"So what's so important you had to ask of my culinary skills and cut into my Christmas wrapping in which you will be helping me finish?" Angelique climbed onto the bar stool opposite of Trystan, who had only asked to stop by her friend's house and would barely qualify peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, pretzels, and tea as anything especially adroit. Fortunately for Angelique's credit, she remembered PB n' Js were Trystan's favorite types of sandwiches, and she could tell her friend was long overdue for a good one when her tone on the phone was not as sprightly as it normally was.
Trystan picked at the crust her sandwich, the peanut butter thick in her throat as she thought of the most suitable way to tell her friend she was falling for an engaged man. She had not planned to tell anyone, whatever going on between she and Peter their secret, but it had begun to drive her crazy. She figured her friend, notorious for her relationship escapades, could be of some kind of help.
Licking her lips, Trystan edged, "You ever wanna be with someone you knew you couldn't have?"
Angelique shrugged after taking a bite of her own food. "Yeah, you could say that."
"What did you do about it?"
Her shoulders bounced up and down again as she mimicked Trystan in toying with the corners of her bread. "I'm not really into getting it on with people who are already in relationships; not my thing." She looked up at Trystan. "Why?"
"Just because . . ." Trystan crammed her mouth with a bite so she wouldn't have to answer even though her stomach swirled with the guilt living there.
Angelique watched her carefully as she stole a pretzel from a green bowl, and then a chip from the blue one. Angelique was oblivious when it came to many things, but not when her best friend was acting out of the ordinary. Trystan had always been the same, ever since they were kids. She could spot a difference from a country mile.
"What's going on, Tree?"
"I have feelings for Bruno." Trystan bit her tongue from how quickly she'd blabbed out her secret. She was sure had she kept it in a moment longer, she probably would have hurled.
Angelique's eyes widened. "You what?"
"Please don't make me say it again." Trystan was not embarrassed about liking Peter, but something about saying it out loud to someone other than him made her want to disappear.
"You have feelings for Bruno? As in P. Dez? As in the asshole in your seat?" Trystan couldn't tell if Angelique's surprise was from vitality or abashment, but there was no point in taking it back either reaction.
"Yes."
"Okay, wait, wait, wait." Angelique dropped her sandwich and held out her hands as if Trystan's single statement had been thrown at her much too fast. "You're gonna have to start from the beginning. How can you love this man who gave you such a hard time?"
"I didn't say I "loved" him," Trystan quickly reprimanded, her heart pounding. "Just that . . . I have feelings for him; that's it."
"That's it?" Angelique pretended to throw a chip at her. "This isn't some small news like you're telling me Bella got caught in a rose bush again. This is fucking huge! When did this all happen?"
"I don't really know," Trystan sighed, pressing her thumb against the side of her forefinger in lieu of having a pen to click. "We really didn't like each other at first but then . . . we started to get to know each other and . . ." She didn't know what else to say. To her own ears, the story sounded implausible, even though it was undoubtedly true. She and Peter seemed to have fallen for each other out of nowhere. "Something just . . . clicked."
Angelique looked thoughtful for a moment before asking, "Have you guys done anything?"
"We haven't slept together if that's what you're asking." The thought of her being with Peter that way had her flustered. They may not have gone that far, but there were times where she certainly wished they had.
"But you guys have done other stuff," Angelique deadpanned.
"We just . . . kissed a little, that's all." Her friend didn't need the image that surely was not PG.
"Tree, you know he's engaged right?"
Trystan gave her friend a pointed look. Of course she knew! That was the sole reason she was so bent on having feelings for him. "Yes, and he knows that, too."
"You guys are treading some dangerous water here. I've gotten around in my day but I was never with a person who was engaged. Way to surpass me," Angelique teased and Trystan really threw a pretzel at her.
"It isn't funny!" she whined. "This is a crisis, Lique."
"Only if you let it be a crisis it'll be." Angelique took a sip of her drink. Trystan was annoyed at how easily her friend tended to take situations. Had she not understood? Trystan was involved with an engaged man!
"I mean, you can't help you fall for," Angelique added as if reading her mind. "But in some cases, you have to put your mind before your heart."
"I don't know if I can do that," Trystan admitted. That's what she'd been trying to do even before the night at the studio to no avail. If it was so easy to put Peter off her mind, she would have done it the moment he'd entered it. "I don't know what to do."
Angelique eyed her friend sympathetically. She knew Trystan well enough to know her companion hated not being in control of her feelings or not knowing what to do with them. Since the second grade, Trystan had always been the level-headed one, calm, cool, and collected. Even when her father died, she'd expected Trystan to be over at her house crying her eyes out on her shoulder, but she'd seen her at school the next day, still calm; much more solemn, but calm nonetheless. From the screwed-up expression on her face, Angelique could tell the situation was slowly killing her.
