"Catch His Warm Stare." Not mine. T/PG-13. Long one-shot. One day, Addison gets tired of waiting to test the possibilities. An L.A.-based story. Pete/Addison.
(A departure from my usual vein, with a hefty sugar warning: contains beach, coffee, and elevator clichés.)
-----
L.A. was supposed to be about healing. It was supposed to be about mornings full of potential, days filled with productive activity, and evenings out on the town. It was supposed to be a smooth, sandy road to recovery in the easy company of old friends.
It was not supposed to be about insomnia. For the third time since she'd finally fallen into bed at one, Addison fumbled blearily for her alarm clock and checked the lighted display. 4:23. Damn it. Rolling out of bed, she padded over to the glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. The gentle murmur of the ocean greeted her along with a rush of cool, briny air. The beachfront flat was a little extravagant, but when Addison set out to start afresh, she made sure to do so in style. No trailers or hotel rooms here. She still couldn't quite bring herself to buy a house on her own, but that was beside the point. That point was that she was putting down roots, now, and that meant 600-thread count sheets, copper-plated cookware, and the best location L.A. realtors could procure.
Best, unfortunately, was based on scarcity and an overly-romantic idea of the sea. While friends back East might be impressed by reports that her bedroom offered a panoramic view of the beach, Addison was rapidly discovering that sight came with an unshakeable colleague: sound. She'd never been a fan of using "Sounds of Nature" as a sleeping aid, and though she wouldn't yet pass judgment on the effectiveness of crickets and rustling leaves, she had already decided that "Sounds of the Sea" weren't all they were cracked up to be.
Waves crashing rhythmically on the shore might be soothing to some. But Addison hadn't had a decent night of sleep since she'd moved in here five weeks ago. She'd considered trying the living room, which faced the other direction and was quieter, but she'd let the interior designer talk her into a couch that—while striking and unique—felt like a bed of twigs. She supposed she could have her furniture moved, but that seemed silly. And, well, there was always the chance that, after all that trouble, she'd find her quiet space and still not be able to sleep. Then she would know it wasn't the ocean. And she really wasn't ready to face that possibility. Addison had already decided that her inability to sleep had to have an external reason… because it had nothing at all to do with a growing fixation on Pete Finch.
Nothing. He was nothing to her. It was the sea. Without the noise, she'd be sleeping like a baby. (Well, a baby that'd been fed, burped, and sedated with heavy medication, at least.) It was a simple problem with an obvious solution, and she'd get to the bottom of it shortly.
Addison sighed and stepped back inside. It was hopeless, really. But she tossed herself onto the bed anyway and resumed staring, through pitch darkness, in the vague direction of the ceiling.
-----
Mornings at the Oceanside Wellness Group revolved around the break-room. If she spent five minutes in its doorway, Addison was sure to run into at least four of her coworkers. This morning she'd overslept—she'd finally passed out around six, and she'd ignored the alarm half an hour later—so she'd found herself scrambling into the shower past eight o'clock. It was 8:45 when she blearily bumped into Naomi by the brew machine.
"Need caffeine," she demanded hoarsely. Naomi scanned her appearance and gave her a skeptical look.
"Good morning, Addie. Nice eye-liner, by the way." Addison grunted in response and reached for the carafe: it was empty. She swore. It was going to be that kind of day. Then she blinked.
"Wait—what? What's wrong with my eye-liner?" Dryly, Naomi informed her that she'd missed the edge of her left lid by several millimeters. Addison held the glass pot up into the light and inspected her reflection.
"Real coffee?" The voice in her ear made her jump. She was lucky the carafe held no coffee.
"Pete!" Spying the second cup from Anastasia's in his hand, she reached for it eagerly.
"Where's mine?" Naomi demanded.
"You're in charge of supplies," Pete retorted. "You want something other than Starbucks, you can start ordering it for us. This one here," he cocked his head toward Addison, "only gets one because I'm doing all of us a favor. I'm tired of listening to her whine about the cheap brew."
Addison grinned unrepentantly. "Hey, I can't help that I have standards. You're all just a bunch of Philistines."
"Only you," sighed Naomi, "would complain that Starbucks coffee wasn't drinkable." Addison tilted her head and quirked an eyebrow at her, perfectly self-satisfied.
