Pete closed the front door behind him and chucked his keys onto the table; he'd just spent the last three hours walking around, trying to clear his head and it still hadn't really helped. In fact the more he thought about it the more is seemed to do his head in; Matt -one of his best mates- liked Allie -the woman he was planning on the back of his neck tiredly, Pete decided that if he wanted to hang onto his last smidgen of sanity, he was going the wrong way about it.
Glancing down, he noticed with a mixture of pleasure and confusion that Matt's backpack and jacket had disappeared from their usual spot. Tutting under his breath as he reached for the light switch, he realised that Matt must have forgotten to switch everything off when he left. Making his way to his bedroom, Pete felt the energy drain from his body with every step; after a night like tonight, all he wanted was to go to sleep and pretend none of it ever even happened.
Pushing the door open he stopped breathing for a second, his eyes glued to the sleeping girl curled up in the middle of the bed; realising that her face was still streaked with tears, Pete cursed himself, knowing that even though he could blame Matt until the day he died, it was in fact him who had done the majority to damage tonight. He hadn't meant to hurt her, but the thought of Allie with someone else…Pete closed his eyes for a second. It was too painful; it almost made him feel ill. And so he'd done the typical bloke thing, he'd panicked and then he'd taken it out on her.
Reaching down, he gently brushed a piece of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss against her temple.
She stirred slightly but didn't wake up which he figured was a good thing given they both needed some rest right now. Pulling off his shirt, he glanced around the room and noticed that all the things she had packed earlier on where right back where they usually were. Her hairbrush on his desk, the odd shaped bottles of perfume strewn about his dresser, the ridiculously high heeled shoes resting just under the bed. Smiling to himself, Pete climbed onto the bed behind her, moving slowly so as not to risk waking her and then gently wrapped his arms around her body. As though sensing him, Allie shifted back slightly in her sleep so that her back was pressed against his chest and sighed. Burying his face in the back of her shoulder, Pete kissed the soft skin there and then closed his eyes. Everything would be alright in the morning…it had to be.
If he let himself think otherwise, he'd stop breathing. Because that's ultimately what Allie was to Pete…his life. He had the GSE and the boys, he had his job, but none of it would hold any substance or meaning if he didn't have her.
Now it was just a case of making sure Allie knew that
Opening her eyes slowly, Allie tried to assess what day it was.
Monday? Thursday? Wait, she didn't have work today which meant it was...Sunday? God, why did she feel hung over? Could excess stress actually cause some kind of drama induced no-alcoholic hang over?
Fuck it, she thought with a groan. After last night, she didn't care what day it was or how she felt; looking out the window, she saw the sunshine and rolled her eyes. Great, the one day when she's truly depressed and everyone else was bound to be flitting about going on about 'what a beautiful spring day' they were having.
Well, they could all fuck off, because for once in her life, Allie Harding was far from being in the mood to play little miss sunshine. Realising she was only antagonising herself, she rolled onto her back rather forcefully, her hand flying out to the side of her and hitting something hard.
"Fuck!"
Snapping her head to the side, she watched as Pete lay there staring at her, his hand clasped over his nose. She didn't think that he'd bothered coming home last night, she definitely hadn't heard him come in, but then again, she had forced her body into some kind of tear induced coma, so to be honest Pete could have come in and set a nuclear bomb off next to her head and she wouldn't have woken up.
"Oh my God, are you ok?" she winced, sitting up slightly, frowning when she realised that they had fallen asleep on top of the covers.
"Yeah," Pete shook his head. "I forgot how fierce you're right hook is though,"
Allie fought the urge to grin, remembering one night years ago when she had accidentally given him a black eye while wrestling him for the remote control.
If it was a case of Match of the Day or Sex and the City 2 hour special, she would have fought to the death.
"When did you get in?" Allie asked him quietly.
"About 3," he told her, pulling his hand away from his nose and sniffing lightly. "You were pretty much flat out so I didn't want to wake you up."
"Oh," Allie nodded, sitting up so she was cross legged and picking pieces of imaginary lint off of the duvet cover. She could feel Pete's eyes on her, but forced herself not to look up; a part of her was still angry at him for just walking out like he had done, she had been willing to stand there and talk it through, to sort it out, but Pete had to go and leave her.
