16. Parker
16
PARKER
W hen the inside of my vial flooded with a pure-white cloudy substance, assuring me that a ghost was near, I hissed, “Son of a bitch,” in extreme irritation.
The damn amulet seemed to be working just fine.
For everyone but Hope.
To further convince me of the ghost’s presence, a brush of cold air wafted over me, ruffling my hair.
I glanced up, ducking my face to the side and really wishing Keene’s mom didn’t feel the need to greet me that way every time I visited the library.
It was creepy as fuck.
“Hey,” I mumbled my reluctant acknowledgment to Robin the ghost, while Keene and Library Girl continued to argue.
“Well, if it was a ghost,” Keene ranted. “Then I’m sure she threw the books for a damn good reason. What kind were they, anyway?”
Waverly blinked. “What kind ?”
“Yeah. What subject were the books about?”
“I don’t know,” she cried in disgust. “One was about academic integrity and another about copyright infringement or something.”
“Well, then, there you go,” Keene shot back as if that explained everything. “The bastards probably deserved to have the books thrown at them…literally.”
“Oh, so you’re admitting your guilt now?”
“Fuck no. But even if I had thrown them, what the hell are you going to do about it? Call campus police on me? Because I really wish you’d just go ahead and do it already. Getting taken in by them would be so much more preferable than having you stand here bitching at me all night.”
Wow. Duggie was starting to channel a little Grumpy into himself there. Maybe he really was spiraling.
“Oh, I definitely called someone,” Waverly taunted snidely.
And Keene demanded, “What? Who ?”
When Waverly glanced over at me with a small smirk as if I were the ace up her sleeve, I stepped forward to stand next to her, where I glanced down the rows of shelves to find Keene sitting at a table by himself, surrounded by piles of books.
“Surprise,” I deadpanned.
His shoulders immediately slumped, and he muttered a dejected, “Fuck.”
“Hey,” I assured him with lifted hands. “At least I don’t plan on handcuffing you and giving you a cavity search. Take the win where you can get it.”
“I’m not leaving,” he told me rebelliously. “The library’s open for another three hours.”
“Don’t care,” I said with a shrug. “You’ve outworn your welcome with the friendlies. Pack it up and let’s go, kid. I’ll walk you out to your Jeep.”
“Whatever,” he growled and started shoving books into a backpack. “I was ready to go anyway.” A second later, he muttered, “Friendly, my ass.”
I glanced over at Waverly to make sure she hadn’t taken offense, but she merely watched him with a slight squint as if she couldn’t figure him out.
Once Keene was done, he moodily pushed his way to his feet and cast her a sour scowl as he approached.
“Tattletale,” he muttered.
She sent a catty smirk back and waved. “Bye-bye now.”
Jarring to an enraged halt, he seethed. “You know, you’ve had it out for me since the first day I stepped into this library. And I don’t recall doing anything to piss you off this much.”
She scoffed and narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you wouldn’t .”
“Holy shit.” His mouth fell open. “I did do something.” He glanced toward me as if I would know what he’d done. But when I merely shrugged, he spun back to Waverly and winced. “Oh God. Did we have sex together?”
“ What ?” she exploded incredulously. “No! What the hell?”
Keene looked a little chagrined when he lifted one shoulder. “I mean?—”
“Trust me,” she snapped. “You’d remember if we had.”
His eyebrows shot up with interest. “Really?”
With a disgusted snort, she glanced at me and demanded, “Can you please get him out of here already?”
It seemed tactless to mention that I’d actually been hoping for some popcorn to watch more of their show. But sadly, the best part was over now, so I reached for my dumbass friend. “Come on, idiot. Let’s go.”
As I dragged him away, he glanced over his shoulder at Waverly as if seeing her for the first time, and I could tell he was mentally trying out every kinky position he could think of with her.
Poor girl had no idea she’d just ignited his curiosity in the worst possible way.
Just like Hope had sparked mine.
But thinking of her only made my gut burn.
“Can you believe her?” Keene hissed as soon as we hit the stairs. “She acts as if I started this whole pissing match between us.”
I shrugged. “It kind of sounds like you did.”
“Pfft. Whatever. She’s on crack. I didn’t do shit to her.”
“Looked like you wanted to for a minute there, though,” I goaded just to get him going.
He spun to send me a dismayed glance. “ Excuse me ?”
“What?” I lifted my hands as we reached the ground floor. “You were fucking intrigued. Admit it.”
Keene made a disgusted face as if to disagree, only to say, “I mean…”
And when he said no more, I leaned close to whisper, “Duggie wants to bang Library Girl.”
He pulled away so fast, exclaiming, “The fuck if I do!” that I’m surprised he didn’t give himself whiplash.
One of the faculty librarians looked up from his desk where he’d been typing on his computer, and he sent us a censuring glance.
But Keene didn’t even notice him. “The only thing I’ve pictured myself doing to that girl is strangling her.”
“Hey, if that’s your kink.” I lifted one shoulder and tipped my head to accept it.
“Dude!” he cried as he followed me out into the warm September night. “Don’t even.”
