It shouldn't have been possible to feel bone-tired and wide awake at the same time. But Peter was so wired on caffeine that sleep was impossible, even though his eyes burned and his back ached from going through files all day long. When he finally found the smoking gun he had been looking for, he almost missed it. He dropped his pen, rechecked the numbers three times, and only then allowed a big fat grin to spread across his face.
Peter was out of his chair in an instant and bounded up the stairs to Hughes' office. He barely remembered to knock before barging in.
Hughes was hunched over his desk just like Peter had been a moment ago and looked up in surprise. "Burke!? What's going on?"
"I found it, sir. I found our smoking gun in the Woodward case," Peter said and handed him the file.
The senior agent took a moment to look at it before leaning back in his chair. "I'll be damned. How did you find this?"
"Went through all his bank statements again," Peter replied.
"All of them? By yourself?" Hughes' face showed a mix of disbelief and approval.
Peter nodded, glad his accounting degree was paying off after all.
"Are you after my job by any chance, Burke?" Hughes asked, sounding amused.
"You do have a pretty nice view from up here," Peter said with a sly grin.
Hughes chuckled. "Tell you what, you bring me more good work like this, and I'll get you an office."
In an attempt to be professional about this, Peter suppressed his excitement and tried to stay focused on the present rather than the future. "Understood. Do you want me to call in some backup?"
"No, we can get that S.O.B. tomorrow. He's not going anywhere. It's late. Go home, Peter," Hughes said and dropped the file on his desk.
Hughes visibly relaxed now that he had another win on his hands, but Peter felt as if he had just woken up from a dream and reality came crushing in on him. He had thought of nothing but this case all day, seen numbers upon numbers, and somehow, he had lost sight of the really important ones.
"Wait, what time is it?" he asked.
"Almost ten. Why?"
"Shit!" Peter cursed loudly before closing his eyes for a second as if that would get him out of this mess.
Hughes' brow was furrowed when he looked at him again. "What's going on, Peter?"
"I was supposed to pick up El hours ago." He wasn't sure why he was telling Hughes this. Peter liked the senior agent, but they had kept their personal conversations to a minimum so far. He had preferred to let his work do the talking. But right now he felt so lost, he needed to tell someone.
Hughes didn't seem to mind. "Who's El?" he asked.
"My girlfriend Elizabeth." Peter ran a hand over his face. "Now possibly ex-girlfriend." He felt sick to his stomach even thinking about that.
"Oh come on, it can't be that bad. Just pick up some flowers on the way home and tell her it was my fault. I kept you," Hughes offered.
It wasn't a bad idea, but Peter still shook his head. "I don't think a bunch of flowers is going to cut it. It's our one-month anniversary tonight. I told her I would pick her up after work and surprise her with something. I was going to take her back to the restaurant where we had our first date."
"One month, huh? That's cute," Hughes smirked.
"I know, I know. But El mentioned it, and she seemed excited about celebrating our first few weeks together."
Truthfully, Peter had liked the idea just as much. A month didn't sound like much, but it felt like a big deal because it had only taken these few weeks for Elizabeth to completely change his life. After his initial hesitation during the gallery investigation, things had just fallen into place for them. Being with El was the highlight of every day that they managed to see each other. They both worked a lot, so it wasn't always easy, but it also worked because of it. They both appreciated the time they did have for one another a lot more. And so far, El had never asked him to stop working late.
Of course now, Peter almost wished she had. He had gotten so used to how easy things were between him and Elizabeth that he had managed to forget about her tonight. He could barely explain that to himself. He had no idea how he was supposed to explain that to El or expect her to understand, let alone forgive him.
Hughes had watched all of that play out on Peter's face. "You really love her, don't you?"
"What? Um…" This was all too much for Peter to work out in the little amount of time he had left, especially since the thought of Elizabeth leaving him practically petrified him.
"Hey, you don't have to tell me, Peter. But in my experience, and I'm not an expert, mind you, your best bet is to tell her everything, everything you're feeling right now. Women like that kind of stuff."