"But why were you inspecting our coffee pot, anyway? Is it dirty or something?"
Addison turned to face him, slightly embarrassed. As she opened her mouth to speak, Cooper and Violet pushed past her, armed with empty mugs.
"Naomi says my eyeliner's off," she admitted, wryly. It took Pete a second to get it; then he laughed. He leaned in to have a look, and she held her breath and lowered her lids as his lips came within reaching distance. She willed her heart to beat slowly.
"Nope, nothing wrong," Pete declared, pulling back. She smiled in relief.
"I mean, it's different, sure, but still attractive. A bit goth… but I'm down with that." Scowling now, she punched him in the arm. Naomi snorted. Behind them, Violet cursed and Cooper rummaged through the cupboards for a new filter.
A grumbling Addison skittered off in search of her purse and a mirror.
-----
By the time Addison reached her office, her first appointment was already there, waiting. By the time she'd finished writing out prescriptions and sent the woman to her meeting with Violet, the coffee was quite cold. She drank it anyway. Pete didn't drink coffee; he went to Anastasia's Asylum for his favorite lemon-green tea mix. Her second day of work, after listening to her rant, he'd walked her over there so she could get herself a proper drink. Since then, they'd run into each other in the queue almost every morning.
But not today—Addison had been running too late to make the extra trip before her meeting. As she took a sip, she noted that he'd remembered her favorite order: this non-fat cinnamon latte was just the right mix. And there it was—her problem, again. He really shouldn't be allowed to do that kind of thing. If he wasn't interested in her, why did he insist on treating her nicely? It wasn't fair to dangle hope in front of an egg-less divorcée on the verge of forty. It wasn't fair to be thoughtful and caring and attractive and there, if he had no intention of ever asking her out on a date.
And there it was: the number one reason Pete drove her crazy. The scoundrel flirted with her and behaved in every respect attractive and available, except for the fact that he never gave her a real opening. It was unforgivable, really. Upon reflection, his behavior probably proved that her original assessment was right: he had "just wanted to get laid." When she was an intriguing stranger on a brief visit, he'd kissed her and held out the possibility of more. Now that she was actually here and they saw each other every day, it seemed he'd decided that the momentary pleasure wasn't worth any long-term ramifications. An embarrassing conclusion—she'd like to think she was better than a one-night stand—but it appeared to be the only possible explanation.
Addison didn't want to ask how much Pete—or the promise of Pete—had factored into her decision to move to L.A. Seattle was a rainy, solitary hell-hole: everywhere she turned, the face of a spurned or spurning lover haunted her vision. The place was no good for her, and that was why she'd moved. She didn't need another justification. Still, when she thought of Pete's offer to "remind" her that she'd only reached the half-way mark, not the end—when she thought of the look he'd given her when he'd told her she was interested—she was willing to acknowledge that the idea of him had held appeal. Pete hadn't been a reason to stay away from L.A., at any rate, and men who didn't give her reasons to run were in short supply these days.
So forget Sam's warning about his long-term unreliability: she just wanted the man to hit on her already. But—there she was, again, wasting time on idle fantasies. Wasting highly-valuable world-class surgeon's medical life-saving time. That had to stop right away.
Addison strolled out of her office to find out from Dell if she had any messages or new appointments. Shaking his head in response to her inquiry, the floppy-haired surfer boy smirked at her: "Hey, did Pete bring you the right stuff, earlier?"
The question caught her off-guard. "Excuse me?"
"He called from the coffee shop to find out if you'd gotten in yet. I told him you'd come tearing in at half-past eight and looked like you were ready to kill something. So, you know, clearly pre-caffeine."
She rolled her eyes at him and turned away. She was a busy woman with no time for pointless gossip. When her face was hidden from Dell, though, she indulged in a small smile. It was a rather sweet gesture.
-----
When Pete went to check on Mrs. Peterson, she was still sleeping. Jane Peterson had suffered excruciating back pains, alongside other complications associated with later-life pregnancy, and Pete had been giving her acupuncture treatments on a weekly basis. A nurse informed him that Dr. Montgomery would be by shortly. It took him half a second to connect the names. Addison had quickly adjusted to the Group's first-name basis, but at the hospital she retained her full title.
