19. 19 Gigi
19
19 GIGI
KILLING ME SOFTLY
“No,” I said through a fresh bout of laughter. “You did not say that.”
“Oh, I absolutely did.” Parker grinned across from me, cheeks pink, eyes bright. “I honestly think that was a major turning point in our relationship.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Shaking my head, I reached for my apple juice. “Of all the people I’d tell to loosen up, Anya is probably the last on the list.”
“You say that now, but you didn't see her.” Parker cut a perfect triangle of a bite out of her pancake stack and lifted it to her lips. “She was so tense I thought her muscles had turned to stone.”
“Vaughn wasn’t any better off.” I tore my eyes away from Parker’s lips, pink and glistening with syrup, as she pulled the fork away. “Good thing those idiots managed to get their shit together. I can’t imagine dealing with that version of Vaughn forever.”
Parker sighed, a delighted little sound, and a soft smile touched her face. I wasn’t sure if it was a pancake reaction, or happiness for our siblings. “They're really good for each other, aren’t they?”
Despite the ever-widening chasm in my chest, I smiled back. A real one. Because, yes. Vaughn and Anya were very good for each other. “I sometimes think,” I started, but reined in the sentence before I could finish it. Too much, I thought. It was too much.
“You sometimes think what?” Parker cut another triangle bite and dragged it through the syrup puddled on her plate.
I watched the motion, ignoring the warm prickle of her eyes on me. “Nothing.” I waved a dismissive hand. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.” She sat her fork down with a soft clinkand sought out my gaze. Her eyes were soft. Warmer than that shade of blue had any right to be. “Tell me.”
That was all it took. Those two words were sticks of dynamite at the base of my very well-kept wall, blowing it up.
“I sometimes think,” I said, words falling from me like debris, “that if it weren’t for Anya, Vaughn and I would still be...I don’t know. Estranged? Broken? He’d still hate me?” I drummed my fingers against my juice glass. “He’d have every right to. Still does. But...somehow, he doesn’t? I think that...” Exhaling a hard breath, I blinked away the stinging in my eyes. “I think I have Anya to thank for that.”
Parker watched me silently for a few moments, her face unreadable. I fidgeted under her scrutiny, scraping the tines of my fork through the perfect top of my pancake until it had four long grooves. My stomach protested, ordering me to shovel the food into my mouth, but I waited, as if I couldn’t move on until I knew what Parker was thinking. What she’d say.
“What happened between you two?”
The question was delivered in the softest of tones, but landed like a cannonball to my gut. I lifted my apple juice and laughed. “This is the entirely wrong kind of drink for that story.” I took a sip anyway, and wished for the burn of whiskey. “The CliffsNotes version? I left. Physically, yes. But also, I left him alone to deal with all the hard shit.”
I stared into my glass, my reflection in the golden liquid blinking up at me. “It wasn’t intentional,” I continued, into the silence. “Not at first, anyway. But intentions don’t matter when the damage is done.” My chest ached the kind of ache that came with knowing you’d hurt someone you loved. Really hurt them. “No amount of grace given can make you forgive yourself for that kind of damage.”
Across from me, Parker was quiet. I looked up to find her watching me, those lovely eyes of hers filled with tears.
“Parker,” I started, ready to tell her that I was not worthy of those tears. To tell her that she should save them for someone better, someone who didn’t crush their brother’s heart and miss their dad’s funeral. But the words froze on my lips when she reached across the table, across the pancakes and napkins and juice glasses, for my hand.
“That’s a lot to carry,” she said as her hand covered mine. “All that guilt.”
I wanted to shrug, to tell her that I’d earned it. Deserved it. But my words were lost to the ether when her hand covered mine. Her skin was soft and warm, but her touch was sure. Her thumb slipped under my hand and made tiny circles against my palm and my every nerve focused there.
“Aren’t you tired?”
I tore my stare away from our hands to look at her. She watched me through eyes bright with tears, brow furrowed. If she were anyone else, I’d have balked. Questioned their sincerity. Their motives. But Parker could only be genuine. It was her only setting.
So, instead of scoffing or joking or brushing her off, I nodded. A moment of truth.“So fucking tired.” As soon as the words came out, my shoulders sagged with relief. Eyes stinging, I looked away.