“So you’re telling me you’re not the slightest bit curious now?” I pushed.
He scoffed, muttering, “Nope.”
“Well, now you’re just in denial,” I taunted.
“Am not. Sex with her would be like?—”
When he paused, searching for the right word, I lifted my eyebrows, waiting. “Like what?”
“I don’t know!” Clearly agitated, he blurted, “Like—like sex with… Hope .”
“Hope?” I echoed dumbly.
Everything inside me simultaneously perked to attention with arousal and tightened with dread.
Sex with Hope had basically been the only thing I’d been thinking about for the past two days straight. The only thing I’d craved.
And if Keene was thinking about her too, then that must mean?—
Fuck.
She’d gone to him with the same request she’d asked me, hadn’t she? Damn that woman. I hadn’t told her I’d sleep with her, so she’d moved right along to ask Keene for it.
I didn’t care if this was exactly what I’d told her to do, I would kill him. I would literally murder one of my best friends on the planet before letting him go anywhere near her.
Hope’s next orgasm was fucking mine .
Gah. Stupid primal, caveman thoughts. I wanted to scrub them from my head with a wire brush because I didn’t want to hurt my friend; I didn’t want to lust after Langston; I didn’t want any of this.
All the while, Keene kept talking as if I weren’t having an internal crisis of conflicting wishes.
“Yeah,” he said with a grimace. “I can just picture her complaining and nitpicking and laughing at me, taking potshots the whole freaking time.” With a shudder, he added, “Bleh.”
Needing to know exactly what had happened between them, I asked, “So if Hope Langston approached you right this very moment and begged you to give her the biggest orgasm of her life, you’d say no?”
With a confused squint, he asked, “Why the fuck would she ever ask me that?”
I released a breath, not wanting to think about how relieved I was to learn that she had, in fact, not asked him the very thing she’d asked me.
“It’s a hypothetical question,” I lied.
“Well then, I’d have questions first,” Keene said as we approached the parking lot. “Like, first of all, what kind of substance was she currently under the influence of? Then, how much was she going to pay me? And finally, where the fuck had everyone else in the world gone?”
I sniffed and rolled my eyes. He wasn’t even taking this the slightest bit seriously. Because she hadn’t asked him for shit.
Hope was a goddamn liar.
Feeling played because she’d managed to make me feel jealous of Keene of all people, I threw up my hands and muttered, “Never mind.” Then I turned away and abruptly stalked off.
“What the hell?” Keene asked in confusion, hurrying to keep up with me.
“You can find your Jeep yourself,” I shot back as I started in the direction of where I’d parked my truck.
But he called, “What about my mom?”
With a groan, I paused and turned back. “What about her?”
“What do you mean; what about her? She threw fucking books at people. She’s never done that before. What if she’s, like, turning violent?”
“I thought you said the assholes deserved it.”
“Hell, I don’t know if they deserved it or not. But she can’t exactly be trusted to make those kinds of ethical decisions on her own, can she? She’s dead . What if she decides to push a whole bookcase on someone just because they refused to pay a late fee or some shit? She can’t just start exacting whatever form of vengeance she wants to.”
“Ah, Jesus,” I groaned, tipping my head back to look up at the night sky. But all the stars up there looked peaceful and happy, so I scowled at them and returned my attention to Keene. “You already know what it’s going to take to send her on.”
He scowled because his mother had made it explicitly clear she wasn’t leaving this plane of existence until her baby boy found true love. And Keene liked banging different women way too much to ever settle down with just one .
Sighing heavily because I didn’t blame him—I had no intentions of falling in love either—I finally suggested, “Just talk to her, bro. She’ll listen to you more than anyone else. If you tell her to stop throwing books at people, I have a feeling she’ll stop throwing books at people.”
“Maybe,” he agreed thoughtfully, chewing on his lip. “But what if someone really does deserve a little punishment? Like they’re hurting someone else, and she can actually stop them?”
“Then give her parameters. I don’t fucking care. Why are you asking me ?”
He pulled back in surprise. “That’s a good question. Why am I asking you?” Jerking his phone from his pocket, he added, “I’m calling Thane.”
“Stellar idea,” I droned dryly. “May I be excused now?”
“What?” Preoccupied with his phone, Keene scowled at the screen before glancing up briefly. “Oh, yeah. Yeah.” He waved me on. “See ya, man.”
I shook my head, amused by his easily-distracted attention. “Later, kid,” I told him, even though I’m sure he didn’t even hear me.
And with a long exhale, I turned away, wandering through the dark toward my truck.
It wasn’t until I slipped my hands into my pockets and felt the cool glass of the ghost amulet that I remembered, shit, my problems had only escalated.
Hope might actually be dying.
Not only that, but she was also looking for someone to fuck her senseless before she did. And if I didn’t stop her, she might just take her request to someone else to get her wishes met.
That was a lot to unpack.
If I was smart, I’d dump all of this information on Alec and wash my hands of the whole clusterfuck.
But she’d come to me . I couldn’t ignore that.
Which meant I had a shit ton of decisions to make.