater on Valentine's Day and then bought the DVD. She'd used a screencap from it as her Twitter profile picture for awhile.

"I really like cars," he said almost bashfully. "They're a passion of mine."

"I know," she said before she could catch herself and he looked at her quizzically and she just about melted. "It was um, it's in a lot of your profiles. In the magazines. And press tours."

He laughed then, but it wasn't cruel. His eyes were crinkling up at the corners a little bit and he was smiling.

"Of course. I should have figured you'd have known," he said. "It was a fan contest. I keep forgetting that."

"Sorry, I'm kind of a dork," she said. "I just really like your movies."

"Oh please, don't apologize for that. Thank you for liking them."

God, he was so freaking charming! How was it possible he was exactly what she'd have thought from all his films and interviews? Belle was a little surprised with how relaxed she was with him, although maybe that was because how much like his movie characters he was. It was almost like a real date right up until they arrived at the restaurant and were greeted by a swarm of paparazzi.

"You ready for this?" he asked, gesturing towards the horde of cameras.

"Yeah, I think so….you really live like this?"

"You get used to it. Just keep your head down if you don't want to talk and I'll be right there the whole time."

"Okay," Belle said, trying to sound more sure than she felt. "Just keep my head down. Got it."

"You just have to find your bravery," he said with a wink before he let himself out of the car, and it took her until he was opening her door for her to remember where she'd heard it – he'd said it to his love interest in The Foxhole where he'd played a baseball player who was conscripted in WWII. He'd dated his costar for six months and a stay in the Bahamas before it had ended. He'd said it to a woman he'd gone to the Bahamas with, and now he'd said it to her.

She was still grinning like a loon when he helped her out of the car and she didn't stop until they were safely inside the restaurant and being shown to their table. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. The food was amazing, the wine was the best she'd ever had, and he was really charming. She had always hoped he would be charming and it felt like a fairy tale to her.

By the time they were on their way out, even the paparazzi had become exciting instead of terrifying, and she started answering the questions they were shouting out to her. The date was going great, her name was Belle, L.A. was amazing, yes it was the very best night of her life...Sage was waving to the cameras and smiling, ad answering the occasional question about how pretty she was but for the most part he let her have the moment.

Finally, the valet returned with their car and he had the door open for her when one last question came.

"How about a kiss for the camera?"

Sage looked at her with a smile and a shrug, and the words once in a lifetime chance flew through her head so fast that what else could she do but nod and meet him halfway? The cameras going off were deafening, and she saw the lights flashing behind her eyelids, but that just made it all even more surreal. Just for tonight, she was famous.

He drove her back to her hotel and walked her to her door. They parted with a kiss on the cheek and she fell into the bed with a giggle she was glad nobody else was privy to. In the morning, she would have her interview with the magazine and then it was back home to her real life, but for tonight she had lived the fantasy.

Felix Gold was having a really crappy week. It was bad enough to know that his secret crush on the librarian was unrequited, but literally everyone in town seemed intent on reminding him about her date with the movie star. It wasn't every day that a local girl got to go out with a celebrity, and he couldn't so much as go to the grocery store without being reminded of it. God forbid he go get a sandwich from the diner. The waitress must have had the entertainment channel hardwired into her brain, because she somehow knew what Belle was doing every single moment of the entire weekend.

Still, he had to eat and how was he supposed to anticipate that she would have been photographed kissing the guy? And, more to the point, how could he possibly have predicted that for some reason photos of her kissing him would be front page of the local newspaper, trending on Facebook, and on the entertainment channels that for some reason all the convenience stores were playing.

Felix didn't have many friends. He was a difficult man to love and a harder one to live with, and he harbored absolutely no illusions as to people in general enjoying him or his company – with the perplexing exception of Belle French. The first day he'd met her, she'd laughed at his stupid quip about the lack of nightlife in Storybrooke and he'd been completely smitten with her ever since. It hadn't been much of a problem before now. She didn't date much and it was a small matter to make sure she had flowers at work on her birthday (from a friend) and Valentine's (from a secret admirer) and to make a point of being somewhere nearby so he could see her face when she got them.

Quite simply, he'd never felt jealous of her before because his tentative place in her life had always been safe. Even if she had married Michael the mechanic or David from the animal shelter, she would still be in town and still be his friend. This, though, was something that threatened to take her away from him. He wasn't one of those jackasses who was sure she'd marry a movie star, but this was the first time he'd realized that she might want to leave the town for something bigger and better. And she could leave without ever knowing how he felt.

It was time to suck it up and ask her on a date. He'd do it when she came back. The worst that could happen is that she'd say no, but at least he'd have done his best to keep her around.

