Chapter 7 Parker
Denny Peterson.
It’s the first time I’ve laid eyes on that mop of unkempt hair since the night I discovered him in this bar and bestowed upon him the role of a lifetime: Summer’s new…
Guy.
Elbows propped on the mahogany bar behind me, I squint at the table our friends have occupied in the middle of Oakley’s.
Brooks and Siena flew in a couple of days ago to visit her adoptive mom.
Zac and my sister made it down, too, and they, plus Shy, all sit happily surrounding Summer. Listening avidly to Denny’s talking.
I swear, there’s something off about him.
I can’t put my finger on it—the reason for this scrape in my chest whenever Summer gushes about him.
That prickle at the back of my neck when I watch him too closely.
He’s a decent conversationalist, if a little reserved—like he’s sitting in a job interview, trying not to say the wrong thing.
But then, he’s being introduced to Summer’s closest friends. Maybe I’d be nervous, too.
Denny tugs his phone out of his pocket and flips it face down on the table once he’s checked it.
His arm drapes over the back of Summer’s chair and he absently strokes her bare shoulder with his thumb.
I’m glad he’s paying her the attention she’s owed, but I wish he’d just quit it for a minute so that I can properly think.
It’s been nagging at me for weeks, and I really need to figure out what it is about this guy that isn’t sitting right.
“She really likes him.” Shy sidles up to me, smoothing down her ponytail as we stare at our table. Her words do something so… strange to me. Incite a dull ache in my throat—a tug of something uncomfortable deep in my gut.
“Isn’t that a good thing? She deserves to be happy.”
“Yes, except we all know there’s something critically wrong with him.”
I whip around to face her. “You feel it, too? What is it?”
To my annoyance, Shy’s mouth tugs into the smirk she’s haunted me with since she first accused me of harboring feelings for Summer. “The problem with him is that he isn’t you, Woods. Want to know what the problem with you is?”
The fact that I’m literally standing in the same place I was as a teenager, with no prospect for anything greater for the rest of my life?
The fact that, lately, my head keeps cycling between the normal, happy me, and some guy who can’t figure out why he should bother getting out of bed in the morning?
Even if I had the feelings that Shy’s been accusing me of, I’d have so little to offer Summer, it would be comical. I’d laugh in my own face.
Shy continues unprompted, “What’s wrong with you is that, at this rate, you’re not going to realize what you want until she’s signing a marriage certificate in front of her closest family and friends.”
I shake my head, because she’s got this one wrong. “I’m telling you, there’s something off about him. It has nothing to do with me.” At our table, Denny fiddles with his phone. “Do me a favor and just… keep an eye out.”
Two glasses appear between us, a Mountain Dew and Diet Coke, and I lead Shy back to our table. I slide Summer’s refill in front of her, catching the flash of annoyance in Denny’s face.
It only occurs to me then that it probably isn’t my place to get her a fresh drink anymore. But Summer shoots me a smile in thanks. And just like that, I don’t care what the cagey dickhead thinks about it.
“All I’m saying is, too many sights to see and it ruins the honeymoon,” Siena is musing, thoughtfully combing her fingers through her hair.
The meteor-sized diamond on her finger sparkles in the dim light.
“I want somewhere warm enough for a nighttime skinny-dip, and without so many sights that we’d feel guilty for staying in and doing it the whole time. ”
Brooks scoffs around the rim of his beer. “You, of all people, would feel guilty about that?”
“Absolutely not. But it’ll save me from admitting to the people at work that I was too busy riding your Eiffel Tower to check out the real thing.
” Across the table, Zac hangs his head, which only makes Siena grin wider.
“Don’t give me that, Mr. Gets Down and Dirty in This Very Bar’s Bathroom.
” She flicks her hand in my sister’s direction.
Zac rounds on Mel. “You told her about the bathroom?”
“Summer makes a stiff drink, what can I say?”