Addison. If you'd asked him why he hadn't asked her out yet, Pete would have fumbled through a long, disjointed explanation. Truthfully, he didn't know the reason. She wasn't hotter (or younger) than the other women he'd dated. She certainly wasn't saner or more stable. She was elitist, arrogant, vain, and—like a cherry-on-top—annoyingly self-deprecating. Actually, he sort of found her fascinating. But none of that explained why he still hadn't tried to get her to sleep with him.
Did it have to do with Sam's warning? Possibly. In the beginning, at least, he'd held back out of respect for their friendship. Soon, though, he'd noticed that his feigned indifference bothered Addison. It didn't make her dislike him—in fact, he suspected that it made her want him more than she would otherwise. That was flattering, he had to admit; he enjoyed causing women a little sexual frustration. So vanity played a factor here as well.
By now, though, his hesitation was mostly born of fear. Fear of how she'd take it, fear of how he much he'd mean it, fear that they'd make a mess of things. And more than anything, the fear that she'd accept his offer. Pete was good at the chase—too good. Without egotism, he could say that if he set out to make Addison Montgomery fall in love with him, he'd have a fairly good chance of succeeding. He'd been down this road many times before. Oh, he always set out with the best of intentions: he was always convinced a woman was going to be "the one" when they started dating. But after a few dates, reality would set in, and he'd recognize that she wasn't what he needed. Then it was just a struggle to get out with minimal damage.
This time, however, Sam had stopped him in his tracks. So Pete had paused to think it over, and by the time he'd recovered, it was too late. Addison had become, as Sam put it, "a person." She was no longer just a damsel-in-distress, whose wounds he thought he could heal with a few slick words and a kiss. Her issues, he began to see, ran much deeper. And contrary to first impressions, she wasn't always a sobbing, fragile mess—in full-blown professional mode, she was almost intimidating. He respected her work. And there it was. She was now "a person."
He didn't want to send her running. So he'd decided she would be just a friend, and he was trying very hard to treat her the way he treated the other women at Oceanside. With them, he used a manner friendly and flattering but, at the end of the day, clearly platonic. He could rib, say, Violet about refusing to sleep with him, and he could make jokes about Naomi's sex life. But he still couldn't tease Addison quite that openly. In all honesty, he wasn't sure he'd ever get there. He'd be good, and he wouldn't ask her out—but the not-asking bothered him.
Because, well, his feelings for this new friend were anything but platonic. They both knew it, but neither was ready or willing to deal with the problem. So they skirted the issue and ignored the tension and kept the flirting within reasonable limits.
Of course, it was always a little easier to keep Addison at arms' length when she wasn't dressed like such a glamour-queen. So Pete was relieved when she came waddling—there really was no other word for that peculiar walk—down the corridor in surgical gear. She was a blinding vision in her specially-ordered salmon scrubs. (Almost literally.) They were bold, uncommon, and unabashedly female—not a bad match for her personality. But he'd laughed hysterically the first time he'd seen the things.
"Where in God's name," he'd demanded (when he could finally speak), "did you get those scrubs? What happened to nice, normal blue hospital freebies?"
"I like my individuality," she'd responded smugly. "Customized scrub-caps are just amateur basics."
He hadn't argued with her, then, but he still felt like grinning every time he spotted the outfit. This time, though, he nearly lost the battle to keep a straight face. For on this particular occasion, she'd produced a truly glorious color clash with the pink scrubs and the cap she was wearing: a sky-blue number populated with yellow rubber duckies. The caps, he'd noted, were another trend. She'd started off with feminine floral numbers, but they'd gotten zanier by the week. He took this as a sign that too much sun was getting to the native New Yorker. Today's choice combination, however, surpassed all previous feats.
Apparently he hadn't managed the stoic expression he'd aimed for, because when Addison came nearer, she gave him a quizzical look. "What's so funny?"
Well, he figured she was asking for trouble, anyway. He winked at her affectionately.
"Just wondering how your scrub nurses keep from offending you." The perplexed wrinkle that appeared between her brows was kind of endearing. She demanded an explanation.
"The, uh, outfit," Pete gestured, "really does scream authority."
