Just Once - A Peterick Fic

Chapter 33

        If Pete wasn't in our dressing room like Andy had said, now was my chance to get ready for the show tonight and I was going to take it. Twisting the doorknob, I pushed the door open only to reveal a half naked Pete getting ready.

        "Shit," we muttered at the same time.

        I felt a hand on my back push me into the room and I stumbled forward, the door slamming behind me.

        "You're not coming out until it's showtime or you've worked it out," came Joe's voice from the other side of the door, earning an eye roll from Pete and a sigh from myself. I didn't have a good feeling about this. Pete was probably going to find out what I did in the next few moments and I would have to watch the hurt wash into his eyes like a tidal wave crashing down onto him. It would destroy him and myself, as well as our relationship.

        I didn't understand how Andy and Joe thought we could solve this in a couple hours, either. I had cheated on Pete and after he found out, there would be nothing I could say that made it better. This was going to take longer than we had at the moment to fix.

        Pete stood up, making his way over to the door and attempting to open it. Evidently they'd somehow locked it from their side because the door didn't budge. How they did it, I didn't know. Frustrated, he gave up after a bit and went back to where he'd been sitting before.

        "Well, this is fun," I said, breaking the silence that had engulfed us.

        "I get the feeling we have two very different definitions of 'fun,'" he told me, shooting me an almost angry look, one that said he was only tolerating my presence. That hurt because he was still my boyfriend after all, but I probably deserved it. He had every right to hate me.

        "Maybe so," I sighed, moving so I was sitting in the chair across from him, staring down at my hands. Joe knew what I'd done and was probably telling Andy in this very moment. That meant Pete was the only one who didn't know what a douche bag I am when he had the most right out of anybody to know.

        "So," Pete started, glancing around the room. He was going to ask, going to bring it up, I could feel it. My heart rate was rising steadily the longer he paused, the unsaid question floating in the air around us. "Gabe. What's up with him?"

        Honestly, I felt like that was an odd way to ask the question. It was like he wanted all of this to be Gabe's fault instead of mine, like he hoped against all odds that he could be mad at Gabe and treat me like a poor little victim. I wished that was the case, really.

        "What do you mean?" I asked him, wanting to avoid it, to dance around the topic for as along as possible. It wouldn't be the first time we'd danced together, not even in this sense, but I had an awful feeling it could be the last and that scared me like few other things. You're going to lose Pete because you were a douche bag and you don't deserve him.

      He shot me a look that said Really? Really?! You know exactly what I'm talking about and shook his head as if disgusted. "Between you and Gabe...things seemed a little, I don't know, tense maybe," he said, executing his best attempt at a casual tone which, at the moment, only served to convince me he knew exactly what had happened somewhere in the back of his mind.

        "Uh, yeah, maybe a little tense," I agreed, trying to make it sound like it was less than it was. He knew, though; he knew and that was the worst part of the entire situation. Pete just didn't want to admit it to himself, couldn't until he actually heard me tell him he was right, utter the words that neither of us wanted to hear me say.

      "Did something happen between you two?" he asked me and I could tell he hardly spit the words out. He wanted to know, but he really didn't at the same time. Not knowing would kill him, but knowing would hurt him like few other things.

        I sighed, hesitating a slight moment before nodding, my eyes locked on the ground. I could look up and meet his gaze right now, just couldn't. The knowing in his eyes would kill me, that I was pretty sure of.

        He sighed when he saw my nod, the action seeming to break him because his breath caught a moment in his throat. "Did you two get in a fight?" he asked me like he wanted to prolong hearing the truth. I was, in a way, thankful because I wanted to prolong having to admit it to him.

        I shook my head instead of responding verbally. I mean, I guess my kicking him off of me was kind of a fight, but that isn't why things were tense between us. Things were tense because he'd given me a hand job and I had a boyfriend. Have. He hasn't left me yet.

        "What happened?"

        The words barely seemed to leave his mouth before he choked out a sob, a tear falling from his face and to the ground. I hated to see him like that, couldn't describe how much I hated it, and it was worse because I'd caused it. I'd caused the man I love more pain with one action than he deserved to go through his entire life. He knew what I was soon going to tell him and that was the worst part of all of this.

        "Well, that's a long story," I told him, my voice coming out more even than I thought it would. How I did it, I didn't know.

        When he responded, the shakiness in his voice made up for the lack of movement in mine, his voice cracking halfway through. "I think we've got plenty of time." He had a point, but god did I not want that to be true.

        "Well, uh, it all happened on New Year's Eve," I started, finally looking up to watch his face. He had guessed that much almost immediately after he realized something was up, already knew it, but hearing me start to tell the story aloud was an entirely different thing and his face changed for the worse, his features seeming to fall.

        "What happened, though?"

        "Well, Jon and I were in the kitchen for a fair portion of the night and we were drinking like everybody else, but I'm pretty sure that was the most drunk I'd ever been. I'm actually surprised I remember what happened well enough to be relaying the information right now," I told him, forcing out a laugh that wasn't returned.

        "Anyway, after that, I went out to go do shots with you guys and when we were finished with those, Gabe pulled me away. I thought he was you, I really did. I could've sworn I saw your face instead of his," I told him, my voice cracking at this point. I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it through recalling the events without getting emotional. "He pulled me off to one of the bedrooms."

        As the last word left my lips, he stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in, throwing his hands out in a motion I thought meant stop, gesturing for me to shut up because he couldn't bear to hear more. He wouldn't look at me, wouldn't even face my direction as he reached up, running a hand through his hair and leaving it there, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. I could hear the sobs wracking his body, could see his shoulders shake and seeing him like that hurt like few other things ever could.

        "Pete, we didn't sleep together-" I started again before he cut me off with another gesture not dissimilar to the first one. He just wasn't facing me this time, having to move his hand behind his back for me to see what he was doing. That's when I decided staying silent was my best bet. 

        We didn't speak again that night, not even on stage. He wouldn't even look at me as we got ready to play, wouldn't show me his tear-stained face and red-rimmed eyes. Maybe that was for the best; I didn't know. All I knew was that I had irreparably damaged the man I love and I regretted it like nothing else I'd ever done.

A/N: Okay so wow this is super duper late and I'm super duper sorry pls don't hate me ily still. the best excuse I've got is that my bf has been stealing all my free time and you can't hate me for that, right? right. *crosses fingers hopefully*