Coming Swoon (Brunch Bros #4)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“I have to think about it” was not the response Peter ever thought he would give his agent if presented with the opportunity to work alongside his mother.

“What do you mean, you have to think about it?”

Peter used the celery stalk in his Bloody Mary as a spoon, stirring his drink until it made a little tornado, and then he let go of the vegetable, letting it spin around in the glass.

“I have to think about it,” he reiterated, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth. “I’m supposed to be going on vacation. I haven’t had a proper vacation in…so long that I can’t actually remember.”

“You’re the one that wanted to chase the EGOT,” Cleo reminded him, her sullen displeasure that he wasn’t ecstatic about her call loud and clear over the phone. “You wanted to be booked and busy, I got you booked and busy. If you want to sunbathe with models on a yacht in Saint-Tropez, I can stop giving you scripts. But Peter, this is what you’ve wanted . This role is Oscar fodder. This story is Oscar fodder. The entire PR campaign would be an easy layup for Inger. Getting to work with your parents, swooping in at the last minute to save the production, and the book it’s based on?—”

“I know what book it’s based on. I’ve read it.”

He’d purchased that book while waiting for Sybil in the bookshop where they’d met. After reading it, he thought it was perfect for his parents’ production company and gave it to his mother. Well, not so much gave as snuck it into her luggage before they went on vacation. If he’d handed it to her outright and said, “I think this should be a movie,” he didn’t know if she would have read it.

Their relationship around work was…complicated.

“Why are you being so resistant? You can reschedule your vacation.”

He plucked the leaves off the celery stalk. Technically he could reschedule his vacation. But he didn’t want to. He’d been waiting twelve years to be with Sybil again, and the last year and a half had been excruciating knowing exactly where she was and only having a few scattered hours to fit in all those years of paused conversations. If he was working, he couldn’t focus on her. Shoot days were long, and if they’d stuck close to the source material, he’d be emotionally exhausted at the end of the day. How was he supposed to juggle the role he’d wanted for his entire life with convincing the love of his life to give him another chance?

“If you don’t want it?—”

“I never said I didn’t want it,” Peter interjected. “I said I needed to think about it.”

“I can give you two hours,” Cleo said, “then I need to get back to them so they can move on down the list.”

“Ah, so there’s a list.” Jealousy stung like a bee. Even if he didn’t take it, he didn’t want anyone else to have it either.

“This isn’t The Invisible Man . Someone has to do it.” Cleo sighed dramatically. “I thought this would be the easiest call of my career. All these years and they never considered you for one of their movies, even when your mother wasn’t directing. All these years of submitting you anyway, over and over, in case they’d changed their minds. Now they come crawling, and you have to think about it. When is this chance ever going to come around again? What if it never does?”

Peter sank down in his chair, the weight of indecision heavy on his shoulders. What if the chance to work with his parents never came around again? But what if the chance to make things work with Sybil never came around again? Could he do both? Either way he was going to be in Crane Cove. At least if he was there for work he seemed a little less desperate. But non-desperate men didn’t send flowers every week for a year and a half without so much as a thank you or a back off, you fucking creep .

Across the small airport lounge table, Dempsey tapped their wrist to remind him that they had a plane to catch.

Fuck it. He could do both.

“Fine. I’ll do it. Whatever number they offer, just take it.”

“Wonderful. Can you be there the day after tomorrow?”

“I can be there this evening,” Peter said, pushing back his chair. “I’m getting on a plane right now. Have a nice day, Cleo.”

“You’re not going on vacation, are you?” Dempsey asked after Peter hung up his phone.

“It’s a working vacation,” he said. “A workcation.”

Dempsey rolled their eyes and shouldered their backpack. “Does this mean my Peter-free weeks are canceled?”

“I don’t see why. How much trouble can I get myself into?”

“You bought me a plane ticket so I could fly with you to Portland, only so I could turn around and come home the same day. It’s not how much trouble, it’s when .” Dempsey dug their phone out of the front pocket of their jeans. “I’m booking myself a flight for next week. Some poor production assistant can probably babysit you until then.”

“Am I ruining your plans?” Peter asked, guilt twisting his stomach.

“Not really. Only ruining my delusion that I could have plans to ruin.” Dempsey shrugged. “Have someone in production email me the call sheets so I can upload them into your calendar…Actually, no. I will email production.”

They walked with purpose to their gate. When discussing travel plans with Graham—or more specifically, watching Dempsey and Graham plan his trip in their group chat—there had been a lot of back and forth about the merits of private travel versus commercial. Obviously private was much more expensive, but it would have taken less time and removed a lot of the hassle of being in public. Peter didn’t mind saying hello to fans, taking photos, and signing random bits of whatever was thrust under his nose. The problem was that he didn’t know how to stop interactions. He could feel the awkward nervousness radiating off of people and he wanted to put them at ease, so he talked…and talked and talked. Dempsey was his assistant and not a qualified bodyguard, but one of their duties was to ensure Peter made it from Point A to Point B on time, so they often acted as a quasi-protection specialist, marching him through airports across the world. Besides the financial aspect, the issue with private travel for this trip was that the so-called airport they would have landed at close to Crane Cove didn’t have any rental cars.

