Chapter 14 Summer
My slow clap breaks the dead silence on Zac and Melody’s front porch.
“Nice work, Woods. Really outdid yourself tonight.”
The murder in Parker’s eyes hasn’t dimmed. He raises his fist with the stupid list I’d scribbled down this morning and spent the rest of the day rereading—making sure it sunk all the way in so that I’d never forget the words, could never again mistake who I am.
“Where did you see him?” Parker demands. “Was it while you were surfing?”
“No. I haven’t been out in…” Holding back tears physically hurts at this point, but I try anyway. “I had a committee meeting. He was surfing.”
“I will end him.” I’ve seen Parker pissed off on several occasions. He’s always led with impulse. Felt his emotions so deeply, never shied away from them. I’ve always envied him for that kind of vulnerability and courage, even when it drives me insane.
Tonight, though? He’s never looked more prepared to commit vicious crimes on my behalf. Parker uncrumples the sheet of paper and jabs a finger somewhere near the bottom. “ ‘Not wife material.’ What does that mean?”
Humiliation forces heat up my neck. I make a grab for the paper, managing to take it back this time. “We’re not even within the realm of discussing this, after the crap you’ve put me through.”
“So, let’s talk about that. You were the only reason I even showed up to work this morning.”
“And, what? I wasn’t there so you quit? God, Parker, do you ever just use your head?”
The porch lights cut off. We watch a figure about Melody’s height walk away through the window in the front door, leaving us in the pitch black.
The sun and moon are the only sources of outdoor light this far out of town, and neither are visible with tonight’s cloud coverage.
All I can see is the shape of Parker’s body, large and tense.
“Great,” I mutter, patting through my purse for car keys. “Now my best friend is pissed at me.”
“I’m a little annoyed, but I’ll get over it.”
An unintentional chuckle blows past my lips, but I’m still unprepared to make nice. I move around him for the porch steps.
“I missed your laugh. Summer, you have no idea.”
Goose bumps erupt over my skin despite the warm spring night.
Parker’s words are a whisper in the dark, feel like a caress to the back of my neck.
Spoken so softly, devoid of frustration, and like nothing I’ve ever heard out of him.
They catch me like a lasso around the knees and I buckle, start to teeter off the porch steps, until Parker’s hand closes around my wrist. He tugs, and I stumble into the hard wall of his chest.
Home.
It feels like I’ve arrived home after a hell of a time away. Banged up and bloodied but so damn relieved to have returned somewhere I know.
“Please be careful,” he whispers. “Need you in one piece.”
“Okay.” The word comes out sounding like a question, though I haven’t got a clue what it’s asking. His arms shift, and I expect him to circle me into a hug. Instead, his fingers brush down the length of my spine—a single soft pass, almost tentative, exploratory—before his palm settles on my hip.
And just like that, I feel anything but at home. I know nothing of being touched this way, not by Parker.
I blink, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dark, but all I can make out is the shape of his eyes, the dip of his chin as he stares back at me. Stares into me.
“What are you doing?” I mumble.
“I don’t know. What am I doing?”
It seems like an honest question. Like he’s hoping I can fill in the blanks for him.
Explain why we’re standing so close, why his eyes haven’t come off me, why his palm feels so damn possessive on my hip.
Why his body feels this hot through his T-shirt, and why the familiar peppery scent lifting off him coils around my brain, rattling me, dulling the anger I’ve clung to for twelve too-long days without him.
A warm breeze flutters by, sweeping my hair over my cheek. “You’re looking at me.”
“Yeah. I’m looking at you.” He hooks a finger around a strand of hair stuck to my lip gloss. His skin grazes my cheek as he tucks the mess behind my ear and my throat goes inexplicably tight.
My brain scrambles to catch up, to slot this moment into the mental scrapbook of me and Parker, and the way we are together.
Playful. Comfortable. Frustrating. This doesn’t fit anywhere.
“I…” My fingers fumble around my car keys. We both start, stumble apart as a beep breaks the silence. The headlights on my car flare, bathing the porch in light.
“Fuck me.” Parker runs a rough hand over his face, through his hair.
A sharp edge digging into my palm has me realizing I’m still holding my list. The weight of this day presses down on me. Between giving up my pop-up market, Denny’s words, and Parker’s… whatever that was, it has officially become more than I can bear.
