by J. M. Page
"I don't know what you're talking about," Michael said, adopting his best nonchalant expression. Wendy had to hide her smile as she pushed the broom. She'd heard that same defiant refusal a dozen times throughout the years with Michael's crushes. And without fail, everyone one of them crushed him.
"She's not interested," John said again. "It's obvious she's in lo—"
Michael coughed abruptly and John snapped his jaw shut, sending a quick glance to Wendy.
"Whatever. You know what I'm saying. You're wasting your time," John said.
Wendy tuned out the squabbles of her brothers and broke out the vacuum cleaner — yes, apparently even far off planets needed vacuums; not everything on Neverland was as worry-free as Peter said.
The hum of the vacuum drowned them out and left Wendy alone with her thoughts. Peter had told the boys that responsibilities and worries didn't exist on Neverland, but that couldn't be further from the truth. His woes with the theater were evidence enough of that. She didn't know how he managed to keep going the way he was. Always stressed, always worrying, wondering if he was going to make it to the other side this time. Constantly in the shadow of the sword looming just overhead. It must be exhausting. All she ever had to worry about was the twins and that was more than enough for her.
She wanted to help him. More than want, she felt compelled to help him. He seemed so lost and Wendy prided herself on helping lost boys. Her brothers had been lost once upon a time, too.
But what could she really offer him? Wendy wasn't talented like Tink. She wasn't a genius like her brothers. Or charismatic like Peter.
In fact, the only thing Wendy had ever shown any real skill in was organizing. She'd gotten very good at organizing things when she was all alone taking care of the boys, keeping them on track in school, taking care of doctor's visits and medications and all the paperwork she had to do every year. If she wasn't organized, it would have been impossible.
She sighed, hopelessness crowding into her chest. Organization wasn't going to help her help Peter. He needed performers and she didn't think color-coding and alphabetizing was going to pack the house. It was hardly entertainment.
Still, she resolved to find some way to help him. There had to be a way. And until then, she'd just keep cleaning and try to make sure the boys stayed focused and didn't do any more damage.
As the end of the week neared, Wendy still hadn't seen much of Peter. After the day of the dust storm, he'd holed himself away in his office, only coming out long enough for rehearsals. She'd tried to talk to him a couple of times, but Peter always hurried off, too busy to give her the time of day. Wendy began to wonder if his odd behavior was about more than the theater's woes. If maybe he was acting so strange around her because of the way they'd opened up to each other. Did he regret talking about his past with her?
Or did he just see her the same way so many others had throughout her life: a charity case? The thought made her stomach churn. She couldn't stand the idea of him avoiding her because he didn't know how to conjure up empty platitudes or whatever. She didn't need any of that. She needed...
Well, she didn't know what she needed. But she wanted to talk to him and she was determined to make him face her. He hid away in his office, selling tickets and booking promotions and doing whatever else it was he did in there, but he couldn't hide forever.
She'd spent all week cleaning; after they cleared away the mess left by the thugs, she'd found plenty of neglected nooks and crannies in need of a thorough scrub. But now, she was out of things to clean and without a job in the show, she was feeling pretty useless again.
That was how she wound up outside Peter's office, one hand hovering above the door, poised to knock. She just wanted to ask him if he had another job for her, that's all. She wasn't going to confront him about blatantly avoiding her, or ask him why he was so afraid of feeling. She was just going to calmly ask if he had any tasks for her. That's it.
She took a deep breath to steady herself and as she exhaled, the door slipped open just a fraction. She lowered her hand and pushed it wider with one fingertip.
In the middle of the room, Peter sat behind his desk, his head buried in a deep drawer as he rummaged around. But it wasn't Peter that caught Wendy's attention when the door opened. It was the appalling state of his office. She audibly gasped at the mountains of papers, random bits strewn across the room, mingling with what looked like ordinary trash. Posters from shows gone by drooped from the walls, feebly hanging on by a corner or two. It looked like a tornado had come through and shown no mercy.
In the middle of all the chaos, Peter dug through his desk — she assumed it was a desk, but it was hard to tell with all the junk piled up on it — his shoulders tense and his movements frantic. He didn't look up at her gasp and kept muttering frustrated curses under his breath, pulling out more papers and tossing them onto the floor behind him.
Wendy bounced on her toes, trying to psyche herself up for breaking into this moment, and finally, she cleared her throat.
"What?" Peter barked, looking up with a scowl. Wendy recoiled like his words were a physical slap, but she held her ground.
The moment Peter's eyes landed on her, his whole expression softened and he smiled. That smile alone was enough to send Wendy's heart off to the races, but she needed to focus.
"Is this a bad time?" she asked, not taking another step into the maelstrom of disorganization.
Peter looked around the room, clearly overwhelmed, but eventually shook his head. "No, I can just never seem to find what I'm looking for," he said.
Wendy grinned, a sudden idea blooming in her mind, taking root. She leaned against the door jamb, her arms folded, ankles crossed, casually soaking it all in. This was the first time since she'd met Peter that he was the lost one and she was the one with the answers. It felt good.
