34. Hope
34
HOPE
I woke up before Parker the next morning.
With a big, stupid grin on my face, I stretched my arms over my head and rolled to face him.
He was sleeping like the dead. Like someone who’d never had problems sleeping at all. And it was beautiful.
He was beautiful.
Unconscious, there was a softer edge to him that made him look younger and almost innocent. All his seasoned, worldly, and shrewd cynicism must reside in his eyes, I decided, because with them closed like this, one could almost think he still believed in love and thought good would overcome in the end.
Smiling softly at sweet, sleeping Parker, I whispered, “I love you either way. Jaded or pure or anywhere in-between. You’ll always be my Grumpy.”
He didn’t stir, so I knew I hadn’t woken him. Reaching out, I caught a tendril of his hair between my fingers and played with it for a moment before letting go and crawling out of bed.
After visiting the bathroom and taking my morning rainbow of pills, I stepped back into his room, only to tip my head curiously. This was quite a room.
One whole wall seemed to be composed of windows with shades over them, and they wrapped around the sides. Then there was a couch and living room area with a back wall that made up a mini kitchen and bar. The place didn’t look like a bedroom at all, but more like a whole apartment or—I went to the window blinds and peaked out—a pool house.
A concrete pad surrounded a full-sized in-ground pool, and beyond that, an enormous awning connected to the main house with deck chairs and side tables sitting under it.
I blinked at the mansion on the other side of the pool and had to wonder why he’d brought me here last night. Was this where he brought all the girls he took home? Did I not rate a stay in the big house?
I glanced back at the bed, chewing on my lip, and something in me melted when I saw him.
It didn’t matter where I rated on his scale. He’d cared enough to bring me home with him and nurse me through the night, and I loved him for that.
Turning back to peer out the window, I studied his house and tried to learn more about him from its architecture alone. This was a part of Parker I knew the least about—what he did away from the seven—and it felt foreign to me.
That huge mansion just didn’t vibe with the man whose arms I’d slept in last night at all. It seemed like something he’d bought because it was expensive and luxurious with a good resale value, not because it was him .
That pool was pretty sweet, though. I might have to take a dip in it before he kicked me off the premises. As I wondered if any past friends of his had left a suit behind that I could wear, I glanced down at myself and lifted my eyebrows.
Did I need a swimsuit?
Parker was a single bachelor. His entire backyard was surrounded by a huge-ass stone fence and tall shrubbery. Peering out the window into the cloudy morning that wasn’t even full sunlight yet, I couldn’t spot any nearby houses whose neighbors could spy out their upstairs windows at me. So…
Decision made! I was adding a new item to my bucket list.
A giddy surge of uninhibited spontaneity took over, and I bolted barefoot toward the door, even as I peeled off the panties I was wearing and streaked buck-ass naked into the morning light. The sunrise was reflecting a golden gleam off the calm surface of the water, and I laughed aloud as I raced forward.
There was a diving board on one end, so I headed in that direction. Without slowing my pace, I dashed onto the board and hopped once to make it bounce, then I leaped out, doing a toe touch before bombing into the water with a huge splash.
I came up, simultaneously cursing and gasping.
But what a complete rush. Every pore on my body felt awake and alive, but every pore also felt how extremely cold early morning water was. Yikes. I would’ve thought this Texas heat would’ve warmed it to at least a mild tepid, but nope. The night had left it cool and invigorating. Goosebumps prickled my flesh, and my nips went hard enough to use as a shiv.
I swam the whole length of the pool once, determined to see this through. But it was so freaking cold, and I’d gotten very sensitive to temperatures lately. I’d make myself sick if I tried to make another pass.
So I set my hands flat on the patio edge before hiking up a knee and climbing out. Water streamed off me, and I spent the first few seconds wiping it from my face and squeegeeing wetness from my hair before I dropped my hands, able to see again.
And the first thing I saw was a child standing under the overhang to the main house, gaping at me with an open mouth and wide, unblinking eyes. He was wearing a pair of swimming trunks and had a towel hanging over one arm as if he’d been planning on coming out here for an early morning swim as well. The other arm was half gone, amputated just below the elbow.
Not expecting to see anyone , much less a boy who was a complete stranger, I screamed and lurched in reverse, tripping and stumbling until I fell right back into the pool, windmilling my arms and legs ungracefully as I went.
Water enveloped me, invading my mouth and nose. I broke free of the surface a second later, sputtering and screeching. And the boy continued to just stand there as frozen as a statue as he stared at me with shocked fixation.
“What the hell?” Someone shouted before I could ask the kid who he was and what he was doing here.
