Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Parker

Iwas just pulling the cheese sticks from the oven, filling the apartment with the smell of sinful melted mozzarella, when the door unlatched and let in a downtrodden Unicorn. She walked with her shoulders down, her eyes on her feet, and she didn’t even seem to notice I was there until I turned the oven off.

“Oh,” she said, a hand to her chest. “Parker. Wow. You startled me. I thought you’d be out right now.”

“Were you planning on bringing over another girl?”

She scowled, unzipping her coat. “Of course not. Don’t even say that.”

“Just have to make sure my unicorn is staying faithful,” I said, turning back to the oven. For my part, I had no idea why I’d said that. Cass could fuck every girl in Port Andrea if she wanted to, so long as she didn’t pick up any infections. All we had was a fling between lesbian roommates. But… I guessed I just liked the idea of having her all to myself. She was good, and I did not want anybody else getting her. “I’m making a snack,” I said. “Want to put on some Guess?”

“Yeah…” There were pages and pages of unspoken statements in her voice. “Let me just get changed.”

“Don’t put on too much,” I called, as she made her way down the hallway. She didn’t respond, and I chewed my lip.

Something had gotten to her while she was out. Didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it.

I moved quietly through the low light of the living room, socks padding on carpet as I strained to reach over the TV, switching on Cass’s fairy lights. I lit her moonlit dreams scented candle, whatever a moonlit dream was supposed to smell like, and I just finished opening a bagged salad into my big pink-and-orange bowl I bought because it looked like the lesbian flag colors, when Cass came back down the hall, her hair down in messy waves and a fitted tee, light jean shorts leaving her legs on full display. Apparently, she’d played soccer a lot when she was in college, and she had the legs to show for it.

She was also wearing the unicorn slippers I’d gotten her one day when I saw them on clearance, so she at least couldn’t have been too glum. Maybe I had a shot at brightening her day after all.

“Hey,” I said. “Oh, I was reading comments on my personal nightmare that is our Insta page—”

She froze up, eyes wide. “Um… yeah?”

Interesting. Seemed like there was something there she was worried about. Well, like all important things that came up, I didn’t think about it. “I know this is out of nowhere,” I said, and it was true because I was literally making it up on the spot, “but someone said my posture on triangle pose has been wrong for weeks, and I’ve been looking at videos about it all day long and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.”

She blinked. “You… want me to help you correct your triangle pose?”

“Look, don’t start thinking I’m getting into this kind of thing. I just can’t stand straight girls telling me I’m bad with positions.”

And there it was—Cass’s signature literally-a-million-watt smile. “You are ridiculous,” she said. “I would love to help. Right now? After the show?”

“Right now. It’s been driving me up the wall.” And I actually did not want to do this, so the sooner I got it out of the way, the better.

She laughed. Her posture relaxed a little. “All right. I’ll grab your mat. Do you want to get changed into something a little closer-fitting? It’ll help me see your posture more clearly.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” I said, pulling my sweatshirt off. Cass went red as instantly as plugging in a string of Christmas lights, looking away.

“Um… can you maybe put on a bra so I don’t get distracted?”

“Who the fuck wears bras,” I muttered, but I trudged back to my bedroom and pulled on a sports bra.

I regretted asking for instruction immediately. Nobody had actually been criticizing my triangle pose, but it turned out they could have, because Unicorn had about a million different things to criticize. Under normal circumstances, I would have loved the way she kept cupping my butt and running her hand up my bare arm, holding me by the hips and moving me, but combining it with yoga was like putting ipecac in a milkshake.

“There,” Cass said, finally, beaming so bright it almost—almost—made it all worth it. “That’s perfect. You look amazing.”

“I look better in a bed,” I said, straining through my thigh.

“You look great there, too, dear. Do you want to do some more exercises in this—”

“No, I do not,” I said, collapsing out of the posture. “Come on. The cheese sticks are getting cold. Let me watch Valentina Jacobs do that angry thing with her fist in this episode.”

She laughed, heading over to where I had the food on warming, with that bounce back in her step now. I fell on the floor, wondering if it was worth it. “You’re so into her,” she hummed. “Do I need to make sure my Stay-Puft Marshmallow Girl is staying faithful, too?”

Why did it sound like we were girlfriends? I was probably getting Unicorn attached to me. Kind of a dick move to pull with an innocent baby-gay like her. But somehow, I couldn’t find it in me to bring it up or dial it back.

“Relax,” I said, dropping back onto the couch, not even bothering to pull my sweatshirt back on. “If I happen to run into Valentina Jacobs and she propositions me, I’ll just ask for a threesome.”

