Chapter 4 Parker
“Mom—how much longer do you need in there?”
I rap at the door to the single bathroom in my apartment, then again even louder when I’m only met with the warbled sounds of my mother singing “The Tide Is High” over the running shower.
Maybe I should be happy to hear her dulcet tones through the door. Glad to have had my parents move in with me this week, while the Airstream RV they’ve called home since they sold my childhood house gets much-needed repairs after years of nonstop travel.
I might’ve felt those things… if my free-spirited parents hadn’t spent the last seven days turning me, my routine, and this two-bedroom walk-up apartment completely upside down.
The logical thing to have done when they arrived, ready to move in without so much as a conversation, would have been to hand them the spare key to my sister’s empty mini-mansion on the water, just minutes away. They’d have the run of the place until she comes back from her honeymoon.
But by the time I made heads or tails of what they wanted, they’d already dumped out their clothes in my spare bedroom and cleared enough space in my fridge for copious bottles of the trailer-made kombucha they’ve apparently become addicted to.
I pound on the door again, glancing down the hall only to be informed by my microwave that I’m running severely late for work.
“Goddamn it, Mom,” I mutter.
In the living room, I lift my phone off the coffee table to find a stream of texts from Summer.
I don’t bother answering. Instead, I throw open the window overlooking the street.
The lights are off in Summer’s apartment right across the way, and I find her on the sidewalk below leaning against the side of my Wrangler, dressed and ready for work in well-worn sneakers, black leggings, and a UOB-branded polo.
“Give me five minutes.” With a start, she lifts her chin to find me partially hanging out of my window. “These guys are driving me up the fucking—”
“Language, Giggle Bear,” my mother calls from the hall. Maybe it’s the frustration from being late for work, but the nickname she’s called me since I was a newborn—when I supposedly started giggling and smiling far ahead of my moodier twin—grates on me more than it ever has.
I find Mom dressed in a colorful poncho with a towel on her head, while my dad follows her out of the bathroom wearing a towel around his waist and a nausea-inducing look of satisfaction on his face.
It’s my childhood all over again.
“Come on,” I groan as they head into the spare room. “We talked about this. None of that needs to happen in the bathroom, which is a communal space.”
I regret saying anything when my mom’s head pops out of the doorway. “There’s no need to be so uptight about it, Giggle Bear. We’ve always told you that sex is a very normal, very natural—”
“Fucking hell.” I power walk to the bathroom and shut the door before I get roped into another one of the sex is beautiful lectures I grew up hearing.
Inside the steaming bathroom, I brace my hands on the counter and duck my head to take several centering breaths. Despite the lectures and accusations of uptight behavior, I’m a lot more like my parents than they probably realize. A lot more like them than I want to be.
I may have a permanent address and a long-term job that neither of them currently have, but I’ve spent the past several years indulging in the very normal, very natural sex they seem to be having at every turn.
Have put off the thought of a relationship, or a family, or a home away from my favorite bar until a date in the future, because I had youth on my side.
Plenty of time to think about it later.
Planning ahead has never been my strong suit, and certainly nothing my parents instilled in me growing up. And then later started hitting me in the face.
I think this is it. Why my parents’ out-of-the-blue appearance has put me in this uptight mood. Why the sound of my childhood nickname incites pure bitterness inside me. The clock’s run out on my optimistic I’ll figure it out later mentality.
I’m turning thirty in exactly three months.
Living in the town where I was born and never left.
Working the same job I’ve had since graduating college.
With that godforsaken rumor running rampant, attracting women whose interest in me starts and stops with the hope of panty removal. And now I’m living with my parents.
With another long breath that does nothing to save my mood, I yank my toothbrush out of its holder and finally get ready for work.
“Why did Summer just invite me to a party to plan a party?”
Noah Irving—star quarterback for the Florida Hornets, surrogate brother to my sister and her husband, and my pain-in-the-ass client—eyes my reflection in the wall of mirrors at the gym facility at the University of Oakwood Bay, where he’s come to train during his off-season.
