AN: Appreciate the continued support. See you on Tuesday.
Tris and Eric had grown much closer, and even though it sometimes scared both of them with how connected they seemed, they both kept living in the moment and working on their relationship. However, in the back of each of their minds they each had their moments of doubts. Neither had been brave enough to voice them to each other, and definitely not to their friends who remained split on their true support of the couple, so the feelings of doubt festered in both of them.
They both continued to push almost all of their worries and feelings aside, both knowing that they were playing with fire when it came to their unique situation.
"I can take Saturday and Sunday off next week. Will you be able to get coverage?" Eric asks her a few weeks after returning from his first trip to Chicago. He hears tapping on the keyboard of her office computer.
"I can shift schedules around. I am also off at five on Friday for Tori's boyfriend's Halloween party." She replies.
"I can work a morning shift and just leave straight from the shop." He offered.
"That's perfect."
"Done. I'm also scheduling myself to work the closing shift on Monday so we can get breakfast before I have to head home." He replies.
She smiles at his excitement. They may only get a couple of days here and there, but they made the most of their time together.
"Does this mean you'll come to the Halloween party at Bud's house?" She asked.
"She's really dating a guy named Bud?" Eric chuckles.
"His government name is Ulysses. Do you blame him?" Tris asks and Eric cracks up.
"Ulysses? Poor dude. I won't ever judge his nickname again. Do I have to dress up for this party?" He asks as he adjusts the schedule for his shop.
"Not if you don't want to." She chuckles.
"What are you dressing up as?" He asked, leaning on his elbows on his desk.
"I'm keeping it simple. Doing something like a pin-up girl." She replies.
"You mean with the red lips. The bandana in your hair..." He trails off.
"Yup." She replies, "But I also thought about Sandy from Grease." She giggled.
"Okay, for that maybe I'll bring my leather jacket." He replies.
"You'll be my Danny?" She asked excitedly.
"I guess you'll have to wait and see."
"Whoa." Eric says when Christina opens the door at Tris's house, "didn't someone tell you this was a costume party?" He smirks, taking in her pointed hat, long tattered black dress, exaggerated makeup and long fingernails.
"I'm a witch, asshole." Christina says as she pulls him inside.
"Yeah, so what's your costume?"
"Hardy, har." Christina smirks at him, "Let me guess, Tris talked you into a couples costume. You look John Travolta at the end of Grease."
"Does this mean she looks like Olivia Newton-John?" He asks.
"You tell me, stud." Tris says from the staircase, and he gapes at her.
A tight, off the shoulder shirt showing all kinds of tattoo covered skin and her fabulous boobs, leather pants that look painted on, showcasing her plump ass, her wavy hair carefully curled and styled, bright red lips, and red heels.
"Here, you dropped your chin." Christina says as she gestures towards him, "I just did her makeup, you'd better not mess it up."
"You look amazing." He says as he throws his arms around her.
"So do you!" She takes in his tight blue jeans, white t-shirt that shows his rippling chest and the black leather jacket. His eyebrow piercing looks even more prominent with his usually wild curly hair slicked back with gel, and he's clean shaven, "I've never seen you without the beard." She trails her fingers over his smooth cheeks.
"Don't get used to it, this is just for tonight." He smirks at her.
"You two don't even look like yourselves." Christina says with a smile as she takes their picture, "Will has the Uber and he's on the way here."
The party is in full swing when they get there, and Tori gives Eric a huge hug when she sees him. She quickly introduces him to the dark-haired, heavily tattooed man next to her.
"Eric, this is my boyfriend, Bud. Bud, this is Eric." Tori says and Eric shakes Bud's hand.
"Hey, good to meet you. You're Tris's friend she met out in Vegas, right?" Bud asks.
Eric furrows his brow, surprised at the other man's use of the word friend, and before he can answer Tori shakes her head and Bud looks confused.
"What do you mean by friend?" Eric finally asks.
"He's Tris's husband," Tori says, and Eric doesn't miss the surprise on Bud's face, "Uriah and Zeke were the friends we met in Vegas."
"Husband?" Bud gapes.
"So, Tris didn't tell you that we're married?" Eric asks and Bud shoots his girlfriend a panicked look.
"The girls ran into a girl they went to high school with, they'll probably be there a while. Let's go grab a beer." Will says as he grabs Eric's shoulder and before Eric can say another word Tori has dragged Bud away.
"Does Tris not tell people she's married?" Eric asks Will, and the other man cuts his green eyes toward him.
"Where did that even come from?" Will asks as he grabs two bottles of beer from the ice bucket.
"Bud had no idea I was Tris's husband." Eric says when Will passes him the opened bottle.
