Chapter 18 Parker
PARKER
Eight years ago…
“Everett, you jerk,” I wail a second after crashing to the ground outside our house.
For the last hour, Rett, Linc, and I have been playing basketball in the front yard.
The summer sun is beating down on us and sweat drips down my spine.
It’s been a really good day. Or at least it was until Rett’s shoulder-cheked into me in his attempt to get the ball.
Granted, I tripped over my own feet, but I’m placing the blame for the whole situation purely at his.
“Don’t be a pussy, PK,” my big brother barks.
Like most little sisters, I have a love-hate relationship with my big brother. In many ways, he’s the world’s most irritating person. But in others, he’s sweet and thoughtful. He also doesn’t see me as an incapable girl.
He may be faster and stronger than me, but he’s never stopped me from playing sports with him. Whether it be on the ice or on a court, he lets me join and sometimes even chooses me for his team. It’s rare, but it does happen sometimes.
“I’m bleeding,” I point out after twisting around so I’m sitting on my ass in the middle of the driveway. Both of my knees are scraped, and from the pain in my right elbow, I’d say that took a beating, too.
“Nothing a wipe won’t fix,” he calls before sinking another basket.
“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath.
“Need a hand?” Linc asks, gazing down at me with a little more concern for my injuries than my brother.
He holds his hand out, and I hesitate.
Lincoln Storm is hot. All the girls at school want him. Well, either him or my brother, but I really can’t see the attraction with the latter.
I want to hold his hand more than I want my next breath, but not in this way.
“I’m fine,” I huff, placing my palms to the scorching-hot asphalt beneath me and pushing myself to my feet.
I don’t care how hot he is. I don’t need a man to look after me.
I’m a strong, independent woman; a grazed knee or two isn’t going to keep me down. I’ve suffered way worse hits on the ice and don’t take a second to think about it before getting back to it.
“I’m gonna go and clean up,” I mutter as I stalk toward the house.
“Linc,” Rett barks, annoyed that he’s now playing alone.
Linc’s brow creases as he looks between the two of us.
I don’t know what his problem is—it’s not like he’s ever going to choose to hang out with me over Rett. Those kinds of situations are reserved for my late-night fantasies.
“Do you need some help?” he asks, ignoring my big brother’s demands for attention.
A laugh tumbles free, making his frown deepen.
“Oh, it wasn’t a joke,” I say when genuine hurt flickers through his eyes.
“Parker, I—”
“I’m fine. It’s just a graze. Nothing to cry about, right?” But despite my words, my nose itches and my eyes burn. It hurts, sure, but not enough to cause tears. It’s the embarrassment that’s making emotion rise within me.
I need to get away before I lose the battle with them because I refuse to cry over a graze in front of Lincoln Storm.
“Right,” he mutters as I flee toward the house.
I make a pitstop in the downstairs bathroom for the first-aid kit before running up to my room and swinging the door closed. It bounces back from the doorframe like it always does, since I demanded that Dad take the latch out because of my fear of being trapped.
Usually, when I want to hide, I’ll push my chair against it to stop anyone coming in, but I don’t bother right now because no one is going to be following me.
Mom isn’t due home for hours, and Dad is currently at a summer camp on the other side of the country.
I sniffle as I walk across my room and give up fighting my tears.
As much as I’m grateful that Rett includes me, it’s impossible to forget that I’m not like him. No matter how hard I train, how much practice I put in, I’ll always be weaker.
He’s going to make it. I can already picture him living the high life in the NHL.
His dream is to play for our hometown, the LA Vipers.
He’ll probably do it, too. I love him, but that asshole gets everything he wants.
Everything seems to fall into his lap; whereas, I have to work my ass off for everything I have.
I fall onto the end of my bed with a heavy sigh, tears streaking down my cheeks.
It’s pathetic. I don’t have a reason to cry, not really, but they fall regardless.
Sometimes, I really hate being a girl.
I wish Casey were here. She’s been gone on vacation with her dad for a little over a week, and I miss her like crazy. She’d understand how I’m feeling right now. She knows what it’s like to grow up in a man’s world, and the work we have to put in to making ourselves stand out.
I don’t want to be Everett Donnelly’s little sister.
I want to be Parker Donnelly: kickass ice hockey player and all-around decent person.
But everything I do gets overlooked because of him.
I don’t want to be bitter about it. My brother is the best—not that I’ll ever tell him that to his face.
I am proud to be his little sister. I just… I want to be more than just that.
I want…I want to stand on my own two feet and make waves in the world like I know he’s going to.
Maybe it would be easier if I were interested in something other than sports, or more specifically, ice hockey.
It’s my life, just like it is his. The only difference is that I’m not good enough to go all the way like he is.
If I want to dedicate my life to the sport, I’ll have to go about it a different way.
It’s not going to be easy. Hell, it’s going to be the opposite of easy. But I’m going to do everything in my power to make it happen.