So, commercial travel it was for this trip. Los Angeles to Portland, and then a few hours driving down the Oregon coast to Crane Cove where his best friend and former roommate Graham owned a hotel with his wife Eloise.

Boarding was almost complete when Peter and Dempsey arrived at the gate. Dempsey handed the agent their boarding passes, and then they went down to the airplane. The flight attendant greeted them, and then did a double take, which Peter pretended he didn’t see. Dempsey pointed to the empty seats in the second row of first class, and Peter took his seat by the window. He always sat in the window seat because it made him less inviting to talk to and he wouldn’t distract the flight attendants from their duties.

At least until he got up to use the bathroom.

The moment the plane was airborne, Dempsey had their headphones on and their laptop open, typing thirteen miles a minute. Peter shifted in his seat, never more restless than when he was required to stay put. He could read or watch a movie, but instead he stared out the window, watching the southern California coastline slip away as the plane climbed into the clouds.

Sharp, cold spikes of anxiety pierced his stomach and dug deep. What if this was the time Sybil told him to stop coming around, to never contact her again? He couldn’t slink off to lick his wounds or walk into the ocean because he’d accepted a job. A job that required him to stay within a five-mile radius of the woman who held his heart in the palm of her perfect hand.

Peter gave Dempsey an unanswered glare. Wasn’t it their job to keep him from making rash decisions? Technically decisions about his career was Cleo’s job, but she had a financial interest in keeping him working. Dempsey got paid whether Peter was working or not.

“Mr. Parker-Green, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to take your order before we closed the door. Can I get you anything to drink?”

The flight attendant stood in the aisle next to their seats, pen hovering over a small tray, with a bright smile plastered on her face, but she was flushed and he noticed her hands were trembling. She was very young, probably no more than twenty- three. Wasn’t it odd that after he’d crossed thirty he’d started to consider anyone too young to rent a car as “very young” and anyone under thirty as “young”? Was this a universal experience? Or did other people perceive time in a different way?

The plane hit a small bump, and it jostled Peter back into focus.

“A sparkling water, please, with just a tiny splash of cranberry juice,” he said, and held up his hand like he was holding a box or a glass. “Just a little flick of the wrist with the cranberry.” He demonstrated. “And they’ll have a Diet Coke with lime. Thank you.”

She wrote down the orders, then took in a soothing breath. “I do have a light breakfast today, but choices are a bit limited?—”

“Whatever you have left over is fine,” Peter interjected with a reassuring smile. “We’re not picky.”

Her face was bright red as she nodded, then turned so quickly to the pair of seats across the aisle she almost tripped over her own feet.

Dempsey moved one of their headphones off their ear. “Did you order for me?”

“Diet Coke with lime and whatever they’ve got on hand for breakfast.”

“Do you want to switch jobs? I could get paid to look pretty and you can make coffee runs.”

Coffee . Peter’s heart rate kicked up a notch. “I don’t mind making the coffee runs on this trip.”

“Because running to crafty is so hard,” Dempsey deadpanned.

“Actually there’s a great coffee shop in town?—”

“No.” Dempsey took off their headphones. “You can’t just run into a coffee shop while you’re working. You’ll be in there for a minimum of forty-five minutes. If you want coffee from there that badly, I will get it.”

He needed a different approach. “Should I sponsor a food truck to say hello—oh, maybe a coffee cart.”

“You really have coffee on the brain.” Dempsey opened up a notepad on their laptop and typed up the ideas. “I can start doing some research. What’s the name of this coffee place you’re obsessed with?”

“Stardust,” he answered, then added, “You don’t need to research this. I can ask Graham. He has to know who in town could do mobile catering.”

“If you can get me some names, I will set it up.”

Peter bit his tongue to stop himself from arguing. Sometimes Dempsey’s ruthless efficiency was a curse. If they had their way, he’d lose a perfectly innocent excuse to go talk to Sybil.

The flight attendant came back with her tray, this time filled with drinks. She held out a rocks glass with barely pink bubbly liquid inside to Peter, her hand shaking. He quickly intercepted the drink before any of it spilled and she expired on the spot. Her hand trembled less when she gave Dempsey their Diet Coke.

“Thank you,” he said with a warm, friendly smile. Her face turned a concerning shade of red and she rushed back to the galley.

Dempsey inspected their Diet Coke. “She forgot my lime,” they said and reached for the call button. Peter pushed their hand away.

“Don’t.”

The last thing he wanted was to be labeled as a high-maintenance asshole. He never knew who was taking photos or recording, and negative headlines got a lot more traction than good ones. It wouldn’t take a lot to twist something as innocent as asking for a lime into a discourse that could conquer four different social media platforms with ease.