“Maybe let’s tone down the sex talk about my twin sister while I’m at the table.” I pinch two fingers until they’re almost touching. “Just a bit disturbing.”
“Try swapping a minotaur into the story,” Summer says. She coughs on her sip of Diet Coke when I dig my elbow into her ribs. “Parker’s recently unlocked some monster fetishes.”
“I was in Hawaii a few months ago,” Denny chimes in. “If you’re looking for honeymoon ideas.”
There’s an awkward beat as we switch gears back to Brooks and Siena’s upcoming honeymoon.
Summer gasps at Siena. “You can get lei’d in Hawaii!”
“Absolutely terrible,” I mutter. “You’re made of funnier stuff than that.”
Her knee bumps mine under the table. From two seats away, I can feel the heat of Denny’s gaze on the side of my face. “It’s not a bad spot for skinny-dipping,” he continues. “Not that… I was there with friends. Annual surfing trip, all clothes stay on type of thing.”
It’s there again, that prickle. Thou doth protest too hard about the naked swims, buddy.
“Boring,” Siena stage-whispers to Brooks. My sister rests her cheek on Zac’s shoulder, chuckling to herself.
For the umpteenth time tonight, it hits me square in the chest—this flood of unbearable envy, followed by the familiar pang of misery.
I’m surrounded by happy couples. Even Shy, who’s out alone tonight, has the comfort of knowing she’s got a husband and daughter at home, and not the empty apartment waiting for me upstairs.
And now there’s Summer and Denny. She’s leaning slightly toward him, and that there is enough to mess with my head. I don’t think we’ve ever sat so far apart while sitting right next to each other. I feel robbed of those inches. Worse, by a guy setting off wailing alarms in my head.
After a few minutes, Denny excuses himself to the washroom. Summer perks up in her seat the moment he’s out of earshot. “Well? What do we think?”
He’s dull, shifty, and—
“He’s so sweet,” Mel tells her.
“And really cute,” Shy adds.
“And you two?” Summer gestures at the guys. “Parker already cosigned on him when he set us up, but what do you think?”
“This one seems to shower,” Brooks says. Zac nods his agreement.
Siena leans over the table. “It really doesn’t matter what we think. You’re glowing, Sum.”
I study Summer for myself. Her green eyes are bright, smile is wide, soft sun freckles dot the slope of her nose.
She is glowing, but… is that any different from usual?
Her skin has always done that shimmering thing.
I don’t know what everyone else has been looking at over the years, because it’s kind of hard to miss.
“Someone please tell me I’m getting ahead of myself,” she says. “There’s still so much I don’t know about him.”
“When you know, you know.” Siena shrugs. “Took Brooks two seconds exactly to become obsessed with me.”
Brooks seems to take offense to that, but the protest fizzles by the time he opens his mouth. “Yeah, all right. That’s accurate.”
Summer’s cheeks go pink. “Do you think he’s obsessed with me?”
“Summer, the man cannot stop touching you,” Melody answers. I don’t manage to rein in the ick in my face before Shy notices. “He’s completely obsessed.”
“He is very touchy.” Summer buries her face in her hands. I chase a sigh with a long gulp of soda. “I mean, he’s not… you know. Tying me to his bed all night and edging me within an inch of my sanity, or anything. But maybe one day.”
My body snaps in her direction so fast my drink sloshes, dribbles into my lap.
Summer doesn’t seem to have noticed her slipup, but a quick glance around the table tells me everyone else did.
The near-identical what was that looks Zac and Mel level at Summer’s hidden face.
The oh shit stare Brooks and Siena exchange.
Shy sinks her teeth into her lip, shooting me a pointed say something! with her eyes.
And then it seems to click in Summer’s head. The fact that she just did that—volunteered this personal fantasy, an exact replica of the things I know women say about me behind my back.
Her hair whips as she turns horrified eyes on me. “That’s not… It’s the first thing that came to mind.”
My instinct, always, is to tease her mercilessly. But not a thing comes out of my mouth.
