We had to be silent upon entering; he said his entire family had incredible hearing. I thought that was sketchy, but after him detecting the cops in the woods I believed it. When he closed his door was when I began to take off my boots. He stripped of his jacket first, eyeing me as I changed into something more comfortable in order to sleep. He did the same as he started stripping with ease.
"For once I get to watch you take your clothes off," I teased in a whisper. Peter smirked.
"Don't let yourself get too excited," he purred. I chortled and slipped myself under the covers of his bed; I released a light sigh as I sank into the mattress and the sheets, curling myself up under the comforter and blanket. "Don't take up the whole bed, now," Peter winked as he joined me.
"I'll try not to," I smirked. "Do you know how long it's been since I slept in a bed?"
"I thought you said you stayed in Los Angeles for a month and in San Francisco for a month?" he questioned.
"Doesn't mean I had a bed to sleep in," I shrugged. "It's killer on the back, but sometimes you just have to make due."
"What the hell happened to you, Alex?" Peter frowned. "I mean, it's pretty obvious that some serious shit has happened to you in the last few years and you're very well-articulated for someone who just seems to have given up on the world."
"I haven't totally given up," I corrected him, taken back by that statement. "Only a little bit. This is the longest I've ever stayed in one place without having to leave. This is also the first place where I've made a friend."
"So I no longer don't have any friends, is that right?" Peter smiled.
"Right," I turned to face him. I didn't realize how close we were until we were face-to-face. I could see, even in the darkness, the bright blue of his large eyes. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't tell what it was; hidden secrets and untold stories that I wasn't sure I would ever hear. I could smell the mint toothpaste he had used before we had slipped into bed together and I could feel his cool breath by my face. Our noses were so close that I was surprised they weren't touching; another millimeter and I'm sure they would have been. "You've got me now."
"And how do you feel about that?" he asked me, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.
"I'm still not totally sure what to make out of you," I admitted. "In all fairness, though, I don't know if I ever will."
A single laugh escaped from his lips. "You probably won't," he agreed. There was a twinkle in his eyes. "So, Alex," he continued, "what the hell happened to you?"
In this proximity, in this moment, I felt like I should have told him everything. I looked down for a moment, only to look back up and still find that intensity in his eyes. "I don't even know where to begin."
"How about the very beginning?" Peter suggested with the slightest hint of sarcasm rolling off of his tongue. "That's always a good place."
"Well, you know that I used to bartend," I tried, thinking of my words very carefully. "One night, a bar fight broke out because of me, I broke it up, the owner came out and ended up getting shot and I was told I was next. I believed it when I heard gunshots outside of my apartment window that night only to find that the person who lived below me had bullets break through their window and go through their apartment, so I left. I figured the farther away I could go, the better."
"Alexandria, you know I'm not stupid," he responded. "You know I know that what you just told me was missing about seventy-five percent of the whole story." I took a deep breath, not feeling as if I were able to meet Peter's eyes. "Your heartbeat is insane," he pointed out; this was true. He placed his hand over my heart, feeling the beat while hearing it. It must have been pounding at a million miles an hour. "Relax."
There was a long pause between us. "It's a long story," I decided on.
"I have all night," he pressed.
"I'm not talking about it." I tried to come across as firm, but he probably saw right through that. "Why don't I get to know your story?"
Peter's lips formed a sad half-smile for a brief moment. "We don't need to go there."
"Hypocrite," I responded immediately.
"I suppose so," he mused. There was more silence between us before I turned back over, my back facing him. "I also suppose that you have a lot of questions."
"Oh, trust me. I have plenty." There was a lot about Peter I still didn't know. I didn't even know his real age, just that he was close to my own. He rarely spoke of his family, and when he did it was briefly. He could kill me in this moment and I wouldn't even know, considering he was the master of manipulation. I didn't know if I believed a single word that ever came out of his mouth. After a few hours of lying there and finally feeling at least relatively safe, I no longer was. Peter heard them before I did, sitting up once he did. It didn't take long for me to hear them after him, and I knew those voices as well as I knew my mother's.
"She's got to be around here somewhere," the deeper voice mused. "This seems like the kind of place she would stop in."
"We're wasting our time, mate," the other spoke. "In case you haven't noticed, this is a small town. It'd be easier to find her. She isn't gonna hide out in a town with a few suburban areas, there's no real city for her to thrive in."
"Maybe she's here to throw us off," the deeper voice replied.
Peter immediately looked to me, probably hearing my heartbeat again. I still didn't understand how he managed to do that. "You know them?" he asked in a hushed whisper. I sat up and nodded, pursing my lips. "Who are they?"
"They're from New Orleans," I whispered, barely audible. I was surprised that he heard me, but I guess if he could hear my heart beat he could hear my softest whisper, too.
"I figured, they sound like it," Peter eyed me. "Who are they?" he asked again. I remained silent, but he kneeled in front of me, our eyes meeting once again. "Why won't you tell me?"
"I don't want you to judge me for it, okay?" I snapped. "I'm not exactly proud of what I've had to do."
"I'm trying to help you, Alex," he grabbed a hold of my hands. "I don't know why, but there's something about you that just screamed 'I need help.' I never try to help anybody but myself, so tell me everything. What the hell happened to lead to you working at that bar and that owner getting shot?"
I looked down, away from his eyes, only to look back up and see them still staring directly at me. "I…" I choked up on my own words. "I guess it all started when I was sixteen, when my parents got divorced."