“When she comes back with our trays, ask for another lime. Don’t tell her she forgot,” Peter whispered.

When the flight attendant brought them their breakfast trays, Dempsey politely asked for another Diet Coke with lime because they’d guzzled down the first one, and when it came back, there was indeed a lime included this time.

Peter scrolled through the onboard movie selection while he picked at his yogurt and granola. Two of his films were in the library, but he wasn’t in the mood to watch himself. Then a thumbnail caught his eye. It was the first film his parents had ever done together, the one where they met. The classic British mystery had a large cast and their characters were never alone on screen together, let alone romantically involved, but there was a strange, crackling chemistry between them. Or maybe he imagined that because he knew how their real-life story ended. He selected the film and put on his headphones.

Most people would only ever see young versions of their parents in photographs or a few grainy home movies. If he wanted to, Peter could see his mother from her childhood through adulthood. This film was his father’s first major film after cutting his teeth on the London stage. Arthur had been twenty-five and Charlotte a fresh-faced nineteen with world-weary eyes. She played a loud, brash American heiress, which Arthur always teased her as having been typecasting at its finest, and he played a vicar with a checkered past, which couldn’t have been further from his actual person.

It would take fifteen years from the time they met for his parents to get together. They didn’t work together again until after they were married, but they’d run into each other every few years at events. When his mother went to rehab, his father wrote to her to tell her that if she ever needed a friend he was always around. She didn’t answer that letter. But two years later when they quite literally ran into each other on a London street, she asked him to have dinner, he blew off an important meeting with the Bond producers, and two months later he called her on a rainy Tuesday afternoon and asked her if she wanted to get married. She said yes, and since then they’d never spent more than two weeks apart.

A lump formed in his throat, as it always did whenever he watched this film, because this film was the reason he was alive. It was the start of his parents’ epic love story. Then hot tears welled in his eyes because maybe someday his children would watch the movie he was headed to make and they’d say, “This is why Mommy and Daddy are together.”

It was drizzling when they touched down in Portland. The gray, gloomy sky was a far cry from Los Angeles. As soon as the aircraft was parked and the door was opened, Peter’s day went into fast-forward. An airport representative met them in the jetway and took them down to the tarmac where a black SUV was idling. His two large suitcases were being loaded into the back.

“Not letting me loiter in baggage claim?” Peter teased Dempsey as they buckled up in the backseat.

“No, because I have a plane to catch,” they replied, digging around in their backpack. They produced a folder and handed it to him. “There’s printed directions, non-emergency numbers, roadside assistance, and a copy of your insurance cards.”

“You worry about me too much,” Peter said, taking the folder and leafing through it.

“I worry the correct amount. If I didn’t do this and something were to happen, it would be my fault. This is exactly what you pay me for.”

It was exactly what he paid Dempsey to do. Very early on in his career he’d recognized that he was a professional disaster human and needed help. Dempsey had been a production assistant on a TV show he’d done a guest spot for, and he’d poached them very quickly.

“Did you know it’s almost our ten-year anniversary?”

“Don’t remind me. You were supposed to be a bridge job to a real career.”

“But you just can’t quit me?”

“I feel responsible for you. You’re like a baby duck that imprinted on me. Plus you pay me too well, and I don’t know where else I’d ever get the kind of vacation time you give me.”

Their SUV pulled into the private plane terminal adjacent to the airport and parked. The driver got out to unload Peter’s bags.

“I rented you a mid-level sedan. Very safe, good gas mileage, and it won’t make me cry if you scratch it.” Dempsey opened their door and got out. Peter followed. “Please call me when you get there so I know you didn’t die in a ditch.”

“Because if I die, where else will you ever find a job this good?”

“Exactly.” Dempsey shouldered their backpack. “Can you behave yourself until next week?”

“I’ll try to only create those minor messes you love to clean up,” Peter promised with a wry grin. Dempsey rolled their eyes, and he broke into a full smile. “You miss me when I’m not around and you know it.”

Dempsey reached up and put their hands on his shoulders. “You are the reason I have gray hairs. I cannot wait until you find someone to love you so we can share responsibilities and talk about you behind your back.”

Warmth rolled through Peter’s body as his brain quickly concocted a supercut of a feature-length fantasy about how wonderful and cozy a life with Sybil would be, but all the heat pooled in his cheeks in what was probably a brilliant blush.

“Don’t hold your breath. I’ve been told I’m only tolerable in small doses.”

Once his rental car, a sensible black sedan, had been sorted and his bags loaded into the trunk, Peter hugged Dempsey tightly.

“Do you need a ride back to the airport?”

“No. I’ve got it covered. You need to get on the road so you can get there before it gets dark. Call me after you’re settled. I mean it.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Peter said in a goofy pirate voice and saluted like a drunken sailor, triumphant at the slight smirk that hitched up the side of Dempsey’s mouth.