Her mouth fell open in righteous indignation. "Oh, you're one to talk, Mr. Mid-Life-Crisis in Abercrombie and ripped jeans."
"I'll have you know," he retorted, mock-offended, "that these are Levi's Eco: 100 percent certifiably organic and environmentally-friendly." He pointed to the green stitching.
She bit her lip in an effort to keep looking serious and angry. Then, on impulse, he tugged off her scrub cap for closer inspection. She yelped in protest. He turned it over in his hand. The ducks were obviously high; he could tell that from their dilated pupils. And they held their wings too tensely—he wanted to tell them to relax (or stick some needles into them).
But he was distracted from these musings by the sight of Addison's hair, which had seized its new freedom with a vengeance. It stuck out in every direction, some limp waves (she hadn't had time to straighten or curl this morning) caught up in loops, and others peeking around to block her face. His fingers twitched with the urge to reorder it; he wanted to brush the imposing strands out of her eyes and smooth the vertical bits back into place.
Oh, and she'd forgotten to fix her eyeliner. Pete wondered, briefly, if it was possible to kiss stray pencil lines away. Maybe not the best idea in a crowded hallway. When he reached out to put the cap in her hand, he got caught for a second in the position. From here, he could count each one of her eye-lashes and hear her breathing (was its pace a little quickened?). As they stood there, her eyes dropped to his lips, and her mouth fell open slightly. He measured roughly seven inches between them. It would only take a tiny movement….
Quickly, he released her hand and pulled back. She probably shouldn't see patients with that hairdo. His voice caught a little in his throat as he tossed out a light warning: "Love the bed-head, by the way. Very sexy." Her hands leapt instinctively to her head, and she patted her hair down: an instant improvement. Satisfied that he'd done his duty, Pete flashed her a quick smile and headed for the elevators.
Addison stared his retreating form for a moment, shook her head at herself, and then went to check on her patient.
-----
Addison always found lunch with Sam relaxing. He was an attractive man; she recognized that. But he was her friend first. So when she talked to him, she didn't have to wonder that his smile appeared masculine in spite of tiny teeth. She didn't have to marvel that his few gray hairs only added to his air of distinction. She didn't have to notice that his crow's feet made his eyes twinkle. And she definitely didn't have to work to keep her hands to herself.
So yes, it was relaxing. But she was still confused by Sam's behavior toward her friend. She believed him, when he said he hadn't cheated. But the two of them had seemed so perfect together. That worried her. In his apathy toward Naomi, Sam reminded her of… Derek. Before she'd cheated, back in New York. If she hadn't slept with Mark, would Derek have picked up and left her? Would he have given up, like Sam did? Somewhere in the back of her mind, Addison could admit that she preferred the way her life had fallen apart. If good behavior led to being abandoned like Naomi, without reason, without fault… then Addison was secretly glad she had been unfaithful. She wanted—she needed—to believe that Derek really had loved her. That if she hadn't broken his heart, their marriage would eventually have come to life again. She needed the belief in what-might-have-been more than she needed to undo what had actually happened. She would survive, so long as she could tell herself that she had been the love of Derek's life, once upon a time.
Naomi couldn't say that. And Addison felt awful for her. But Sam was her friend, as well, and she couldn't cut him out of her life—not now, not when she depended on friends more than ever. She was a single woman adrift in a strange city and a brand new professional setting. Here, he was one of her few tethers.
That tether was currently attacking an enormous garden salad. She slid into the chair across from him and rolled her eyes. "Thanks for waiting for me."
He chuckled through a mouthful of lettuce. Swallowing, he retorted, "You're a surgeon; I just assumed you'd be late and leave me starving. So, I did you a favor and kept myself in a good mood."
She grinned. "I'll forgive you if I can steal some of that while waiting for my order." He handed her a fork, and she dug in.
Sam and Naomi brought Addison back to a happier time—med school had been hell, but they'd been young and crazy and full of energy all the same. She missed the person she'd been then; her two friends brought that side of her back to life.
"Oh, God, and then there was Mark's redhead phase. Remember?" She looked at Sam in surprise and no small amount of consternation. He'd clearly just realized what he'd stepped in; his expression was one of acute embarrassment. And all of you thought Mark had a crush on me and teased both of us about it incessantly. Yes, I remember. Sam and Naomi had already moved out West when the affair happened, so it had reached them as interesting news, but nothing earth-shattering. To them, the story was tabloid-gossip: it prompted a raised eyebrow and rolled eyes but no real grief.
