Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
As instructed, Peter had parked his car on the next street over from Sybil’s to avoid being seen, though in light of recent events, it seemed pointless. All he had to show for the subterfuge was blue balls, an erection that refused to entirely deflate, and the taste of Sybil’s pussy in his mouth.
That last item had been worth climbing the tree, even if upon a second, more reasonable assessment, the distance from the tree to the roof was borderline inadvisable.
Still worth it.
Tomorrow he’d work on convincing Sybil that Mallory knowing they were trying to hook up was a good thing because she was one less person they had to sneak around. A critical person too, since they lived together. Maybe he’d buy Mallory some nice, noise-canceling headphones, though if he remembered correctly, she worked at the hotel bar, the brewery, and a dive bar. Those late-night shifts could work in his favor.
Peter made it to his car without being descended upon by the neighborhood watch, vigilante senior citizens, or the Crane Cove police department. The street he’d parked on was dead quiet. No wonder the old lady across the street had been concerned. This had to be why Graham admitted to forgetting to lock his doors.
He hadn’t actually been gone from the hotel for that long, but he’d still lost his prime parking spot. After circling the parking lot twice, he settled for a spot in the back corner of the lot, almost as far away from the entrance as he could get.
Still worth it.
Peter knew he should be disappointed and frustrated with how his night had gone, but there was a spring in his step as he traversed the parking lot. So much had gone right . They’d kissed, he’d touched her, he’d tasted her, and despite needing to recall King Lear , he hadn’t come in his pants this time. Was there a significant amount of precum clinging to the hair on his thigh? Yes. But it wasn’t a full ejaculation, and he was taking his wins where he could get them.
The lobby was empty except for a few people passing through. No one was lounging in the high-back chairs by the fire or lingering to have conversations under the gigantic showpiece chandelier. Peter tipped an invisible hat to Clarence the skeleton bellhop as he passed. The elevators were in sight, his clandestine mission nearly complete.
Kiki floated out of the manager’s office and locked eyes with him.
“What are you doing out and about at this time of night?” she asked loudly so her voice carried across the lobby.
His heart rate momentarily spiked before he remembered that Kiki didn’t know where he’d been or what he’d been up to, and she was just asking an innocent question. He focused on calming his breathing and smoothing his face into a neutral expression.
“Do I have a curfew?” he asked, striding over to the front desk where Kiki had set up shop for the night.
She held up a thick stack of papers. “I’m about to log all the wake-up call requests. I’ve seen the times. You should definitely be in bed.”
“I was headed that way. I accidentally took a late nap so I haven’t been very sleepy.”
Kiki winced sympathetically. “I won’t keep you, then. If you still can’t sleep, you can call me or come back down and hang out. I’ll be here all night.” She gave him a jaunty two-fingered salute, which he returned.
The elevator opened moments after he pressed the call button, and once the doors slid shut, he relaxed against one of the wood-paneled walls. Not a close call at all, but his body acted like it had been. Or maybe that was all the pent-up sexual frustration simmering just under the surface of his skin.
He pressed the heel of his hand against the semi-engorged shaft of his cock. There wouldn’t be any possibility of sleep until he took care of himself.
The elevator dinged its arrival to his floor, and the doors slid open. Peter reached into his pants pocket for his keycard. It wasn’t there. He checked the other pocket. Nothing. The keycard wasn’t in either of his sweatshirt pockets. With a heavy sigh, he pushed the button for the lobby.
“Back so soon?” Kiki asked within seconds of the elevator doors opening.
“I either lost or forgot my keycard,” Peter admitted.
She unlocked a drawer, grabbed a new plastic card, and placed it on the little machine that programmed the keys.
“Can we keep this between us? There was a pool on how long it would take you to lose your first key and today wasn’t my day.”
“Whose day was it?”
“Graham’s.”
“Then we can definitely keep this between us,” Peter promised and crossed his heart before putting a finger to his lips.
New key in hand, Peter retreated to the elevators, then back to his room. It was just how he left it, which was somehow in a much greater state of disarray than he remembered, but he knew himself well enough to know that he was the culprit. He put the half-eaten dinner tray in the hall to be collected, then made an attempt at tidying the room. Dirty clothes went in a pile on the floor so he could ask Dempsey about getting them laundered, and clothes that had been worn but weren’t necessarily “dirty” moved to the desk chair.
The book caught his eye, and he picked it up, thumbing through the pages. If Sybil was reading his annotations, maybe he needed to leave her more to read.