"I might be able to help with that," she said. "If you want, I mean." Better to play it cool. He had been avoiding her all week — though that smile he greeted her with just now made her question if it was as deliberate as she'd assumed.
Peter lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side, a ghost of a dimple appearing in one cheek. "Oh yeah? How are you gonna do that?"
Wendy's smile grew and she chuckled. "By giving this office what it's clearly never had: organization."
Chapter Sixteen
Peter
Peter didn't know how much he believed in Wendy's so-called 'organization,' but she seemed like she needed to be needed and Peter felt oddly compelled to make her happy. It was a strange feeling, but one he couldn't shake. It wasn't even unpleasant, just distracting and he couldn't afford distractions.
That was the problem with this woman: she always distracted him. And the more he tried to stop thinking about her, the more he couldn't. She'd wormed her way into his brain — into his heart? — and he couldn't rid himself of her. During rehearsals, he saw her in the balcony cleaning, or in the wings, rearranging props. He saw her far more than she saw him. He couldn't stop seeing her. He'd tried to avoid her, but it killed him to only get a glimpse and only made matters worse. The harder he fought against it, the deeper she burrowed under his skin.
And the thought of her now, in his office, touching all of his things, seeing every bit of his life on display, her fresh floral scent permeating his space and filling his head. It drove him insane. He didn't know why he'd agreed to do it other than that cocky smirk she'd sent his way. He'd nearly turned to putty in that moment. He'd never expected to see Wendy looking so haughty and confident as she had when she offered to organize his office. It was intoxicating.
He had to distract himself. Had to pull his thoughts away from this siren somehow. So he rounded up the twins for an impromptu rehearsal. They'd made a fair bit of progress and even invented a new trick or two that Peter thought the crowds would enjoy. He'd grown rather fond of the boys in the short time they'd known each other. They were so enthusiastic, so willing to learn, and always amusing. He'd really lucked out with
those two — he couldn't ask for better proteges. That sister of theirs, though, she was trouble.
And there he was again, thinking of Wendy unbidden.
They wrapped up their rehearsal hours later and the boys made a break for it, complaining of rumbling stomachs. Peter couldn't wait to be finished either, but not for a hunger in his stomach — he was hungry for something altogether different.
He stopped in front of the closed door to his office and raised his hand to knock, stopped, narrowed his eyes at his own hand, shook his head, and reached for the knob. The moment he opened the door, Peter was exceedingly glad he hadn't knocked. If he had, he might not have been treated to the sight of Wendy humming to herself, swaying as she dropped papers into his filing cabinet.
Peter didn't even remember he had a filing cabinet.
He watched her a moment longer, smiling at the candid look of her in her element. She was free and unworried in that minute and it was beautiful.
"How's it going in here?" he asked, giving himself away. He could only be a voyeur for so long before it felt wrong.
Wendy popped her head out of the filing cabinet and smiled. "Take a look for yourself. I'm just about done. Everything's labeled. I'm pretty sure your label maker had never even been used," she said, looking slightly offended at it.
Peter raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure I don't even know what a label maker looks like. I have no idea why I'd even have one."
Wendy shrugged. "It was useful in any case."
Peter strolled around the room, examining the clean surfaces and neatly labeled drawers. She'd somehow taken the chaos and disarray of his life and made sense of it.
"You did all this in four hours?"
Her smile took his breath away and filled him with the urge to do something crazy. Something reckless and impulsive. "Pretty good right? With the twins, I learned how to clean really quickly."
Peter dragged his eyes away from her lips and nodded. "Very impressive."
A flush of pink colored her cheeks and Wendy looked away, busying herself with filing though she really just seemed to be rifling through the folders without paying attention to any of them.
"I'd like to thank you somehow," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. A thought had been nagging him ever since he first started showing her Neverland, and now seemed the perfect time to act on it.
"Oh?" she asked. "That's really not necessary, I'm more than happy to help."
He took a step closer to her, now close enough he could reach out and touch her if he was so inclined. He wanted to, but not yet. "It is. Let me take you to dinner. I have the perfect place in mind."
Wendy's jaw dropped and she looked like she was going to argue, but then her lips curved into a sly smile and she gave him a sideways glance. "With the whole gang?" she asked.
He shook his head, taking another step closer to her. "No, Wendy. Just us." His heart hammered against his eardrums, but he kept his expression carefully neutral. He couldn't let her see how crazy she drove him.
Her smile curled higher, her eyes glittering. "This kind of sounds like a date," she said.
He didn't deny it. How could he? She wasn't wrong, though the realization that he was asking her on a date was a little shocking. Over the years, there had been no shortage of women vying for his affections, but Peter had never been interested in any of them. None had captured his attention quite like Wendy.
"So, will you come?" he asked, his voice raw with his need for her to say yes. A date with Wendy seemed like the perfect way to shake himself free of the lingering feelings and what ifs. Until he indulged in the impulse a little, he'd never be able to stop thinking of her. If she would go on this date with him, he'd see that she wasn't all that different or more special than any other woman on Neverland. And then he could get back to focusing on his work. Like he should've been doing all along. Get the show up and running. Get his life back. That's what he needed to focus on, but until he could convince himself to stop daydreaming of Wendy's sparkling eyes or teasing smirks, he'd never be able to focus. It was a sickness.
