Coming Swoon (Brunch Bros #4)

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

There was not an open bottle of wine.

Eloise and Annie both claimed headaches, and Lacey said she wasn’t interested in drinking that night. So Sybil couldn’t manipulate the chemicals in her brain to slow down her racing mind because being the only person in a group drinking was awful.

Something was wrong with Peter. Or he had something on his mind. It had been a heavy week on set, like he said. One night he came home looking broken, and she’d taken him to the couch and laid his head in her lap and stroked his hair while they listened to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. They’d stayed like that for more than an hour until his eyes started staying closed longer with every blink, then she took him upstairs to bed and held him until he fell asleep.

When they left Graham and Eloise’s, Peter didn’t seem much lighter or happier after spending time with his best friends. He seemed distracted. And when she asked if she’d see him at the house, he hesitated before saying yes.

Had he lost interest in her? Once the chase had slowed, was she not exciting enough to hold his attention?

Her stomach tied itself into a complicated knot in the two minutes it took her to drive home.

“I’m going to head to bed,” Peter said, hanging his coat on the coat rack. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“I’m going to clean the kitchen. I’ll be up soon.” Sybil gave him a small smile, and he went upstairs without questioning why it didn’t reach her eyes.

She scrubbed the stove top until it sparkled, convinced that if she could rid her life of the ring of burned water from Peter boiling spaghetti, she’d rid herself of the anxiety that was crushing her lungs. In the end, the stove top looked new and she still couldn’t take a full breath.

The bell on Agatha’s collar jingled wildly in the other room as she darted around, getting out her nighttime zoomies. Sybil headed for the stairs just in time to watch Agatha skid into the coat rack and knock it over.

“Goddammit, cat,” she muttered and went to pick up the coats off the floor. “We bring you inside, feed you, give you an automatic litter box so you never even have to see your own poops, and this is how you repay us?”

She picked Peter’s coat up and it felt oddly…heavy. Did he leave his phone in his pocket again? She stuck her hand inside the right pocket and felt something unexpected: a leather box.

Sybil’s heart jumped into her throat. This couldn’t be a…there was no way…he wouldn’t…

Carefully, like she was handling a sensitive bomb, she drew the box out of his pocket and, with trembling fingers, opened the lid.

“Oh fuck,” she breathed.

In the morning, Sybil did two things she almost never did: she called off work and then she went back to sleep and slept until nine a.m.

It was disorienting to wake up hours after she normally did. And because it was a beautiful, sunny Saturday, the sun was shining through her window onto her bed. Sybil hissed at it like a vampire.

She reached for Peter to see if he was awake, but he wasn’t there. The spot where he slept was cold.

Where was he?

The ring jumped to the forefront of her mind. Peter had been working hard learning to make pancakes the last few weekends. Was he downstairs trying to make her a romantic breakfast and he was going to propose over potentially edible pancakes?

The thought made her nauseous, and not just because some of his first attempts had been spectacularly inedible. It shouldn’t be possible for a pancake to be burnt on the outside and so raw that it was runny on the inside.

It was too much too soon, and the worst part was…a very vocal part of her wanted to say yes. She wanted to spend the rest of her life being smothered in adoration. She wanted those beautiful blue eyes to sparkle at her when he smiled. She wanted Peter to be her husband.

But what she wanted and what she needed to do were on opposite sides of reality.

Sybil crept down the stairs, taking a long step to avoid the creaky one. It didn’t smell like breakfast. She glanced toward the door. Peter’s coat was still there, and so were his shoes.

“Hi, my name is Peter. I order flowers from you every week?...Yes, that Peter.”

She froze. He sounded like he was in the kitchen.

“I know it’s very last minute, but how many small, romantic bouquets could you make me before four o’clock this afternoon? Not terribly picky about the contents, and price isn’t an object…They’re for a proposal…You can? Fantastic. One last thing—do you know where I could get a lot of electric candles? Or some tall vases where the wicks won’t burn out if it’s windy? You do? You are a lifesaver .”

Sybil’s mouth went dry and her heart pounded against her ribs. How the fuck was she supposed to gently dissuade him from proposing when he’d already called the florist?

“Oh hey. You’re awake.”

She jumped. Peter had appeared in the archway that separated the front of the house from the back of the house.

“Sorry I can’t stick around for you to get ready, but I have a lot of things to do today, and I’m somehow already behind schedule.” He closed the space between them and stooped to kiss her forehead. The soft brush of his lips squeezed her heart in a painful vice. “I need you to come with me to the lighthouse later for a surprise.”