Peter thought about that for a moment, falling back on his Quantico training, treating this like a case. If somebody held a gun to his head, he didn't have the luxury of freaking out either. In a way, this situation felt just as life-threatening, so the comparison wasn't too far off.
"Do you need me to take down Woodward tomorrow?" he asked Hughes.
"Well, I was planning on letting you take the lead since you deserve the credit, but no, I guess you don't need to be there in person."
"Good, forget about the credit. I need you to help me save my relationship."
His hands were so sweaty, Peter could barely hold on to the steering wheel. By the time he got to El's apartment, it was closer to eleven than ten. He couldn't tell if she was still awake because her bedroom window was facing away from the street. He could have called ahead, but since he hadn't thought to call her all night, he had decided not to start now. He only would have ended up apologizing over the phone.
Standing outside her apartment door, Peter took a deep breath before knocking.
It didn't take Elizabeth long to open, which told him that she hadn't been asleep yet, but from the looks of it, she had been in bed already. She wore a hastily thrown over robe that she hadn't bothered to close over her nightgown that was enticingly short. Her hair was a little disheveled and her face free of any makeup. He knew that she wouldn't set foot outside her apartment like that, but to Peter, she looked absolutely stunning all the same.
"Peter! Are you okay?" she asked while pulling him inside and forcefully shutting the door behind him.
That wasn't the greeting he had expected, so Peter needed a moment to collect his thoughts. "Yes, I'm fine."
"Are you sure? I thought about trying to call, but I figured you were probably out on an important case," Elizabeth said, and she actually seemed to inspect him for injuries.
Peter's dread only worsened when he realized that El wasn't mad because she had been worried about him all night. That seemed like the only thing worse than the anger he had expected. He carefully took her hands in his. "I'm okay, El. Nothing happened."
El breathed a sigh of relief that made Peter feel a hundred times worse. Only then did she seem to process what he had just said. "Nothing happened?"
"No," he confirmed, shaking his head and regretting it almost instantly.
Because El pulled back her hands. "Then where were you?"
"I was in the office. I've been trying to crack the Woodward case all day. I told you the FBI has been trying to nail that guy on something for a while now. It's a career case, and I knew I was so close to finding a smoking gun," he hurried to explain and then watched how El crossed her arms.
"So you've been working all night, at your desk next to the phone, and you couldn't pick it up to let me know that you were okay?"
He had never heard her use that tone with him before. It still wasn't as all-out angry as he had thought. It was worse, actually. She sounded hurt.
Peter desperately wanted to touch her, to reconnect, but for once Elizabeth's body language made her boundaries very clear. "I'm so sorry, El. I don't know what happened. I got so lost in what was right in front of me…"
"Did you find it?" Elizabeth interrupted his ramblings. He had decided what to say to her on the drive over here, but somehow, he couldn't get it out. "Your smoking gun?"
"Yes, I basically gave Woodward to Hughes on a silver platter," Peter told her and tried very hard not to smile about that since he figured that would only make matters worse.
But Elizabeth smiled a little as well. "Good, I'm happy for you, Peter. And now I'm going to bed."
"No, El, please." He grabbed her arm and gently made her turn back around. "Let me take you somewhere."
"What? Peter, it's late!" she protested.
"I know. But I told you I'd surprise you for our anniversary, and I still have an hour left. If we start driving now, it still counts."
Elizabeth seemed torn between irritation and confusion. "Drive where?"
"It's a surprise," Peter said with a cautious smile.
"I have to work tomorrow, and I can't call in sick again."
Peter shook his head, having anticipated that one. "No, you don't. Hughes is going to call the gallery tomorrow and tell them that you've been requisitioned by the FBI to come over and dot some i's and cross some t's regarding the theft investigation. You know, trial prep and stuff like that." It was a bit of a stretch, but in all likelihood, no one would follow up on it, and Hughes, surprisingly, had agreed to do it.
Elizabeth looked stunned, which was a big step up from being hurt. "Honestly, I don't know what to say."
"Say you'll come. I messed this up, El. Please let me make it right," he asked her.
"Fine, but this better be good."