"Tori only recently acknowledged that Bud is her boyfriend. She's been seeing him off and on for a while, even before that Vegas trip. She's always kept him at arm's length, and I honestly just met him a couple of weeks ago myself. It wouldn't surprise me if he didn't know about you two, I've been dating Christina for a couple of months now and he thought my name was Billy the entire time. I actually was starting to think Christina had another boyfriend named Billy until Tori admitted she'd really been keeping Bud away in an attempt to deny how she felt about him."
"That is ridiculous." Eric shakes his head.
"That's Tori. Apparently she's very commitment phobic." Will shrugs and they eventually join a game of darts.
Christina and Tris mingle, and talk. They run into many of their coworkers from the shop, and even friends from high school, but Tris stops in her tracks when she meets a familiar set of eyes across the room.
"Why didn't anyone tell me Peter would be here?" She asks Christina quietly.
"I have no idea. Let's find Tori."
They find their friend in the kitchen, cheering on a game of beer pong and when Tori sees their faces, she knows somethings wrong.
"What happened?" She asks as they huddle in the hallway.
"Peter is here." Tris says.
"As in your ex?" Tori asks, "Oh my god where?" They ease into the living room and Tori sees him, "I had no idea. All Bud told me is that he was inviting some of his friends and coworkers. They must work together, because I've never seen Bud hang out with him. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I just haven't seen him in a while and was caught off guard. It's no big deal, I've got this." She replies.
"Are you sure? I can have Bud ask him to leave." Tori offers.
"No, I'm fine, we're all adults here. I'm going to head to the bathroom and then find Eric." Tris replies.
It's only a matter of time before she's eating her words.
"Hey." Peter said as they both ended up in line for the upstairs bathroom when the downstairs one was too busy.
"Hi." She replies.
"You look great. You've gotten a lot more ink since I last saw you. It suits you." He smiles.
"You've still never gotten one?" Tris asks and he chuckles.
"Nope. Still have that needle phobia. You find a way to work with that and I'll pay you a visit." He says in a flirtatious tone, and she realizes he's at least a bit drunk.
"How's Val?" She asks and he cringes.
"We broke up a few weeks back. It just wasn't working." He replied.
"I'm sorry to hear that, you two were together for a long time." Tris said as the line slowly moved.
"Yeah, she moved, took a job out of state. We tried the long-distance thing, but that shit never works. I didn't want to move because my job and life are here, she didn't want to come back because she thought it was her dream job. We never could find a working compromise, so we just decided to end things amicably." He replies.
Her stomach drops, hearing a situation that's so similar to her and Eric, except Peter and Valerie had the foundation of a three-year relationship under their belt before going long distance.
"I'm sorry." Tris said and he shrugged.
"It's for the best. The more I thought about it, I realized if we truly loved each other, a decision on who would move where wouldn't have broken us up." He replied, "Sorry, enough about me, what happened with you and the pretty boy you were dating? I saw him here with someone else."
"Oh, we broke up back in April, we were definitely meant to just be friends." Tris replies.
"Damn. I thought with as long as you two had known each other it would have gotten serious real quick." He presses.
"Nope, he and I just weren't compatible." She answers vaguely. It's not her place to talk about Tobias's addiction.
"Would you want to get dinner sometime? Catch up? My sister's boyfriend owns Castillo's, we could go there-"
"Wait, Kelsey's boyfriend owns Castillo's? Christina and I love that place!" Tris gushes.
"Yeah? Well, how about we meet out there one night after work? Kels would love to see you." He says as he moves towards the bathroom.
"I'd love to see her, I'll let you know." She replies.
"My numbers still the same, text me." He says, "I can't believe you and Tobias broke up. I thought for sure he'd have already married you by now. He always had a serious thing for you when we were together."
"God no, Tobias and I were only a couple for around six months." She laughed.
"So, you didn't marry me, or him, are you just holding out for the right person, maybe the one who got away?" Peter asks her, his green eyes soft and his lips curled up in a grin.
She realizes he'd set her up for this exact conversation, and she'd foolishly walked right into his trap.
"Who might that be?" Tris asks without thinking and he leans closer to her.
"I know who it is for me." He replies, "She's standing right in front of me, without a boyfriend, and I think the timing is finally right."
"You don't mean that." She chuckles nervously.
"You don't think so? You don't think that somehow fate brought us together here? You're no longer with Tobias, Val and I are done. We're older, wiser, and maybe finally ready to make the commitment to each other that you weren't ready for before."
"I wasn't ready for marriage; I didn't want to break up with you." Tris argues. She knows she shouldn't be having this conversation with both of them in different levels of intoxication, but she can't seem to help herself.