The squat rack sitting on his shoulders doesn’t seem to faze him any, which is a sign that either I’m not pushing him hard enough or that he’s just that scandalized by the so-called planning party that Summer issued invitations to this morning.
“It’s for our joint thirtieth birthday—mine and Melody’s. Summer and Zac are putting something together, I guess.” I nudge Noah’s sneaker in a silent command to get to squatting.
“So, to be extra clear on this… I just got invited to a party taking place a month from now… to plan a party taking place three months from now?”
“You know how it is, man. Everyone’s always got something going on.” Aside from me. “Planning anything requires several weeks’ notice and a robust scheduling software.”
A party to plan a party is a little weird, I’ll admit. But I’ve learned over the years not to question Summer when it comes to these things. She loves planning a social event—makes some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had, too. This is pretty on-brand for her.
I do wish it wasn’t yet another uncomfortable reminder of the looming end of my twenties, but who am I to deny her the joys of double party planning.
“And why do you sound like they’re ushering you to the gallows instead of throwing you a birthday party?” Noah grits out between reps.
“You wouldn’t get it.” The words come out as a sigh, though I don’t mean for them to.
I do my best to keep my increasingly shitty mood in check, at work most of all.
But it’s harder to do the longer I stay stuck on this hamster wheel.
Even harder when I’m being asked about it by a twenty-two-year-old star professional athlete.
Today is yet another day at UOB, where I move from the training facility to the adjoining rehab center depending on the client.
Since training my friend Brooks to a triumphant return to the NFL last year, every new assignment has felt like scaling a molehill after conquering Kilimanjaro. But I have no idea what I’d do instead.
How do other people simply… know? What they want out of life, a partner?
And how am I supposed to figure it out with the incessant swirling vortex of anxiety that comes with not knowing? I’m constantly on the edge of calling it quits and relocating my existence to my queen-size mattress.
Summer floats out of the open doors of the rehabilitation center.
She’s with Quentin Moore, a junior on the UOB basketball team who’d stuck around Oakwood after suffering a dislocated shoulder this past spring.
She’s saying something to him as they walk toward the facility’s exit, gesturing emphatically with her hands in the way she does when she talks, brown hair swishing in tousled salt water waves.
She’s not looking at Quentin, but he’s got his full attention on her and whatever instructions she’s giving him.
Pride blooms at the sight; she so easily commands the attention of this six-foot-six, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound star athlete, who I’d put money on getting drafted to the NBA this year pending his recovery.
And with Summer on his team, there’s no way he won’t be ready for the first tip-off of the college season.
If there’s any kind of positive to be found in this job, it’s spending the day with Summer. Watching her kick ass with her clients. Sneaking in early workouts together before our first appointments of the day. Lunch and unsanctioned donut breaks.
I couldn’t survive this without her.
“Last one,” I announce to Noah, who grinds his teeth in anticipation of his final squat. He’s struggling now, legs trembling.
Once he finishes, he slumps onto a workout bench. “New business idea for you: Sell walking canes at the door for all the poor souls you torture for money, you fucking sadist.”
“I wouldn’t be doing you a favor by taking it easy on you. Not if you want to keep playing the way you did last season.”
Noah wipes his face with the hem of his shirt. “I need to play better than I did last season, seeing as it was your buddy who won the championship—not me.”
“Think you just gave me permission to dial up the torture.”
Across the gym, Summer blesses Quentin with that pretty smile of hers, the one I can feel all the way from here.
“Look, I’ve never understood the kind of long game you seem hell-bent on playing there. But if you’re shooting for any kind of subtlety at all, I’d probably pick your jaw up off the floor.”
I glance over at Noah. “The hell are you talking about?”
His gaze travels slowly over my face, filling with increasing fascination the longer he stares. “Ah. I see.”
Irritation prickles. “See what? Spit it out.”
“I see. I get it now.”
I roll my eyes. “You see nothing.”
“Trust me, I do. Clear as day.” He laces his fingers behind his head of sandy hair, unperturbed by my increasing impatience. “See, I always thought you were playing the long game, you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“But now I get it. You have a thing for Summer—”
I groan. “For fuck’s sake.”