"I'm not really sure either. This isn't an everyday situation. I'm still trying to figure out how you managed to get yourself in something as crazy as this." She smiled tinily. "You two could go together like peanut butter and jelly–," she pulled apart her sandwich before squishing it back together, "–or like anchovies on pizza."
Trystan cringed, but remembered that Peter liked anchovies on his pizza. Why did everything connect back to him?
"But, if I'm being honest," Angelique added soberly, "either choice you make, somebody's gonna get hurt. You'll just have to go with the choice that's right in your heart and mind."
Trystan said very little after that, ot liking that her friend had kept her options so open. She kind of wished Angelique had told her to think ethically and stop whatever she and Peter had going on, but as freaky as she was, Angelique was a hopeless romantic, too. She picked at her sandwich that wasn't as appetizing as before.
Noting her discomfort, Angelique smiled sheepishly. "If it makes you feel any better about this whole thing . . . I'm screwing Neal."
Trystan perked up then. She wasn't surprised at the fact that there was something going on between her best friend and studio pal, just that it had gone so far. Her brow pushed together, she exclaimed, "Are you serious?! Lique, you have a girlfriend!"
"And Peter has a fiancee; your point?"
"Okay, really?"
"Sorry. Touchy subject. But it's not as bad as you think. I've kinda got a ménage à trois thing going on with the both of them." Angelique smiled uneasily, and Trystan choked out a shocked laugh.
"You can't be serious. Melissa agrees with this?" Her girlfriend hadn't struck Trystan as the binogamous type.
"Eh. Melissa isn't really into guys, but she knows I am and when I presented the idea to her, she said she'd at least try it out. And I don't know if there's any guy that would turn down the opportunity of being with two cute girls at once."
Angelique didn't peep the slump of Trystan's shoulders. Is that what Peter was doing? Trying to have the best of both worlds? The way he spoke about his affianced wasn't in the highest regard to Trystan's relief, but it wasn't like he'd exactly left her.
Trystan half-heartedly listened on to Angelique's wild escapades. her mind wandering with the nauseating idea.
There was no telling what the future held or what truly roamed through Peter's mind. What if he fell out of love with her faster than he'd fallen in love with her? All her feelings would die at his parting feet. That thought numbed Trystan. She didn't wish for those feelings to go anywhere; they warmed her heart in a way not many things in a long time. But what if it were true? What if Peter was pulling her through a field of roses just to bring her to a garden of weeds? No matter how much she wanted to, she was unsure if she trusted him and his words.
She and Peter had not kissed since the day on her porch. Trystan would have regarded that as all her doing, but Peter was not presently eager to press his lips to hers either. In lieu, he tended to show his affection in other ways.
Trystan tried not to shudder when his fingers would lightly graze her lower back when he would pass by her. She bit back her giggles when his hand would massage her thigh beneath the table during Benson's meetings. When she would catch his eye, her gaze could not hold his. For the past week, Peter had barely spoken ten words to her directly, but she felt adored all the same. She damned his for making her heart swirled beyond the mean of knowing his true intentions.
She sat alone in the studio. For days she'd avoided sitting on the couch; fearing the remnants from that night would cling to her skin and invade her ethics, but she finally mustered up the courage to settle along the black leather, and was surprised and calmed when it only offered what any normal couch would.
Her grubby notebook sat against her thighs as she scribbled down thoughts. They weren't anything in particular, but she found it relieving to get down on paper whatever was on her mind. So indulged in her work, she had not heard the door open and close, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt her legs, which had been elevated on the couch, being lifted and plopped back down on a separate pair of jeans.
"Somehow I knew you'd still be here," Peter surmised with a cheeky grin.
Closing her notebook, Trystan gently shoved him. "You scared me."
"Still writing?"
"Yeah, nothing really. Just some thoughts."
"About what?"
Trystan paused before confessing, "About us."
"Us?"
"Bruno, what do you plan to do with your fiancée?" The question had to be asked. Trystan wasn't going to keep being pulled along by a string. "Are you trying to have the best of both worlds, being with me and her?"
"No, I-," Peter stammered, taken aback by the sudden onslaught of questions. He knew they would come sooner or later, but from the way Trystan would grin when he would tease her had him thinking the latter. "I don't really know what I'm gonna do."
"Do you still want to marry her?"
Again, Peter stumbled along his words. Did he? "I'm . . . not sure . . ."
"So there's a possibility of you still getting married and yet you're here with me, wanting me to believe you love me."
"Trystan–,"
"Don't do that, Bruno." She shook her head, admonishing. "Don't make me feel bad for asking. If you weren't sure what you wanted to do with Kimioko, you shouldn't have told me you loved me."
"But I do–,"
"That isn't enough!"
Peter silenced at her aggravation. He stopped the hand that was running along her knee, and she removed her legs from off of him. Leaning forward onto her knees, she told him, "Bruno, you know how I feel about you, and I know how you feel about me, but we can't let whatever this is go on if you're telling another woman you still want to marry her. That isn't fair to anyone here."
