Chapter 23 Parker
“Canceled?”
The word squeaks out of Summer’s mouth. She stares wide-eyed at the woman at the reception desk of the Rockford Inn. “What do you mean, the second room’s been canceled? How does something like this just happen?”
The woman continues to calmly tap at her keyboard, colorful nails clacking off the black keys. “I’ve just started my shift, so I’m not quite sure. But it’s only possible if someone on the reservation calls it in.”
Our gazes clash. Well, well, Prescott. Are we angling for another anatomy lesson, after all?
“Parker.” Summer nudges me a few feet away from the counter, eyes narrowing until they’re barely more than slits. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”
“I didn’t do this. But I’m highly interested to know what you thought might happen tonight, when you canceled the room.”
“I did not cancel the room,” she hisses. “If you think this is some cute or clever way to make me feel you up again…”
I bark a laugh. “Make you? Let’s not pretend you didn’t beg to feel me up, love.”
“I begged, really?” Summer smirks. “You’re the one who demanded an anatomy lesson. Real subtle, Park.”
“You dropped your towel.”
“You kissed my neck.”
“You almost kissed me.”
Guess there’s no more dancing around it. Summer glares up at me, lips parted like she can’t believe I had the balls to bring it up. As though the feel of her lips hasn’t haunted my every waking minute since.
“Trust me, this wasn’t my handiwork,” I tell her. “The next time you feel me up, it’ll be your own doing.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Admit it: You’re on your knees at your bedside every night, praying I’ll lose my mind enough to fondle you.”
“I’d settle for you asking me to bite you again.” I shrug. “But I’ll take that fondle if you’re offering.”
“There won’t be a fondle, I assure you.”
“Oh yeah?” I step forward, bringing us so close our fronts nearly touch. “Then why are you so damn afraid to share a room with me, Summer?”
She’s breathing heavily, like she’s just swum a half-hour’s worth of laps at the high school.
“How many beds?” Summer asks the clerk without looking away from me. “In the room we have. How many beds are there?”
“One.” I have been blessed. “The second room got snapped up almost immediately. I believe there’s some sort of event taking place locally…”
“Surf’s Up.” Summer digs her teeth into her plush bottom lip, still staring at me. “I suppose we don’t have a choice.”
I smirk. “How convenient for you.”
Fuming, Summer returns to the counter, digging her wallet out of her bag. I get my credit card out and toss it there first.
“You don’t have to.” She almost sounds resigned, though I’m not quite sure what she’s resigned herself to.
“I want to.” The room sharing, the sleeping in one bed. I don’t know how or why this happened. Whether Summer really made that call, if someone else did, or if it was just a fortuitous glitch in the system.
But I definitely want to.
We spend the rest of the day avoiding the tiny room.
Take a drive out to Rocky Ridge, spend a couple of hours there walking the beach and taking our boards out to give Summer a feel for the water.
We take our sweet time eating street tacos on a picnic table by the boardwalk.
Watching the sun set. Holding conversations that feel like ours, but for the undercurrent of tension coating each word.
Now, Summer messes around in the bathroom of our room.
Has been for the past twenty minutes: showering, then running a hair dryer; pausing for a good thirty seconds, as though straining to hear what it is I’m doing on the other side of the wall, before continuing to rummage around the bathroom. Then pausing again to listen.
She’s trying to run out the clock. Hoping to come out here and find me sound asleep.
Joke’s on her, though. I’ve never been more awake in my life.
I flip the page in Juliana Bekker’s autobiography.
I picked it up last week, figuring that if I was going to train Summer to be the best, I should study the best. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medal surfer, and it really is a fascinating read.
But I’m getting through each page at a glacial pace, anticipating Summer’s arrival.
It’s a cozy room. A decorative stone fireplace with a wrought iron grate faces the queen-size bed.
Rustic sconces fill the room with pale, warm light.
There’s no TV, but there is an oversized armchair, with cushions so soft and worn-in they look like they’d swallow you up the second you touched down on them.
Notably, I haven’t offered to sleep in it. Equally as notable: Summer hasn’t insisted I do so.
Finally, the bathroom door squeals open.
Summer’s floral scent gushes into the room, more intoxicating than usual as it’s accompanied by steam from her long shower.
Her hair sits in loose waves. She’s wearing a fitted T-shirt and tiny shorts to bed, definitely no bra by the looks of her straining nipples.
She crosses her arms over her chest as she contemplates my very deliberate choice to forgo a shirt tonight.