Well, that had just changed. Sam quickly backpedaled, launching into stories about crazy old Professor Stritch and his lectures on female anatomy…. But Addison was no longer listening. She stayed quiet and distracted through the rest of her meal, picking at her food without relish. When they were almost done, she excused herself and escaped to the restroom.
Gripping the sink with her hands, she bent her head to avoid her reflection. Nothing had happened, nothing was wrong—but she was tired and sleep-deprived and lonely, and it hurt to think about New York. It hurt to think about Mark. Oh. Her breathing hitched. Mark and Derek.
Mark and Derek and the Brownstone with the rain and the shadow of Derek's figure on the other side of the frosted glass on the door to their home—their home together—and then the door opens and he's holding her and it's going to be okay but where is he going he can't go now they will have a chance a future a perfect life with children don't leave Derek please if you go now we don't have a chance if you go now—if you go….
She is alone. No Derek and no children. No hope for either—just. No hope. If you have Mark's baby you'll never get him back.
Well, she hadn't gotten him back. And she had no baby: she would have no more babies.
Addison sucked in air and stood up. Alright, then. What was her problem? She was a professional at the peak of her career in the prime of her life with an apartment overlooking the beach and a fantastic wardrobe. She was alone, but every day she went to work alongside beautiful men who were also single. She might be a crazy chick, but she was a crazy hot chick, right? Except for—she caught sight of her reflection—the bad eye-liner… oh, God. She'd forgotten to fix the eye-liner. The bad hair, the eye-liner…. It seemed her fate to look like a wreck whenever she ran into Pete. Well, maybe it was just today. But no—last week a patient had vomited on her right before a Group meeting. And of course, she couldn't forget their first stairwell meeting, with the scrubs and the snot and the red-rimmed eyes. Then again, he'd kissed her that day, so maybe he wasn't that picky? No, no. It was clearly a case of charity. He knew she could look hot other times, so he'd kissed her when she didn't in the hope of getting some real action on a better day….
But enough already. Sam was waiting. Kind, gorgeous Sam—who just happened to be her best friend's ex. Meaning, of course, that he was even more off-limits than her ex's best friend. Well, whatever. That didn't mean she couldn't enjoy being seen in public with a good-looking man.
Addison fixed her eye-liner and threw on a smile as she left the ladies' room.
-----
Addison had winced the first time she'd referred a patient to Pete for treatment. But after getting nothing but rave reviews from the ones she sent—she'd suspected, at first, that the hormonal women were responding to his charm rather than his medicine, but the numbers were overwhelming—she'd become more comfortable recommending his acupuncture methods to women with complaints outside her specialty. It was actually very helpful, as many standard pain killers were off-limits for pregnant women, and in her field, she liked to avoid prescribing drugs whenever possible.
Jane Lowell was allergic to several of her usual prescriptions, so Addison figured alternative methods might be worth a try. Popping into his office with Jane in tow, she found Pete on a break between appointments.
"Hey, Pete," she said cheerfully. "Got a minute? Jane here has been having headaches, and we think it may be stress-related. I thought she might like to try one of your new methods."
Addison's smile, Pete noticed, was just a little too bright. It was a professional smile—an emotionless muscle movement intended to put nervous patients at ease. That was unusual for her: one of her strengths, as a doctor, was the way she combined an air of competence with a friendliness that seemed genuine. Something was off, today.
"Great to meet you, Jane. I'm Pete. Just lie down on the table, please." The patient complied, but her expression was wary.
"Pete's the best at what he does, Jane," Addison told the woman, soothingly. "You're in good hands."
He smirked at her. "Why, thank you, Dr. Montgomery. It's always an honor to get praise from such a high-and-mighty surgeon."
"Not at all, Dr. Finch," she responded with exaggerated modesty. "You work on miraculously curing Mrs. Lowell of those tension headaches. I'll just be next door, taking care of small details like, you know, saving people's lives…"
She left before he could reply, or before he could ask if she was alright.
