Coming Swoon (Brunch Bros #4)

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Crane Cove, Oregon

The lobby of the Crane Hotel was bustling with activity, but Charlotte somehow spotted her.

“Sybil!” she shouted. Sybil was tempted to act like she hadn’t heard her but the woman was fast. Charlotte was within acknowledgement range before Sybil had made a decision.

“It’s busy here,” Sybil said in lieu of a greeting, putting her hands in the pockets of her corduroy overalls. Why had she worn overalls? She looked like Pippi Longstocking.

Charlotte glanced around like she hadn’t noticed the chaos. “Oh, yes. Move-in day for the rest of the production. Speaking of the production, did you have any time to consider my offer? I checked with accounting, and I can bump up your pay to two hundred and fifty dollars a day.”

Sybil spied Eloise working at the front desk, but her friend was too absorbed in work to notice she was in the room. She wished she had Eloise with her. Or that she was negotiating for Eloise instead of herself. It was easier to be brave for other people.

“I’ve thought about it,” Sybil began, “and I’ve checked in with some of my employees that would be covering my absence. Two fifty a day is nice, but if you only need me twice, I’ve lost money putting people on the schedule that don’t need to be there. So I need some kind of guarantee. A minimum amount of days I’m getting paid for even if I don’t get called in.”

Charlotte arched an eyebrow, and Sybil understood why she’d played princesses and queens.

“Most people are just grateful for the opportunity to be on a film set.”

Sybil shrugged one shoulder, even though her stomach was churning at the possibility she’d pushed too far. “Based on our conversation yesterday, you need me more than I need you.”

Charlotte stared her down, and it took every ounce of self-control Sybil had to steel her backbone and not squirm. Then, Charlotte sighed, defeated.

“It’s a deal,” she said and held out her hand. Sybil shook it and was surprised by the iron grip. “You’ll need to talk to the production manager and coordinator, and their office is…Oh, fuck, I forgot.”

A nervous laugh bubbled out of Sybil’s mouth. She would have never expected a foul word to come out of someone that looked like Charlotte Parker.

They were rescued from their mutually awkward moment by Arthur, who joined them looking every inch an English Literature professor emeritus on holiday. All he was missing was a pipe.

“Sybil, dearest, I didn’t think you ever left your charming cafe,” he said. “Speaking of, you didn’t happen to bring any coffee, did you? I’m hankering for a cup.”

“You’ve already had three cups,” Charlotte reminded him. “I don’t understand how your heart hasn’t exploded yet.”

Sybil tried to keep her face neutral, but the smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth was strong .

“No coffee today,” she told him, “but Peter is sponsoring a coffee cart soon.”

“I knew having children would pay off some day,” Arthur said. “I’m glad my son has excellent taste.”

“Could you help her find the production office? She’s going to be standing in for Madelyn.”

His face, which was already cheerful, brightened considerably. “Splendid.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we off to see the Wizard?”

Sybil understood right then that Peter had never stood a chance at being normal with a father like Arthur. It was somewhere between strange and comforting that in forty-some-odd years, his antics would still be adorable and charming.

She threaded her arm through Arthur’s and was relieved when he didn’t try to skip through the lobby.

Velda and Verna were like bookends at the ends of the table they occupied. The paperwork was long and boring, they took a picture of her that amounted to a mugshot, and then was told at the end of it all that she needed to stop by the office Friday at four to pick up her call sheet for Monday. When she enquired about email, she learned that Velda and Verna preferred paper copies and didn’t trust email because emails got hacked.

“That explanation could’ve been an email,” Sybil muttered as she and Arthur exited the temporary office.

“An office supply store loves to see them coming,” he said with a wry grin. “They’re a bit stuck in their ways, but their ways work.”

“I will not question the process again,” Sybil promised. “Mostly for my own sanity.”

Arthur pushed back the sleeve of his sweater and checked his watch. “I am about to be late for a conference call. Do you know your way out? ”

“It’s a hotel, not Ovid’s labyrinth. I think I can find a door that leads out.”

Arthur examined her with intense curiosity. “You know Ovid?”

“You’re going to be late,” Sybil reminded him. If he pried hard enough, she might have slipped and told him she’d happily listened to Peter ramble about how A Midsummer Night’s Dream was an adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses during one of their long walks where he’d had an arm around her shoulders and she’d had a hand in his back pocket.

“If I don’t see you for coffee soon, I will see you on Monday,” Arthur said and, after a moment’s hesitation, squeezed her shoulder affectionately.

Sybil watched his rangy form disappear down the hallway and around a corner. She wished she didn’t adore the old man so much.

She turned to go the opposite direction, even though the shorter way was the way Arthur had gone, and there was Peter, maybe twenty feet away. He looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

Then a smile dawned on his face, bright as a new day.

“I was wondering when I would see you again.”

There was something she’d seen once about how bodies remembered—or maybe how they kept score—except her body didn’t just remember, it had cataloged with librarian efficiency every single feeling Peter had ever caused. Every ache, good or bad, was filed away neatly and recalled in their entirety. Her body remembered in equal measures the lightness of love and the crushing weight of heartbreak.

“Are you following me?” she asked, unable to force the necessary irritation in her voice to keep him away. Peter closed the distance between them while her feet remained rooted to the floor.

“I would’ve needed to know you were here to properly stalk you,” he said, his voice pitched low so his words were for her ears only. Goosebumps grew on her arms as her stomach fluttered. “Believe it or not, I was looking for the gym.”

