Chapter 27
27
Sybil
“Sybil.”
I focused on drying the drops of water from the plate I’d pulled from the dishwasher, intent on clearing them one by one. I’d heard my mother, and I’d come over early with the express intent to help her cook and soften her up, but I’d made a critical error. Mom didn’t soften up with conversation, she homed in.
“Sybil Marie!”
I winced, knowing number three was coming.
“Sybil Marie Sweet!”
There it is. “It’s okay, Mom,” I said, placing the dish on the counter. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It most certainly is!” Mom paced back and forth across the kitchen floor, a wooden spoon in one hand and a tomato in the other. “You’re moving home again.”
“No, she’s not,” my stepdad said from behind his newspaper.
Characteristically, Mom ignored him, continuing her pacing. “You did not tell us when you moved out you were going to be sleeping on a couch. I thought you at least had a room there.”
“She’s an adult, honey.”
“She’s not acting like it,” Mom said, returning the tomato to the cutting board. In my humble opinion, she was dicing it a little aggressively while still lecturing. “You could get a place of your own. I’m not saying live here forever, but you shouldn’t be staying on a couch in that neighborhood!”
I’d let it slip that I was crashing at Emi’s place in what I could only describe as a haze of carelessness. I blamed the home brew Paul had handed me when I arrived. While Mom had continued her exploration of the joys of nagging her children, he’d been tinkering with making and bottling his own creations in the basement for years. “The neighborhood is fine,” I said finally. “And I’m living with a veteran and a black belt.” I swiped a finger full of frosting off the side of the bowl and held it up. “Plus, Marcus is a great cook, so I’m eating my vegetables!”
She gave a harrumph. “You have money. You have so much money. I just don’t understand.” She continued to chop, moving from a tomato to an onion. “Why are you standing still? You could be making progress on so many things.”
“I’m just getting things figured out. But I’m happy, and I’m not always staying there. Sometimes I’m over at Kieran’s place in the East Village. Who knows? Maybe we’ll move in together eventually.”
I knew immediately I’d played that wrong. Her chopping paused, the blade suspended in the air, and Paul winced before sliding back behind his paper. “The donut man.”
“Kieran,” I repeated, handing her a cucumber. “We’ve been really busy. You know…new love.”
“Yes,” she said, slicing again, the sound of metal against vegetable in a steady rhythm. “And I do hope I’m wrong, honey.” She paused her slicing but this time set the knife down to let me know she was serious. “But this whole thing is strange to me. And I saw you two together at the donut shop—it looked like he’d never met you before. Janice said she saw you at the Downtown Food Festival and said the same thing. I just worry you’re seeing love and he’s seeing dollar signs.” She let out a sigh and glanced at Paul. I suspected she’d agreed not to say that to me in their premeal planning and she’d thrown an audible. “And even if not dollar signs, it looked a lot like you were far more into this than he was, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I popped a crouton in my mouth to avoid having to respond right away. Because what could I say? “Mom, you saw us before we practiced intimacy, and trust me, he was into it way before the money”? I’d never in my life until that moment considered telling Mom about good sex I’d had, but if knowing Kieran’s prior enthusiasm would stop her from going down this rabbit hole…If she wasn’t still studying my face, I might have laughed at the idea, but I was saved by the doorbell. “I’ll get it!” Scampering would have had more dignity than faking left to dodge my mom before sprinting to the front door, but in a fight between elegance and escape, I chose escape. If it was Grace, she’d help me run interference. That was the only reason I’d agreed to bring Kieran in the first place—my sister would be a buffer between Mom’s questions and me. If it wasn’t her at the door, it would be Kieran, and my stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing him, something I tried to deny, even to myself, because we had a plan. I clipped the edge of an end table on my sprint to the door, gripping my thigh with one hand and mumbling “Shit, shit, shit” before throwing open the door.
It wasn’t Kieran smiling back at me, nor was it my sister, ready to go into battle for me.
“Where’s Grace?” I looked around Warren to see if she was traipsing up from the car—unlikely, since they were the hand-holding, “where you go, I go” kind of couple, but a girl could hope.
“She got pulled into an emergency procedure for one of her patients.” Warren held up a bottle of wine and stepped inside, giving me a side hug. “She’ll get here soon.”
“Warren!” Mom hurried in behind me, taking a little more time, thus circumventing the end table. She wrapped two arms around him as if he’d been away at war, and Paul sauntered in to shake hands with him in a very familiar and, I thought, old-school manly way. “Come in. Come in.”
