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The day after John signs the contract and accepts Stiles’ bride price, Stiles sneaks into his study and takes a look at the paperwork. He’s not supposed to know who he’s marrying, but while Stiles is willing to go along with the tradition of arranged marriage for the good of his own and his father’s futures, he’s not about to go into this blind.
He heads straight to Lydia’s house with the name written across his palm. They look him up, Peter Hale, a successful software engineer, which gives Stiles hope they might be on the same level. He’s not marrying some dinosaur. They’re more or less within the same age bracket. And this guy is hot. He’s ticking a lot of boxes. Stiles thinks he might actually have a flutter of excitement inside him.
Then they dive a little deeper. Time for social media stalking. This is where Peter’s computer literacy might make things difficult, but this isn’t their first rodeo and they can follow a breadcrumb trail no matter how sparse.
He has an Instagram that looks professional and polished, but going through the accounts his family follows they manage to find his finsta. It’s locked, but the screenname lets them find more accounts that belong to him, some less secure than others.
That’s where they find goofy pictures and family shots and guilty pleasures. And no red flags, much to Stiles’ relief, even if his taste in movies is questionable. They can work on that.
It’s also where they find out where his favourite coffeeshop is, an independently owned place in Beacon Hills that Stiles has walked past several times but never gone into. He’s not much of a coffee drinker. Not usually anyway.
“You’re going to go there, aren’t you?” Lydia asks. Stiles just smirks at her. “Don’t get caught.”
Peter seems to favour weekday afternoons for his coffee breaks and so Stiles tries his luck on Wednesday. The place is quiet but not in that ghost town kind of way. It has atmosphere still and enough clientele to make it feel friendly. One of them is Peter, sitting near the back. Stiles smiles to himself and orders a decaf mocha and a chocolate muffin for good measure.
He takes the table beside Peter’s. He’s just as good looking in person as he is in his photographs. No facetune required. That’s one concern out of the way. Stiles expected him to be on a laptop or a tablet, but instead he’s engrossed in a book. Somehow that makes him even more appealing to Stiles. He knows his way around technology, but he’s not ruled by it. When he looks away from his page to pick up his coffee, Stiles sees his chance.
“Hey, do you know the wifi password?” he asks. His opening line would have worked better if Peter had been using a device, but you can’t have everything.
“Chalkboard,” Peter responds curtly, nodding towards it.
“Oh right,” Stiles says, as though he didn’t spot it while he was ordering. “Thank you.”
Peter doesn’t acknowledge him, just lifts his cup and turns back to his book. It’s a little off-putting. He looked much more charming in those private photos he shares with trusted people. Stiles expected warmth from him. The man in front of him is closed off and abrupt. Maybe Stiles is just reading too much into it.
Stiles puts the wifi password into his phone and catches up with his social media, his eyes straying over to Peter every so often, trying to get a read on him, but he apparently has eyes for nothing but his book. Stiles Googles the title. It’s about a dysfunctional family. He hopes that’s not foreshadowing.
A waitress comes over to Peter’s table, picking up his now empty cup. “Can I get you anything else today?”
“Maybe one of those apricot pastries to go,” Peter muses, his face warm and his eyes bright now.
“I’m sure we can arrange that,” the waitress smiles back.
“Thank you, Nicole,” Peter says as she makes her way back to the counter. There’s something so heartfelt about it and Stiles remembers an old piece of advice. Don’t judge your date by how they treat you, judge them by how they treat the waitstaff. Or in this case, don’t judge your future husband by how he treats a random stranger asking an inane question in a coffee shop, judge him by how he treats the waitstaff. Evidently, Peter treats them with respect, which is more than can be said for a lot of people.
The waitress returns with Peter’s pastry wrapped up and Peter pays her for it and then leaves a hefty tip on the table after she’s stepped away. Generous, grateful, considerate. Stiles is definitely warming to this guy. He thinks maybe it’s going to be okay.
Peter gets to his feet, pulling on his jacket as he steps away from his table, bringing him closer to Stiles. “I’m Peter, by the way,” he says. “With the amount of time you spent staring at me, I thought you might introduce yourself.”
Stiles feels himself blush crimson. “Oh, uh, I’m Scott,” he stutters. He can’t use his own name, that would be a total giveaway.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Scott,” Peter says earnestly, his gaze lingering a little too long, a little too suggestively, before he finally steps away, Stiles watching him leave. That ass is worth watching.
Stiles tells himself that his curiosity is sated, that he’s going to be good now and follow the rules, but every time he goes near that part of town, he feels the coffeeshop drawing him in. Peter left things open. He left them on a cliffhanger. Stiles knows how the story ends of course, with them meeting again at the end of the aisle, but would it be the worst thing in the world if they met before that?
