Wreckless ( Ddlb ) *Complete*

Texts

Peter watched as Emmett pulled his phone out of his pocket for about the 800th time since lunch. He stared at it a moment, shut it down and stuck it back in his pocket.

"Locke, I'm not trying to be nosy or anything but is everything all right?" Maybe someone was in the hospital, or having a baby. It was the end of the month and he didn't exactly want to do 14 state inspections but he would if Emmett needed to be somewhere else.

"Oh, yeah boss, sorry. I'll uh, get to work on the Caravan."

"No rush, have a soda. I wasn't implying you're slacking off, I just want to make sure you're okay to be at work. If you have something going on, I can cover the last minute inspections."

"I know, why do they always wait till the very end of the month? Then if they fail..." The rest didn't need to be said. It was always their fault somehow when the customer's car got a fail sticker. "But no, I'm good."

Oh. It was so obvious. He'd never seen the look on Emmett's face before but it looked pretty much the same on everyone's and since he had worn it on his own face for months while he was trying to get a date with Tristan, he recognized it immediately. "A guy?"

Emmett's beard couldn't hide his blush. "Yeah. It's nothing, just sort of hoping he might text."

"Or you could text him" Peter offered.

"I did, and he answered, but I got the feeling I should back off."

"Okay, into the office" Peter requested, turning and walking in. "I just have one question first; is this Mr. Roadster?" Emmett didn't have to answer that question because Peter smirked. "I see. You're really lucky Tristan isn't here, you know."

Emmett couldn't help but chuckle at that. Yes, Tristan was certainly not going to be quite as reserved as Peter was being. Granted, Tristan might be more help if he had any idea what was going on in Finnegan's head.  "You're probably right."

"Do you want tell me what he texted you and I can try to help?"

Actually, maybe that would stop the merry-go-round that was going on in Emmett's head. "All right, it's like this; when I dropped the car off on Friday evening he was really bruised from the airbag and looked pretty rough. So Sunday I texted and just asked how he was feeling. He wrote back..." Emmett pulled this phone out of his pocket and opened it up to read it to Peter verbatim even though he had it memorized. "Much better, thanks."

Peter blinked a few times, desperately trying to figure out which Part of that text made Emmett think that Finnegan was upset with him. "I'm not sure I see what you're getting at."

Emmett knew he was probably playing it safe, maybe too safe, but he didn't want to hound the guy. "Thanks. That's sort of final, isn't it?"

"Or he appreciates you checking on him." He knew his experiences with Tristan certainly weren't normal and that he had stepped right up to that line and maybe even put a toe over it a few times, but his kitten had been a special case. Still, he hated to see something not happen because Emmett was nervous. "I just think that if you're interested, which you seem to be, it wouldn't hurt to try. Why don't you just ask him out? It seems to me like you're just torturing yourself."

"I am, I'm just not very good at this."

Peter shrugged. "Practice makes perfect."

"He's out of my league, Pete. He is so put together, I can't even tell you. Apparently he's vice-president of his company. He's got a swanky apartment in Federal Hill and that sweet-ass car. I've got a two bedroom row house and a ferret. I don't know..."

Peter was more than a little bit confused. "I'm from out west, a ferret is what?"

"A little weasel type thing. Furry. Cute. Want to see a picture?" Emmett already had his photo album open, looking for a decent picture of Marten.

"Oh! I know what a ferret is, I thought... nevermind."

"Oh shit, like slang for something? It probably is but I'm not cool enough to know what it means either." Emmett made a mental note to look it up on urban dictionary when he got home.

Peter decided to give the poor guy a break; he knew how hard dating was.  "So other than Mr. roadster, did you have a good weekend? It was pretty busy in here Saturday, wasn't it?"

Busy hadn't begun to describe it. "Crazy. Had to park some across the street, we had so many. Went to the bowling alley after and was fairly lazy yesterday. Do you bowl? They have pool tables and arcade games too, air hockey."

"I actually enjoy bowling even though I'm not very good at it. I don't know if Tristan has ever been." Peter had enjoyed showing a few new things to Tristan since he began dating the boy but it had never come up. Tristan was either going to tell him he was a pro and had a bowling alley in his basement or that he'd never been; there was very rarely any in-between with Tristan. He was going to ask.

"Well you two are welcome anytime, I can get you a good lane."

Peter couldn't help himself. "I'll make you a deal. You invite Mercedes and we'll make it a double date."

*** *** ***

Finnegan looked up from his laptop at 7:45 that evening, glancing through his office window to see that it was already dark. He wasn't finished for the day but he was finished; once the letters started swirling around on the screen it was best to take a break and start fresh the next morning.

He grabbed his bag and his suit jacket and then re-considered, picking up his desk phone and checking his voicemail to make sure that he hadn't gotten a message from Emmett while he'd been on the conference call with Japan. No,nothing.

Well, obviously nothing was gonna happen there. He'd thought yesterday, when Emmett reached out to him, that the texts might go somewhere but he'd only ever sent the one and hadn't responded to Finnegan's. Oh well, it was one less complication. Honestly, Finnegan was too tired to care all that much. It was only Monday and he had a really long week ahead of him.