5. PARKER
FIVE
PARKER
I’d been unprepared for Fred Macklin to invite the Kikishkins, but Connor just had to turn up where he wasn’t wanted. As usual. It’ll be good for him to see the sort of damage people like him cause though, so while I’m caught off guard having to be around him for a night when I wasn’t mentally prepared, I can do this.
Turn it into some kind of punishment and make out like it was all part of my master plan.
Yes. I am that evil.
And not at all socially rusty after my years-long checkout from real life.
When I heard the charity still had two full tables to sell the night before the event, I bought up the seats, and only then did I remember I have no one in my life to fill them with. Asking Macklin, like it’s some kind of Colorado-sanctioned event, was a really low point, but thankfully, the only person who will ever know that is me.
And if I can squeeze a few thousand out of Connor Kikishkin toward a charity that exists because of people like him, then I will.
He might not have been the one shoving me over or cornering me in bathrooms, but it was his team who did it. Him who put me on their radar. He was their leader, and if he’d told them to stop, they would have.
Who knows, maybe if I’d had a chance to make friends back then, I’d have people to fill the tables now.
I brace my hands on either side of the bathroom stall and take a long, measured breath. Count to ten. I can’t stay in here forever. Technically, I could, but I shouldn’t. And won’t, obviously.
Tonight is going to drain my social battery quickly, and I’m glad I didn’t put my name down to speak at this thing because that would have been a disaster. As much as I’d love to articulate the numerous horrible things I experienced in front of Connor, doing it in front of a room full of people would have guaranteed it came out as, “Ber, hum, uh, bully …”
I’ve trained myself to confidently talk software to hundreds, but it’s all a facade. A thousand-times practiced facade that has me up the entire night beforehand.
I shake out my hands, straighten my shoulders, and then push through with the attitude that doesn’t fit me well. In the back of my mind, I picture Connor moving through the halls at the arena with the exact same posture, but I push the image out again. No more thinking about that asshole unless it’s for a grand master plan to turn his life to hell.
Which is something I’m totally capable of.
I button the front of my jacket, unlock the door, and then scrub the shit out of my hands at the sink. As nice as this bathroom is, it’s like I can feel the germs crawling over my skin in here.
I leave, tucking the hand towel I used to open the door into my pocket, and confidently stride into the cocktail area, searching to see if everyone is here yet. Let them think I’m fashionably late. That’s a thing important people do, right?
One glimpse of Connor Kikishkin has me stuffing my shaking hands in my pockets as well. This is not high school. We’re different now. I’m the one with the power. Maybe my brain will remember that one of these days.
The first person to spot me from our group of misplaced jocks in a room full of former bully victims is Knox Addison, Easton Kikishkin’s partner and Connor’s best friend since high school. The only reason I’d suggested inviting him is because, from what I can remember, Knox was always nice to me, and I’d needed an ally. What I hadn’t considered—and my anxiety decides to remind me of now—is that as Connor’s best friend, he probably knows all about my plans to ruin a man he considers a brother, so this may have been a miscalculation on my part.
The nerves tighten so hard I almost forget to be confident altogether, but then I get closer, and Knox smiles.
The rapidly building tension eases away.
“Parker.” He stands and pumps my hand in a friendly way. “Look at you, all grown up.”
I try not to take that in a condescending way. “I hear time does that.” And I’m trying not to resent that he’s still almost a full head taller than me.
“Listen, I wanted to quickly thank you. I heard you might be the reason for my new career path, and I’m grateful.”
“Ah. Right. Yes.” I clear my throat, not really sure how to take someone’s gratitude. In my mind, Knox is a good person. He wanted something, and I had the influence to help that happen. It’s linear and not at all something that needs thanks for, but this is what I’ve always seen in him—he’s a good person. And objectively attractive, so it would have been so much easier to have an almost decades-old crush on him instead of the asshole on his other side.
Pity Knox is so … levelheaded, I guess. Well-adjusted.
He’d never throw me up against a wall.
Jesus, maybe my billions should be going toward a goddamn shrink.
“Anyway, I really appreciate it. ”
“Anytime.” I mentally slap myself because how many times is this kind of thing going to come up? Fucking hell, the night has barely started, and I’m already rattled. I normally don’t drink at public events, but I think tonight, I’m going to need one.