Her grip tightened on my hand for a moment before she moved away, as if she sensed I needed a moment. From the corner of my eye, I saw her pick her fork back up and cut another triangular bite. I watched for a few more bites, transfixed by the methodical way she ate. It was soothing somehow. Like meditation. And, bite by bite, my breathing slowed, my lungs stopped aching.
When I finally thought I could speak without dissolving into tears, I cleared my throat and faced her once more. “Anyway,” I said as I picked up my own fork. “I’m pretty sure your sister threatened violence if Vaughn didn't at least hear me out when I first came home.”
Parker’s lips quirked. “That sounds like her.” She, too, had pulled herself together. The tears that had threatened to spill over her cheeks moments before were gone. “She’s a lunatic. And I adore her.”
I smiled, stabbing into my own stack of pancakes. “She gets shit done, that’s for sure.”
For the rest of the meal, we talked and laughed as we ate. My brief moment of vulnerability still hung like a neon sign in the back of my mind, but I ignored the flickering. This meal wasn’t about me, after all. It was about Parker.
It was about making sure she was ready for her date.
With someone else.
The last bite of pancake turned to dust in my mouth. I swallowed hard, forcing it down, then reached for my juice. As I gulped, I tried not to think about it. How this time tomorrow, Parker and Halle’s first date would be a reality, something that happened, instead of the hypothetical it’d been this whole time.
Maybe I should be proud of myself. I helped Parker accomplish exactly what she wanted. The attention of another woman. A date with her. Possibly more than one date. Maybe a whole-ass relationship.
My food turned to stone in my stomach.
“You ready to go?”
I jumped as Parker voiced the question. Looking up, I found her watching me, amused. “Now who’s the jumpy one?” she asked as she shrugged into her jacket.
“Shut it,” I grumbled, earning a laugh. Shooting a glare her way, I scooted out of the booth and pulled on my own jacket. “Let’s get out of here.”
Outside, we walked side-by-side down the sidewalk toward the bar, where we were both parked. “So,” I said, casting a glance her way. “How’re you feeling? About tomorrow?” Part of me wanted to know that I’d helped, I’d made her feel better. But another part, a bigger part, needed the reminder, the barrier of the date between us.
“Um,” she said, the word coming out in a puff of white air in front of her face. Temps were taking forever to go up this spring. “Better, I think?” She looked over, streetlights catching a flicker of something on her face that I couldn't decipher. “Thank you for doing this. You’re...” She trailed off, facing forward again and looking down, her long hair forming a curtain between us.
I’m what, I wanted to ask. What am I to you?
But instead of voicing the question, of making an ass out of myself, I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and counted the steps until we got to our cars. I needed to be home. Away from this person who wrung so many feelings from me. This person who made me want to be better. To go back in time and undo all the fucked-up things I did, and come back to this moment reformed. Worthy.
I would never be worthy.
The thought was like a sucker punch to the gut. Forcing breath into my lungs, I forged ahead until we reached the parking lot behind Heathcliff’s.
“Here we are.” I dug my keys out of my bag and juggled them from hand to hand. With a quick glance in Parker’s direction, I backed toward my car. I needed to go. I needed to be alone with these thoughts, these feelings. “Drive safe, okay?”
“Gigi?”
I should have kept walking. I should have opened my car door, gotten in, and driven away. But instead, I turned around. Of course I turned around.
She stood where I left her, beside her car, bathed in moonlight, streetlights, hell, probably heavenly lights, too. Her dark hair blew ever so slightly in the wind, her hands were clasped in front of her. And her eyes. God, her eyes. I could write a million songs about this woman’s eyes and it would not be enough.
“Yeah?” I said, realizing I’d been staring.
Her voice was soft, barely audible when she spoke again. “How does it end?” She searched my face, those eyes begging, beckoning, pulling me in. “The date, I mean. How does it end?”
“Well.” I retraced the steps I’d taken, stopping in front of her. Stupid, I thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “That depends.”
“On?”
I gripped my keys tighter, the pain of them digging into my palm cementing me where I stood. I would not step closer. I could not. “On how well it went.”