Peter took the liberty of packing a bag for her. He probably packed way more stuff than she needed, but he didn't really know what she needed and didn't want to ask since Elizabeth still looked reluctant to do so much as change into a pair of pants and a sweater. If it had been up to Peter, she wouldn't have needed to change at all, except she would have been too cold in the car.
Even now, she started shaking the second they left the apartment building since her body had been prepared to go to sleep, not get dragged out into the night. Peter grabbed her a blanket from the trunk, cranked up the heat, and within minutes she had fallen asleep in the passenger's seat.
Peter smiled to himself and kept driving. Every now and then, he allowed himself to look at her. No matter how often he did that, the sight of her only got more adorable. And he told himself that he could still fix things if Elizabeth trusted him enough to fall asleep next to him while she had no idea where he was planning on taking her.
When he had finally parked the car, he leaned over and tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear. Then he gently kissed her awake. Peter's heart leapt when El's instinctive reaction was to smile and reach out to put a hand on his cheek.
Only then did she seem to remember what had happened. "Where are we?" she asked, trying to shake off her fatigue.
"Don't worry. We're still in the state of New York," Peter assured her.
She didn't seem too worried about whether they had crossed state lines or not, so Peter got out of the car. He allowed himself a moment to stretch and enjoy the smell of the beach that hit him instantly. Then he circled round the car to help El get out, too. She took a few shaky steps and gaped at the waves that kept crashing against the shore in the darkness. The sea glittered with the reflection of the lights coming from other houses and cabins in the vicinity, but compared to New York City, it was wonderfully dark and quiet out here.
"Peter, this is beautiful," Elizabeth whispered.
"Yes. It is," Peter replied, looking only at her.
She caught him and opened her mouth to say something, but Peter beat her to it. "Let's go inside first." He pointed to the little cabin behind them, fished out the key from inside the letter box, and opened the door for El.
The cabin was small but all set up for them to spend the night. There were even a couple of lit candles and a bottle of champagne, even though Peter hadn't asked for that. Elizabeth took it all in and then turned around to him in wonder.
"You couldn't simply call me tonight, but you managed to do all this?"
"I know the guy who rents out these cabins. I helped him out once, proved he was innocent. He owed me one," Peter admitted and set down their bags. "I realize it's now not officially our one-month anniversary anymore, and I'm sorry about that, but…"
Elizabeth held up a hand to stop him, and Peter tried not to panic. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his chest. This way, they could both feel that his heart was racing. She looked surprised about that, then a little sorry, and then she took his face in her hands and kissed him. "I love you."
"What?" Peter said, baffled.
El laughed softly about the look on his face and caressed his cheek. "I don't love that you couldn't make it tonight, but all you needed to do is call me. I understand that your work is important – more important than what we did on our one-month anniversary because we'll have others to celebrate."
"So… for future reference, no need for the candles or the champagne?" Peter asked with a lopsided grin on his face to buy himself a moment to process her words. He had hoped for her forgiveness, but she was giving him a lot more than that.
El shrugged. "It's nice, but I don't actually need any of it."
Peter wrapped his arms around her waist. "Neither do I. El, I wasn't sure if this was too soon, but I've been falling in love with you since the moment we met. I just didn't want to scare you."
"Scare me by telling me you loved me?"
"Well, scare you and me," Peter admitted.
El gave him a quick but firm kiss. "I'm not scared. Are you?"
"A little bit because I don't think I can drive you to Long Island every time I mess up because of work," Peter said. It was only partially meant as a joke.
"Honey, I fell in love you while you were at work. I happen to like being with a smart, though FBI agent."
"But you would probably prefer for that FBI agent to be home when he said he would be," Peter argued.
"Yes, but I'm sure you'll make it up to me."
The glimmer in Elizabeth's eyes was both demanding and playful at the same time, and Peter could think of only one thing to say.
"I love you, El."
After a wonderful night and a lovely day at the beach, they were walking back to the cabin late in the afternoon the next day. Holding Peter's hand, Elizabeth couldn't remember having been this happy. She had been in love before, but this was more than just physical attraction and a sudden infatuation.