-----
Another day, another cozy elevator ride. Addison smiled to herself when Pete's hand caught the closing doors and he slipped inside. Once again, it was just the two of them. Sometimes she wondered if he spent all his time hiding around the corner, just waiting for her to get on, so he could join her.
Normally they spent their tête-à-têtes in flirtatious half-smiles and sideways glances. But Addison was exhausted—from her lack of sleep, from a long workday, from her moody fit at lunch—and couldn't muster up the energy. Pete must have picked up on this, because he interrupted her reveries with a tone of unusual gravity, "Bad day?"
She didn't answer, just looked at him. He was so—argh. Did he have to be sweet at times like these? Did he have to vacillate between frustratingly unavailable and openly inviting with such unpredictability? Did he have to be so irritatingly cute all the time? It wasn't fair to have him around all the time and never to have him. It wasn't fair that she'd been reduced to window-shopping: admiring the goods through the glass but never getting her hands on them. She'd come here to move forward. I want my life to change. I need my life to change.
Well, she'd already been through every kind of romantic disaster. The worst that could happen would only be a repeat of the past. What, then, was she so afraid of?
"Ask me to dinner," she blurted out, almost unthinkingly. He turned in surprise; his expression said he didn't think she was serious. When he didn't respond for a few seconds, she decided she'd gone too far to retreat. So she repeated the request. "Just ask me out, or something, already."
His mouth opened but no sound came out. His eyes scanned her face as he considered her words—set them alongside his musings from earlier today. It wasn't fair to ask her out; he knew he'd fail her in the end. But in the face of such an offer, wouldn't it be ruder to refuse? It seemed ungentlemanly to turn down such a bold offer from a lady. Well, the decision was made. He winked at her.
"I'll pick you up at 8:30."
She let out a breath. "Sounds fine," she said calmly, but her heart was beating rapidly. Addison couldn't believe she'd really done it. Pete couldn't believe he'd actually agreed. They both turned to face forward and rode the rest of the way in silence. Working hard to keep straight faces, she chewed her lip, and he creased his brow; they tried to maintain a semblance of dignity. As they exited, she sneaked a glance at him, only to catch him doing the same thing. Then they exchanged brief, embarrassed smiles and parted ways.
Inwardly, both were beaming.
Five minutes later, Addison remembered that the elevator had ears and turned bright red at the memory. Oh, Tillie was going to have a field day….
-----
Pete chose her outfit for her, by his timing. When the doorbell rang, Addison figured that was that—the beige wrap-around she had on now would be her outfit for the evening. She looked in despair at the chaos in her bedroom: hangars and rejected outfits covered the bed and practically every other surface. At least she'd made sure to do her hair and make-up before tackling the big question. Oh, well. What's done is done. She carefully closed her bedroom door to hide the mess and went to let Pete in.
He stood there looking irresistibly sexy in… jeans. And a t-shirt. Addison almost laughed. Oh, she should have expected that. At least the wrap-around could pass as semi-casual. (Thank God her hair was down.) Pete grinned at her in approval.
"You're on time. You're ready."
"I'm a woman of many talents."
"Well, I look forward to experiencing them all."
"You'd be a lucky man if you did."
"I don't doubt it."
"You've had no cause to. Shall we go?"
He stepped aside, and she locked the door behind her. As they headed for his car, she felt the tips of his fingers rest against the small of her back. She let her arm brush his side. The night was dry and warm.
-----
All fears of commitment aside, Pete was enjoying the best date he'd had in a while. Addison's dark mood from earlier had dispersed, leaving her relaxed and easy-going. This Addison spoke faster than normally, and the pitch of her voice was higher. Her normal sharp intelligence remained, but with a little wine and some candlelight, her wit took on a lighter tone, and she laughed more. In the meantime, he was feeling funnier and less artificial than usual: his "smooth" lines weren't lines, anymore. They felt spontaneous, even natural. He liked the person he was right now.
He almost worried that it was too good to be true. He knew from experience how easily small-talk could become dangerous. And then, the moment arrived. Addison was about to polish off her disgustingly animal-like pollo piccata when she threw out the dreaded question: "Why'd you go into alternative medicine, really? When you already had the medical degree?"
