Chapter Thirty-Five
It turns out sleepovers are quite agreeable for two people who are looking for any excuse to be in each other’s company.
Two weeks into our new arrangement, Parker’s cooking dinners at my place and bringing over a gym bag with extra clothes and his laptop.
In the mornings, I wake up to him spooning me before we get up to brush our teeth side by side.
It’s so easy to be with each other. It was like this when we were kids too.
But at the same time, there’s this itch to hit pause and demand, What’s going on between us? What are we?
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m hoping—anticipating even—that Parker will turn to me and tell me he’s all in.
We’re already exclusive, and if Heather’s right about the Nets deal, then maybe he wants to stay in New York.
All signs seem to point to go—a serious relationship is on the horizon, and we’re moving full steam ahead.
But there’s no way I can ask him about any of this. Not when defining our relationship might knock out the foundation from underneath it. Neither of us seems to want to acknowledge just how far we’ve drifted from casual into . . . whatever this is.
Parker is leaning against the bookshelf, watching me wrestle a fitted sheet over my mattress. “Why did we stop having sleepovers when we were kids?”
“Probably because we were entering high school, and it was weird enough with our parents enforcing the ‘doors open’ rule,” I say, tugging on a stubborn corner. “Plus, you were so busy with football, it wasn’t like you were inviting me over for slumber parties at that point.”
He walks over and tucks the sheet in for me. It takes little effort on his part. “That had more to do with how hard it was to act normal around you.”
“Normal? Like how?”
“Like pretending my hormones weren’t raging just from being near you,” he says. “Remember that time our families carpooled to Portland, and we sat in the backseat together? You wore a skirt and your thigh kept bumping into mine. I was hard as a brick the entire ride.”
I blink at him, and when I don’t have an immediate response, he crosses his arms. “You really couldn’t tell?”
“You dated cheerleaders who filled up bras better than I could ever dream,” I tell him. “I’d always assumed that if we hadn’t been best friends, I wouldn’t have even been on your radar.”
“That’s exactly why it was so confusing to be around you and talk about the things teenagers usually talk about.
I mean, I was a teenage boy in hormonal overdrive, and the one girl I wanted to do all those .
. . physical things with was basically off-limits.
” He stretches his neck to one side, the motion a bit awkward.
“Because you were my best friend, and best friends don’t do those things. ”
The confession trips me up, and suddenly I’m sixteen again, in front of the cutest boy in school and nursing a hopeless crush. I swallow and let the words slip out. “Your cousin Kevin’s pool party.”
“What about it?”
“You had just come back from youth camp, and it was like you got your six-pack overnight. I couldn’t stop staring,” I say, my face aflame. “And then I had a sex dream about you that night.”
He pauses for a loaded second before erupting into a laugh. “Do I get to hear the details of this dream?”
“Not in this lifetime.” It feels like someone has lit a match under my skin.
I look up at him, noticing that at some point he’d closed the distance between us.
As his laughter fades, leaving behind a crooked, playful grin, he reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
My back instantly goes rigid. I’m still trying to adjust to the small, intimate gestures of someone who isn’t officially my boyfriend.
Just then, my phone dings from my nightstand, startling me out of that thought. A glimpse at the notification makes my stomach bottom out. “Estelle emailed me.”
“About your portfolio?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m too scared to open it.”
He reaches over and tousles my hair. “It’s going to be good news.”
I pull up the email and immediately flip the phone to him. “You read it.”
He laughs. “No, Dani. You read it.”
Before I can protest, Parker’s own phone is buzzing in his pocket, piercing the tension with a second jolt to my heart. He looks down at the caller ID and frowns.
“Sorry. I’ll take this in the kitchen.”
I’m left alone with Estelle’s email, with no one to help me stall. I take a seat at the foot of the bed, count to three, and unlock my phone.
Dani,
Happy New Year, love! I know this email’s a bit late coming through, so I do apologize.
I’ve only returned to London a couple nights ago.
A friend of mine in Madeira insisted I make the trip to see the New Year’s fireworks, and once I stopped at the Azores, there was no sending me home!
I’m tempted to say that I’ll be taking every meeting from a hot spring in Furnas from now on.
I managed to have a proper look at your portfolio upon my return.
I know I’ve been stingy with the details, but now that we’ve laid the groundwork, I can give you the gist of it: My colleague from Vogue and I are starting a new publication in New York—a slow journalism magazine for women, by women.
I want ladies from all walks of life on this project sharing their experiences, championing one another.
There’s a position open for associate editor that I’d love you to interview for.
We’re still a small team, so you would be contributing as a staff writer as well.
From what I’ve read, I think your writing is exactly what we’re looking for.
You have a way with prose that reads as clever and erudite while still being charmingly personal.
We’ll be starting interviews this Thursday, and I have an opening for you at 3 p.m. I do hope you will give some thought to the position.
Cheers, Estelle
I read the email three times before I finally allow the knot inside me to unfurl. This is good news. It’s not a job offer, but I’d be delusional to think Estelle would be handing those out like free samples. Once I collect myself, I scurry over to update Parker.
“Got it. Okay,” he says into his phone, eyes flying over to me. “Yeah, I can do that.”
I take a seat at the counter across from him, catching the indistinct murmur of a man’s voice on the line. As soon as he ends the call, Parker sets his phone down and smiles at me. “Well?”
“Estelle is starting a new publication and wants me to interview for an editor position.”
“I told you! And she reached out to you personally, so that’s a good sign.”
“Yeah, and it’s in New York, so that’s even better.”
At this, Parker gives a stiff nod, and for a sliver of a second, his smile falters. He looks down at his phone, absorbed in contemplation while I search his face.
“Was that Venture?” I ask him.
“Yeah, the San Francisco branch,” he says quietly, brows pulling down.
Sometimes, I wish I weren’t so tuned into every shift in the air around him. I’ve learned to read every pause, blink, and twitch of his face. All of it speaks volumes to me, and I’ve already picked up on what that call was about.
“You have to go back, don’t you.”
He runs a hand despondently through his hair and cuts me a grim look that makes the knot inside me resurface.
“When?”
“By next week,” he answers slowly. “The Super Bowl is coming up, and San Francisco takes the lead on that every year. There are ad campaigns, sponsorship deals, just a shit ton to do. And if I’m being honest, they needed me there weeks ago.”
“And they didn’t ask until now?”
“I was working on something with the Nets. They were waiting to see whether we landed the deal, but it looks like we got passed over for another firm.”
“Even if you’d gotten it,” I say quietly, trying to navigate around the growing ache within my chest, “you would’ve just been postponing the inevitable, right? Your job—your life—is in San Francisco.”
He avoids my eyes, mumbling down at his phone. “And yours is here.”
There’s no reason for me to feel blindsided.
This was never his home. When Parker gave me the key card to his suite, it was with the understanding that all this would come to an end once he left New York.
That was the arrangement. We could break every ground rule in the book, but it would never buy us more time.
Why did I let myself get hopeful over sleepovers? This was never a serious relationship. And without that commitment, there are no expectations for what comes once we part ways. After all, Parker never asked me to be his girlfriend.
But . . .
I don’t want to go back to life without you.
I don’t want to be with anyone else.
Does this really have to end?
I can’t say it out loud, instead leaving the words to sit in my throat, strangling me.