8. Parker
Parker
Hearing her laughter after seeing her so tense feels like a win, but I’m still concerned.
Obviously that jerk did a real number on Juliet.
I recognize his face, but I can’t think of his name.
I don’t want to know his name. I want him to leave and then I want to help Juliet forget that he ever existed.
I want her tinkling laugh to fill the air all the time.
I want a million things that I shouldn’t.
I glance around the room. Her ex is behind us, but now he’s facing us. He scowls at me and I face my cookie.
“So,” I say, “don’t look now, but that guy is staring at us. And by staring, I mean he’s shooting daggers with his eyes, and I think he wants to kill me.”
Her jaw tenses. “He’s not violent, just possessive. And stupid. He wants what he can’t have, and then when he gets it, he cheats.”
Every word out of her mouth makes me dislike this guy more and more. “What do you want me to do?” I ask.
She worries her lip and stares at the cookie in front of her. “I know before I said that it was sweet of you to offer to pretend to be my boyfriend for the week, and I did mean that…”
My heart pounds so fast I can feel it in my head. I blink to stay focused on her.
“Would you…I mean…gosh, I feel so silly asking you to do something like that. Would it be weird? I mean, I’m Blair’s best friend. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”
She’s nervous about Blair’s reaction to all of this? “I’m pretty sure if we explained, Blair would understand.”
She nods, still not looking at me. I reach across the small distance and pull her hand into mine.
I cannot think about how much I love the feeling of her soft skin under my hands, because this would all be pretend.
But if it helps get her ex off her back, then it’ll be worth it.
At least, that’s what I’m trying to tell my heart.
“I can be the best fake boyfriend you’ve ever had,” I say quietly, just so people at the surrounding tables don’t hear.
She laughs. “Thanks. But it feels so silly to have to do that. I don’t want him to think he has any power over me. I don’t want him to be jealous. I just want him to see that I’ve moved on. I’m not his backup plan. He can’t have me anymore.”
“You’re already doing that,” I assure her. “He doesn’t have to know this isn’t real, but if it’ll help him get the message to leave you alone, then I’m all for it.”
“It’s probably the only thing that would work since he doesn’t seem to care what I say,” she grumbles.
I lift her chin so she’ll meet my eyes. They’ve got little gold flecks around her pupils.
I could get lost in the colors of her eyes, but I don’t.
Now is the time to focus. “He’s a guy who thinks he can have whatever he wants, even when someone says no.
I know the type. We’re not going to make him jealous, but make it obvious that you’re a person, not a toy that he gets to play around with. ”
It kills me that that’s how he’s used her in the past. She didn’t exactly say that, but I can guess.
I’ve watched too many of the men I work with do the same thing with undergrad students.
They treat women—and people in general—as if they’re supposed to bow down to their will, that even if they cause any hurt or pain, people will still do their bidding or come running back to them. Juliet deserves more than that.
She blinks back tears. “Why would you do that for me? Help me with this?”
I sigh, pulling my hand from her face and placing it on top of the hand that’s holding hers.
“You’re my sister’s best friend.” I hope I sound as casual as I can, and that she’ll buy it.
That she will think the only reason I’m doing this is because of Blair.
“She’d kill me if she found out I could have done something and didn’t.
” It may or may not be true, but I’m going with it.
“You’re a good man,” she says, looking down at our hands. “I hate to ask you to do this, but having you around does make me feel better.”
I warm at that. I like that she feels safe around me. “Really, it’ll be fine.” I pull back. “But we will have to flirt and have some physical contact when he’s around to actually sell it.”
“He’s the last guy I dated, and our relationship wasn’t exactly healthy, so I don’t know how well I do in relationships.” She glances down at her hands.
“Just look at me like you did when you first saw me yesterday, and I think we’ll be just fine, Jules.” She looks up, startled, and I give her a wink. A faint flush appears on her cheeks.
Pretending that I have to pretend to flirt with her is going to be fun. I’ve never been a natural flirt. Talking to women usually has me stumbling over my words and blushing like a little kid. But with Juliet? I’ve been dreaming about things I could say to get her to blush for years.
“You, uh, saw that?” she chokes out.
“You checking me out? Yup.” I grin. “Like what you see?”
She gives me a little shove. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be all grown up.”
“You were expecting a scrawny little kid, and instead you found a man who wears glasses and is much hotter than the last time you saw him.”
The blush on her cheeks gets darker, and I bite the inside of my cheek.
This relationship situation we’ve found ourselves in might be pretend, but she can’t hide that there’s some obvious attraction.
It’s fine, but it means I’ve got to keep my heart locked up.
I can flirt, push her buttons, make her blush, but I won’t give her my heart.
I can’t. Because I know how it ends if I do that.
I’ll be crushed, and she’ll be off playing soccer for one of the best teams in the world.
I bump her knee with mine. “Teasing, Jules.”
She breathes out in relief. “Oh.”
“Relax. It’ll be fine. We’ll flirt a little when we’re in public and he’s around. I’ll hold your hand or put my arm around your shoulder. Easy peasy.”
“Easy peasy,” she repeats.
We go back to cookie decorating, and I’m thrown back in time to the last Christmas I saw her.
“Blair, can you come help me with the presents?” Juliet shouts through the house just as I come up from hiding in the basement. I thought she and my sister had left about ten minutes ago. I swear I heard Blair’s car, since my bedroom window is right by the driveway.
“Hello?” Jules yells again.
I find her sitting in the middle of the family room surrounded by presents, wrapping paper, and bows. “Hey, Parker. Have you seen Blair? She said she was grabbing a snack from the kitchen, but that was almost fifteen minutes ago.”
