Grand Romantic Coup #3
He thought proposals on jumbotrons and sky writing were romantic.
I was sure in his head this was going to end in me swooning with delight.
Unfortunately, that was not how this was going down.
I was not happy to see him, and Selma was ready to unleash the wrath of the Lockhart Y-chromosomes on him if I just gave the nod. That wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m fine,” I said, “I just—didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I know,” Peter replied, grinning. “That’s the point of a surprise, right?” He clearly expected someone, maybe the universe, to give him a gold star for initiative.
“Um,” I said, realizing Selma was still waiting for a cue, “Mrs. Lockhart, this is Peter McKinley. My…friend from New York.”
Selma, ever gracious, offered her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. McKinley.”
Peter shook it, possibly harder than necessary, and said, “You too, Mrs. Lockhart.”
“Oh, please, call me Selma.” She waved her hand dismissively and there was a glimmer of something in her eyes—amusement, maybe, or the satisfaction of confirming a hypothesis about finance bros she’d shared with me the week prior, that they were all self-involved A-holes.
A pause followed. A long one, in which Peter expected more introductions or pleasantries, but Selma simply smiled and waited him out. Finally, she patted my arm. “Well, I better go check on the boys as long as you’re good.”
I nodded, and she drifted away, her stride easy but her posture erect, like a bodyguard making herself available but not intrusive.
“Peter, what are you doing here?” I repeated my question.
“Honestly, I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“Did you not get my messages?”
“Yeah, but I thought that was just, you know, self-sabotage, or you were worried I couldn’t handle everything you had going on here. I came here to tell you I can handle it and I’m not going to let you push me away like you push everyone else away. This is too good. I’m protecting you from you.”
It was a miracle I had ever agreed to go out with Peter in the first place.
Even now, standing under the bunting and string lights of Valentine Bay’s jam-packed summer festival, I could barely recall why I’d ever found him appealing, let alone compelling.
The rapport had been quick, I’ll admit that much.
Our first date in Manhattan was a kinetic blur of wine bars and rapid-fire banter, Peter effortlessly steering the conversation from global markets to Broadway musicals to the best Michelin-starred ramen in Midtown.
He had a confidence that bordered on the absurd, the kind of man who’d walk into a room and immediately act like he owned not just the room, but the entire building, maybe the city.
Tall, put-together, objectively attractive in that upscale finance-guy way—expensive haircut, Italian shoes, bespoke suits that probably cost more than my old Subaru.
But time with Peter had the strange effect of making everything, including myself, feel slightly less real.
At first, I assumed it was just the giddiness of new romance.
Later, I realized it was more like being pulled into the orbit of a very shiny, very self-obsessed planet.
I could never quite get his attention to settle on me for more than a few seconds at a time, unless I was telling a story about him or his work or something that would impress him.
There was this running joke among his circle of friends that Peter had “Main Character Energy,” but if I was honest, he lacked the heart and depth you’d want in a protagonist. He was all surface-level charisma: cocktail party stories, gleaming white teeth, Ivy League credentials.
Once, at a friend’s wedding, I watched him spend twenty minutes holding court about the physical and psychological effects of intermittent fasting, ignoring both the bride’s toast and my attempts to get him to dance.
Afterward, when I told him I’d hoped to share a song, he’d blinked at me in gentle confusion, as if the thought simply hadn’t occurred to him.
Honestly, I’d always known that Peter was more interested in the idea of a relationship than the reality of one.
He was the kind of guy who liked having a girlfriend the way some people enjoyed having high-end kitchen appliances: as a status marker, an indicator of taste and discernment, but not something you really took out and used unless company was coming over.
I was convenient, presentable, and accomplished enough to check all the boxes on his personal spreadsheet, but I was never the main course.
Our first fight was about how he’d RSVP’d us both to an out-of-state wedding without bothering to ask if I was available, then called me “overly rigid” when I explained I already had a work obligation.
Our second fight was about how he’d posted a photo of us to Instagram with the caption “my better half,” even though we’d only been seeing each other for two weeks.
He thought it was romantic. I felt like a prop.