With a gasp, I covered myself with my hands as best I could, only to find a bare-chested Parker in his sleep pants as he raced from the pool house to see what was happening.
“Parker!” I gasped, more relieved to see him than I’d probably ever been. “Get me a towel. Hurry.”
Completely ignoring the request, he stepped closer to the edge of the pool and squinted down at me. “Are you…naked?”
“Yes! And there’s a child in your backyard if you haven’t noticed. Which is why I’d really like a towel. Right now .”
He glanced over and finally saw the kid. “Yeah. That’s Lawson,” he told me matter-of-factly. “He lives here.”
My mouth sagged open. “Since when do you live with children?”
Turning back to me, he furrowed his brow. “For about a year now. Why are you naked in the pool?”
“Because I wanted to know what it’d be like to skinny-dip,” I gritted out. And so far, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, that was for sure. “It’s on my bucket list.”
Parker shook his head, scowling in confusion. “No, it isn’t.”
I widened my eyes at him in warning. “Well, I just put it on there, okay?” I snapped, losing my temper. “Now, could you get me a towel? I think I’ve traumatized Lawson enough for one day.”
Parker transferred his attention to the other side of the pool. “Kiddo?” he asked hesitantly. “You okay, bud?”
“I—She—” The boy pointed at me. “I saw her?—”
Parker’s eyebrows lifted with interest, and his lips tightened as if he were trying not to smile. “You saw her…what?”
“Oh my God!” I cried in outrage. “He saw everything, okay? I was climbing out of the water, and when I looked up, he was just standing there, staring.”
Parker glanced between the kid and me one more time before he cracked a snort.
Yes, the bastard actually dared to laugh at my distress.
“Parker Roman Ohrley,” I seethed. “Get me a goddamn towel. Right fucking now.”
“Hey, hey,” he cautioned, lifting a hand in reproach. “Watch your language around the kid, will you?”
“That kid —” I sputtered. “Just ogled my tits and kitty cat and everything in between. I’m going to say his innocence has already been thoroughly compromised for today.”
Parker glanced at the boy and laughed outright this time, not even bothering to hide his mirth anymore.
“Oh for the love of Pete,” I muttered, still tucked neck-deep in the water and hugging one hand around my chest and the other between my legs.
“Here you go, dear,” a female voice told me
Whirling from Parker, who couldn’t seem to stop laughing, I found a middle-aged woman coming forward and holding up a big, fluffy, white towel.
“Oh my God, thank you,” I gushed. “Bless you to the moon and back,” I told her, snagging it from her hand, but still unable to wrap it around me until I got out of the water.
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, turning away as soon as she handed the towel over. “Lawson,” she snapped. “Turn away right this instant and give the girl some privacy, will you? You too, Bill.”
Bill ?
I swiveled my attention toward the backyard, only to find an older man with a big, shit-eating grin on his face and a long-handled pair of trimming shears slung over his shoulder.
My eyes widened as I wondered how the hell long he’d been standing there, watching the show.
Tipping his hat in greeting, he turned his back at the same time the boy did.
“Who the hell are these people?” I hissed at Parker when he finally held a hand down to help me out of the water.
I accepted, and he pulled me up, lifting his eyebrows at my hard nipples before he helped wrap the towel around me.
“This is my gardener, Bill Porter, housekeeper, Sharon Porter, and their grandson, Lawson Porter. They stay in the main house. Guys,” he called out to let them know they could look again. “This is my friend, Hope Langston. I met her at the grief center when we were kids.”
“Langston?” Lawson cried in surprise, whirling back around to gape between me and Parker. “You mean, the Langston who you’ve never been able to beat at Mario Kart?”
I preened, grinning up at Parker. “I really have beaten you every round we’ve ever played together, haven’t I?”
“That was years ago,” he muttered under his breath.
Over by the house, Lawson was still gawking. “The Langston who bought you your lucky graduation socks that you wear every freaking time we play Nintendo Switch?”
Swinging my gaze to Lawson, I blinked at him before whipping right back to Parker. “I thought you lost those socks.”
“Shh,” he hissed, bumping his arm into mine as he looked at the kid.
“I had no idea Langston was a girl ,” Lawson exclaimed.
“Well…” Parker skimmed his gaze over me, and by the way his mouth tightened, I thought he was going to burst out laughing all over again. “Clearly, she is.”
I narrowed my eyes at him in warning, which only seemed to entertain him more, and I turned back to the family.
“Hi,” I greeted them uneasily. “It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you. Sorry about the…yeah. Sorry for flashing everyone.”