"I know 'I'm sorry' sounds shit, but it's all I've got," he told her, sitting up so that he was facing her, wincing slightly when his still stinging nose caused his eyes to water.
"'Sorry' only sounds shit when you don't mean it." Allie met his eyes for the first time and he realised how red they still were and how tired she looked even though she had slept all night. His stomach seemed to lurch with guilt when he realised that he had done this to her.
"Well I do," Pete shook his head. "I was a complete fucking idiot," he told her, reaching out and cupping her cheek. "I know that now, but I just, I got scared…" he wined when he realised that something wet was dripping onto his palm and shut his eyes for a moment. He didn't need to open them to know that Allie was crying.
"Oh scared of what?" she scoffed. "Of some little theory that you, Dave and Harry somehow managed to cook up." Looking at him seriously for a moment, she pushed his hand away from her face and stood up, leaving him sitting on the bed by himself. "Do you have any idea what its like to have the person you love more than anything else in the world to make you feel as though they don't trust you?" she raised an eyebrow at him. "It makes you feel lower than shit is the answer in case that big, all knowing brain of yours was too busy trying to figure out who else is in love with me to think about it."
Pete frowned at her. "Allie, I trust you more than anyone else in the world," he stood up and gently cupped her face, holding her chin and keeping her gaze locked on his. "Don't ever doubt that, ok? Ever."
"If that was true, then why did you fly of the handle at me?" she demanded. "Why did you have to question, even for a second that there was a possibility something could happen between me and Matt?"
"Because I'm a bloke," he laughed. "And we tend to panic when we find out one of our best mates wants to shag our girlfriends,"
"What you don't think I get pissed off when we're out and I see girls eyeing you up like you're their next bloody meal?" she raised and eyebrow and folded her arms defensively. "But then I remember that it's you I'm with and that you would never ever do that to me, and you know what? I end up laughing at those girls,"
"Baby," Pete pushed himself to the edge of the bed and leant his elbows on his knees for a second, before sighing and standing up, looking at her seriously. "I know that I fucked up, and I handled it wrong. But the idea of him…" he shook his head. "Allie, I messed up." His voice cracked slightly and she relented, seeing the desperation in his eyes. Walking over to him, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him gently, laying her head against his shoulder.
"I never meant to hurt you," he told her, kissing the top of her head.
"What are you planning on doing about Matt?" she asked, wincing when she noticed how his eyes darkened upon hearing the other man's name.
"He's gone," Pete shrugged. "I think he left this morning,"
"Last night actually," Allie absentmindedly traced the lines of his tattoo with her finger tips. "He came back about 2 hours after you left,"
"Did you talk to him?" Pete asked her, trying to keep focused, but it was a little hard with her running her fingers over his chest like that. He looked up into her face when she didn't answer and then suddenly it hit him.
"Fucking hell, Allie," Pete burst out. See, there it was, the point he was making last night about her being too nice. Fucking hell, if this woman ever got mugged, she probably end up making tea for the bloke doing it and having a nice cosy chat with him about where it all must have gone wrong.
"I had to," she protested. "What was I supposed to say when he asked me why I was crying?"
"You were crying?" Pete gulped, feeling almost physically sick knowing that he was responsible for it.
"No, Pete," she laughed. "After my boyfriend of three years who recently proposed to me left me sitting on my own thinking that he's more or less expecting me to cheat on him, I broke out the margarita mix and had myself a little party."
Pete shook his head and let out a deep breath, trying to gather his patience; sensing this, it occurred to Allie that as pissed off as she was at him right now, antagonising him probably wasn't going to get them anywhere.
"Ok, look, remember when you compared it to how I would feel if Lara had feelings for you?" she sighed. "Well, I'd want you to talk to her, because I know how much it would hurt her if you just stopped. And it's the same with you and Matt," she cupped his face. "Because every time I look at you both I don't want to have to remember what amazing friends you used to be and how its all my fault that its gone."
"It's not your fault," Pete shook his head.
"Yeah, well it's not really his either," she explained, pulling him back to her when he rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath. "We, Dunham are walking proof that you have very little control over who you fall for. I know for a fact that you didn't want to get involved with me, because you would have had the absolute shit ripped out of you for dating a 'posh bird'. And as for me, I had to put up with Jack singing 'Park Life' at the top of his lungs every time I walked into the office." Pete laughed. "By the way this was before he met you and made it his life long ambition to get you on his team," she shook her head. "But my point is that you can never tell yourself not to like someone, it doesn't work that way."
