If Only You Knew (Oakwood Bay #3)

Chapter 1 Summer

“So, how do all these big college athletes feel about a pretty little thing like you attempting to train them in a gym?”

Cory H., the dirty-blond veterinarian brought to me by one of the dozens of dating apps that’ve been letting me down for years, winks across the table as though he’s just paid me the compliment of a lifetime.

I try to decide which part of that I’m supposed to swoon over. Perhaps it’s being called a thing? The fact that he deigned to remember that I attempt to work as a physical therapist when I’m not suffering through this date?

Either way, I pull a face around the lip of my glass—tragically down to ice cubes and badly diluted remnants of margarita—hoping the sad sip absolves me from answering.

My sense of humor fled the premises around the time Cory casually grazed my ass when he hugged me at the start of our date.

I gaslit myself into believing it was an accident.

Rationalized that he’d been perfectly normal when we’d texted after matching on the app.

And now, I have no one to blame but myself and my expert ability to ignore the bouquet of red flags he must have been waving at me since the moment I swiped right.

I’ve been in the dating trenches for a while. Still, all of my carefully plotted strategies—born and evolved through copious years of painful first dates—inevitably led me here. Sitting across a table from a man whose hot factor took a nosedive with the very first syllable out of his mouth.

Cory’s phone trills, loud enough to hear over the bustling sounds of Oakley’s Pub around us.

He silences it right away, which would be a point in his favor if he didn’t proceed to scroll through the litany of notifications that’ve appeared on his phone over the course of this short nightmare. It rings again.

I tip an ice cube into my mouth, shamelessly crunching on it. “Do you have to take a call? It won’t bother me if you do.”

Cory sneers at his phone. “Nah, it’s just some chick I went out with a couple days ago. I’ve been trying to dodge her, but she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of silence.”

I’ve never been so envious of another woman in my life.

As one of only two restaurants in Oakwood, the small town where I’ve lived my whole life, Oakley’s is packed to the brim this Thursday night.

Locals occupy the mahogany tables and booths upholstered in fading tartan.

The fact that none of them—usually so keen for a hint of viable gossip—are paying us any mind is an indication that they’ve had a front-row seat to so many of my dating fiascos, they’re as unfazed by them as they are by the sun setting at night.

“You’re way hotter than she is, by the way.” Cory nods to his phone. “No way you’ll be getting silence from me. I’ll be all over you until you agree to see me again.”

Ah, so we’ve graduated to stalking.

I crunch another ice cube. “That’s… very sweet of you, Cory.”

Seriously, how didn’t I see this coming? We texted for days leading up to tonight, and—Cory’s face splits into a wide smile, bright and crooked and… right. That’s how I didn’t see this coming. I was blinded by the very pretty man in the collection of pictures on his dating profile.

“You want another drink?” Cory takes a deep swig of his own. “Let’s get you another drink. You’re nowhere near lubricated enough, if you know what I’m saying.”

Yeah… screw this guy.

I’ve had no trouble simply strolling out of dates in the past, but I’ve been out with enough Corys to know exactly how he’d take that.

Fortunately, after years of finding myself in these undesirable scenarios, I’ve implemented a fail-safe: a way to divest myself of these boys without awkwardness or argument, or endless follow-up texts.

Discreetly, I slide my foot out from under our table and tap the toe of my four-inch heel.

Cory leans in, a smirk stretching his mouth. “It’s a double entendre. Lubricated as in drunk…”

My gaze drifts to a man sitting solo in a booth at the very back of the bar.

Legs stretched out on the bench seat, broad shoulders resting against the wall, facing out into the restaurant.

He’s wearing a truly obnoxious Hawaiian shirt, sky blue and bright green, and frowning down at a book.

Light brown hair thrown messily over the pull of concentration in his brows as he reads.

He reaches to his right until his fingers close around a sweating glass of radioactive-yellow liquid and takes a long sip, all without breaking eye contact with his book.

“… but also as in your panties.” Tap, tap, tap.

“How charming.” Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—

“Summer? Summer Prescott?”

The man in the Hawaiian shirt now strides across the bar, staring me down with wide, dreamy eyes. Like he’s been toiling over that book for years—decades—trying to fill the gap left by missing pages… only to find all the answers in my face.

Cory’s gaze follows mine. “Who the fuck are you?”

I gasp. “Parker? I haven’t seen you in years.”

Parker’s face falls at that. He turns an apologetic look on Cory. “I hate to interrupt, but do you mind if I steal your date for a second?”