She had begun to really know Peter, to appreciate his many wonderful qualities and accept his faults. She was making room for him in her apartment, her daily schedule, her life, and most importantly, her heart, and she trusted him to do the same. She wanted to share all those things with him because without him they suddenly seemed a lot less meaningful. She was as invested in Peter's accomplishments and happiness as she was in her own. She had stopped thinking in terms of what she could do with her life in favor of what they could do with it. And her dreams of the future, their future, became bigger with every passing day.
So Elizabeth wasn't the least bit scared when Peter said, "I've been thinking… we could get dinner in town later, or we could pack up now and stop by my dad's on the way home. It would be a surprise, but I know he'd love to meet you."
"And I would love to meet him," Elizabeth was glad to agree – not just because she could tell from Peter's smile that the prospect of introducing the two of them was making him happy. She wanted to know everything about him, so of course she wanted to meet his dad.
Peter was almost giddy with excitement during the drive over there. Elizabeth loved to see this side of him, but he also made her a little nervous. This was obviously very important to him, and Elizabeth could only hope that neither she nor his dad would let him down. Then again, she wasn't entirely sure if Peter was hoping for them to get along perfectly or if he wanted a little bit of payback for what her dad had put him through.
The house they stopped at was small but clearly well taken care of. There was a truck parked in the driveway and a sign out on the front lawn that advertised the small construction company Peter's dad owned.
"Is this the house you grew up in?" Elizabeth wondered while they walked up to the front door.
"Yup, learned to play ball right in the back yard," Peter nodded fondly.
He knocked on the door, and while they waited, Elizabeth nervously tugged on her dress. Since Peter had packed her bag for this impromptu trip, it showed a bit more cleavage than she would have liked for her first meeting with his dad.
When she saw the huge grin on Peter's face, she swatted his arm. "Stop laughing at me!"
He didn't, but he did lean in to give her a quick kiss and said, "You look beautiful, El."
"I agree." Peter's dad had finally opened the door, and the smile on his face was quite similar to his son's.
"Good to see you, Dad," Peter said and stepped away from Elizabeth to give his father a hug.
"You too, son. Did I know you were coming?"
"No, we were on our way home and wanted to stop by to surprise you. I thought we'd be just in time for dinner," Peter explained.
"Well, you're just in time for making dinner," his dad replied with a chuckle. "And now move aside, son, so I can greet your lovely lady."
Elizabeth smiled and extended a hand. "I'm Elizabeth. It's so nice to finally meet you."
Peter's dad took her hand and held it in both of his. He looked like an older version of Peter, same eyes, same nose, just a little less hair. He even looked remarkably fit for his age, but that probably came with the job. "Call me Robert, and the pleasure is all mine. You're definitely the prettiest girl Peter has ever brought home."
"Really? How do I know you don't say that to all the girls?" Elizabeth asked.
Robert Burke laughed and patted his son on the back. "She's feisty. I like her already." And to Elizabeth he said, "You're right. I might have done that, but the truth is he didn't bring that many girls home…"
"Okay, that's enough, Dad," Peter intervened. "Can we come in now?"
His father stepped aside, and Peter led Elizabeth inside the house with his hand at the small of her back. The living room had an open kitchen and a beautiful fireplace. Elizabeth was immediately drawn to it when she saw that there were a bunch of pictures on the mantlepiece.
"Aw, Peter, is that you?" she asked, picking up a photo of a young boy in a cute baseball outfit, holding a giant foam finger. He was grinning from ear to ear.
"Yeah, that was taken when Dad took me to see my first baseball game," Peter remembered.
Elizabeth ran a finger over the picture frame. "You were such an adorable little kid."
"There's more where that came from," Robert said, waving at the pictures. "If you'd like to see them."
"I would love to!" Elizabeth nodded emphatically.
Peter groaned. "I thought we wanted to make dinner?"
"How about you make dinner, son, while lovely Elizabeth and I have a nice, cold beer on the patio?" Robert put an arm around Elizabeth, and she could only give Peter a helpless smile over her shoulder while allowing his dad to guide her outside.