"So you're saying I should just fucking, what live and let die?" Pete scoffed.
"What's so bad about that?" Allie cried. "Would it really be that much of a disaster if for the first time in his life Pete Dunham walked away from a fight? You know God forbid you don't beat the shit out of the guy."
"I wasn't going to hit him," Pete frowned as she raised an eyebrow at him.
"So if you'd bumped into him last night," she shrugged. "You would have just, bought him a beer and chatted about football?"
"Alright, fair point." Pete nodded.
"Nothing would ever, ever happen between us," she promised him, keeping her eyes locked on his the entire time. "I have never wanted anyone else but you, and yes, you know what, Matt is a nice guy. But I don't want a nice guy…I want you."
Pete grinned against his will and looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.
"Bollocks," she muttered, waving her hand. "That came out wrong."
Rubbing her hands together nervously, she clasped them under her chin and looked directly at him, taking a deep breath and trying to work out the best way to go about this.
"You piss me off," she blurted out after a moment.
"Come again?" he looked at her as though she was mad.
"You have the ability to annoy me more than anyone else on the planet, and that includes Lara. You're messy as hell, you have horrendous taste in films, you are officially the world's loudest drunk, you repeat yourself too much when you're angry, you always have to have the last word and even on the best of days you're the most indecisive person I've ever met." She laughed at the look on his face. "But fuck it, I would sooner sell my soul to the devil than change a single thing about you. So explain to me again, why I would even consider giving all that up for a guy who's just 'nice'?"
Pete stared at her for a long moment, so caught up in her gaze that he barely felt her hands reach out and linked with his. How was it that even after three years this woman still had the ability to render him speechless.
"That was some fucking speech," Pete looked at her through narrowed eyes.
"Yeah, well I couldn't sleep last night so I ended up watching Love Actually." She shrugged and caught the smirk on his lips. "Kiera Knightly never had to put up with any of this shit,"
Unable to stop himself, Pete actually laughed shaking his head at the woman in front of him as she tried her best to maintain a serious face. They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment, both of them just staring at the other.
"So live and let die, eh?" Pete looked at her through hooded eyes.
"Do this and you don't have get me anything for Christmas," she smiled.
Pete stared at her for a long moment, the look in his eyes somewhere between fear, anger and frustration; the whole time Allie simply stared back at him, feeling as though she couldn't breathe.
"So that film comment was a bit fucking low, don't you think?" he smirked at her. "You can't throw that at me every time we have a fight just because I refused to watch fucking Bridget Jones."
Allie bit her lip, trying to suppress her smile before giving up and jumping into his arms which immediately wrapped around her, pulling her tighter against him.
"I watched Football Factory," she mumbled against his neck, loving the feel of his laughter vibrating under her lips.
"Yeah, but every time Danny Dyer came on screen you started fucking jabbering about his arse," Pete hoisted her up so that she was slightly above him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck for support.
"Danny Dyer does have a nice arse," she nodded seriously. "That's not something I would joke about. I'm in the fashion industry, looking at people's arses is part of my job."
"Bollocks," Pete snorted.
"Those too, sometimes." She winked at him and then squealed at the dangerous glint he got in his eye as he tackled her to the bed.
Pete kissed her for the first time in two days…it had been two days without feeling her lying underneath him, without her mouth moving against his. How the fuck had he survived? It was at that very moment he remembered why they didn't fight.
"We're ok, aren't we?" she looked up at him with so much uncertainty in her eyes that Pete felt the familiar pain in his chest again.
"Always," he promised her, only giving her a few seconds to beam up at him before his lips descended once more.
In a way, Pete supposed that was the one good thing about fighting with someone you loved; almost losing them made you appreciate how fucking lucky you were to have them in the first place.
Matt stopped just short of the Abby's front door, taking a deep breath and wringing his hands together. He actually couldn't remember a time when he'd been this scared before; he had no idea how Pete was going to react, or how much Allie had told him, but a big part of him would have quite happily sold his soul to run away in that very instant.
"It's a door."
He whipped around and try to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest when he met Pete's eyes, the short distance between them seeming practically miniscule as he tried to get his bearings.
"What?" he wheezed out.
"Well you've been staring at the fucking thing for about five minutes so I thought I'd help you out." He snorted. "Didn't you get into Harvard for fuck sake?"