“Mr. Duchene,” Easton says, without the mocking hint I’m so used to being applied to my name. “That’s my mom and dad, Kate and Michael.”
We go over pleasantries, but all I’m doing is picturing smiling wide and thanking them for raising the man who made my life a living hell. Picturing really driving the knife in over what shitty parents they are. How it was their responsibility to raise decent people, and they failed. Then Easton continues.
“They’re the whole reason my brothers and I have hockey,” he says. “Dad really got us into the sport and worked two jobs to make sure we had everything we needed. Connor paid them both back with his signing bonus, and now they’re our managers.”
I didn’t need all that backstory, and I get the suspicion that Easton only told me all of that as a “look how great and big-hearted my brother is” example.
But my gaze hasn’t left Mr. Kikishkin. He got them into hockey. He worked his ass off for them.
I swallow thickly, all resentment toward them gone in place of the deep loneliness my own dad left behind. “Great sacrifices you made.”
“Duchene …” Mr. Kikishkin rubs his jaw. “Wasn’t there a hockey player by that name? Any relation?”
Now who’s driving the knife in deep? “Yes.”
I don’t elaborate, and thankfully, at that point, Macklin suggests we find our tables. I lead the way, mostly to get away from them all, and before I can even get to our seats, I gratefully accept and down the glass of champagne that’s offered to me.
Unfortunately, somehow on my detour to drinksville, in a room swarming with people, I end up next to Connor—and his date.
She has a real girl-next-door look to her. Tumbling brown curls, bright doe eyes that light up her face, and a curvier frame that’s hugged by her dress. She’s clutching Connor’s arm like she’s as nervous to be here as I am, which makes me want to warm to a kindred spirit, but I hate her instantly.
Maybe I can tell her all about how awful her boyfriend is.
“Mr. Duchene,” Connor says, and this time, it has the bite I’m expecting.
“Mr. Kikishkin.”
“For someone who hates me so damn much, it’s nice to know you pronounce my name perfectly. Accented and everything.”
Fuck off is uncomfortably close to slipping out, but I hold myself back. “You’re one of my players, and I’m a professional.” Plus, the number of times I heard it during high school and got irrationally irritated when it was pronounced wrong is burned into my memory.
“Alice,” Connor says to the woman beside him. “This is Parker.” I don’t miss his smugness at using my name. “Only his property has to call him Mister .”
“Property?” she asks.
“He’s the team owner.”
“Oh, wow.”
That’s not an “oh, wow” like “oh, wow, he has a lot of money,” that’s the sound of someone who’s feeling way out of her depth. I know because I’ve “oh, wowed” myself to an ulcer before.
Why can’t any of these people let me not like them?
“Enjoy your night.” I go to turn when there’s resistance on my jacket sleeve, and I turn to find that Connor has grabbed it. Immediately, fire flares up in my gut, and I hate that it’s not anger. Which, thankfully, makes me angry .
Connor gestures for Alice to head to the table. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
The room is full of the sound of people talking, so even with Knox right beside me, but his back to us as he talks to someone on the other side, he hasn’t noticed the sudden tension.
“You got me to a bullying charity. Congratulations. I’ll make a big donation and everything. Does this make us even now?”
I shrug out of his hold. Even? My anger echoes in my ears. Connor is here with his family, his friends, and a date he very obviously got at the last minute because it’s that easy for him. He has his dream career, he’s surrounded by love, and he’s never going to give me the goddamn respect I crave from him.
And I hate that I crave it from him.
Yet some fucked-up piece of me revels in having his full attention.
“We’ll never be even. But you can do one thing for me.” I lean in to make sure he doesn’t miss a word. “When whoever it is gets up to talk about their experiences and why this charity is so important, listen. Don’t look away. Don’t protect yourself. Maybe then, you’ll start to feel even a fraction of what I have all my life.”
Connor looks like I’ve drained the life out of him, and his voice isn’t much better. “When are you going to let this go?”
I smooth out where his hold has creased the material on my sleeve. “That’s up to you. I know you’re not capable of an apology I’ll accept, but I’ll take cutting you off from everyone and everything you love as a consolation prize.”
“You are so fucked-up.”
“Yeah. And you made me this way.”