"Are you ready for marriage now? Because I still have feelings for you, and if you're ready for something serious I'm all in, Tris. Seeing you tonight, it's a gift, and I'm not letting it slip away."
She can smell the alcohol on him and says nothing, her nerves are threatening to spill out and she's taken aback. She never expected to see him, and certainly not have a conversation where he pours his feelings out to her.
Feelings that he's expressing because he's drunk and lonely.
She realizes for the first time since their breakup that she feels nothing other than a sense of nostalgia for an old friendship. He's too intoxicated for a decent conversation, and she's hoping that once he's out of the restroom he'll just make his way back downstairs and forget this even happened.
"Peter, you're drunk, and I'm buzzed. This isn't a conversation we should be having."
"Do you ever regret the way we broke up?" He counters.
"We didn't break up. You dumped me." She reminds him, falling right back into the trap.
"You didn't want to marry me."
"Just because I didn't want to get married didn't mean I wanted to end things." Tris replies. Her frustrations are spilling over, and she knows they shouldn't be having this conversation.
"You didn't want to end things?" He scoffs, "It sure didn't seem that way when you moved on so quickly."
"I didn't move on, I was hurt and I made some poor decisions." She replies.
"Poor decisions?" He asks with an edge to his voice, "He was my best friend, Tris. I expected it from him, he didn't give a fuck about hurting someone's feelings when a girl way out of his fucking league came on to Jim. But you... it made no sense. You were never like that. Why Drew?" He asks and her stomach drops. She knew it would eventually come up if she and Peter were to ever talk again, the absolutely petty decision she'd made to sleep with Peter's best friend in an effort to hurt him the way he'd hurt her was awful, and unfortunately it sounds like she hit her mark.
"That was a mistake. I wanted you, and you broke my heart. You hurt me so much when you just dumped me without as much as a conversation. I wanted you to hurt too. I was wasted, and he was there and willing." She admits.
"You literally sought him out." He replies angrily.
"I know I did and I'm sorry. I am so sorry for that Peter, no matter what I shouldn't have ever done something so callous and cold."
"At least you didn't try to bullshit me." He replies.
"I have no reason to. I made a mistake, and I can own it."
His green eyes bore into hers and he moves closer to her, "I miss you, Tris."
"You're drunk, I'm buzzed, please let's not do this. I think I'm a fine example of how nothing productive ever comes from making decisions while drunk." She reminds him.
"So when I'm sober you'll finish this conversation?" He grins at her.
"Maybe." She hedges.
The bathroom door opens, and Peter moves away from her, "Did you want to go first?" He asks.
"Yeah, I'm dying, thank you." She smiles and heads in.
She does her business and when she's washing her hands, she looks at herself in the mirror. Maybe she did look a lot different than when Peter last saw her, but she also looks happy. And that happiness is coming from her husband, who's likely looking for her downstairs.
She shouldn't be having this conversation with Peter.
She heads out and Peter immediately speaks to her, "Hey, wait for me, I'd love to hang out, maybe get a beer."
Tris is about to answer, but when she turns towards him, she sees Eric leaning on a wall, watching her.
"Um, no thanks." She says as she sees the look on her husband's face.
"Come on, Tris. Just a beer." He replies and she shakes her head and walks away from him.
Peter makes eye contact with the guy leaning on the wall across from him, wearing a costume similar to Tris's, who looks a cross between angry and hurt. Peter knows the feeling all too well, and he sighs as he enters the bathroom, realizing that Tris may not be as single as she appeared.
Tris waited on the staircase for Eric to come down, knowing she had to say something. She finally sees him and when he approaches he pushes past her and bounds down the stairs.
"Eric, wait, please." She called after him, "Please don't act like this."
"Leave me alone." He called back to her, but she was determined to get him to talk.
She followed him through the house, trying to keep up but getting caught in the crowd of people slowed her down and she lost track of him.
"Dude, you're my tattoo girl. Hey, it's my tattoo girl." A drunk man says as he blocks her path, "You look sexy, tattoo girl."
"Excuse me." She says as she pushes past him and looks around for Eric, not seeing him anywhere in the house.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Christina asks and Tris turns to her practically in tears.
"Where's Eric?" Tris asks frantically.
"What happened?" Christina asks.
"I have to find him." Tris turns away from her friend and Christina grabs her hand.
"He's probably with Will. Let's go find him." She pulls her through the crowd and finds Will talking with Tori, "Hey, have you seen Eric?" Christina asks.
"He went outside." Tori says and she gestures towards the front door, "Tris, I'm sorry about Bud-"
"I have to go." Tris turns away, ignoring her friend and heading out the front door, looking everywhere for Eric.