There were two chairs set up on the patio with a table and a cooler in between them. Elizabeth could easily picture Peter and his dad sitting here, enjoying a beer and a game, although she wasn't sure how they would get the TV out here.
"Sit," Robert encouraged her, and after sitting down himself, he reached inside the cooler to open two bottles of beer for them and offer one to her.
Elizabeth didn't want to be rude, so she sat and accepted the beer. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. So how come you two were driving around out here in the middle of the week?"
"It was a spontaneous trip that Peter surprised me with last night."
His dad furrowed his brow. "Surprised you, huh?"
"Yes, he wanted to make up for working late," she explained.
Robert nodded. "Now that sounds like my son. He's cancelled on me quite a bit, too, lately. Probably wouldn't want me to tell you that." He chuckled and sipped his beer.
Elizabeth smiled softly. "I'm sure he felt bad about every one of those times."
"Are you defending my son's actions to me?" Robert asked, looking surprised.
"I'm just saying… from what Peter's told me, I know that he loves you very much and would like to come out here more often. But he also wants to make you proud by putting in the work to become a senior agent soon, so I'm sure it hasn't always been easy for him to decide between the two," Elizabeth explained.
Robert looked at her and then shook his head laughing. "Sounds like what he should really be paying attention to is you."
"Oh, he does," Elizabeth said, trying not to blush too much. Peter's father was a lot more direct than she had expected. Maybe that's where Peter had gotten his FBI instincts from, if not his confidence with women.
"Good, because I might not know how dating works these days, but even I can tell that you're a keeper."
Elizabeth felt a little sad that, as far as Peter had told her, his dad was alone most of the time. He was clearly a very charming man, and she couldn't believe that there wasn't another woman for him out there. But she wasn't brave enough to bring up his late wife or the torch he might still be carrying for her. Not just yet anyway. So she stayed focused on the one person they both loved. "So is your son."
"Won't argue with you on that one." Robert winked at her.
Elizabeth smiled and twisted in her chair to try and see how Peter was doing in the kitchen. "But are you sure we should just leave him alone in there?"
His dad shrugged. "He'll be fine. After all, those pots and pans can't shoot at him."
"Well, that depends on what exactly he's trying to make," Elizabeth joked, even though she had a feeling that she already knew.
Robert Burke bellowed with laughter, but when Elizabeth tried to peek inside the kitchen again, he quieted down. "You have to stop doing that."
"I'm sorry, what?" Elizabeth asked, worried she might have done something to offend him.
"Worry about Peter so much. Take it from someone who's loved him all his life."
Elizabeth knew that Peter's dad wasn't talking about his son's skills in the kitchen anymore. She hesitated, but eventually her curiosity got the better of her. "Did you ever try to talk him out of it?" She couldn't imagine Peter doing anything other than work for the FBI, but she also couldn't imagine what it must have felt like for Robert as a parent, who had already lost his wife, when his only son had told him he was choosing a potentially dangerous job.
"'Course I did. Broke my heart as much as his when he couldn't play ball anymore. Damn shame. But he still had that fancy degree of his and he got recruited by several Fortune 500 companies. I would have been a lousy dad if I hadn't at least tried to talk him into taking one of those offers."
"Really?" Elizabeth glanced at Peter again, wondering why he had never mentioned that.
His dad only nodded thoughtfully. "Yup, he could have made a small fortune by now, and you wouldn't need to worry about a thing."
"I might have never met him, though," Elizabeth argued. She had a hard time picturing a scenario where Peter wasn't an FBI agent. After all, New York City was practically bursting with Wall Street geniuses and fancy suits.
"Can't know that. Maybe you two were meant to be," Robert said with a smile that made him look a lot like Peter.
Maybe that's why Elizabeth dared to ask, "Do you believe in that sort of thing?"
"I did once." It was clear he was talking about Peter's mother even after all this time, and Elizabeth's eyes stung with tears that she hadn't expected. "And the way my son talks about you, I think he does, too."
Her heart ached in her chest, and Elizabeth twisted in her chair again, both to look at Peter and to hide her face while she was blinking away the tears. "Do you mind if I…?"
