At No Time || Bruno Mars

78

"You sure you're not still mad at me? Don't think I forgot about last time." Christine held a teasing cock to her brow as she faced Peter, who invited her out to lunch as a peace offering.

They sat inside one of the well-known restaurants where the water was so crisp it should have costed money. He contemplated taking her to Lenny's, but silently did not want her to be apart of something that was more dearer to him, so opted for something most people knew.

"That's why I asked for you to come out with me today. I was just a little frazzled; I didn't mean to make you the bad guy," Peter explained, referring to the last time he had seen her in his office. She really only had been trying to help, no matter how harsh she had appeared about the topic of Trystan.

"Well, I guess I can accept this as an apology," she smirked, poking her fork at her baked chicken. "But maybe-," Peter felt the toe of her heel creep up his leg beneath the table, "--something else might be a more useful to me than just words."

Peter chuckled sheepishly, attempting not to appear flustered as he responded, "I can't."

Christine peered at Peter with squinted eyes before tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. She leaned forward on her elbows and questioned, "Why not?"

Peter did not answer immediately, but she knew him long and well enough to read the signs across his face when the answer was ready on his tongue but he would not allow it passed his lips.

"It's that girl isn't it?" she guessed, her head tilted with a incredulous grin on her face. "Trystan, right?"

Peter made a face to let her know she had speculated correctly, and she sat back in her chair with her own small laugh. "I can't believe you."

"What?"

"You really wanna go back to her after everything she did to you?"

"It's complicated, but . . ."

"But?" Christine cocked a brow, waiting for him to continue.

"But . . . yeah, Christine," he responded, for some reason feeling as though he had gotten something heavy off his chest. "Yeah, I wanna get back with her. She's here and we're working things out–,"

"Wait," Christine stopped him. "She's here here? Like, in L.A. here?"

Peter had done pretty well for the past couple of weeks about keeping Trystan's presence a secret, but he could not always trust himself around Christine, who beyond her judgmental ways, was easy to talk to.

"Uh, yeah," Peter confessed with a light sigh. "She is and our daughter."

Christine appeared surprised at that, and her quick reply proved just so, "Wow."

"I asked her to come here so we could figure things out, see where we're headed. We're going to therapy and doing the work to get a good relationship going. I haven't told her yet, but I do wanna be with her. Might even ask her to stay in L.A. permanently."

After another moment of eyeing him as if he were crazy, Christine just snickered. "I don't get you, Peter."

"What's not to get?"

"Out of all the years I've seen you in business, you're a nice guy, but you don't go easy on anybody. If anyone betrays SoulWork, you'll have them out on their ass faster than they can defend themselves. This woman does a number on you and you practically wanna marry her."

"Nobody said anything about marriage."

"Don't act like it hasn't crossed your mind."

Peter wished he had been quick enough to dispute the argument, but he could not fix his mouth to deceive. There had been moments in the past, and even recently, where he imagined they were wedded. He did not feel they were nearly enough ready for that kind of step, but Christine was right; it had crossed his mind.