I looked out the open door helplessly. No Grace meant no buffer. No Kieran meant I had no distraction.
“Have you met Sybil’s friend? Because she’s keeping something from us about him.”
“I am not,” I said.
Warren looked between us and gave me a kind Warren smile that I’d normally appreciate. “Haven’t met him yet, but he’s coming today, right?”
“Supposedly,” Mom said, giving me a raised eyebrow and looking at her watch. “But he’s not here yet, and it’s already almost five.”
I looked at the clock above the fireplace. “Mom, it’s four thirty-five.”
Warren laughed. “Gotta agree. Give him a chance, Mary.”
Paul chuckled. “Let it go, dear.”
Warren gave me a reassuring smile, and for a moment I thought she’d drop it and we’d have a nice dinner, but my luck wasn’t that good. “I’m sure he’s a nice guy,” Warren said as the doorbell rang again. “Grace said he’ll be going back to medical school soon, right? Will you move with him?”
This was why I needed Grace. Sweet, trusting Warren didn’t realize that question was an entire jar of pythons set free in Mom’s brain. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, trying to remember what I’d told Grace the last time we talked. The lies were catching up with me. “I really like him, so maybe.”
“You are moving in together?” To call Mom’s voice a screech would be kind, and since my hand was on the door handle, Kieran’s finger was still hovering over the bell when I opened it.
“Hi,” he said, holding up a tray of pastries. He glanced over my shoulder at the scene—Paul’s magazine held in front of him, Mom’s mouth wide, and Warren’s smile dissipating based on her reaction.
“Let’s talk out here for a minute,” I said, pushing him backward onto the porch, underneath the glow of the porch lights in the cloudy weather. The door slammed behind me, blocking out my family.
“What’s…”
I held up my palms and whisper hissed, “There’s no time.” My mom was approaching the front door. “We’re deeply in love and thinking about moving in together, okay? And we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
“Wait. What? I thought the plan was professional?”
“Things went a little…sideways today,” I said in a hushed voice. “Just…please be madly in love with me?”
I heard the doorknob turn and stood on my tiptoes. “Can I kiss you?” I pressed my palms to his chest, my lips inches from his.
“I’m confused,” he said, an adorable crease between his brows, but his hand rested at my waist.
“I’ll explain later, but please?” I worried he’d refuse, because that was the logical thing to do and Kieran was a logical guy. We’d agreed to professional, and my mind began to spiral, because what if he didn’t want to kiss me the way I imagined kissing him? My family would see it, and this whole thing would be for nothing.
“Syb—” my mom called from behind the partially closed door, but the end of her sentence was lost to me as Kieran’s lips crashed into mine, his hand tightening at my waist, pulling me to him. The breeze swirled around us and grazed the back of my bare calves as Kieran’s tongue stroked mine, the dual sensations heating me through my core. I’d hoped for one kiss, a single demonstration of his interest, but as I pulled back, he stole another, his grip around my middle firm and unyielding as he demanded another taste from my lips. Kieran had never demanded anything from me, and my whole body tingled with the pull to give him everything he asked for.
“Ahem,” Mom said from behind us. “It’s nice to see you again, Kieran.”
Kieran broke the kiss and took a step to the side. “Sorry, she’s just so…” He looked at me, voice flustered and his expression somewhat dazed. “So irresistible.”
“I’m sure.” Mom held out her hand, shaking his briskly, like he was there to sell her encyclopedias. “Please come in if you’re done making out with my daughter in front of the neighbors.” She turned on her heel, walking back into the living room.
Kieran gave me a wide-eyed WTF stare, but I couldn’t explain with the door wide open. “Thank you. And I’ll explain later,” I whispered, taking his hand. I was trying to school my own dazed expression. I’d kissed Kieran before, I’d even kissed him when we were faking it before, but this time felt as dizzying as the first two, and maybe even more so. “And thank you, Hannah Carson,” I added under my breath. I didn’t plan for Kieran to hear that, but he squeezed my hand, and the corner of his lips turned up before he winked at me. We were in sync tonight. We were a real team.
“Kieran,” Paul said, setting his magazine aside and greeting him. “Despite what my wife probably implied, we’re glad you’re joining us.”
“Thank you.” Kieran shot me another look of uncertainty. “I brought these,” he said, handing over the plate, and I noticed the chocolate-dipped donut holes I loved, plus the ones filled with lemon and blueberries. “They’re one of Sybil’s favorites, so I thought everyone might like some.”
