12. Parker
12
PARKER
T here was a woman in my bed when I returned home from campus.
Laptop bag slung over my shoulder, I paused in the entrance of my pool house and watched my sixty-five-year-old housekeeper crawl across the mattress to tug the fitted sheet free of the last corner.
When it came loose, she backed off the bed and gathered the covers in a ball to her chest as she went.
Straightening once she was done, she turned my way, only to pull up short with a gasp.
“Parker,” she greeted with a laugh at her own reaction, and she pressed a hand to her chest. “You gave me a fright, dear. I didn’t see you there.”
“Sorry about that.” I stepped fully inside and shut the door behind me.
“No worries,” she assured, patting my cheek in a grandmotherly fashion when she passed by, causing the scent of lemon cleaner and fabric softener to whirl around me.
An ache filled my chest as she bustled around the front room, plopping my sheets into a laundry basket half-full of dirty clothes that she’d already collected. Then she snatched up a tied sack of trash.
It was all just so…motherly.
“Give me a second here, and I’ll be out of your hair in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” she promised.
I didn’t answer. It’d seem weird to assure her that I didn’t mind the company. Honestly, I wished I could sit her down at the table and ask her for some good advice, but that would be even worse.
“Hey, did Lawson ever get a grade back on that diorama he made for his book report?” I asked instead.
Gaze softening, Lawson’s grandmother paused to tell me, “Not yet. We probably won’t hear back about it until Friday.”
“Oh. Well, let him know I have my fingers crossed.”
“Will do, hon.” She sent me an appreciative smile and added, “I’ll get these sheets cleaned and back on your bed by four.”
I waved a hand, letting her know it wasn’t a big deal. Then I said, “Take care,” since she was already heading toward the exit.
“Yes, sir.”
I sighed as the door closed behind her, then I sank onto the couch in a funk.
I’d met eleven-year-old Lawson Porter last year at the grief center when I’d popped by to check in with Matt—Matt, who was still as cheesy and lame as ever with the words but had managed to earn my respect over the years, anyway, with his pure and honest devotion to the center and his continued drive to help struggling children.
Lawson had been sitting by himself during free time when everyone usually ran amuck, playing games and helping themselves to the complimentary treats.
When I’d seen him watch the others enviously without trying to join in, I’d snagged a couple of cookies from the snack table and headed his way.
“This seat taken?” I asked, waiting for him to look up and blink at me from under his mop of dark hair.
From there, I sat and offered him one of my cookies, talking to him until I’d gotten his story.
Orphaned at ten, he’d lost both of his parents in a car accident, just like me. The difference was, he’d been with them in the car when it had happened, and his left arm had been severed at the elbow as a result.
Lawson’s and my friendship had grown from there until I learned his grandparents were watching him but struggling with all the medical and funeral bills. So I’d covered their debts before hiring them both as my groundskeeper and housekeeper. Then, because they’d been living in a ramshackle place, I’d gotten them to move in and live on the premises.
Because there were more of them than me, I decided to stay out in the pool house and let them have free rein over the big house.
And to this day, I don’t know what I’d been thinking. That I could be some kind of fill-in for Lawson’s parents because he’d lost his? That was bullshit. His situation was totally different from mine; he still had family left who loved him and were working their asses off to take care of him.
And they sure as hell didn’t think of me as one of the family. I’d never been invited to any of their Christmases, Thanksgivings, or birthday festivities. They were grateful to me; I knew that. They constantly made it clear just how grateful they were, but they’d never see me as an equal.
And when I had finally realized that—when I realized I’d brought them into my home because I had wanted to belong to them —I’d felt like the biggest joke on the planet.
Lawson and I were still tight, though. We hung out quite a bit. I would always make sure he got whatever he needed.
But Sharon and Bill Porter were just…gratefully polite.
It was too bad they weren’t family, though. I could’ve used some decent parental wisdom right about now.
Because Hope had gotten me all kinds of fucked up with her “I’m dying; please sleep with me” bit.
Jesus. She was such a liar.
I mean, she had to be lying.
No way would she not tell Alec if she was legitimately sick. She told the little shit everything.
And unfortunately, he spilled everything to her in return. Because of him, she had untold amounts of dirt on us, which she liked to use against us.
I still wasn’t sure how she’d learned that she could use sex against me, but I wasn’t a fan of this power switch.
I was well aware that as soon as she tricked me into saying anything close to a yes to her little bucket list request and revealing how much I wanted to get inside her, she was going to turn it all around and torture me with it.
That’s all this was; one of her new, twisted games.
She wasn’t fucking dying.
To prove it, I tried to research her. Except she didn’t update her social media worth shit, her medical records were a no go, and short of calling her mother and straight-up asking, which I couldn’t bring myself to do because I hated Liz Shoney, Hope’s health remained a mystery.