Robert gave her a knowing smile. "Sure, go ahead."
Elizabeth went back inside the house, and Peter looked up from chopping peppers when she joined him behind the kitchen counter. "Hey, is everything okay?" he asked, clearly worried that something might have happened between her and his father.
"I just couldn't miss out on my first chance to watch you make your famous pot roast," she said, reaching out to rub his back.
Peter grinned broadly and made room for her to help.
"I heard you got a few interesting job offers before you joined the FBI," Elizabeth said after they had been working in comfortable silence for a while.
Peter heaved a sigh. "He really needs to stop telling people that."
"I'm not people," Elizabeth pointed out. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It just didn't come up since our first date. And I didn't think it wise then to tell you that rather than eat at a modest restaurant with a government employee you could have been dining with a member of the Upper Ten Thousand somewhere above the skyline of Manhattan."
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. "Do you really think I would have cared about that?"
Something in her tone must have alerted him because Peter wiped his hands on a towel before coming to stand behind her and wrapping one arm around her neck, the other around her waist. "No, I think you would have only cared about what makes me happy," he said, bringing his lips to her ear.
With a satisfied smile on her face, Elizabeth leaned back into his embrace. "And so does your dad. He's just proud of you. That's why he keeps talking about it."
"Uh-huh. So I need to work my ass off all day to get so much as a handshake from your dad, and you have mine all figured out in a matter of minutes?" Peter complained.
Elizabeth chuckled. "I told you I can ask my dad to be nicer next time."
"And I told you that I can't let you do that. If I had a daughter, I would put the fear of God in any boy or man trying to take her away, too," Peter said matter-of-factly as if this was something he had given a lot of thought.
Elizabeth put a hand on the one that Peter had placed on her stomach to hold her to him. "I think you'd make a great dad," she said softly.
Peter's fingers curled around hers, but he didn't get to respond.
"Aren't you two something, but are we ever going to have dinner tonight?" Robert pulled them both back out of their own little bubble.
They did in fact have dinner eventually, and Elizabeth enjoyed every minute of it. To Peter's slight dismay, he became the single topic of conversation when Robert started regaling Elizabeth with stories from Peter's childhood and adolescence. Even while she was shaking with laughter, she reached out to hold Peter's hand, which seemed to appease him a bit, and he stopped protesting in favor of seeing her so happy.
After dinner, Robert insisted on clearing the table on his own and shooed them away to "go be in love" as he put it.
"Come on," Peter said and led her up the stairs to the second floor.
"Are you bringing me up to your room to make out?" Elizabeth giggled.
Peter smirked. "I just thought I'd show it to you, but if you want to fool around, I'm game."
Elizabeth rested her head on his arm and laughed into his shoulder. "Did your dad ever catch you?"
"Once, but I think he actually saved me from a lot of embarrassment. I was tutoring this girl who was way out of my league, and I think the only reason she let me touch her was to get out of studying," Peter remembered.
"Or maybe she was really attracted to how smart and kind you were," Elizabeth hedged.
Peter snorted. "Try sixteen, hormonal, and awkward."
Elizabeth chuckled while he opened the door to what had to have been his room. It looked as if his father hadn't changed it much. There was a whole shelf with sports trophies Peter must have won, a couple of old books and CDs he hadn't seemed interested in taking with him, a small aquarium that was clean but didn't have any fish in it, and a few sports and band posters on the walls.
"What about you?" Peter asked while she looked around.
"Are you asking me if I was hormonal and awkward, too?" Elizabeth asked in return.
"I'm sure you were every bit as lovely as you are now," Peter replied, giving her an impish grin while sitting down on his old bed.
Elizabeth suppressed a smile and turned back towards inspecting the shelves.
"I meant did you ever bring boys home for your father to interrogate?"
"You do realize that you're the one who's actually interrogating people for a living?" Elizabeth pointed out.
"Only bad people," Peter amended.
"Well, some of those boys who I might have brought over had it coming," Elizabeth said with her eyes still on Peter's old things.
He leaned against his bed's headboard. "Did they make it out alive?"
"Yes, although Dad might have chased one out in his underwear."
