Chapter 4 #3
He fills the kettle, then stands at the stove to wait for it to whistle.
A few moments later, he fills two mugs with hot water, carefully plopping a tea bag in each mug.
The warm smell of peppermint rises up, settling all my nerves.
We sit in silence for a few stilted moments as the tea takes forever to steep.
Parker watches me with slightly narrowed eyes as I lift the mug and take a hesitant sip.
It’s still too hot, but the scalding heat of the tea helps ground me in the moment.
“It’s going to be all right,” Parker assures me. He leans against the island with his elbows, some of his hair still escaping his messy bun.
“I killed someone. I can’t go to prison.”
Parker’s eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. “You aren’t going to prison. I won’t let you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Parker asks, confused.
“Why won’t you let me go to prison? I killed a man. My uncle, to be more exact. And to be honest, I should feel worse about that, right? I took a life. It wasn’t my life to take.”
I take another sip of the tea to settle my nerves that are rapidly starting to send me into anxiety-attack territory.
Parker just keeps staring at me. It feels like he’s looking through me—not trying to figure me out, but trying to see to the root of me.
I am not sure I really like it. I don’t think anyone on earth actually knows me.
“I’ve killed ninety-five people.”
Well. That puts things into perspective. “Why?”
Parker shrugs, looking down at his tea to avoid my curious gaze. “Bad people should die.”
“But why do we get to decide if someone is bad?”
“Sometimes the judge and jury don’t do their jobs, and other people need to take care of the rotten pieces of society who don’t belong because they find a way to escape their consequences.”
I hum as I think over his argument. There are a lot of bad people in the world who just get away with everything.
My uncle was one of them. He made sure kids lost their Medicaid, voted for laws that took away the rights of queer spouses to be with their partners on their deathbeds, fought against life-saving dollars going to other countries for things like ending fucking malaria—things any normal human being would be okay with, my uncle had wanted no part of.
Is the world a better place without him in it?
Yes. But it feels wrong that I was the one to decide he should die.
“Your uncle was going to die tonight no matter what. If you hadn’t shot him, then the 400 milligrams of lisinopril that I put in his scotch would have killed him.
” Parker leans even farther forward, lowering his voice so I have to strain to listen.
“Pretend I killed him so you don’t have to live with the guilt, okay? ”
“How do you live with it?” I ask, because I genuinely want to know how.
Parker taps his fingers against his temple. “Make these little boxes in your head. I envision a cardboard box, fill it with all the memories of the people I killed, then I tape it up, and store it away in this closed room in my brain.”
“That’s a serious coping mechanism.”
Parker chuckles, and the sound rolls right through me. He has a nice laugh. It’s just like his voice—deep, a little melodical, and real. Everything about Parker is real. Too real.
“We all have to find ways to cope with life, right?”
And that hits me like a punch to the gut, because I’m coping by making my world as small as I can.
Yeah, the medicine helps, but it’s not a cure-all, and my OCD will always be a part of me.
At least I don’t have my compulsions anymore, it’s just the anxiety of…
life that remains with me. The fear of getting sick.
The fear of dying. But not feeling the need to wash my hands hundreds of times a day is a nice trade-off.
“Hello,” Hayden says as he slides the door open to step inside. “Your uncle’s body is gone.”
“Huh?” Parker asks with a deep frown. “Like, Robin cleaned it up?”
Hayden shakes his head furiously. “The crew got there to disappear it and his body was gone. No blood. No body. Nothing.”
Parker looks even more confused. “Uh?”
Reid joins us in the kitchen. “Wait, what?”
Hayden frowns and huffs. “Listen, I already said it. His body is gone. I don’t know what else to tell you. But for now, we sit and wait.” Hayden aims a steely look at me. “I think you should stay here.”
“Oh no… No. I need to be in my own home.”
“Then one of us will stay there with you,” Hayden supplies with an absolutely fake grin.
“No… No.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Parker says as he straightens up. “We’ll stay here tonight, then tomorrow move back into his house. I’m comfortable with my alarm system still on the house. I reinforced it after last time.”
Wait.
“I already have an alarm system,” I say in confusion.
Parker snorts in obvious disbelief. “Sure. You purchased that out of the box from the security company, right? It’s half-assed, just feels nice because it’s all on your phone. Mine’s better.”
I blink slowly at him. “Okay.”
Reid makes an aggrieved, frightened sort of sound behind me. “Why is it always something? Why can’t we ever have a normal week? Just one normal week.”
“Baby,” Dante pleads.
Reid shoots him a glare. “No! Now we have to deal with this too. We all need a fucking vacation.”
“This is a good enough time to tell everyone we’re going to Arizona for spring break to visit my parents.” Dante glares at Hayden when the other man tries to interrupt him. “No, we won’t be working. Also, we won’t have our phones with us.”
Then Dante grabs Reid’s arm and bodily drags him up the stairs without another word.
A second later, a bedroom door slams and quiet once again envelops the kitchen.
I want to say something to diffuse the tension, but I’ve never really been good at that.
I’m more of a wallflower, although wallflower alludes to the object being pretty, something desirable, and I’m definitely not that.