Matt laughed lightly, feeling a tiny bit more relaxed than he had a second ago, perhaps because a small part of his brain realised that if Pete had wanted to kill him, he would have done it by now. The air between them seemed thick and heavy, pressing down on top of them and forcing both men to search for something to say.
"Do you wanna grab a pint?" Pete asked him finally, shaking his head when Matt moved to walk into the pub. "I was thinking maybe somewhere a bit quieter, if that's alright with you?"
"Yeah," Matt nodded. "Sure."
Ten minutes later, they found themselves sat by the river with a pack of Fosters between them, staring out at the cold, black water having realised that the Abby was the only pub within a good five miles.
"I was gonna talk to you last night, but Allie told me you left," he nodded, taking a sip of beer and glancing at the smaller man out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah, well I figured that maybe I'd outstayed my welcome," Matt shrugged.
"Was that before or after you started having feelings for my girlfriend?"
The question hung in the air for a rather long time, Matt wincing at the hostile tone in Pete's voice; he'd seen what happened to people who pissed Pete Dunham off and he really, really didn't want to fall into that category.
"Pete, it doesn't mean anything." Matt told him carefully.
"Do you love her?" Pete asked him outwardly.
"I don't know," Matt told him timidly. "I don't think so,"
"You don't think so?" Pete nodded slowly. "Well do you think about her all the time?"
Matt looked turned to look at him for the first time since they had begun talking and immediately regretted it; the fury in Pete's eyes was like wild fire, uncontrollable and frighteningly volatile.
"Do you wonder what it would like to touch her? To kiss her, maybe?" Despite only having taken a few sips, Pete hurled his can of beer into the river and let out a wordless shout, rubbing the back of his head and trying to ease the headache he could feel coming on. "Fuck it, Matt you're supposed to be my mate!"
"I am!" Matt yelled back at him. "I never," he shook his head. "I never would have even thought about doing anything…"
"But that's not the fucking point, is it Matt?" Pete exclaimed. "The point is you have feelings for her. The woman I'm fucking marrying."
"Pete, it's nothing, ok?" he told him calmly. "You want me to say I had feelings for Allie? Ok, I did, but not any more."
It wasn't exactly the truth because there was no way that something like that would simply dissolve in 24 hours but last night with Lara he'd had some kind of…'Allie break-through'. He'd realised that he was basically wasting his time wanting something he could never have and that by carrying on like some love sick school boy, he was putting his friendships with both Allie and Pete at risk.
"Why does it bother you so much?" He laughed. "Allie's so in love with you…no one else even exists to her when you're in the room, so I think we can rule out the possibility of me being any kind of threat."
"It's not to do with her you dumb fuck, it's to do with us!" Pete slammed his hand down against the metal rails and tried not to let the pain show on his face.
"I trust Allie more than anyone else in the world," he explained, slightly calmer. "But you're supposed to be my mate, it's not her who fucking betrayed me, it's you."
"I told you nothing happened!"
"And you think that makes it alright?" Pete glared at him. "Matt, I let you in. I gave you somewhere to stay, I stood up for you when Bovver pissed all over you, and this is how I get my fucking thanks?" he laughed bitterly. "By finding out that the whole time you've been here, you've been thinking about Allie…"
Truth be told, Matt hadn't thought about it that way; even though nothing had or was ever going to happen, he had betrayed Pete just by thinking about Allie that way.
"Hit me," Matt told him, not really thinking about what he was saying.
"What?" Pete frowned, completely taken aback.
"Hit me," Matt nodded. "I deserve it,"
"Fuck off," Pete shook his head. "I'm not going to fucking slap you one just because you tell me to."
"I thought about kissing her," Matt told him, flinching as Pete's head shot up and his eyes darkened as they bored dangerously into his. "Yeah, you heard."
"Matt, I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing…"
"I used to think about how soft her skin looked, about how it would taste." Matt felt his chest tighten when he noticed Pete clenching his fists.
"Mate, I think you'd fucking best be quiet," he growled. "Before I do something we both fucking regret."
"Last night before you came home and she was crying, I honestly thought about just kissing her, just to see what she would do," he stepped forward, the pure adrenaline pulsing through his blood making him look a lot braver than he felt.
"And you know something? A part of me thinks that she would have kissed me back."