“Well, isn’t that nice. Mary? Isn’t that nice?” God bless Paul, who was taking over for Grace in her absence.
Mom was unimpressed, but I knew she’d change her tune when she tried one, something I was about to mention when she gave Kieran a laser-like stare. “Are you scamming my daughter?” Her arms remained crossed over her chest. “Because you’re not getting her money, no matter how taken in she is by you or how kind your grandfather seems.”
“Mom!”
Warren still sat on the couch like a fish out of water with our family. He motioned to his phone. “I…better check in with the office and make sure Grace doesn’t need another set of hands,” he said.
“C’mon, son. You can call from the kitchen,” Paul said, nodding to the doorway. He called over his shoulder, “If you survive this inquisition, you’re welcome to join us, Kieran.”
So much for my Grace substitution. “Mom, you’re being rude,” I said again.
“I’m not being rude. I’m protecting you.” She cut her gaze to Kieran again. “So, tell the truth. What kind of scam are you running?”
I opened my mouth to protest again. Kieran didn’t deserve this, and I wanted to just get him out of there, but he spoke first. “If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t trust me, either. I mean, everything between us happened when your daughter won the lottery.”
Mom nodded, letting him continue.
“But Sybil is smart. She’s an excellent judge of people.”
Carl’s dick pic might have weakened his argument, but for once I kept my mouth shut.
“And she trusts me.” His fingers linked with mine, and he raised them to his lips to drop a soft, sweet kiss on my knuckles. “I’m falling in love with your daughter. I’m falling in love with her more and more every day, and I don’t want her money or anything other than to make her smile and to get to be next to her when she does something truly amazing.” He looked into my eyes, and my knees felt weak. “Because I know she will.”
My heart jumped into my chest, and I’d never wanted a lie to be true so much in my life. Kieran’s fingers were in mine, and even when he looked back at my mom, I felt the heat of his stare on my cheeks and all down my neck. He’d said he was in love with me, and the words sounded so good, but they weren’t real. I knew I couldn’t trust my reaction.
My mom’s stance relaxed incrementally, but she said, “I think she will, too.”
“Well, that’s one thing we agree on, Mrs. Waters,” Kieran said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
“Mary,” she finally said, still keeping him at a distance. “But one nice speech doesn’t mean you’re good enough for my daughter.”
“Mom!” Mortification didn’t even begin to describe this situation.
“It doesn’t,” Kieran said, unflapped. “But what I feel for your daughter can’t fit in a single speech. She’s so full of life and energy and creativity…” He glanced at me, the emotion in his eyes so convincing, even I believed it. “So maybe you’ll think me more worthy after a couple more hours of assessment.”
Despite his use of the word “assessment” and glowing critique of her daughter, she didn’t seem convinced yet.
Things were still tense, but Paul’s voice floating in from the kitchen broke the verbal stalemate. “My God! Mary, try these.” He walked in, holding out one of the donut holes Kieran had brought.
“I don’t think—” Mom protested, but Paul pushed it into her hand anyway.
“Trust me.”
She reluctantly took a bite, and I saw it, that tiny crack in her facade when she realized how good they were, when her defenses melted.
Paul clapped Kieran on the back. “She’s actually a hopeless romantic. Don’t let her scare you off.”
“No, sir. I won’t,” Kieran said, giving me a quick glance before following Paul into the kitchen.
“Sorry I’m late!” Grace pushed through the door, still in her dark blue scrubs. She pulled me into a quick hug, and then Mom. “What did I miss? Is Sybil’s boyfriend still standing?” She gave me a wink and, God, I loved my sister. “Mom get him in the interrogation room yet?”
“She tried her best to run him off, but he’s in the kitchen with Paul and Warren.”
Mom took another bite of the donut. “Well, he seems like a nice boy,” she said, brushing crumbs from her hands before walking toward the kitchen. “And any man who sees how great you are, well…” She studied her hand for any more offending crumbs. “He’s worth giving a chance, I suppose.”
Grace gave me a wide-eyed stare behind Mom’s back. “Is that the most support she’s ever given a guy you brought home?”
“He seems like a nice boy.” I parroted Mom’s words, and Grace giggled, lowering her voice.
“Um, girl, that’s a nice man . Why didn’t you tell me he looked like that?” She took my elbow, and we went after Mom into the kitchen, following the sounds of Paul’s laughter and the scent of roasting garlic. This was working just like I had hoped.