I follow the light from my car down the porch steps. “I’m going home.”
“Let me come with you. Let me talk to you.” I’ve reached my car, but he hurries over, looking more frantic than I’ve ever seen him. “Summer, I’m sorry—”
“You made a scene in front of everyone,” I burst, spinning to face him. “Do you understand how humiliating it was to find that out at the same time as the rest of town? To have them find out at all?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I saw red—I just wanted him away from you.
” His lips move, struggling around more words.
Parker throws out his arms as though urging them to appear from thin air, make their way to him.
“I tried to vet him before I introduced you. I swear to you, I asked him if he was single, but…” He gives a helpless shrug.
“I should’ve dug deeper, asked more questions. ”
“That’s not the point. If he was willing to cheat, no amount of questions would’ve changed that. What you should’ve done is bring it to me privately.”
“I know—I’m sorry,” he says again. “Summer, you don’t have to stop punishing me for it. But I need you to let me back in now. Please, invite me over.”
I study him under the glare from my headlights.
He’s wearing a T-shirt that brings out the dark blue of his eyes and his usual backward hat, hair just tickling the back of his neck.
There’s nothing amiss with the outfit, but he looks…
down to the bone exhausted. His face is thinner.
Somehow, he’s managed to lose weight in the twelve days since I’ve properly seen him.
He quit his job today.
And he’s begging for me the same way my stinging insides beg for him, despite the carefully cultivated anger I’ve clung to since that night.
“Fine,” I say at last. “But we’re going to your place.”
I stand at the end of the hall, taking in the destruction of Parker’s apartment.
Clothes strewn over his couch, food containers covering his counter, and stacks of water glasses in his sink. It looks like my apartment.
Parker fusses around the living room, tidying up. Shoulders tense under his shirt, avoiding eye contact. Even if I hadn’t decided on a ceasefire before arriving, his evident shame at the state of his usually pristine home would have backed me right down.
Without a word, I collect the half-empty Styrofoam containers scattered over the kitchen island, then set them back down to empty the overflowing trash.
I blink back tears, overwhelmed with guilt. He’s been struggling for months, and the last thing I told him was that I’d never forgive him. He needed me, and I was sitting across the street hiding behind anger.
“You don’t have to do that.” Parker stands in the middle of his living room, tightly clutching a pair of socks.
“I know I don’t.” I throw out the last of the containers before blowing out a steadying breath. “Parker, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” He comes around to help with the dishes.
We work silently, arms brushing, shoulders bumping.
There’s more than enough space for both of us.
But maybe, like me, he finds the contact reassuring.
Whatever dark place he went to while we were apart, he’s here now.
And that’s a relief beyond any I’ve felt before.
Dishes done, I pull out my phone and order a pizza from the shop a couple towns over. I load it with his favorite meats and the dairy-free cheese he needs, hoping it will entice him to eat.
“Thank you.” Parker’s fingers brush my lower back, punctuating his appreciation. My skin pulls taut with awareness, same as it did on his sister’s front porch. Again, my brain struggles to make sense of it. “Go sit. I’ll bring you a drink.”
All I muster is a nod, folding a T-shirt tossed over a plushy sofa arm before taking a seat.
I feel flustered in a way I’ve never been in Parker’s company.
Like coming back to the home you grew up in, and it looks the same as it always does, but not really.
There are small, tiny things out of place.
Not necessarily in a bad way, but just jarring enough to shake you.
“So, am I really stuck alone with Don and Kendra from now on?” I accept the Diet Coke Parker hands me, making room for him beside me. “How bad was it?”
He pulls a face. “I ripped him a new one during a team meeting and maybe, sort of, definitely insinuated he’s been fucking Kendra.”
I hang my head. “I’m gone for one day.”
“I know,” he groans. “See what happens when you’re not around? I’m falling apart.”
“And as lovely a sentiment as that is, you cannot keep doing this. I can’t be the one saving you from destruction, Park.
You need to own that. Take charge of your life.
” I linger on the dark circles under his eyes.
“You can’t stay so… reactive. It didn’t do me any good with Denny; did you even less good with Don. And, look, you know I love you—”
Parker fumbles the Mountain Dew he’d been reaching for on the coffee table. “Do you?”
I clutch his arm. “Of course I do. We’ve been friends all our lives. A couple weeks apart can’t change anything.”