Peter guffawed. "I'm beginning to think I should have thanked your sister for warning us your parents were about to show up."
"In my dad's defense, I was trying to be as mature about boys as my elder sister when I clearly wasn't. I needed him to make sure I had my head screwed on straight. I think every daughter needs that sometimes," Elizabeth said wistfully. "Why didn't you bring any of these when you moved out?" She pointed at the many trophies.
"I didn't think I would need them after I got drafted," Peter replied.
Elizabeth gave him a sad, sympathetic smile. "Is it hard for you to look at them?"
"No," Peter said, shaking his head. "Especially not right now," he added since Elizabeth was standing right between him and the trophies.
She rolled her eyes at him. "I was being serious."
"So was I," Peter insisted. "I have everything I need, even if the boy who used to sleep in this bed had different dreams."
"I think he would be very proud of the man he has become," Elizabeth said, slowly walking towards the bed to stand before him.
"He would be if he could see you standing here right now," Peter agreed with a cocky grin on his face while reaching up to wrap his arms around her, his hands sliding from the hollows of her knees up beneath the skirt of her dress all the way to cupping her backside.
Elizabeth crossed her arms. "Seems as if he's resurfacing just a little bit."
"Well, this is his old room, and I think it was you who brought up making out." Without warning Peter fell back onto the bed and took her with him.
Elizabeth yelped in surprise, but Peter made sure she landed safely in his arms, and his lips on hers felt too good to protest. "I was kidding you know," she whispered meekly when he let her draw breath again.
"Hm, but there's something satisfying about having you in this bed." Peter was breathing her in, running his nose up and down her neck.
"Because I'm not just doing this, so you'll teach me algebra?" Elizabeth chuckled.
"Because the kid in this room was too focused on playing ball to think he could ever love anything more than that," Peter replied. "I'm glad I was wrong about that."
This time, it was Elizabeth who was in a hurry to start kissing him again, to let him know how madly he made her heart beat in her chest when he said things like that.
"I'm coming up the stairs," Robert Burke's voice suddenly floated up towards them. "So, Peter, you better not be fondling my future daughter-in-law like a horny teenager!"
They both jumped apart in shock, and since her dress had ridden up almost all the way to her bellybutton, Elizabeth frantically tried to cover herself up again. Once they were both semi-decent, sitting on the edge of his old bed, they looked at each other and burst out laughing. This situation was too silly for either one of them to tense up about the 'daughter-in-law' comment Peter's dad had made.
"Great, now my dad is coming down hard on me, too. How do you do that?" Peter whispered.
"It's not my fault that you Burke men can't seem to help falling in love with me," Elizabeth whispered back.
Peter looked at her intently. "Oh, I think it is."
Every part of her body all the way down to her toes tingled under his gaze, and Elizabeth pressed another quick kiss to his lips. "I love you, too, Peter Burke."
Then his father appeared in the doorway and decided not to comment any further on what they had been doing. He just held up a book. "Found this photo album downstairs. Want to have a look?"
Elizabeth's eyes lit up. "I would love to."
Peter groaned loudly. "Yeah, thanks, Dad."
"What are you complaining about, son?"
"Nothing, I'm sure looking at baby pictures of how you used to bathe me in the sink won't be embarrassing at all," Peter deadpanned.
Elizabeth put a hand on his knee. "You show me yours, I'll show you mine?" she offered. She really didn't want to do this if it made him feel this uncomfortable, even if he had nothing to worry about. Sharing parts of him with her, even embarrassing ones, could never make her love him less, quite the opposite really. She tried to make him understand that by giving his knee a gentle squeeze.
She could see Peter's resistance melt as he took her hand. "That I could live with."
A sudden flash startled them both. Robert had snapped a picture of them while they had been busy gazing into each other's eyes.
"Figured I need to add a few pictures to the family album soon," he said and winked at them.
A/N: Things are probably going to pick up speed from now on because Peter and El are just so much in love, I can't help it, and I'm in love with them and with your support for this story. Special thanks also to all the guests who've been reviewing since I can't reply to you directly. But your feedback always makes me smile.