He had to search the room for a pen. The one that had been by the phone when he checked in had migrated to the TV stand; he couldn’t remember why. Peter took a step toward the desk, then saw all the clothes he’d just piled onto the chair and detoured to the bed.
He laid down, propping himself into a half-sitting position with all the pillows, then tapped the pen against his lips, trying to decide what to write. Did he try to fit a dozen years of love and longing into the tight margins?
No, that was impossible. He’d need a much bigger book.
Instead, Peter scribbled small notes of adoration. You’re wonderful. You’re brilliant. You’re beautiful. I love you. On the last page, he found space to write her a short love note.
He put the book aside and checked the time. Far past his bedtime and the wake-up call would come quicker than he’d like, but he was still restless, unspent energy crackling under his skin like electricity.
Peter sighed and pushed his pants down off his hips. If this didn’t relax him, he was going to sneak into the kitchen and knock himself in the head with a frying pan to get some sleep.
There was a hidden folder on his phone filled with pictures of Sybil. Some were copies of Polaroids from their time in London, but most were photos from Graham and Eloise’s wedding and—he was ashamed to admit this—sneaky photos he’d taken during Thanksgiving last year. If Sybil ever found this folder, she’d probably file a restraining order. He didn’t necessarily need the photos because his memories were good enough, but the visual helped.
A new memory, the one of her gripping his hair and holding his face to her pussy like he’d ever make the mistake of leaving, immediately sprang to the forefront of his mind, and he settled into it. It wasn’t hard to imagine what could have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. Her inner walls would have clenched around his fingers while her back arched, then he would have covered her body with his—no, he’d have liked her better on top, where he could watch her better. Sybil riding him, taking her pleasure from him.
His cock had swollen back to life and Peter worked it roughly in his fist. All the lingering desire worked in his favor. Within moments his muscles tightened and cum splashed on his T-shirt. He melted into the mattress, contentment trickling through his veins like warm honey.
Peter luxuriated in the glow of post-orgasmic bliss for a minute, then got up, carefully removed his shirt so he wouldn’t end up with cum in his hair, put it in the dirty clothes pile, considered the state of his underwear and added those too, then got ready for bed.
When he finally settled into bed, he avoided looking at the clock. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him .
His wake-up call did hurt. The sharp trilling of the phone was offensive to his soul. But Kiki, doing a Boris and Natasha impression that was so bad it was good, helped soften the blow. An accidental lukewarm shower did not. It would have been nice to be awake before he’d incorrectly adjusted the water temperature, but he couldn’t argue with the results.
Peter ate breakfast on autopilot, only vaguely tasting the breakfast burrito Dempsey handed him. People talked to him, he nodded, but the words didn’t penetrate the fog surrounding his brain. If any of it was important, he hoped they’d told Dempsey too.
His phone buzzed once in his pocket. He took it out and the name on the screen woke him the rest of the way up.
Sybil
Do you want coffee?
He scrambled to reply.
Peter
Yes please. Could you bring Dempsey one too?
Way ahead of you.
I want the book back. Don’t forget it.
Way ahead of you.
In a miraculous turn of events, he hadn’t forgotten the book in his room. At least not after he’d done a U-turn in the hallway to go back and retrieve it from his room.
“Who got you smiling like that?” Dempsey asked when they handed him his script for the day.
“No one,” he lied, and put his phone face down .
“Ask Sybil to bring me a coffee.”
Peter’s cheeks warmed. “Is it that obvious?”
“You forget that I know everything about your life.” Dempsey opened the lid on a yogurt parfait. “And I figured out she’s who you’ve been sending flowers to this whole time. Logically, it should be her, and I’d have been mad if it wasn’t.”
Peter put down his breakfast burrito. He wasn’t full, but he was bored with it.
“So you like her?”
Dempsey nodded. “A lot. If you weren’t borderline obsessed, I’d have made a move.”
“There’s nothing borderline about it,” Peter said. He paused a moment before adding, “Can I ask your advice?”
Dempsey grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He tried to pick his words carefully. “Obviously I’m enamored, but things aren’t moving forward as quickly as I’d like them to. Granted, a year ago she wouldn’t speak more than two words to me and those two words were ‘go’ and ‘away,’ but I feel stuck. I’m walking on eggshells, afraid that if I sneeze wrong, she’s going to call it off.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t have a definitive answer.” He sighed. “I have some theories and probable reasons, but she refuses to talk about it, so I don’t know. I can’t even bring it up.”
Dempsey stared at him with a neutral expression on their face, like they didn’t believe him.