Peter is sat at the same table as before when Stiles finally acknowledges how weak his self-control is and returns to the coffeeshop. Stiles orders another decaf mocha, it was so good, and then sits himself in Peter’s radius, offering a smile when Peter glances up at him.
“Hey.”
Peter is writing in a notebook today but he closes it after Stiles’ greeting, pushing it aside. “Hello,” he says, the word somehow leading. “I thought you might be back.”
They chat, not really about anything deep or meaningful, but it still feels like cheating to Stiles. He’s not supposed to know anything about his husband before the ceremony. That’s how they bond, all those getting to know you things, discovering each other, but it’s kind of too late by then. Getting a head start has never really hurt anyone in life. Stiles always used to sneak a look at the presents under the tree before Christmas Day.
As they part ways, Stiles tells himself it’s the last time, as though he has any integrity. It becomes a regular thing. On the fourth meeting, Stiles ends up sitting at the same table as Peter, their chats becoming awkward across the gap between their tables.
He likes Peter. He likes him a lot. He likes his confidence and his cleverness and his sarcastic sense of humour. It’s like they were made for each other. Every time Peter calls him Scott, Stiles feels a little more twisted in his gut. He’s lying to someone he finds himself caring deeply about. But maybe Peter is lying too. He’s flirting with a guy in a coffee shop when he’s getting married in a few weeks. It’s emotional cheating at best. He’s never mentioned his upcoming wedding and there’s no way that’s not deliberate. There’s something lurking just below the surface, consumed by the way they’re so drawn to each other, despite the rest of the world. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Stiles hopes Peter will see it the same way.
A week before the wedding date, Stiles knows this has to be the last time they do this. He sits opposite Peter, so tempted to tell the truth, and he can see it in his eyes that Peter is fighting the same battle. They want to be honest with each other, but honesty is never the easy answer and there’s so many things against them, these two people who have met in a coffeeshop and fallen for each other in a society where that kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. The fact that they’re going to end up together anyway doesn’t so much to comfort Stiles in the moment, because he wants this. He wants Peter to choose him, not get him by default. That option was signed away a long time ago though.
They talk around all the things that matter, edging ever closer across the table until their cups are touching, and then their fingertips. It makes Stiles’ breath stutter, his heart beat a little faster. The moment is so close to unfolding. He wants Peter to break, even though it would mean his future husband showing himself to be unfaithful. Peter doesn’t give though and so Stiles leaves it hanging there, dangling precariously like the Sword of Damocles.
Peter is paying for the wedding so he gets to make all of the decisions. All Stiles has to do is turn up. The ceremony is held outdoors on the Hale estate and the colour scheme is blue. It’s all very rustic and laidback. A classic car comes to pick up Stiles and his father along with Lydia, the maid of honour. She’s wearing a beautiful dress and Stiles is grateful that Peter has style because he’d never hear the end of it from Lydia if he didn’t.
They walk around the side of the house, Lydia on one side of him, John on the other, the reception area coming into view. It’s simple but romantic, the tables nestled among the trees, bunting and lights strung through the branches. It’s so empty though, matching the feeling intensifying in Stiles’ gut. This could either go very right or very wrong. He hopes he hasn’t fucked it all up before they’ve even started.
They turn the corner to the back of the house, the ceremony all ready to go. All that’s missing is him. Peter is stood there, at the other end of the rows of mismatched seats, his back to them as he faces the officiant. Their eyes are not supposed to meet until they’re at the altar together. It’s a little bit too late for that. He feels the panic clawing up inside him but John and Lydia just guide him forward, not giving him a choice.
Lydia turns to face him. “Good luck,” she says. It’s not generic well wishing. She knows exactly what a potential disaster he’s set in motion. Hopefully nobody else has to find out.
He watches her walk down the aisle ahead of him and then it’s his turn, gripping onto his dad’s arm as they match each other step for step, and he feels the warmth through his suit and luxuriates in what might be the final moment where everything’s ever okay.
He stands beside Peter, so many sets of eyes on him, but there’s only one that matters. Stiles doesn’t dare look up for a moment. He doesn’t want to face losing this man that he’s fallen for, embarrassing his dad, putting them right back in debt. Suddenly he can’t think of anything but worst-case scenarios.
He takes a breath, steeling himself with determination, and finally lifts his head. Peter looks confused. Confused and questioning and maybe a little bit… happy?
“Scott?” Peter mouths at him.
Stiles shakes his head, bracing himself for the inevitable shitstorm he’s brought down around them, but instead Peter smiles. His face creases in amusement in the uninhibited way it always did across the table in the coffeeshop. When it was real. When there were no expectations. When it was just them.
“I don’t like blind dates,” Stiles says by way of explanation.
Peter gives a little breath of laughter, reaching out to take hold of Stiles’ hand. He squeezes it tightly, nothing but affection in his eyes. “I couldn’t agree more, darling.”