She nodded, a pensive look on her face. “Okay.” Biting her lip, she frowned. I tried not to stare at that full bottom lip and imagine the soft give of it beneath my teeth. “How will I know if it went well?” She shook her head, a small, self-deprecating sound leaving her. “Guys are easy to read, but a woman? How do I know we’re on the same page and not…a couple of friends hanging out?”
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to find something in the distance to focus on. “You’ll know,” I said, my voice tight. Because, god, I wanted to show her. I wanted to show her what an interested woman looked like. With my eyes and my hands and my—
I cleared my throat, helplessly looking back at her. “There’ll be signs.”
Slowly, her eyes roamed over my face, as if she was searching for a clearer answer. When she reached my eyes, she inhaled, a shaky little breath that about did me in.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me the signs.”
I stopped breathing. “What?”
She stepped closer. “Show me,” she repeated, bolder this time. “The signs.”
“Parker, I—”
“Please.”
My knees about damn buckled. Want, liquid and molten, flowed through me, pushing me forward. Before I could think it through, think myself out of it, I reached out. “This,” I whispered, fingers looping around that damn curl of hers, “is a good sign.”
She swallowed and nodded. “What else?”
I could barely hear her over the pounding of my heart. Leaning in, I dropped my gaze to her lips, those pretty pink lips that had occupied so much of my mind for so long now. Her tongue flitted out and dragged across her pillowy bottom lip. I exhaled a sharp breath, holding my ground. “You’re catching on.”
“You’re a good teacher.” Her whisper dragged across my every nerve ending, bringing my whole body to life. I squeezed my keys tighter, trying to ground myself to reality, to remind myself that this wasn’t real. That this was just a lesson to prepare her to date someone else.
But, fuck, the way she was looking at me said otherwise.
“So you see what I mean.” I cleared my throat, trying to dispel the cobwebs of desire. “You'll know if—”
Parker’s lips on mine killed the rest of my sentence, soft and barely there. I froze, and in the space of a millisecond, two choices played out before me. I could— should —step back, put distance between us. Gently let her down, tuck her into her car, and watch her drive away.
Or I could pull her in, I could kiss her back, consequences be damned.
Yeah. That one.
Dropping my keys to the pavement, I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. And Parker, perfect, pretty Parker, leaned right in. Her gasp was as sweet as maple syrup and I savored it, tracing my tongue along her bottom lip. She gasped again, opening her mouth against mine, inviting me in. The moment her tongue brushed over mine, tentative at first, then with fervor, I had to grip her soft waist tight to keep from melting at her feet.
Reaching up, Parker pushed her hands into my hair, her cool fingers along my scalp sending shivers over my entire body. I felt her smile against my mouth and I nipped her bottom lip, earning a whimper so soft, so sexy that I vowed right then and there to wring as many of those sounds out of her as I could.
Starting now.
Pulling my mouth from hers, I dropped kisses along her jaw until I reached the spot below her ear. Her scent, strawberries and sugar, permeated my senses. “Mmm,” I murmured, taking her earlobe between my teeth.
The tremble that coursed through her was addictive. I scraped my teeth along the column of her neck. Her fingers dug into my shoulders as she shivered again. Images of tangled limbs and white sheets flashed through my mind, her body against mine as I made her shiver and shake over and over and—
“I think,” Parker gasped, her fingers fisting in my hair as I kissed my way back to her mouth, “that this is a very good sign.”
Her words cut through the fog surrounding us. This isn’t real , my mind whispered. This time tomorrow, she’ll be on a date with someone else.
I froze, my lips hovering over hers. We were both panting, her fingers were still tangled in my hair, but the spell had been broken. With one last steadying breath, I stepped back. Wide-eyed, I looked at her. Flushed and decadent, waiting for me to pull her close again, to kiss her into oblivion.
Or, maybe to kiss me into oblivion.
I shook my head, words lost to me. Logic lost to me. Everything in me wanted this. Wanted her .
She was not mine to have.
The thought pierced through the lust like a flaming arrow. “Parker,” I started, putting my fingertips to my still-damp lips. “I…I’m sorry. I…” I trailed off, thoughts in a lust-hazy tailspin.
Not mine, not mine, not mine, my heartbeat echoed as I took another step back. Sucking in a bracing breath, I backed up, picked my keys up from the pavement, and forced the next words from my lips:
“I have to go.”