She was a distraction, but one he'd have to give into at least momentarily.
"Yes," she said, closing the filing cabinet drawer. "Give me an hour?"
Peter didn't trust himself to say anything. Even to move. He managed a stiff nod and Wendy hurried from the room. She left a trail of her flowery scent in her wake and Peter blew out a heavy sigh, sinking into his desk chair.
That woman was going to be his undoing. He was certain of it. But what a sweet way to go.
He flattened his palms on the desktop, being able to sweep his hands across the surface for the first time in as long as he could remember, without scattering a whole mess of papers around. His fingertips glided across the shiny wood — he couldn't have even told you what the desk was made of before she cleaned it — and down the drawers, tapping the labels with a smile. She was something else, really.
His hand stilled over the handle to the second drawer and he opened it slowly, holding his breath. He pushed back the files and found the edge of the false bottom, lifting the panel with shaking fingers. He hadn't even thought about this compartment in ages, and now he was opening it. He knew better, but he was so on edge, so anxious. Just a little taste would help so much. If she hadn't found it.
In the dark recesses of the hidden compartment, Peter felt the plastic baggie and took it in his hand, holding it, weighing it, considering it. He didn't pull his hand out. Didn't dare look at it. He took a deep fortifying breath and dropped it. He should get rid of it, but one never knew when an emergency would crop up.
But that emergency was not today. He'd come too far to give it all up now. He'd go on this date, prove to himself that Wendy was just another girl, and go back to being himself. It would all be fine.
An hour later, Wendy descended the stairs in a pretty blue dress that nipped in at her waist and flared out at her hips, swishing around her creamy legs with every sway of her hips. Peter swallowed, his throat suddenly drier than a desert.
"You look amazing," he said, extending an arm to lead her toward the door. Wendy looked down, bashful and pink.
"Thank you. I bought it for opening night, but I figured this was a special occasion, too. Can you believe my credit card works here?"
Peter laughed. "I'd be more surprised if it didn't. Planet Neverland is a tourist destination, love. Taking people's money is the highest priority."
She smiled and clutched his arm a little tighter as they stepped into the lower gravity of the surface streets. "Are you ready for the show tomorrow night?"
Peter considered it and nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be. It'll feel good to be out there again, and I think we've got a great line-up."
A cab waited for them at the side of the road and Peter opened the door to usher her into the self-driving vehicle.
"I know the boys are really looking forward to it," she said.
Peter said nothing, trying to think of a way to steer the conversation away from her siblings. He wanted to know her. But she always seemed to want to talk about her brothers. If he'd cared that much, he'd have asked them on a date. But he didn't say any of that. He knew how important they were to her. Like him and his show.
So, instead of replying, they spent the cab ride in silence, every minute extending further than the one before, Peter cursing himself silently the whole way. He'd spent so long not being interested in any woman that now he was, he had no idea what to do with her.
The cab took them to the top of the mountain that overlooked the city, where there was a holdover hotel from the old days. Once upon a time, it had been the crowning jewel of Neverland, but now it was more like the best kept secret. On the top floor of the hotel, there was a restaurant with the best views of Neverland. Period. He'd never seen his city look as beautiful as it did from the rooftop at Kensington.
"This is where you're taking me?" Wendy gasped, tilting her head back to look at the tall tower of the hotel.
Peter
smiled, slipping an arm around her waist. "You haven't seen anything yet."
Inside, the restaurant itself was surrounded with full glass walls, giving an unobstructed view in three hundred and sixty degrees. He'd thought Wendy looked beautiful before, but here, in the glow of the city, she was even more radiant.
"Peter," she sighed, rushing to a window, her hands pressed against the glass, "this view is incredible."
Peter stood back a few steps, admiring the view of her leaning into the glass. He nodded, unable to take his eyes off of her. "It is," he agreed.
He let her look a little longer before he said, "Come on, let's go to our table, the view is pretty spectacular there, too."
She followed, letting him pull her chair out for her, teasing him again for his chivalry.
"That's what you do on a date, isn't it?" he teased back, feeling so much lighter in her presence. All his worries seemed insignificant when Wendy was around. How did she do that?
She shrugged, her face going crimson. "I guess I wouldn't know."
It was Peter's turn to be struck silent with shock, his mouth agape. "You've never been on a date?"
Wendy plucked at the linen tablecloth, not meeting his eyes. "There wasn't a lot of time for it... With the boys... You know?"
"They could handle themselves for a couple hours while you went on a date," Peter said, but even as he did, he didn't know why the thought bothered him. The idea of Wendy being on a date with someone else was horrifying, so why was he advocating for it?
She shook her head, twirling her wine glass now, her attention tuned into the rich ruby liquid. "You don't understand. I have to be there to take care of them."
Peter didn't dare mention that she wasn't there supervising them at that very moment and they were probably fine. That seemed like a surefire way to end their date early.
"So explain it to me," he said, leaning forward, his elbows on the table.