She sure didn’t look like someone on the brink of death, though. I mean, shouldn’t she be all yellow if her liver was failing? Shouldn’t some of that evil spunk she possessed be depleted from her sails?
She just didn’t act like someone who truly believed she was terminal.
And thus, I stood by my theory that she was punking me.
Well, I wasn’t falling for it.
The brat was fine .
And I was going to figure out some way to expose her.
I considered going to Alec, telling him everything she’d said to me, to just call her out on it, you know.
But he’d probably end up believing it and unnecessarily get all freaked out and worried. I didn’t want him to have to go through that. And even after he gleaned the truth from her, he’d probably remain suspicious of me , wondering why she’d tried to pick on me with the promise of sex. It wouldn’t take him long to realize I was attracted to his sister.
I think I’d rather someone just cut off my balls right now than make that secret public.
So I couldn’t go to Alec.
Unless … This was part of some kind of test. Maybe Hope had no intentions of using my own attraction against me, she was just testing my loyalties to her brother. Because if I didn’t go to him about this, and then she did, telling him what she’d propositioned me with, he’d probably never trust me again.
Which—fuck—put me in a predicament I didn’t particularly care for.
This was why I couldn’t stand her sometimes. If only I knew her endgame, I could counter her next move so much easier.
So… I had to go to Alec.
Yet I couldn’t.
Gah, what the fuck was I supposed to do?
Wait. Thane would know. Thane always knew the right thing to do. So there; I’d just go to Thane. Problem solved.
Pulling up his contact in my phone, I attempted to text him for a meet-up, only to pause and glance through our last handful of conversations.
Each time I had reached out to ask if he wanted to go to supper, catch a beer, or just stop by and hang, he’d turned down every request.
This new girl of his was really sucking up all his time.
Frowning about the fact that I hadn’t realized just how much she’d been taking of him, I bypassed texting and straight-up called him.
“Hey, what’s up?” he greeted, thankfully not full-on ghosting me.
“Nothing much,” I answered. “Just making sure you were still kicking. Haven’t seen you around lately.”
“Oh.” He seemed surprised. “Yeah. I’ve just been?—”
“Busy with the new girlfriend,” I bit out, my tone a little too hard. “I’m aware.”
There was a significant pause before he said, “Is…everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I spat. “You tell me. I haven’t seen you in over a month.”
“What?” He laughed. “That can’t be true.”
“Check our message history, bud. It’s true. You’ve been blowing me off for nearly six weeks. So maybe I should be the one asking, is everything okay over there, sport ?”
“Jesus,” he muttered, laughing again, but it was more strained and nervous now. “I certainly haven’t intentionally been ignoring you. I’m sorry if you’ve felt slighted. I’ve just been busy lately. But if you really want to meet up?—”
“You know what,” I groused. “Don’t do me any fucking favors.”
I was going to hang up, but Thane cried, “Parker! Whoa. Hold up.”
Pausing, I ground my teeth before muttering, “What?”
“What is going on?” he asked.
I was about to tell him nothing, but then he’d really know something was bothering me, so instead, I said, “How long have you been with this girl?”
“What?”
“Christine,” I gritted out, hating to say her name. It felt all kinds of wrong to me that he was with a Christine. It’d always been Nova. Thane and Nova. I didn’t want him with a Christine. Nova was his other half.
“How long have you two been dating?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, clearly not wanting to have this conversation.
“Nine months,” I filled in for him. “You’ve been fucking around with her for nine months. And none of us have met her yet. Why is that? You too ashamed to be associated with us or something?”
“What? No way. Jesus, of course not.”
“So then she just doesn’t want to meet us ?” I countered.
“No,” he insisted before groaning out a stressed sound. “Jesus. Okay,” he relented as if there really was a big, secret reason why we hadn’t been introduced to Christine yet.
I pulled back in surprise, and my mouth fell open because I honestly hadn’t been expecting there to be a reason at all; I’d just been trying to keep the conversation off me.
But what the fuck was he hiding?
“It’s just—” He broke off with a frustrated groan. “When Nova left,” he started, sounding very harassed about having to say her name. “It felt as if I chose you guys over her.”
I scoffed. “Well, that’s bullshit.”
“Is it, though?” he asked uneasily.
“Excuse me?” I shook my head, confused. “What’re you talking about?”
Of course, it was bullshit.
“I stayed,” he said. “I stayed in Westport with you guys. And she—she left. But I could’ve gone with her. I could’ve?—”
“And she could’ve stayed,” I countered.