I sit on the couch, pulling out my phone.
“Pretty sure she left about ten minutes ago. I thought you left too.” I can’t look at her.
She’s back from college for the break and has been staying here.
It’s killing me, but somehow she’s even prettier than she was before.
Her hair is longer, and she’s wearing less makeup than she used to.
I actually like it that way. It makes her green eyes shine more than usual.
“She promised she’d help me wrap the presents I have to drop off at the elementary school this afternoon.” Jules groans. “But she totally ditched me.”
She grabs her own phone and types out a text.
A second later, her phone pings and I see her deflate.
“She asked me if she could go to this football signing with the Cheyenne Wranglers at the mall, but I asked her to stay and help. She told me she’d be back soon, but there are probably a million people there and I don’t think we’ll see her any time soon.
Everyone loves having a team so close to cheer for. ”
We live about forty-five minutes south of Cheyenne, and even though we’ve got the Broncos in Denver, it has been fun having a team in Wyoming to cheer for.
“She’ll be there all afternoon,” I say. I should go back downstairs and work on my homework.
After my sophomore year of high school, when I couldn’t deal with the stupid guys in my grade always making fun of me for liking math, my parents let me take classes online to get my high school degree that way.
But in the past eighteen months, I’ve also finished my associate’s degree online.
If I’m lucky, I’ll finish my bachelor’s before I’m twenty, then I can start working at the local college as a math tutor until I can teach there.
But in order to do that, I need to go do some homework, even if it is Christmas break.
“I can help you,” I blurt.
She looks at me in surprise. “Don’t you have friends to hang out with? A girlfriend to see?”
I hope my cheeks don’t turn red. I shake my head. “All my friends go on fancy trips or visit family for Christmas. I can help.”
It’s dumb, really, this desire I have to be close to her. She’s been in my life for as long as I can remember since she’s Blair’s best friend, and she’s never looked at me twice. Why would she? But I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to hang out with her.
“Only if you’re sure. There are a lot of presents.”
“I can help,” I repeat. Before sitting beside her on the floor, I pick a Frank Sinatra holiday CD and put it in the CD player my parents insist on keeping around.
I don’t mind it, though; it means I can listen to what I want, when I want, without having to pay for a monthly subscription to one of the streaming platforms.
I clear some toys on the floor so I can sit and start wrapping. The nostalgic music fills the air as we cut, wrap, and tap.
“How’d you get roped into this anyway?” I ask after a while.
“I’m trying to get some more service hours. It’s something my soccer team does each year to give back, and this was one of the options. I had to pick up all the donations, wrap them, and then drop them off at the elementary school by tonight since tomorrow is their last day before the break.”
I look around the room. There are about thirty presents we still need to wrap, and that doesn’t include the growing pile of presents she already wrapped.
“Easy peasy,” I say. I can sense how tense she is, worried about getting this done on time. “We’ve got all morning.”
Her green eyes meet mine, and I swear if I weren’t sitting, I’d be knocked down. I can’t remember the last time she ever looked at me like this. She smiles a little. “Easy peasy.”
I nod, grab the nearest toy, and start wrapping.
“How are the two love birds?” a voice booms from behind me. I clench my jaw and Jules drops the cookie she was frosting. It lands, unfortunately, with the frosting on the table.
“Geez,” she gasps. “You scared me.”
We both shift to see her ex standing above us with a shifty smile on his face.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, babe.” He leans down, his fingers touching her shoulder as he leans in real close.
My blood boils, but I don’t reach out. Jules isn’t some prize to be won, and I’m not about to make her feel like I’m trying to lay some claim over her just because her slime ball ex is leaning over her. I would like him to step back, though.
“Let me know when you’re ready for a real man again.” He says this loud enough for me to hear.
“Parker’s more of a man than you’ll ever be,” she snaps at him. This doesn’t faze him.
“I’m sure he’s got quite the collection of Pokémon cards,” he says with another cheap smile. This guy is the worst.
“Actually, he collects Dungeons and Dragons characters; he’s a dungeon master, aren’t you, sweetie?” She reaches across her ex and her warm hand lands on my thigh. I swallow nervously.
“Yup,” I manage to say, wondering how she knows that. I’ve got a group of friends that play every Friday night in the common area outside my office on campus.
“Nerd,” he scoffs.
“Nerds are pretty hot,” Jules says quietly. She bites her lip like she does when she’s nervous, but her eyes never leave mine. “I like the slutty little glasses.”
I freaking knew it. She likes the glasses. When I was in high school, I always wore contacts because they made me seem less of a nerd. But I hate having to put contacts in every day, and glasses are so much simpler. And if Jules likes them? Well, now I’m never taking them off.
Her ex sputters. “It makes him look even more like a nerd.”
I don’t spare him a glance. “But at least I can see this gorgeous woman who’s right in front of me. And I’m not about to let her out of my sight.”
It’s a subtle dig at him from what she’s told me, and her eyes light up in amusement.
“Whatever,” he says before storming off.
But Jules stays close, looking at me, watching me.
I shift, uncomfortable. I don’t want her to see everything going on in my head.
My parents have always said I’m an open book when it comes to my emotions, and I’m not about to let Jules read what’s on my mind.
She blinks, breaking eye contact, and clears her throat. “Your glasses do look good, by the way,” she says casually as she picks up a new cookie and dips her knife in the green frosting.
“Thanks,” I croak.
She doesn’t look at me, but there’s a faint pink on her cheeks as she hums along to “Holly Jolly Christmas.” I don’t know what to think of anything that’s happened in the past hour, so instead, I throw myself into cookie decorating, hoping it will distract me from the stunning woman beside me.
It doesn’t.