There’s a flush rising up Cory’s neck. “You can fuck right off, buddy. We’re in the middle of something.”

I really hate to agree with this moron, but I shake my head at Parker.

“I’m not coming with you. You’ve had years to come find me.

Years to come talk to me.” My voice rises, and I jump to my feet.

“Years to explain why you up and left town—left me—without so much as a word. And suddenly you’re here, wanting to talk in the middle of my date? How dare you do this now?”

Parker stuffs his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans. “Summer, I’m sorry—I’ve been praying to bump into you every day since.”

“Why? What could you possibly have to say to me now?”

“I’ve… God help me, I’ve missed you. I know you’ve missed me, too. Please, just give me a minute to explain.”

I sniff hard, wiping a nonexistent tear. We’re properly hitting our stride now, and I can practically taste my sweet, sweet freedom from Cory. Parker will quote a couple rom-coms, I’ll fake a few more tears, and—

“You went out with this guy? In the ugly Hawaiian shirt?”

Damn it, Cory—not the shirts. If there was ever a way to get Parker Woods going—

His eyes narrow on Cory. My stomach pangs, starts to sink. “Yes, she went out with me.”

“Really?” Cory gives Parker a scathing up and down. “I don’t see it.”

“She did. And she still calls me.” His tone is pure outrage and I’m officially losing him. “Every day. She’s obsessed with me. And my Hawaiian shirts, which she loves.”

I widen my eyes at him. “I don’t think—”

He widens his right back. “Come on, Summer. The private number that keeps calling me? Hanging up when I answer? We both know it’s you.”

My jaw drops. “Cory, did you know that Parker gifted me his great-grandmother’s engagement ring on our two-week-iversary? Talk about obsessed.”

“Oh, yeah?” There’s a half-second twitch at Parker’s mouth, but he wrangles it quickly. “I found a shrine she had for me in her closet. She had my hair in a jar and my boxers in a frame.”

“He’s slept with a picture of me under his pillow since our very first date.”

“She cried like a baby the first time we made love.”

“Tears of epic disappointment, I assure you.”

“Oh, Summer.” Parker’s mouth stretches in a smirk, dimple popping in his right cheek. “I highly fucking doubt that.”

“Can somebody explain what the hell is going on?” Cory practically shouts. “We’re on a date, buddy.”

I widen my eyes at Parker. Land the damn plane, Woods.

He gets the message. Parker clears his throat, winds an arm around my waist, and sweeps me into his chest. “The point is… I still love you, Summer Prescott. And I’m sorry that it took seeing you with another man to knock me to my senses.

But… I’m just a boy standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him. ”

I force a sob, spinning in Parker’s arms to give Cory a tearful look. “I’m so sorry, Cory. But I can’t have that drink. And I can’t see you again.”

“Seriously, who is this guy?”

“He’s my best friend. And the love of my life.”

“I’m sorry to do this to you.” Parker produces his wallet and tosses some cash onto the table, enough to cover our drinks. “But what can I say? It’s serendipity…”

“Seren-fucking-what?”

“And you don’t mess with serendipity,” I finish, sighing up at Parker.

“You’re both insane.” Cory jumps to his feet so aggressively he sends his chair skittering across the worn hardwood. He storms across the bar, throws open the door, and disappears into the night.

Parker and I stare at each other for one long, loaded moment filled with love, lust, and—

“I had your boxers in a frame?” I sweep my purse off the back of my chair, trying so hard to be mad at him even as my body shudders with laughter. “Really, Park?”

Parker laughs. “It was that or the used tissue I—”

“Okay. We’re done here.”

He throws an arm over my shoulders, steering me to our regular booth at the back of the pub—the one he’d been reading at prior to the rescue mission.

There, he settles into his seat, facing the bar, legs laid out on the bench as I do the same across the table.

I wave at Lisa Parsons, who owns Oakley’s with her husband, and with a nod she moves to pour my usual Diet Coke.

“So, what was wrong with Mr. Seren-fucking-what? That barely lasted twenty minutes.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” My head hits the wall behind us. “These guys keep getting worse and worse, I swear.”

Parker hands me my Kindle from under his book, proof that at least he’d seen the writing on the wall with tonight’s date. “Was he worse than the one who spent the entire date trying to convince you that the moon landing was faked?”

Jeremy. He blinded me with his abs. “Worse.”

“Worse than the one who kept trying to lure you to the washroom for a quickie?”

Stephen with the bright blue eyes. “Worse.”