“Peter,” they said slowly, “I cannot help you if you won’t tell me what happened.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“Make it shorter.”
If looks could kill, his glare didn’t even graze Dempsey.
“We dated,” he explained, “before my career got going. She was doing a semester abroad in London, I was living in an absolutely rubbish flat with multiple roommates. The first time I saw her, I just knew. Then I had to kind of stand still long enough for her to catch up.”
“I’m not seeing what the problem is,” Dempsey commented.
“She couldn’t stay in London forever. I got a role that required me to stay. She didn’t want to do long distance so we sort of broke up.”
Dempsey frowned. “Sort of broke up? You either are or you aren’t. Which was it?”
“We—”
Madelyn sat down next to Peter. “Yesterday, all I wanted was oatmeal, and today I can’t even look at it. It’s a miracle the human race has survived this long.” She eyed Dempsey’s yogurt parfait. “And yogurt made me gag when I tried to eat it.”
“Have you asked my mom about her pregnancy? Apparently I was a menace in the womb,” Peter said.
“In the womb? I don’t think anything changed upon your eviction,” Dempsey countered. “What are you able to eat, Madelyn?”
“I’ve been craving apples and Chex Mix,” she said. “Which is fine, but I need protein too.”
“Peanut butter,” Dempsey and Peter suggested at the same time.
“I’m allergic,” Madelyn reminded them.
“I think right now whatever you can keep down is good enough,” Peter said. “Have you told Kitty yet?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to be sure of what I want to do before I talk to him. Like, if I want the baby and he doesn’t, I need to be prepared to be a single mother. Or if I don’t and he does, I need to be firm that I’m not an incubator. I can’t just go along with whatever he wants, right?”
Peter put one of his hands over hers. “Mads, you need to talk to Kitty. The decision is ultimately yours, but I think knowing what he thinks would help you make that decision.”
She nodded, but frowned. “I know, but I’m scared. What if he gets really mad and breaks up with me?”
“That’s a joke, right?” Dempsey asked. “If he gets mad at you and breaks up with you because he filled you up with baby batter and didn’t like that it made a cake, then he’s a piece of human garbage.”
Peter nodded in agreement. “So when areyou going to tell him?”
Madelyn put her head in her hands and groaned. “I don’t know.”
Peter put a comforting hand on her back. “You’re never going to know how he feels until you talk to him.”
A PA came to take Madelyn to get ready for the day. As soon as she was gone, Dempsey gave him a look so pointed it hurt.
“Have you ever considered taking your own advice?” they asked. “That maybe, oh, I don’t know, having the hard uncomfortable conversation might benefit you, even if you don’t like the answer?”
Peter slumped in his chair and considered hiding under the table.
“Look.” Dempsey moderated their tone so it was gentle. “Sybil doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to lead someone on, so if she’s entertaining your shenanigans, I think it’s worth finding out why.” They shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m just the help.”
“She said she wants to keep things casual.”
Dempsey cackled. “You don’t have a casual bone in your body.”
“Well, she doesn’t need to know that.”
“Oh, I bet she does, and she’s as delusional as you are.” They tittered, still amused. “What a pair.”
A smart reply died on Peter’s tongue when he spied red hair from the corner of his eye. Sybil had arrived, a cardboard drink carrier in her hand, and she was looking around. Then their eyes locked and her cheeks turned pink. Was she thinking about what they’d done last night? He hoped so. He wanted to do that again, minus the stuff better left to stunt people.
Sybil made her way over to them and sat down in the chair Madelyn had vacated.
“One super-caffeinated dirty chai,” she said, handing it to Dempsey. “Yours.” She gave Peter a hot cup with a Stardust-branded sleeve on it.
“Thank you,” he said, their fingers brushing when he took the cup.
Sybil focused her attention on Dempsey, and he might have been offended, but the color in her cheeks was more vivid and that mollified him.
“Do you know if we’re doing what was on the call sheet?” she asked Dempsey. “You seem like the kind of person who knows everything.”
Dempsey preened. “I am, and we are. Why?”
“Because the location isn’t super far from my house, so I’d like to drive myself if that’s allowed.”
“Wardrobe might have a problem with it?—”
“It’ll be fine,” Peter interrupted. “Can I ride with you?”
“I guess,” she said with a small, confused frown. “Dempsey, did you want a ride too?”
“No, they were going to stay behind and get caught up on some work,” he interjected quickly before Dempsey had a chance to respond and ruin his rapidly forming plan. Ten minutes alone in a car with Sybil was the most privacy they were likely to get all day.