Sharon lifted her eyebrows in censure, obviously not forgiving me for ruining her grandson. Her husband smiled way too widely and waved at me, and when I made eye contact with Lawson, he blushed and whirled away to run back inside.
I cleared my throat, and my smile turned tense. “Yeah, I’m going to go too.”
When I turned toward the pool house, however, Parker was standing right there, snickering.
“You are so dead,” I warned him in a low tone as I darted around him to hustle barefoot back to safety.
“Me?” he demanded, keeping pace with me. “What did I do?”
“You—you—how could you let me just?—”
“ Let you?” He blurted out a laugh as he followed me inside the pool house and shut the door behind him. “I was dead asleep when you decided to add a new item to your list. I didn’t let you do shit.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you warn me that you didn’t live alone?”
“Wow. I’m so sorry,” he gushed insincerely as he set a hand against his chest. “Was I supposed to mention it between the vomiting or your passing out cold in my truck?”
“Oh my God,” I growled, still utterly humiliated by the entire situation and needing to lash out. “You are such a?—”
But I couldn’t think up anything bad enough that I really wanted to call him.
He lifted a single eyebrow, still looking way too amused. “I’m a what?”
“I don’t know!” I snapped, throwing up one arm in frustration. “I just—who are those people, anyway? And why did you hide me away in the damn pool house?”
“Well, the pool house is where I live ,” he told me, beginning there. “Because there’s only one of me, and there are three of them.”
“So you just…have the help live with you?”
He made a face, then shrugged. “Yeah. I met Lawson at the grief center. He lost both his parents in a car accident about a year and a half ago, so we kind of bonded. And when I found out how much his grandparents were struggling to find work?—”
“You brought them here,” I finished for him softly, my lips parting as everything started to make sense.
“Yeah,” he muttered a bit self-consciously as he winced and scratched at the back of his head.
He’d brought them here, and then he’d moved from his own home to give them a place to live.
“You tried to buy yourself a new family,” I realized.
He blinked up in surprise, then sent me a short frown and muttered, “Shut up,” before he glanced away and ran a hand over his face. Jerking his arm down a moment later, he sent me another scowl. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing when I did it, okay? And now it’s—well, it’s not like I can kick them out just because I’ve finally discovered how stupid I was being.”
“Oh, Grumpy,” I murmured, going to him so I could wrap my arms around his waist and set my head on his shoulder. “Don’t you know you already have a family? The Eisners. The seven. Me.”
He hugged me back, tightening his arms as if afraid I might try to pull away. “I know,” he grumbled. “I know that. I just?—”
“It doesn’t ever feel like enough, does it?” I guessed.
“No,” he admitted with a whisper. “It doesn’t.”
Closing my eyes, I started to rock slowly in his arms. “You’re like one of those poor kids who was starved as a child or grew up in extreme poverty. Now that you can afford it, you can never stockpile enough food, never make enough money. You have to collect more and more family and keep them in reserve because you’re always afraid you’re going to lose what you have.”
“I might,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek against my hair. “If Younger learns how badly I’ve disrespected him, he might just leave me and take the others with him.”
“He won’t,” I assured. “Alec wouldn’t do that. And I wouldn’t let him even if he tried. You’re not going to lose a single one of those boys. Or the Eisners. Chauncy and Ezekiel couldn’t love you more if you were their own flesh and blood.”
When I lifted my face from his shoulder to give him a reassuring smile, he only furrowed his brow in concern. “What about you?” he wondered. “You didn’t say I couldn’t lose you.”
Agony filled my chest. Tears flooded my soul. But I kept them from showing. Sniffing, I rolled my eyes. “Why in the world would you even want me?”
“Good question,” he murmured huskily as he let his gaze fall to my chest where my towel wrap was barely covering my breasts. “Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you look really good when you skinny-dip; or that I feel a certain responsibility to you since I seem to be the only person who can give you an orgasm; or that your Mario Kart skills impress certain ten-year-old boys that I’m fond of; or because you give such amazing graduation presents.”
As he reached for the knot holding my towel dress together, I felt myself blush, and I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “I knew you liked the socks.”
“I like the socks,” he admitted in a low voice as he slowly tugged the towel off. Then he lowered his mouth to my chest and tenderly kissed the top swells of my breasts.
With a moan of need, I arched up to meet him and sank my fingers into the back of his hair, holding him against me as he kissed his way down to a nipple.
As he wrapped his mouth around it, I gripped his shoulders and sucked in a tight breath. Parker growled deep in his throat and picked me up to carry me toward the bed.