Chapter 11 Parker
Twenty minutes later, I’m showered and shaved at Mel’s insistence, and sitting at a corner table in Oakley’s.
Unfortunately, it’s Thursday night and stupid loud. After six days of existing in the quiet of my apartment, the noise has my head pounding. All I can think about is how much I’d rather be upstairs, alone. Anywhere but here.
But the relief in Melody’s face grows with every French fry I swallow. Meanwhile, Zac’s been trying to play it casual, making conversation about things that don’t matter, only to look way too engrossed whenever I interject with so much as a grunt.
“I’m thinking of getting one of those tractor lawn mowers. You know, the ones you ride? Since there’s so much grass out back and I—”
“For fuck’s sake, since when do you give a shit about the state of your lawn, Porter?” My words are impatient but Zac’s eyes actually light up.
“Since never.” He and Mel exchange a thrilled glance. Probably because it’s the most I’ve said since sitting down. “Couldn’t care less about my lawn.”
I run my hands over my face. “So, let’s stop talking about it.”
“Sure. What would you like to—”
“Where’s Summer tonight?”
Their hopeful smiles slip. Mel picks at the pile of fries in the middle of the table. “She’s at Shy’s house.”
I never knew this kind of jealousy was possible. “And—what’s… Is she okay?”
“She’s Summer.” Mel shrugs. “I thought for sure she’d break down by now, but you know her. She bounces back like no one else.”
I nod, chest swirling with hurt and relief. She’s okay. She’s out there smiling and laughing and fine without me. While I’m here. Paralyzed by the way I miss her.
I blow out a breath, propping my head in my hands. “Should I go over there? Try to talk to her?”
“I think the space helps,” Mel says gently. “She’ll get over it eventually, Park.”
“Then why does it feel like there’s no going back?” It’s like I’m mourning a death. The end of our friendship as we knew it. This perfect, untarnished one, where we’ve never done more than roll eyes at each other’s nonsense.
Even if she stops icing me out, what do we look like once she does?
After a moment, Zac clears his throat. “Mel, I think we need fresh drinks. Mind going to the bar?”
Too slowly, I recognize how out of character it is for Zac to send Mel to fetch her own drink, when he spends 99 percent of his life catering to my sister’s every whim before she’s even whimmed them. I catch them mouthing something to each other before Mel disappears into the crowd.
“Fucking hell, what now? You both wanted me out of bed, so I got out of bed. You wanted me to eat”—I reach for a fry and shove it into my mouth—“so I’m eating.
I don’t need some kind of bullshit therapy session on top of it, about how to repair my friendship with Summer.
I’d rather talk about your fucking lawn. ”
Zac shakes his head. “You’re a jackass when you’re miserable.”
“So let me be miserable in peace.”
“Let me save you some time: I’ve been where you are. Tried being miserable in peace and it doesn’t work. I was a right moody asshole after your sister left town.”
I shove too many fries into my mouth to spare him a moody asshole response.
I have no idea what he’s getting at, but I do remember that phase.
We didn’t know it at the time, but he’d just screwed up his chances with my sister who’d moved out of town before he could make it right.
He’d gone from the happy-as-hell guy we grew up with, to a broody-as-hell prick.
It took Mel coming home to get the old Zac back.
“I’m going to open this conversation once, and then never again.
Because I know you get all pissy whenever it’s brought up.
” Zac’s words are so ominous, they finally draw my gaze.
There’s no mirth or accusation in his face.
He looks genuinely curious. “But it seems to me that the way you think about Summer—the way you’re sitting here like a sad sack without her—it’s a lot like the way I was without your sister. ”
My head falls forward, hair flopping over my face. “You’re really begging me to be an asshole. And I’m trying real hard not to be, on account of the whole sixteen years of friendship, brothers-in-law, groomsman in your wedding thing.”
“Just humor me for a few minutes, and I swear I’ll let this go forever.” I flick my hand in a get on with it gesture. “You love her.”
“Of course, I love her. You’ve known Summer as long as you’ve known me. Don’t you love her?”
“Yeah, I love her. But it’s not…” Zac sighs, toying with a salt shaker. “You miss her.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Sure, I would. Would I also become a shell of myself without her? Probably not.”
“Sounds to me like you need to appreciate your friend a little more, Zac,” I say darkly.
Anyone who’d go on smiling in the streets after a falling out with Summer is straight up off their gourd. I’m trapped in a therapy session with a fucking quack.
“Let me say this once and for all,” I say.
“Matter of fact, why don’t you get out your phone and record this, send it to the whole group.
You can all replay it whenever you wander back down this rabbit hole: Summer and I are friends, just like you are.
I love her, same as you do. I like being around her, just like you do.
Sure, I sometimes think about her naked. But it’s not like you don’t, too, and—”
Zac splutters beer all over the communal fries. “Pardon me?”
“What? What now?”
His eyes are watering from a coughing fit. He wipes an arm over his face, then takes several sips of Mel’s water to soothe his throat. “What the fuck did you just say? You think about her naked?”
This conversation is officially unbearable. “It’s Summer.”
“So?”
“So, it’s Summer. Everyone thinks about her naked. Have you seen her?”
