Observations || Stand Alone
Getting to the ball was one thing; but as delightful as it was to have all those stuffy, snobbish, rich-looking people dancing about and mingling, Peter ... really wasn't into it; his mind was elsewhere. Perhaps he was more interested in making sure his partner-in-crime Natasha was having a good time ...
... but he had lost her ... somewhere.
Where did Shelley go? He'd taken his eyes off of her for just a moment; little girl's room, perhaps? Pfft, far from it. She was certainly no little girl--not that she'd ever really been ... little ... but that was besides the point. Where WAS she?
So he took it upon himself to look for her.
Creeping into the hall, he stopped, overhearing quiet voices talking in that bumbling way that one expected in those teen romance movies that Peter avoided like the plague ... but still, one of those voices was familiar, Shelley's, so he continued to listen to their conversation from a distance, the sensitive hearing coming in handy as he peeked around the corner.
And he could sense, just had the feeling, that the boy she was speaking to was a good person. He could tell. And a slow smile crept onto Peter's face, the smile of a happy and proud older brother witnessing his younger sibling accomplish something for the first time.
He wouldn't be nosy. Nope. He wasn't going to butt in on this. If he were Roman, he might have--memories of the first time he'd really talked to Shelley, in the halls at Hemlock Grove High School, asking her about the dance ... those memories came to mind; how Roman interrupted in his protective way also came to mind ...
But this guy she was talking to? He really was a good person, someone Roman might even approve of ... if ... Roman ever thought that anyone was good enough for his precious baby sister.
Meanwhile, Peter thought she would be all right with this gentleman--let the lovely young lady have some real experiences without the over-protective older brother figure looming over her shoulder.
Quiet, he crept away from the scene, still smiling softly to himself ... that is, until he got that strange feeling of cold in the pit of his gut. Something wasn't right. Taking a slow breath, he turned his head in the direction of that sense and ... carefully and silently headed that way ...