“I can’t marry you!” The words burst out of her. Peter took a few steps back, his forehead creased in a deep frown. “I found the ring in your pocket last night, and it’s beautiful, but it’s too soon.”

“Sybil—”

Panic rose like a flood and she flailed like a drowning person. “Why couldn’t you listen to what I wanted? Why do you have to push, and push, and push? I’m not ready for this kind of commitment, Peter. I can’t even wrap my head around how we could possibly move this relationship forward when you leave next week and you went out and bought a fucking ring . Without talking to me about it! Because if you’d asked, I would have said no. I would have told you that I don’t think we’re there and I don’t know if we’ll ever be there. I don’t even understand how you leapt from ‘let’s be casual’ to ‘let’s get married.’”

Peter was silent for a few frantic beats of her heart, and then asked, “Can I speak now?”

She waved a hand.

“It’s not my ring. It’s Jordy’s ring. Jordy is proposing to Annie today, and I said I’d help him set up something romantic at the lighthouse since they’re looking at properties today. That was the surprise.” His explanation was so calm it chilled her to the bone. “Do you not see a future between us?”

“I’m not there yet.”

“Well, I am. I’ve been there, and I don’t know what else I have to do to convince you to meet me at least halfway.” It was as close to a yell as she’d ever heard his voice, and she took a few steps back. His face fell and he looked at the floor and shook his head. “Maybe I don’t know how this works either. If you don’t want me to push, then I won’t.”

Peter turned and walked to the door. He put on his shoes and his coat and picked up his rental car keys. He didn’t look back before he opened the door and left.

Mallory’s ready smile turned into a frown when Sybil walked through the front door of Stardust.

“What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t feeling well?”

Sybil stepped behind the counter and grabbed an apron, tying it around her waist roughly.

“I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

“You put me on the schedule, remember?” Mallory narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? Your eyes are kind of?—”

“Just let me work!” Sybil snapped. She knew what her eyes looked like. They were red and puffy because a few minutes after Peter left, she’d started crying and hadn’t been able to stop. Going to Stardust was the only thing she knew to do. If she could keep moving until he came home that evening, she’d be okay.

“No. Absolutely not. You’re not yelling at me today.” Mallory grabbed her elbow and marched her into the office, shutting the door for privacy. “You either have pinkeye or you’ve been crying. Which is it?”

The flimsy wall she’d built around her emotions crumbled like a sandcastle against the incoming tide. Her eyes welled up again, and Mallory’s stern expression disappeared.

“Oh, no.” Mallory wrapped her arms around Sybil and hugged her sister tightly. “What happened?”

“Peter…and I…had a fight,” she sobbed, pressing her face into her sister’s shoulder.

“I didn’t think Peter was capable of fighting,” Mallory said, rubbing her back. “Do you want to tell me what it was about?”

Sybil took a few shuddering breaths, trying to calm herself enough to speak.

“I thought he was going to p-p-propose and I freaked out and then he left.”

“He just needs to go cool off,” Mallory promised. “Give him some time. He’ll come back.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if I fucked up too much this time?”

“He loves you. I don’t think one fight is going to change his mind.”

Sybil stayed at Stardust until close, dreading going home while simultaneously jumping every time someone entered the coffee shop, thinking it was Peter coming to talk to her once he’d calmed down.

She pushed open the front door she never locked and was greeted by Agatha, who very loudly vocalized her displeasure at being left alone.

“I bet Daddy already gave you dinner,” she said, hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes. “Is he upstairs, Aggie? Let’s go see if you’re trying to con me.”

She climbed the stairs, reminding herself to breathe with every ascending step.

Her bedroom door was open, and the light was off. A shaking finger pushed the switch.

It took a moment for her brain to register what was different in the room. The items he’d been squirreling away in her room, like his book on the nightstand and his sweatpants on the floor, like she wouldn’t notice he was slowly moving in were gone.

She went to the closet and yanked the doors open.

His shirts and hoodies were missing.

The realization rocked her like an earthquake. He’d left. While she’d been at Stardust, he’d taken all of his stuff out of her house in one fell swoop so he wouldn’t have to come back.

She stumbled to the bed in a daze and collapsed on what had become his side. The co-mingled smells of his hair products and his cologne filled her senses and she sobbed into his pillow until she fell asleep.