Zac blinks. Slow, like he’s buying himself time to dig into the reserves of his patience. “Parker, I have never—not once—thought about Summer naked.”
There’s a strange, sudden niggling in my brain. I shake my head, dismissing it along with Zac’s words. “That’s because you’ve been obsessed with my sister since you were a child. You don’t count. Just wait.”
I pull the phone from my pocket, and after the dip of disappointment at not finding a single notification from Summer, I video call Brooks. The ringtone cuts off and his face fills the screen. He’s sitting in his LA kitchen, the lights bright around him, wearing a look of acute relief.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to call you—”
“Tell Zac you think about Summer naked.”
The pause on his end of the line is fleeting. One second, it’s quiet. The next, Siena is shouting, “What did he just say?”
Brooks’s panicked gaze darts beyond his phone. “I don’t! Siena, I do not think about Summer naked. I swear to God!”
Siena’s head of dark hair appears over Brooks’s shoulder. She looks about ready to strangle me. “You’re lucky I’m relieved to see you alive, Parker Woods. Or I’d hop on a flight just to—”
“Before,” I say quickly. Across the table, Zac howls with laughter. “I meant before he met you. When he was single, he thought about Summer naked.”
Siena regards her fiancé expectantly.
“No.” Brooks shoots me a death glare through the phone. “She’s my friend—why would I think about her naked? That’s weird as fuck.”
“But…” I’m trying to focus, trying to keep up with the conversation, but that niggling inside me grows more insistent by the second. “You’re trying to tell me you’ve never noticed her?”
There’s something clinically wrong with him, if that’s the case.
Brooks stares back, baffled as hell. “I know she’s good-looking, in a general sense. But if you’re asking me if I’ve ever sat there ogling her or—or thinking about her naked? That’s a hard no. I’ve never thought about her that way. We’re friends.”
The niggling becomes more of a hard tug. Like a leash has wound itself around me with an excitable hound on its other end, sniffing and pulling me along an unchartered path it’s desperate to explore.
“Why are you asking me this, anyway?” Brooks is frowning at his screen. Meanwhile, Siena presses her lips together, trying not to laugh, all animosity apparently forgotten. He glances at her, back at his screen, and— “Holy shit, you think about Summer naked?”
Siena bursts into laughter, wanders off-screen, and I am officially mortified.
“I…” I scramble to find words. Any words. “Is that not— Am I not supposed to do that?”
I’ve never once questioned my desire for Summer. It seemed to me a complete no-brainer, given the way she looks, the way her mind works. The way her smile draws the light, rendering her the only viable point of focus in the room.
“Whenever I’ve thought about people naked—and by people, I mean my loving fiancée, who is the only person I have ever thought about naked.
Ever.” Brooks glances past his screen. “But whenever I’ve thought about people naked, it’s because I wanted to fuck them.
And I can say with full certainty that sleeping with Summer has never been on my wish list.”
I blink at Brooks. Glance at Zac.
Zac snorts. Siena is laughing again. Brooks wipes a hand over his face. “How long have you wanted to fuck Summer?”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t know,” I burst. My body temperature is spiking, mind going into overdrive trying to make sense of all this. “I thought everyone did!”
“As in you genuinely believed that every single person who laid eyes on Summer wanted to fuck Summer?” Zac looks completely baffled. “That it was some kind of mark of humanity, like… people believing in a higher power?”
Brooks laughs. “Eat, pray, think about fucking Summer.”
I stare. “Well… yeah. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with Summer?”
Both guys hang their heads. “Parker, I think it’s time to seriously consider the possibility that your feelings for her aren’t as perfectly platonic as you think.”
“But…” This doesn’t make any sense. She’s always been beautiful. Always been my favorite person, since before I even knew love could mean something different than the way I felt about my sister. “You’re saying that just because I want to sleep with her, I’m…”
I can’t even say it.
“Not necessarily,” Brooks concedes. “But she stopped talking to you and you dug yourself a hole to live in. You look like death. And I love the hell out of Summer, but…” He fixates on something off-screen again, presumably Siena.
“There’s only one person who could leave me and have that kind of effect on me. ”
Zac gives me an I told you half shrug.
I scramble through years’ worth of memories, all my moments with Summer. And I come up with… nothing. No pivotal moment where the platonic love I had for her as a child transformed into whatever everyone seems to think has befallen me now.
She’s my best friend. The one who gets my humor and makes me laugh in return.
The one who keeps me steady when things feel bleak and impossible.
Not a day has passed since we met that I didn’t want to see her happy.
I’d do anything for her. And these are all qualities of a friendship I’ve always felt so unbelievably lucky to have.
If that’s also what romantic love is supposed to feel like, then how the hell does anyone ever tell the difference?
“Give me this, I’m about to save you all some effort.” Siena plucks the phone from Brooks’s hand. She’s barely keeping a straight face. “Hey, Parker? When was the last time you thought about me naked?”
There’s a shout from Brooks, but I’m shaking my head even before his narrowed eyes are back on screen. “I don’t ever think about you naked. That’s ridiculous. We’re just frie—”
Every single person seems to hold their breath, watching reality slam into me like a wrecking ball. “Fuck.”