“Graham didn’t tell you?”

“He did…and I forgot.” Peter put his hands in the pockets of his joggers. “I can’t ask him again. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“It’s across from the pool,” Sybil told him. “Follow the smell of chlorine.”

“You always were clever.”

The twinkle in his eyes scrambled her ability to think coherently, so she fumbled for a topic.

“Did you really just happen to be running by my house yesterday?”

Peter took a hesitating half breath and his mouth opened to speak, but then Velda or Verna exited the production office.

“Peter!” one of the Vs exclaimed. “How are you?” She didn’t wait for an answer and instead turned to Sybil. “I’ve known him since he was hip height and under foot. He’s a good egg.” And then she did the universal matchmaking eyebrow wiggle, like Peter and Sybil were even in the same universe of eligibility.

“Don’t listen to her,” Peter said, and wrapped his knuckles on his head. “I’m a little cracked. Velda, where are you headed?”

“The dining room. Verna and I are a little peckish.” She patted her stomach and laughed. “Don’t be a stranger, Peter.”

She left in search of food, but then two more people wandered down the hall, and Sybil had enough. Once the most recent interlopers were out of sight, she grabbed Peter’s sleeve and tugged him into the nearest cleaning closet. The motion sensor light flickered to life as the door closed.

The closet was small, stocked with disinfectants, wood polish, and garbage bags. The bigger ones were upstairs, on the floors with the guest rooms. But a couple of vacuums made the space tighter than she’d anticipated so that she was toe-to-toe with Peter, her sense of smell overwhelmed with cleaner and his cologne. It made her nerves fray around the edges.

“Why were you at my house yesterday?” she demanded.

Peter was reading a label behind her head so she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention. He sighed.

“I heard you,” he said, looking down at her with the kind of calm, gentle patience that made her want to scream. “I was trying to organize my thoughts.”

“Don’t make up a story.”

“I’m not,” he promised, and crossed his heart. “I wanted to see you. I miss you. And I needed to talk to you about the coffee cart.”

Talking business was good. Business was safe. Business popped her hopeful heart like a balloon.

“I left the estimate for you with your mom. Was there a problem?”

He shook his head and a little piece of blond hair fell out of place. Sybil clenched her hands into fists so she wouldn’t brush it back into place.

“No problem. I’m fine with the numbers. Curious about what happened to the paper, though.” He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Crumpled, torn, and a small splash of coffee.”

“The coffee wasn’t me, and the tear was your mother.”

“But the crumpling was you?”

“Your mother startled me,” Sybil explained. A nagging worry she’d had since Arthur first set foot in Stardust rose from the back of her mind. “Do your parents know about us?”

Peter pursed his lips thoughtfully, and then cautiously said, “Yes and no. They know bits and pieces about us, but not that the ‘us’ in question is you and me. I—” He paused, and looked down at where the tips of their shoes were touching. “I used to think you’d be able to fill in the blanks yourself. Someday.”

Why the fuck did she pick a closet? There wasn’t enough space to run away and there wasn’t enough air to breathe. She knew from her time volunteering as an accident victim for the Crane Cove Volunteer Fire Department that her chest wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.

“Everything I said before Graham and Eloise’s wedding is still true,” she said. “As far as anyone else is concerned, there was never an ‘us.’ They don’t need to know about London.” Sybil drew in a breath that was like trying to inflate concrete. “The next few weeks are too important for me. When I’m here, I’m working. I don’t need you trying to distract me.”

“I can keep us a secret,” Peter said in a low, velvet tone. His fingertips brushed her forearm, and Sybil felt that tantalizing touch between her legs. The body remembered. “But if I’m distracting you, it’s because you want to be distracted.”

Her mouth and throat were dry, so her words caught as they came out. “I can’t afford to be distracted.”

“What’s so distracting?” he asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. It took the entirety of her willpower not to lean into his touch like a cat starved for affection. “Are you wondering if we’d still be good together? Or remembering how good we were?”

Her body remembered, and so did her mind. The closet melted away to a red London phone booth, rain bouncing furiously off the top. Her heart beat in time with the twenty-year-old version of herself she barely recognized, racing so fast she thought she’d faint before he kissed her. Unable to breathe because she wanted him to so badly, scared that an inhale would break the spell. She put her hand on his chest, not to hold him back but to see if he was as affected she was. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Forceful and rapid under her palm. He cupped her cheek, his long fingers able to grip the back of her neck and then?—

The door swung open and Sybil jumped backward, her back colliding with the metal shelves. Cleaning products rattled.

“Fuck!” Kevin shouted like he’d seen a mouse.

“Kevin!” Sybil bellowed. “Don’t do that. Jesus.”

“Do what? I opened a door to get a barf kit and almost had a heart attack.”

She squeezed around him and out into the hall. There was air out there. She could think straight if her brain had oxygen. Too much Peter and bleach had confused her.

“Sybil!” Charlotte’s voice from the end of the hall jolted her like she’d touched a live wire. “I’m glad I caught you. If you have a few minutes, wardrobe can squeeze you in to see if you fit into Madelyn’s costumes.”

“Don’t you mean they can fit me in to see if I can squeeze into Madelyn’s costumes?” Sybil deadpanned half-heartedly. She walked quickly toward Charlotte, not wanting her to catch sight of Peter if she hadn’t already. “Where is wardrobe?”

“I have an overeager PA who is dying to take you,” Charlotte said, putting a gentle, guiding hand on Sybil’s back.