"Fuck you, you bastard!" Pete shouted as his fist connected with Matt's jaw, sending him spiralling backwards into the bench behind him, wincing as he fell to the ground and knocked the cans of beer onto the floor with him.
Pete stood above him, ignoring the all too familiar pain that was shooting through his wrist as he stared down at the man on the floor, panting angrily. To his surprise and utter confusion, Matt actually started laughing as he pulled himself to his feet, one hand cupping his jaw.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Pete shouted warily; had the Yank lost his fucking mind?
"I'm just proving my point," he muttered, stretching his mouth open and wincing when his jaw protested.
"What? That you're thick as shit?" Pete shook his head in disbelief, had he not witnessed the fact that Matt had only had about four sips of beer, he would almost swear that he was drunk. "Because funnily enough, that had occurred to me a little bit earlier."
Matt stared straight back at him. "How do you feel right now?"
"Like beating the shit out of you," Pete told him simply.
"Crap, in that case, I haven't proved anything." He laughed. "I thought that when you hit me, that you might feel a little relieved. Kinda like when I talked to Allie last night…hearing the words out loud made me think about how fucking stupid I'm being and about how even though I love Allie, I'm not in love with her." He sat back down on the bench and picking up one of the still cold cans of beer off of the floor held it soothingly against his jaw. "Unfortunately, it just took me getting fucking humiliated and then punched in the face to realise it."
Against the will of every cell in his body, Pete actually found himself laughing at the American sat on the bench, his face already starting to swell. There was only a handful of people in the world that would have dared speak to him like that, and he had to admit, he was pretty fucking surprised that Matt Buckner was one of them.
"You do realise I could have killed you just now?" Pete asked him, perching down on the bench beside him and resting his elbows on his knees.
"Yeah," Matt nodded. "But I think I could have at least gotten in a slap across the face before you beat me into a pulp." He smiled when Pete laughed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Pete. I mean you have to believe me, I…I just want things to go back to how they were. I mean is that at all possible?"
Pete rubbed his face tiredly, struggling to remember what things had been like before all this had kicked off; of course he wanted it all to go back to the way it was…if he had the choice, he'd happily erase the last 48 hours from his brain forever. He recalled the conversation he had had with Allie that morning when she had told him that we no control over our feelings. Did that mean that it was ok for Matt to feel like this? Did that mean that there was no harm in the fact that Pete was silently listing places he could hide his body?
Sighing, he turned to look at Matt who was still nursing his jaw, looking back at him with an equal mixture of uncertainty and determination in his eyes.
"Allie said you stayed with Lara last night," he narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah," Matt cleared his throat before continuing. "It was too late to go and see Shannon so…"
Pete nodded and then stood up, dusting off his jeans.
"In that case, you're probably in dire fucking need of a pint," he jerked his head towards the Abby. "My treat."
Matt looked up at him in complete shock; when he had asked was it possible for things to go back to the way they used to be, he was expecting to get laughed at, or maybe even hit again…but this, he hadn't seen this coming from a mile off.
Standing up on slightly shaky legs, Matt stumbled after him removing his hand from his jaw and deciding that he would put up with the pain in silence.
"Sorry about the uh," Pete pointed to his own jaw and Matt smiled faintly, shaking his head.
"Its fine," he laughed. "I was expecting a lot worse, believe me." He stopped walking for a moment and watched as Pete turned towards him, obviously realising that Matt was no longer beside him.
"I'm really sorry, Pete." He told him earnestly.
"I know you are," Pete nodded, regarding him seriously for a second. "And even though I know this is the part where I'm supposed to say that everything's fine," he shook his head. "I can't mate, because its not. Far fucking from it actually, but I trust Allie, and she trusts you, so…" he shrugged. "Let's just be grown ups and ignore it ever happened, yeah?"
Matt nodded slowly, unable to help the smile that stretched across his face.
"Now," Pete rubbed his hands together and winked at Matt. "Get in here you tart, and start fucking talking, because if you expect me to believe that you spent the night with Lara having a cosy little chat and doing each other's hair, you've got another fucking thing coming."
Matt laughed and followed him through the doors, the usual warmth and noise of the pub welcoming them in from the bitter wind outside.
Matt wasn't stupid, he knew that he had lost a substantial amount of Pete's trust, but he would gain it back, no matter what it took.