And bless Dempsey, they went along with it. “Yeah, I’m still catching up from being on vacation,” they lied.
He countered the subtle narrowing of Sybil’s eyes with an innocent smile.
“If you don’t want to ride in whatever kind of fancy car they’ve got for you, I guess you can ride with me,” she said.
Dempsey checked the time and pushed back their chair. “You should both go see if wardrobe is ready for you. I’ll let the powers that be know that Peter is riding with you, Sybil.”
Peter stood and gestured for Sybil to go first. Once they were in the hall, he handed her the book.
“Before I forget,” he said.
“Did you mean to give me a book where the main character’s wife is Sybil?” she asked, tucking the book into her purse.
“Not particularly. I actually forgot that was her name until I started reading.”
“I’m shocked you haven’t called it fate yet.”
“You have to give me time. I was working up to it for dramatic effect.”
“I had a good time last night,” Sybil said quietly. “If you promise not to climb the tree, I might even let you come over later.”
“Might?”
“Mallory gets home from work at two.” She sipped her coffee casually.
They arrived at wardrobe and went their separate ways. The very possibility of being alone with Sybil in her house had his blood buzzing. It was hard to concentrate, but he kept telling himself that the quicker they got the day done, the sooner he could spend time with Sybil. So he looked over his lines, familiarizing himself with the words, while the hair and makeup team worked on him.
He waited for Sybil in the lobby, making notes in his script while sitting in one of the high back chairs. He’d look up occasionally to see if she was done yet, then back to his script when he saw she wasn’t. Right around the time he’d started to get concerned that she’d left without him, he heard her voice…followed by Madelyn’s.
“There you are,” Madelyn said with a smile when she saw him. “We were looking for you.”
It was so strange to see them side-by-side, wearing identical outfits, with identical hair and makeup. They looked like fraternal twins.
“I was waiting for you,” Sybil explained, “and Madelyn offered to help me find you. She’s riding into town with us.”
“She is?” He hoped the crushing disappointment and borderline frustration he felt didn’t leak into his voice.
“Sybil kindly offered when I told her I wanted to go over some ideas with you,” Madelyn said. “And maybe we can get a quick rehearsal in before we get to set.”
The universe gave, and the universe took away.
Sybil’s car smelled strongly of roasted coffee. Peter had a brief glimmer of hope that the smell would make Madelyn queasy and she’d decide to catch a ride with someone from the production, but coffee seemed to be one of the few smells she could stand.
The day’s filming location was an empty office building that had been transformed into a police station and an FBI office. If the weather continued to be unfavorable, they would be at this location for the next several days, unless Mother Nature cooperated and then they’d film the exterior scenes when they could.
The parking lot was packed with equipment trucks and crew members.
“I think I’m going to have to park down the street,” Sybil remarked.
“Can you let me out here?” Madelyn asked.
After Madelyn got out, Sybil drove down the street and around the corner, parking away from the chaos.
“When I offered to give her a ride, I didn’t expect her to take me up on it,” Sybil said as she turned off the car and unbuckled her seatbelt.
“So you weren’t trying to avoid being alone with me?”
She shook her head, and relief filled him to bursting. Peter unbuckled then leaned over the center console and kissed her tenderly. She sighed softly as she kissed him back.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “We need to talk soon.”
“We are talking.”
“About us.”
Sybil stiffened then retreated to her side of the car where he couldn’t reach her without crawling over the console.
“Peter—”
“I know what you said,” he interrupted, “but I think we need to clear the air. I can’t live the rest of my life not understanding why you’re mad at me. Even if this ends when filming wraps, we’re still going to see each other. Our best friends are married, they’re going to have kids, and I plan on being an obnoxiously involved uncle. I don’t want them asking me why Aunt Sybil glares at me all the time.”
“I do not glare at you all the time,” she argued.
“Not since we kissed, but you did.”
Sybil glowered. It wasn’t quite a glare, but it was skirting around the edge of one.
“We’re not talking about this right now,” she insisted.
He nodded his agreement. “I know, but I would like to later.”
“More than you want to have sex with me?”
War broke out inside Peter’s brain. The base half screamed at the mature half that he could be torpedoing his only chance to have sex with Sybil again. That he’d waited twelve years for this moment, and he was considering throwing it away for a conversation ?
“Not more, but I think it’s more important,” he said, though every word hurt.
He couldn’t breathe while she thought, but finally she said, “Okay. We can talk tonight. I guess I want some answers too.”