He'd tell her when she got back. It was time to be an adult.

By the time she was home on Sunday evening, Belle was just ready to climb into bed. It had been an exhausting day with an early wakeup call for her magazine interview which had been followed by a photo shoot and a ride to the airport. She was still jetlagged from the four hour time difference, and air travel in general was always exhausting.

Unfortunately, she hadn't anticipated how far that stupid kiss for the paparazzi had travelled in such a short time and from the moment she landed her phone was blowing up with calls and texts from people she didn't even know beyond saying hello in the street. She didn't realize until she got home and checked her computer that somebody had tracked her down to her Twitter account and her mentions were completely full of angry fans calling her an ugly slut. She didn't even have the energy to block them, she just deactivated her account and quickly locked down her Facebook account so that she couldn't be searched.

She didn't know why she hadn't anticipated this, but she really hadn't. Somebody had to have posted her name publicly, because the magazine article hadn't come out yet. A part of her wanted to see if she could track down the source of the leak, but the idea of wading through the tag on Twitter was just awful. The things that had been in her feed were bad enough, she didn't want to see what people were saying when they didn't think she'd see it.

Finally, she turned her phone off completely. She felt sick to her stomach just thinking about it. It had been a silly joke for the cameras in an otherwise perfectly normal first date! Who the hell cared? It's not like anybody on Twitter had a chance at Sage themselves, they were just angry because she'd met him. This was the part of celebrity fandom that she hated, and now it was pointed directly at her.

Belle took a shower and fell into bed. It was too early to be asleep, but screw it. She didn't want to deal with the rest of it just yet.

The plus side of going to bed so early on Sunday was that she was at the library bright and early on Monday morning. She had stocking to do and the days when she was there early always made her feel a little bit more productive. Usually she'd have treated herself to a coffee on the way there, but she didn't want to talk about what had happened over the weekend so early in the day and Ruby would know about it all. So she put a pot on as soon as she got to the library and set herself to reorganizing all the displays. By the time it was time to actually open, she felt a lot better. Getting at least this much under control helped a lot.

Of course, once the doors were unlocked she was once again reminded of the situation she was stuck in. Not four minutes after she'd opened to the public, her first patron arrived. The man spent more than a few minutes openly staring at her while he walked through the stacks, and before he'd even finished choosing something two more people had come in.

By noon, Belle's nerves were about shot. It was bound to be her busiest day ever, with half the town having already been by to gawk at her. At least Ruby brought her lunch, but even then there were a half dozen people around the circulation desk waiting to hear whatever titillating details she might have to offer about her weekend.

"What the hell is going on?" Belle asked her friend. "So I kissed a celebrity? So what!"

"Wait, you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"He was photographed going into your hotel!"

"He walked me to my door," Belle said. "Of course he went into the building with me, but he left."

"Well, that's not what the tabloids are saying."

"Are you kidding me? Why would they say that?"

"I'm sorry, you're familiar with how tabloid media works, right?"

Belle groaned and leaned her head onto the desk next to her sandwich. This was nuts.

"So you didn't have sex with him?" Ruby asked her.

"Of course not," Belle said. "We only kissed because they asked us to and I thought it'd be fun."

"Was it?"

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer not to talk about that here."

"Probably a good idea," Ruby said. "God, these people are vultures."

Belle groaned, and then her head shot back up when she heard the sound of books being dropped on the counter. Poor Mr. Gold was standing there looking at her sympathetically and somehow that was the last straw.

"Did you find everything okay?" she asked him as businesslike as she could manage.

"I did."

She went through scanning his books to his account and printed out the little tags for the return date without looking at him, but he didn't leave right away.

"Was there something else?" she asked.

"I had two tickets for the ballet this weekend," he said quickly. "I was wondering if you'd like to go. With me."

"Oh," she said quickly, suddenly wishing he'd asked her all this last week when things were so much less complicated. "That's very sweet, thank you for asking me. But things are a little weird for me right now and I don't know if it's the best idea."

"That's fine," he replied, scooping up his books off the counter and backing away. "That's...I'll see you next time."

He practically ran out into the street and Belle felt even more like an asshole. Why the hell couldn't he just have asked her before she was the fat whore who seduced a Golden Globe winning actor for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy?

"You sure you didn't sleep with him?" Ruby asked from her seat next to Belle.

"Of course I'm sure, why would you even ask that?"

"Because going out with Mr. Gold would have been a real good way to redirect the rumor mill. At least the local one, it's not going to do a damn thing for your Twitter."

"Shit," Belle mumbled. "You're right. Stay here."

She jumped to her feet without waiting for a response and chased Mr. Gold out into the street.