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Christian
He placed his hand over his heart and looked at her with faked hurt apparent on his features. "Sydney, you wound me," Christian answered, deadpan, before dropping his hand back to his side. On the inside, however, he thought the lack of extended invitation to her 'friend' made him less of a threat than previously thought, and therefore no longer worth the effort taken to tease and bait her with. Watching as she shook out her hair, he found it hard to occupy his mind elsewhere, and found that his gaze lingered on Sydney longer than he cared for. He had made considerable strides in the last eight years, he thought, going through college and on to graduate school and secured himself a decent job in New York. But somehow, standing beside her, he found himself regressing back to age nineteen, and everything that made their lives so difficult had fallen away for this moment in time.
But the reality of it all was Christian could will things to change all he wanted but there would always be someone standing in the way; Elizabeth Donahue, Eden Jordan, and most importantly, themselves. It was the only logical reason he could give her if she dared to ask why he had taken a step back from her the last time. Their relationship had taken many paths, from friends to lovers to enemies and back again, but each time they came together, he could feel a little more of his armor falling away and her growing closer to him. It wasn't a feeling that he relished; if anything, it had frightened him, made him feel powerless and weak. He had spent so much peddling games and drawing her into them against her will that he had no concept of how to proceed on level-footing. Of how to be in a relationship, of how to ... love her, if that was even what it was. "I think you'll find my company as charming as ever," he smirked when she looked back at him. "Though, it remains to be seen how your company fares for the evening, with cheek like that."
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