All I seem capable of is staring. At her flaming cheeks, the way her throat works as she swallows. The deep intake of air that has her breasts nearly bursting out of the low neckline of her shirt. The way she can’t seem to look away from me, either.
I can’t figure out this energy. Have no idea whether she fantasizes about that or that with me. I’ve thought about her like that plenty myself. I mean, this is Summer fucking Prescott—it’s only natural.
Someone across the table clears their throat. Brooks, I think. It does enough to draw Summer’s attention, and the moment I lose her gaze I re-enter my own body. Recall exactly who I am, who she is, what we are to each other.
“I’m gonna go dry off. Give you a second to figure out how to walk that back,” I say.
Summer flips me off as I get to my feet, and I give a genuine laugh. All that odd tension already a distant memory.
My best friend just slipped up in a major way, and by the time I’m in the washroom, I’m deep into a list of ways I plan to hold this over her head until old age regretfully wipes this from my brain.
It’s not until I’m standing in front of the mirror, drying off my jeans with paper towels, that I notice a voice coming from inside an occupied stall. A hushed conversation happening over the phone before goodbyes are apparently exchanged.
Denny emerges from the stall.
His smile slips when he catches sight of me, but he recovers quickly. “Hey.”
I nod and we stand silently at the counter doing our own thing.
Another nod and he heads back into the bar, leaving me in the empty washroom.
I’m ripping more paper towels from the dispenser when a flash of light on the counter catches my eye.
It’s a phone sitting in the corner Denny had just occupied. He must have forgotten it.
I pick it up. And I swear, my last intention is to check it.
I couldn’t care less about what he and his surfer buddies talk about. But then text notifications appear in quick succession from a contact named Allie. With a heart emoji next to it.
I blink, hoping it’s my dwindling vision playing tricks on me.
I’m perfectly aware that he and Summer have only been dating for three weeks, two days, and fifteen seconds.
Perfectly aware that unless conversations have been had about monogamy, it doesn’t matter that he’s the kind of idiot who’d spend a moment of his life on another woman when he’s got Summer Prescott in his grasp.
But hell if the hairs on the back of my neck don’t rise anyway. Allie sends him text after unanswered text. The phone goes silent. And then it lights up, her name appearing over the display. Without thinking, I answer the call.
A woman’s voice fills my ear without waiting on a hello. “Babe, I forgot to mention the photographer wants a list of family portraits for the wedding. What do you think? Do we cap it at our immediate family?”
My body goes still. And that thing at the back of my neck is no longer a prickle. It’s a blanket of dread, slowly crawling over my skin.
“Hello?” Allie says when I don’t speak. “Denny, you there?”
Fuck. Fuck. “Sorry, this is uh… Parker. I’m on the surfing circuit with Denny. He left his phone in the bar bathroom.”
She gives an easy laugh. “That man would find a way to lose the shirt off his back, I swear.”
I swallow. “I’m gonna head back to our table. Who… who should I tell him called?”
“This is Allie,” the woman says with a touch of surprise. “His fiancée.”
My stomach drops.
I’m glued in front of the mirrors, heart pumping furiously, staring in horror at my own reflection. Allie—Denny’s fucking fiancée—is saying something else, but I don’t register a word of it. I cut off the call, feeling sick to my stomach.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I grip the edge of the counter. This is going to destroy Summer. She likes Denny, but that’s not even the half of it.
At sixteen, I spent months watching her sob over the demise of her parents’ marriage—they were high school sweethearts whose seemingly perfect family life imploded after her mother’s yearlong affair with a neighbor came to light.
It was the inescapable town gossip for months when her parents’ split went public. And after Summer sided with her dad, her mother picked up and moved from the entire continent with her lover. Leaving Summer and any chance at repairing their relationship behind.
There isn’t a chance in hell Summer knows about the fiancée.
She’s going to kill me for setting them up. For roping her into this, the very thing that ruined her family.
But not before I kill him.