"Susan! What are you doing?" Peter pulled away from the girl's embrace and looked at her incredulously. She had been telling him how difficult it would be to have her father in jail, and the next thing he knew she had grabbed him and kissed him.
"I thought... don't you...?" She stammered, her eyes filling with tears. Peter could see she was extremely vulnerable and had to be careful what he said next.
"Susan, listen. You don't want someone like me. I sleep on park benches."
"You do?"
"Yeah. Sometimes in the library when they don't catch me in there. I take showers in the train station, and if I didn't have a job at a bakery, I'd probably have to beg for food."
"So, you're homeless?"
"Yes, right now I am."
Susan wrinkled her nose, but then her eyes grew wide and she stepped closer to Peter.
"Wow, Peter, that's so rugged and exciting."
Peter sighed and stepped back. "Susan, you're a very attractive girl, but I'm simply not attracted to you."
"What? That doesn't make sense."
"Yes, it does. Look," he said, picking up a jelly doughnut, "on the outside, this doughnut looks delicious. But I know that it's filled with cherry jelly, so I wouldn't choose it."
"You don't like cherry?"
"No, not at all. It makes me gag."
Susan gasped indignantly.
"A lot of people like cherry, though," Peter added quickly. "Loads, actually. Just not me."
Susan bit her lip. "But what if..."
"Besides," Peter cut in, "I'm still in love with someone else. I'm trying to get over her, but I think it's going to take a long time."
Susan nodded. "So, what is she? A strawberry doughnut?"
"No, she's like that cake over there," Peter said, pointing to a huge chocolate and raspberry confection by the window.
Susan pouted, but she didn't press the issue further, and more importantly, she didn't try to kiss him again.
Peter arranged some pastries and prepped the meats for lunch, then went back into the small office to try to make sense of the bakery's finances. He'd been pouring over the records for the past couple days, and he'd already made a few changes to ease reporting and increase profits. He could see why Mr. Glockenhuber had tried to collect insurance money - it was a hefty sum - but even on its own, the bakery brought in a decent amount of money. It wasn't enough to live extravagantly, or to fix an elaborate, underground world, but Peter imagined one could live comfortably on the income. Now he knew that he'd have to work here for decades in order to earn enough to fix Neverland, but he figured he'd take his meager paycheck and buy some essentials. Maybe they could patch Neverland back together with some creativity. He was suddenly nostalgic for his home. He'd been away for almost a week, and he decided he'd go back tomorrow after work to see how things were going.
He filed away a few papers and then went back out to the shop to get ready for the busy lunch hour, which always filled him with a bit of excitement. It had been a little stressful ever since Mr. Glockenhuber had been arrested and left the bakery with Peter, but he was surprised that it was also a lot of fun.