I close my book, carefully placing it on the nightstand before nudging the frames up my nose. “Good shower?”
She nods, lingering on me. “I still can’t believe you got your eyes checked.”
I shrug. “You’ll be farther out tomorrow than I could’ve seen without them.”
“Oh,” she whispers, arms falling limp at her sides. “Parker, that’s really sweet.”
She gives me a small smile, looking less tense by the second. I sit up, stretching out my legs. “Braids?”
“Hm?” Her brows rise, then fall as she figures out what I mean. “Oh. Yes, please.”
She crosses the small room and climbs into bed. When I start working braids into her hair, her shoulders rise and fall in a deep, lung-filling breath. “All right, I think we officially need to talk about it. Parker, we almost kissed last week.”
I keep my focus on her hair, twisting the strands together. “We did almost kiss last week.”
“But then we didn’t. So there’s no reason to be weird about it, is there? And anyway, friends kiss all the time.”
My hands pause mid-braid.
This is exactly opposite to the no messing around within the friend group rule she made clear in our teens. The rule that, coupled with her laugh, had humiliated me so thoroughly I erected military-grade mental barricades against anything resembling romantic thoughts about my best friend.
And just like that, she’s cleared the blockade?
“Do they? Kiss all the time, I mean.”
“Sure. All the time.” Summer smooths the comforter underneath us, worrying over a wrinkled edge. “And ours was just an almost kiss. No reason to be weird about it. Nothing happened.”
Ah. I see what’s happening here. I’m being gently ushered back into the friend zone, just in time to share a bed. I should’ve seen this coming.
But I’m feeling petulant tonight. Those tense minutes at the reception desk proved that there’s something happening between us.
Something beyond friendship, no matter how much she wants to deny it.
And I’ve got a spiral-bound notebook burning a hole in my duffel bag right across the room, commanding me not to retreat. Same way it did in that classroom.
Summer’s dream man would fight for her, take risks for her, chance a broken heart just to show her how much she’s wanted.
“Good to know,” I say when I finish up the braids. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time we almost kiss.”
Summer whips around to look at me. I smooth the baby hairs along her forehead, unable to restrain a smile at the freckle hidden underneath. My freckle. “That’s not—I didn’t mean there would be a next time, Parker.”
“Why not? Friends kiss all the time. You said it yourself.”
“Yes, but…” She shakes her head, mouth opening and closing. Gaze bouncing over my face. Eyelashes fluttering. “Parker, you can’t… I can’t…” With an impatient sound, she reaches for my glasses and carefully pulls them off me. “I can’t think straight when you smile at me, wearing these things.”
She glares when I smile bigger, so delighted by the confession. I should’ve gotten my eyes checked years ago. Summer folds the glasses and places them on her nightstand.
“Better?”
Her gaze falls to my dimples. Her lips purse. “Not really.”
When I laugh, she slides under the covers and hits a light switch on the nightstand, unceremoniously plunging us into darkness. “I’m glad you’re enjoying this.”
“You finally admitting that I fluster you? Highlight of my life.” I join her under the covers, and she wastes no time delivering a swift kick to my shin. I grab her leg before she can retreat to her side of the bed, sliding my hand over her soft skin, the toned muscles in her thigh.
Summer settles on her back, staring at the ceiling. “And yet you’re the one who can’t keep his hands off me.”
“Not true. I kept my hands off you for years.” I drift up her thigh and over, resting my hand on her far hip, arm stretched across her stomach.
Her shirt’s ridden up as she settled in bed, skin so warm and soft against mine.
She shifts, the tip of my pinkie slipping under the loose waistband of her shorts.
I can feel the edge of her panties and I really might fucking combust tonight.
Her cheek meets her pillow as she looks me over. “So, what’s your excuse now?”
“Can and want are two very different things, Summer.”
“What does that even mean?” She bristles, glaring at the ceiling again. I know the non-answers frustrate her. But I’ve got a long way to go before she’d ever agree to date me, so she’ll have to get used to it.
“How’re you feeling about tomorrow?” I ask.
“You’ve seen me surf. You know exactly how it’s going to go.”
She still hasn’t managed a single barrel, and it’s making us both nervous. Her, because of the revenge scheme. Me, because there’s not a single thing worse than seeing her get dragged underwater like that and gasping for breath when she surfaces.
“You might get away with it,” I say. “Rocky Ridge isn’t known for its barrel waves.”