He had so many answers. Western medicine had failed him (failed her), but there might be other ways. No one in China tried to placate him or said they were sorry about his loss. In alternative medicine, he didn't have to watch patients struggle through chemotherapy, and their weeping families didn't dredge up bleak memories. But those weren't first date answers, so Pete handed her a half-truth instead.
"A friend of mine forced me to try acupuncture, and it was eye-opening. I thought to myself, 'someone from the mainstream medical community had to start documenting this kind of thing.' So I started looking into it."
"But now that you practice alternative medicine," she pointed out, "you no longer count as mainstream."
"Touché." He acknowledged the quandary. "But someday, I'm going to be in the New England Journal of Medicine, and then you'll all be sorry."
She smirked at his bravado, and for the moment, Pete figured they were safe.
-----
When he'd parked in front of her building, Pete turn to face Addison but waited for her to speak. He didn't want to leave now, but he thought maybe he should. He figured he'd let her decide what they were ready for. She hadn't moved yet: not even to unbuckle her seatbelt.
She was thinking about tea. Pete didn't drink coffee—she couldn't ask him up for that, but for some reason she'd acquired a rather large collection of herbal tea. It was strange, because she didn't drink herbal tea, and the one time she'd tried a packet she'd found it disgusting. Still, time after time, she'd found herself pulling the stuff out of her cart at the grocery checkout. It was a mystery. But this moment right here might be the explanation: now she had his favorite drink in her apartment. She could offer him a reason to come up with her. Well, what did she have to lose?
Somehow, she got the words out. Then they climbed out of his car and mounted the stairs to her place.
Addison's apartment was nice, but it seemed a little modest for a woman of Addison's tastes and financial standing. Pete took in the set-up and voiced the thought, casually.
"You didn't want one of those cute little cottages?"
Addison set her purse down by the door and gazed around the room. She thought of replying in a flippant tone, but she couldn't find anything witty. Alright, she'd put it out there. "A house is a home… and a home should have more than one person."
Pete glanced at her with sympathy: she sounded so sad and so serious. Suddenly the room seemed bigger. In his mind, he pictured what it must look like without the two of them standing there, and he saw that it appeared empty. (Like his own apartment.) What could he possibly say to help? The words were on the tip of his tongue: I could be that other person. But it seemed too early for that confession, and he feared it might be a lie. So he stroked her cheek with his thumb and kissed her instead.
-----
Eventually, Addison had pulled away long enough to make the promised tea. As they settled onto the couch, mugs in hand, Pete remembered her melancholy mood from earlier that day. He decided he'd risk prying.
"So, you've been here a couple of months, now. Are you getting what you came for?" He'd asked it once before; he wondered if he'd get a different answer now.
Addison took a deep breath and considered her answer carefully. Pete's eyes looked gentle and sincere. Something about him said to her, here's someone who will listen kindly. She'd been wrong before. But maybe she wasn't, this time.
"I feel like I'm stuck in neutral, here." She checked his expression; he looked concerned, but still open and encouraging. "I mean, I moved here, and that was a big change. But nothing's happened since. I got rid of old memories, but I haven't made any new ones. It's as if, I don't know, everything's coming tomorrow—but I'm still trapped in today."
And that was his cue: he should offer her new memories, tell her she had someone new, promise to make things different. Two months ago, he would have. But things for him had changed. At this particular moment, he wasn't sure he had anything to offer… and she had become someone he didn't want to deceive. So he settled for just listening: "What were you trying to get away from?"
Oh, Pete. You have no idea what you're getting into. He'd opened the floodgates now. Really, she'd thought he'd never get around to asking.
-----
At some point in her tale, Pete put his feet up on the couch and stretched out. Soon after, Addison joined him. Maybe it was easier to talk about serious things when you didn't have to see the other person's reaction. In any event, Addison found herself narrating her history of adultery to Pete's chest, her nose squished into cotton fabric of his t-shirt. She knew she'd probably regret her candor, later, but right now she couldn't bring herself to care. Instead, she felt relief. L.A. was a fresh start, and she'd come with grand plans for how she'd take advantage of that clean slate. She'd avoided mentioning Seattle in conversation, and she'd tried hard to enjoy the company of people to whom she wasn't a walking almanac of sordid histories. Their ignorance was supposed to free her.