"I know it isn't."
"Then what's stopping you?"
"This isn't exactly an easy thing to do."
"But it was easy enough for you to say you loved me."
"Why do you keep bringing that up?"
"You know why."
"I meant what I said."
"But how do I really know that?"
"Trystan."
"Bruno."
The two stared at each other until Peter broke his gaze with a huff. "I don't wanna marry her, but it's just that . . . how do you tell a woman who was with you through thick and thin during one of the most aggravating periods of your life that you don't wanna go on with the engagement? Kimioko isn't gonna just take that."
Trystan looked into his eyes and saw that he was putting off telling Kimioko anything to string her along. She sighed, "Bruno, listen." She placed a hand on his knee after noting his genuine affliction. "It's not that I don't sympathize with you; we haven't put ourselves in an easy situation, but we've got a choice to make, and we have to do it soon."
Peter looked at her, and like the number of times before when his answer was I choose you, he leaned over and kissed her softly. Trystan didn't fight him off, but moved her lips gently against his.
"I'm gonna tell her soon," he told her when they pulled away. "I promise."
Trystan eyed him for a moment before letting her head fall and rise. "Okay."
She offered him a small smile, and he pulled at her legs, re-assuming their position.
Trystan let the prior conversation dwindle to the back of her mind. She didn't like arguing with Peter. When she was in his presence, she liked to feel good, and he always made her feel good even when she didn't. He was warm against her, and the coldness of the actuality thawed.
"Why do you always come here to write?" he asked her, watching intently as she gazed heavenward in thought. "Benson got you a whole office and you're barely ever there."
"The studio is just . . . calm. Being in that building, even when I'm in my office, is intimidating. Like I have to be perfect and give nothing but the best when I'm there. Here, I just feel at peace. I can suck, I can get frustrated, I can do my absolute worst and there won't be any judgement."
Peter nodded, understanding what she meant. It was a rarity when Peter found a place that made him comfortable enough to do anything he wanted. He stifled a snicker when he realized that place had been inside Trystan's home when he'd been giving her guitar lessons. He hadn't realized it then, but he had that much fun with music until and since then.
"What made you wanna start writing?" he inquired, and Trystan gave him a look.
"Is this an interrogation?"
"I just wanna know."
Trystan giggled and thought for a moment. "My dad."
Peter cocked a brow. "Really?"
Trystan nodded gently. "Mm hmm. When he was a teenager, he was a poet. When he wasn't able to get published, he stopped, but when I was little, he would always read them to me. I could barely understand them—he'd always use these giant words that I didn't know, but I loved them. Even if I couldn't articulate them the same way, I knew they meant something. I wanted to do the same thing with music."
Peter chuckled. "So that would explain why you use words like sedulous and travesty."
Trystan grinned, "Yeah. You know how sometimes feelings are so big and confusing that you don't know how to put them into words? Well, I figured, if I use these big ass words, your feelings are bound to fit into one of them."
"Wow." Peter was impressed. "I never thought of it that way."
Trystan snickered and ran her fingers across the nape of his neck. "That's what I like about writing so much. You can put whatever you want into the words, no matter how bad or crazy and somehow, it works."
Peter admired her mind. On the surface, Trystan was a typical beautiful woman, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she became so much more. How she went on was inspiring. Peter's expertise wasn't even in writing, but the way she spoke so passionately about what it did for her had him wanting to scribble down a thing or two.
Changing the subject after she felt she'd spoken on her lyricism for too long, Trystan queried, "I was wondering, and you can say no if you want to, but . . . I'm going back to New York for New Year's, and I was wondering if you'd want to come with me."
Peter tensed, and Trystan noticed immediately. "Like I said, you don't have to if you don't want to—I know you said you don't really like going back there–,"
"Okay."
" . . . Really?" Trystan looked uncertainly at him. "I don't have to beg and plead?"
"No. I'll go."
"I mean, I thought it would be a good time to see your dad and Diane–,"
Peter chuckled. "Trys, I said I'd go. You don't have to sway me."
"I don't know, I just thought it would take more for you to agree to go."
"If you'll be there, I'll go."
"Okay. This is great!" Trystan smiled. "You don't have to get a hotel room or anything. I'm staying over at my mom's and she has a bunch of spare rooms. She's gonna be so excited to see you!"
Peter wasn't sure what to do with her blitheness. He'd truly only said yes because she'd asked him to. The idea of returning home scared the hell out of him.
"This is gonna be great," Trystan surmised, and not wanting to speak on the subject anymore, Peter simply smiled and pressed his lips to hers.
So indulged in their lip-lock, neither had seen or heard Roger enter the doorway.
. . .
. . .
. . .
Thanks for reading ^_^