One day, I’m going to be an athletic trainer in the NHL.
My eyes flick to my desk, where I’ve pinned my vision board for the future.
Hard work, determination, and focus. That, along with a whole load of luck, and I might just do it.
It’s either that or I resign myself to a life of being a little sister.
My teeth grind at the thought alone.
Finally, I flip open the first-aid box and pull out a wipe to clean myself up.
I have blood trickling down both of my legs, soaking into my socks. Sitting here feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to fix anything.
I’m wiping up my shin when a knock sounds on my door. I startle, but before I can say anything, an intimidatingly large body slips into my room.
“I thought you—what’s wrong?” Linc asks, his eyes widening with horror when he sees my tears.
Fuck’s sake.
Dropping the wipe, I drag the backs of my hands across my cheeks, trying to clear them away.
“Nothing. I’m just being stupid.”
“Does it hurt that bad?” he asks as he invites himself in and moves closer.
He might only be sixteen, but already, he looks like a hockey player. Gone is the scrawny boy I remember from childhood, and in his place is what is going to be a professional athlete. I let my eyes wander for a moment, taking in the definition of his abs and those V lines that—
Shit.
“N-No, it’s just…it’s nothing.”
He moves closer still, not put off by my emotional breakdown.
“Let me,” he says, snatching the abandoned wipe from my lap and dropping to his knees at my feet.
“Oh, no you don’t need to—ow shit,” I hiss when he touches the wipe to my scrape.
“Sorry. Should have warned you.”
I’m no virgin when it comes to cleaning up wounds. It comes with the territory of being an ice hockey player, even as a girl.
“It’s fine,” I whisper, my eyes locked on where he very carefully cleans me up.
Silence falls between us as he works. Every brush of his fingertips makes my heart beat a little faster and my skin erupt with goose bumps.
I’m fifteen. But thanks to my title as Rett’s little sister, I’m yet to have a boyfriend or kiss anyone like most of the girls at school.
I want to. I’m ready to experiment, but all the boys are too scared to go anywhere near me.
A heavy sigh slips past my lips, and Linc looks up with his bright blue eyes.
“Penny for your thoughts, Little P.”
That nickname makes something light up inside me. It reminds me that sometimes, he does see me as a person. Maybe even a girl.
I shake my head. I couldn’t possibly tell him my thoughts. He’d laugh in my face. He has girls falling over themselves to get to him at school. They both do. And I’ll never admit it, but I’ve overheard them talking about what they’ve been getting up to with said girls.
Something uncomfortable and unwanted stirs within me.
Jealousy.
I want him to look at me like he does those girls.
“Does Rett know you’re up here?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Your mom called, reminded him that he promised to go to the store for her.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
“Does it look like it?” he says, switching to my other knee. “Thought I’d check on you. Grab a drink and chill for a bit.”
“You don’t need to check on me,” I argue.
“What if I want to?”
I stare down at him, my mouth opening and closing as I try and fail to find any words.
“Okay,” I squeak.
His eyes hold mine for a beat before he gets back to work.
“Rett was an asshole for checking you like that,” he mutters as he places Band-Aids on both my knees.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
He chuckles before demanding I show him my elbow.
“Jesus,” he mutters, taking in the mess.
I hold my arm in front of my chest, allowing him to repeat the process of cleaning it up and checking for debris. He opens a Band-Aid and applies it, but as he smooths the underside down, his knuckles brush against my breast.
I might be wearing a padded sports bra, but his touch is like an electric current that zaps straight through me.
No one has ever touched them, but that one graze is enough for me to know that I’d like it if someone—okay, if Linc—did.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay,” I breathe, noticing how raspy my voice is.
Holy cow. Am I…am I turned on?
I focus on my body, on the new sensations racing through me, and how everything seems to start and end between my thighs.
My chest heaves with my increased heart rate as we continue to stare at each other.
Nothing happens, yet at the same time, I think everything does.
Linc pushes higher on his knees, bringing us closer together.
His eyes bounce between mine as if he’s trying to read something within them.
And when they drop to my lips, I swear I stop breathing altogether.
He wants to kiss me.
Lincoln Storm wants to kiss me.
Me.
He moves closer, and my head begins to spin; the room around me disappears. But just before I think he’s going to take the final plunge, his cell begins ringing.
He jumps back as if he’s been slapped, and my entire body sags in disappointment.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath as he climbs to his feet and pushes his hand into his pocket to retrieve his cell, but as he does, I notice something. Hell, it’s not exactly hard to miss, especially when his hand helps to pull the fabric tight across his crotch.
He’s hard.
Heat floods south, and I rub my thighs together.
As he swipes the screen, he glances down at himself, and then very briefly at me. His cheeks are pink, yet his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them. It’s the weirdest mix of cute and sexy I’ve ever seen.
But no sooner do our eyes collide than he opens his mouth.
“Rett,” he barks before racing from the room as if the place is on fire.