So maybe I’m more of a wall… wallsocketwrench.
“I’m tired, and if I don’t get at least six hours of sleep, I will fail my exam tomorrow,” Hayden complains, nose wrinkled, hard gaze aimed at Jacob. “I’m going to bed. Y’all can figure out the sleeping arrangements.”
Hayden flees the kitchen and stomps up the stairs, Jacob’s gaze fixed firmly on his back. The tension in the room disappears, but Jacob’s shoulders are still up to his ears, his strong jaw hard and tense.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Jacob says as he aims a steely look my way, but the words were clearly meant for his brother.
“Nothing to talk about.” Parker bumps his fist against Jacob’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Jake.”
Jacob grunts in disagreement, then quietly heads up the stairs like everyone else. Parker looks back at me with a sigh and nods toward my tea. “Finish your tea, then I’ll show you up to my room.”
“No way,” I argue. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Parker rolls his eyes. “Do as I say.”
His order rankles me a little, but I don’t fight him.
Instead, I finish my tea, finally pushing away from the island as a clear indicator that I’m ready for him to show me to bed.
Parker takes a moment to clean our mugs before guiding me up the stairs.
All the rooms are dark, no light filtering through the spaces at the bottom, even Reid’s room.
When our parents had just died, I’d slept outside Reid’s bedroom on the floor just in case he’d ever needed me.
Of course, he hadn’t, because Reid is made of steel and stardust, but maybe I’d needed it more.
The proximity to Reid had eased a lot of the initial ache inside me after our parents’ deaths.
I’ll never know if it did anything for him, or if he even knew I did it.
Parker pushes through the final door. “This is my room.”
It’s very utilitarian. Gray walls, a black metal king-size bed, and a matching dresser.
Not many personal items except for a fancy-looking computer setup in the corner.
There’s a picture on the desk of Parker as a young boy beside Jacob.
Back then they almost looked identical, much more so than they do now.
But that’s it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the room was in a hotel.
Parker heads toward the bed and starts to strip it as I stand frozen.
“What are you—”
“I’m putting clean sheets on the bed for you.”
I flush at the thought of him being so considerate.
I stand there like the awkward idiot I am, shifting from foot to foot as he quickly remakes the bed with clean sheets and a clean comforter that he grabbed from the walk-in closet on the other side of the room.
Once he’s finished, he steps away with his hands planted on his hips and tosses me an unsure smile.
“Good?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Parker. Thank you.”
“I have an extra toothbrush—”
“I need clothes—”
We both stop when we realize we spoke at the same time.
I can feel the flush rise on my cheeks, and my neck heats.
Parker just chuckles and takes a small step closer, his moss-green gaze sweeping over my face like a caress.
What would it be like to touch him? Not that he’d want that—he’s Parker—but sometimes I think about touching someone, anyone, and allowing myself to feel without the fear of germs. To kiss and hold without fear is my greatest life’s wish.
Well, that and for Reid to stop hating me.
“I have some freshly washed clothes for you, just stay there,” Parker orders, as if I’m considering going anywhere but here. He digs around in his dresser for a moment, returning with a well-worn T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that’ll surely swim on me.
Pointing toward the bathroom, I awkwardly ask, “Can I just…?”
“Yeah, go on. Spare toothbrush is under the sink.” Parker waves his arm toward the door. “I’ll just… wait out here.”
I feel myself flush. “Okay.”
The bathroom is just as bland and basic as the bedroom.
Subway tiles in the shower, dark granite counters, and marble tiles.
Even the towels are white. Where is Parker’s personality?
Everything is so… plain. I look under the sink to find the basket with toothbrushes and tiny tubes of toothpaste.
At least that’s safe for me. Once I’ve finished my bedtime routine and dressed in the gigantic shirt and sweatpants, I step back into the bedroom.
Parker has made a pallet on the ground with the dirty comforter and sheets to sleep on.
He smiles his reassuring smile again, the one that makes it hard for my anxiety to spin a web of vicious thoughts in my brain.
His gaze sweeps over me and his eyebrows pinch together at the sight of me in his clothes. Ugh.
“Yeah, I’ll buy you something new to replace these.”
Parker looks affronted at the very idea. “Why?”
“Well, I’ve worn them…”
Parker clears his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing hard. “That’s not a problem. It’s fine. I’m going to go get ready for bed now.”
I climb into the soft bed, my eyes already growing heavy just from the cloudy softness beneath me.
I don’t know why I assumed his bed would be hard, maybe because of the blandness of his room.
But the bed is pleasantly soft, like sleeping on a fluffy cloud.
The sheets and comforter smell like lavender, comforting me and making me drowsy.
Parker steps out of the bathroom in just sweatpants, and my mouth goes dry at the sight.
He’s on the thinner side, but his muscles are made for quickness, tight and beautiful.
I glance away from him to control my reaction.
The light goes off a second later, and the room is tossed into pitch blackness.
All I can hear is the sound of Parker curling up in the makeshift bed on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“Good night, Mason,” Parker calls out, hesitant and tired sounding.
“Good night, Parker.”
But I kind of wish he’d call me Mace again. What will I have to do to earn that?