Instead, she'd found herself longing to tell someone—anyone—her side of the story. Naomi and Sam knew some of what had happened, but they were Derek's and Mark's friends as well as hers. Seattle had been filled with people sympathetic to Meredith: Addison would always be Satan, Killer of Happiness, to that population. But Pete only knew what she had told him. He was biased from the start, but he was biased in her favor. She wasn't proud of what she'd done, but here was someone new to review the evidence. Here was someone who could offer her, not absolution, but the reassurance that she hadn't been the only guilty party. If he said he understood, she could believe he meant it—and oh, how she needed that understanding. So, at the risk of quashing her one fledgling hope of a relationship, at the risk of alienating him completely… she kept on talking.
A sane man would have run. Pete was glad that Addison couldn't see his face as he listened to her story. It was something right out of a daytime soap opera; his own tale of love and loss seemed pitifully straight-forward, by comparison. Forget the qualifying "possibly"—a woman living that life couldn't be anything but insane. He frowned to himself. Adultery, abortion, betrayal, and infertility—it was a lot to handle. It was a lot to take on. But somehow, alongside his shock and instinctual recoil, Pete found himself thinking: God, this woman's almost as screwed up as I am. And the notion was oddly comforting.
"…and I was so sure, if I kept at it, that someday Derek would have to forgive me. But he never did. Then I found the panties."
She'd been playing with her fingers, idly. Suddenly she held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger. "I still feel it, sometimes—the ring, I mean. And then I look and it's gone and it takes me a moment to remember why." She took a breath. "It's just hard to accept the end when you're not the one leaving. You know what I mean?"
He did. He did indeed. As he listened, Pete wondered how he'd feel if his wife, instead of dying, had simply left him for another man. Addison's experience was in another universe from his. She was the traitorous bitch who'd ruined first her husband's life and then his best friend's. He was the tragic widower. But listening to her, now, he had the strangest sense—not quite of déjà vu, but—of familiarity. Lost in his own musings, he didn't notice that Addison had stopped talking. He was startled when she broke the silence to venture softly, "Do I terrify you, now?"
Back in the present, Pete considered a romantic denial, but settled for the truth: "A little." Then he paused, while she waited. For all his professed love of openness, he didn't think he could match Addison's wildly confessional mode of talking. Really, he wasn't sure why he brought that out of her, and he knew he wasn't yet ready to reciprocate. But he would try to share a little, at least.
"I haven't been in love with a woman since my wife died. Does that scare you?"
"Maybe," she answered, opting to match his honesty. "Then again, I think I may still be in love with Derek." She laughed a little, ruefully. "So I guess that makes us quite the pair."
They lay in companionable silence, physical closeness substituting for the kind of emotional bond both feared they might no longer be capable of. After some minutes, catching sight of the clock (which read 3:23), Pete murmured into Addison's hair, "I should get going," and began to stir. She lifted her head and stilled him with her hand.
"Hey—do me a favor?" He met her eyes and waited for her to continue. "Stay where you are. For now, just stay." Then she bit her lip and averted her eyes, embarrassed to have said anything.
Gently, Pete drew her head back down to his chest. His hand stroked her hair once before settling against her waist. "Okay."
Addison sighed and closed her eyes, relieved.
-----
She hadn't gotten the mind-blowing sex she'd predicted. So she couldn't call this post-coital cuddling, and she hadn't been blessed with dreamless after-orgasm sleep. In truth, the stiff-backed couch was probably four inches too short for his frame, and the buttons on his jeans dug into her belly. Her left leg was numb. As a bonus, her face itched with yesterday's makeup, and she desperately needed to brush her teeth. Still, when the midday sun forced her to stir nine hours later, she woke achy but well-rested, for a change.
Tomorrow had finally arrived, and Addison felt certain it would be a good day.
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A/N: Trying to characterize Pete (and L.A. Addison) felt a little like building a sand-castle beyond the tide line. I'd speculate a little and then watch my inner psychoanalyst wash it all away. If by some miracle this actually worked for you, please do let me know, so I can stop banging my head against the wall. People are starting to ask questions about my black-and-blue forehead….
My gratitude to those of you who left me feedback on previous stories—'tis much appreciated. And thanks to all for reading!
- GG