“No,” he insisted. “She didn’t get accepted into Haverick. She?—”
“She could’ve waited a semester and tried again,” I countered. “Or she could’ve not gone to college at all.”
“Damn, Park,” he groaned. “If you say she could’ve busied herself in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, I will disown you.”
“Fuck, you know I don’t mean that kind of shit. I’m just saying, you could’ve gone, she could’ve stayed, but you both did what was best for each of you.”
“But did I?” he countered. “What if following her to Texas A&M would’ve been the best thing for me too?”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted.
“I didn’t choose her.” His voice broke as he admitted it as if it were his biggest, guiltiest sin ever.
“Bro.” I shook my head. “She broke up with you and left. You didn’t get a choice in the situation.”
“Except I could’ve gone after her. I could’ve—I don’t know. Things had changed with her in those last few months, and I didn’t—I could’ve done something, paid more attention to her and found out what was wrong. I could’ve fucking followed her wherever she went. And I didn’t.”
“Thane, she didn’t want you to follow her,” I told him softly. “She cut off all ties, changed her number, and left town.”
He choked out a pained sound. “But why ? I tried to look her up on socials after that, you know. Just to—just to check-in. See how she was doing. But she’d closed all of her accounts. I tried to ask her mom, who basically slammed the door in my face. I called her phone for two years, but it remained disconnected. She went completely off the grid. I mean, what the hell did I do to make her want to hide from me like that ?”
It hurt to hear him still ask these questions after five years. I closed my eyes briefly and blew out a breath before saying, “I honestly don’t think it was about you at all. She had her own agenda.”
“Fuck that,” he spat. “I never wanted to keep her from anything. And she knew that. So why the hell did she push me away? Me! Why—why didn’t she even let me in on her oh-so-important agenda? I would’ve supported her. I just—dammit, Park. Why am I even talking about her? Or thinking about her? I’m with Christine. I like Christine.”
Not the way he’d loved Nova, though. I could tell.
To prove it, he asked a moment later, “You think she’s married yet?”
The last we’d heard through the grapevine, Nova had gotten engaged.
“I searched her name online, just looking for a wedding announcement, you know. But I couldn’t find anything. And she never registered at any of the usual wedding registry places.”
“Jesus, Eisner,” I said, shaking my head sadly, unable to believe he’d searched fucking registries for her.
“It’s like she doesn’t even exist, I swear,” he insisted. “You think she changed her name or something?”
“I think it’s been a year since her mom told Foster she was engaged, so yeah, she’s probably married by now.”
“Yeah,” Thane repeated softly, sounding as if he were nodding along with me. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Thane,” I started uneasily, not sure what to say to help him through this except maybe not to ever attempt to fall in love again.
But he cut in abruptly, announcing, “I’m really trying with Christine, you know. I’m trying to do everything right this time, and not fuck it up like I did with Nova. I mean, I shoved Nova into the group right off the bat. Maybe that made her think she wasn’t as important to me as she really was. Maybe—I don’t know. But I’m going to take it slow with Christine. I’m going to do it right this time.”
“Bullshit,” I said, shaking my head. “The only thing you’re doing is making us not trust this girl.”
“Well, that’s not what I intended.”
“Then stop treating us like some pervy, child-molesting uncle you’re too ashamed to admit you’re related to. We’re your best fucking friends, man. Start treating us like it. Let us meet her. I promise we won’t scare her off.”
“Okay, alright. Damn. I’m sorry. I just—shit. She’s trying to call. I gotta go.”
“Fine. Talk later.”
He paused. Then asked, “You okay?”
I sniffed. “I’ll still answer the next time you call, if that’s what you’re asking.” When he didn’t reply, I added, “I’m fine. It’s all good. Just go.”
“Right. Okay. Bye.”
As soon as he hung up, I blew out a breath and closed my eyes, feeling like shit. He’d never talk to me again if he knew I had Nova’s current number in my phone. I hadn’t texted her in a good nine months, though. She was probably due another check-in from me, just to make sure she wasn’t in dire straits.
But it felt too much like a betrayal to Thane to text her right now. So I tossed the phone down and wiped two hands over my face.
I hated how much her abandonment still ate at him to this day. I wished he’d just move on already. But he’d loved her—more than he’d loved anyone—and I had a bad feeling he’d never feel that kind of spark again.
Which was reason number one why I was never falling in love. Fucking love could break a person harder than anything else out there.
Except thinking that made me remember—shit—I’d totally forgotten to ask Thane for advice about Langston.
But I couldn’t call back now, not after he’d pretty much told me that he thought the guys and I took up too much of his time and attention. And it was kind of true. I always turned to him first when I needed something.
So I guess it was time that I grew up and figured out my own problems.
Alright then. I was going to tell Alec all about his sister’s latest antics.