“I… am not into that.” She set down the cheese sticks on the coffee table, the aroma of cheese and fried food wafting off, and gave me a look before she went back for the salad and where I’d set down my coffee. “I guess we’re just losing the shirt today?”

“What, do you mind it?”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed, handing me my drink in the brown-and-red Westwind cup with its little robin logo before she dropped onto the sofa next to me. “Not even a teensy-tiny little bit. I just don’t want you literally freezing to death.”

“If you think this could make me literally freeze to death, Unicorn, I’ve got news about what literally means.” I shifted closer to her, leaning on her side while I sipped the coffee, a light-roast Kenyan with sweet notes of candied lemon on the top, melting into a warm, round finish almost like a cinnamon syrup. Cass grabbed the remote, and she sank into me while she navigated through to Anyone’s Guess, putting on the latest episode. “Besides, I’ve got a blanket and a person here who runs about thirty degrees hotter than people should, so I’ll be warm.”

She smiled, but she didn’t say anything, just snaking an arm around my waist as she set down the remote, the show intro starting up.

Slowly, the level of coffee in my cup dropped, the cheese sticks disappeared from the bowl, and we polished off the salad, until the end sequence rolled for a second episode in a row, and we found ourselves horizontal—Cass lying on her back with me on top of her, a blanket draped over the both of us, a pillow under her head and Cass’s boobs under mine as we watched the episode wrap. I wasn’t even sure how we’d gotten here, but it was warm, and I liked the way she trailed her fingertips lazily over my back, up and down with the lightest touch.

I pulled the lid off my coffee cup, tipping back the last little dregs of it, and immediately regretted it, cold fines tasting bitter and dry on my tongue. I dropped the lid inside the cup and set it down on the table, and I glanced up at Cass.

“They should invent a coffee cup that never runs out,” I said.

“You’d die of overcaffeination in a week.”

“Not the worst way to go.” I propped myself up on one elbow. “Do you want to talk about anything bothering you?”

She sighed, turning away from the screen while credits rolled. “You even lit my favorite candle you hate just because you knew I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Oh, gross. No, no, no. We’re not playing the oh, Parker’s so nice game.”

“Parker Ferris.”

“Oh, I’m getting full-named. Unicorn’s serious.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling. “Parker Middle-Name Ferris.”

I looked away. “First-Name Parker Ferris.”

“Wait.” She stopped, scrunching up her face. “Parker’s your middle name?”

“Yeah. We don’t talk about my first name.”

She laughed. “It’s something really straight-sounding, isn’t it?”

“Ugh. The straightest name you could think of.”

She chewed her cheek, looking up. “Um… Cassandra.”

“Not that straight.”

“What is it?” She propped herself up on her elbows, meeting my gaze. “I can’t be cozied up with you half-naked on our sofa and not even know your first name.”

“Christ. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

“I promise.” She paused. “Your first name’s Christ?”

“Dude, I wish. That’d be way cooler.” I cleared my throat. “Amy.”

“Amy?”

“Gross, dude. That word is banned from our household.”

She nodded slowly, looking me over. “Amy Parker Ferris. That’s cute. Parker suits you better, though.”

“Yeah, because it’s a raging lesbian name.”

She laughed, tousling my hair, as she fell onto her back. “I don’t know, I think Amy’s pretty gay.”

“I told you, that word is banned.”

“Gay?”

“No… that one’s encouraged.”

She sighed. “Why are you so adamantly opposed to me appreciating it when you do sweet things for me?”

“Because…” I shrugged. “Because I’m mean and nasty.”

She wrapped an arm around my waist and squeezed. “You’re not mean and nasty. You’re my favorite little Grim Reaper.”

Ugh… I wasn’t supposed to like this kind of cutesy thing. Cass was eroding my brain with her unicorn sparkles. I looked back to the TV as the next episode started. “You don’t have to tell me what’s on your mind if you don’t want to.”

“Sasha’s café is partnered with Morning Magic.”

I snorted. “That pink-haired bastard. I wish Thena was right and that I was a hitwoman.”

She paused. “Er—Athena thought you were a hitwoman?”

I rested my head back on her chest. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know you have a connection with her, and the fact that she hid it from you for so long must feel awful.”

“Yeah…” She sighed, wrapping her other arm around me too, squeezing me tighter. “I just… I can’t take it when people hide things from me, you know? I don’t like feeling rejected, left out. I can’t handle being… unwanted, unloved. Feeling like I’m not important to someone.”

“You’re important to a whole hell of a lot of people, Cass,” I said, propping myself up and meeting her gaze. “It’s Sasha’s loss if she’s been keeping you at arm’s length. It reflects on her, not on you.”

She looked down at the floor. “I mean… logically, I know that.”

“But you automatically feel rejected, and it hurts. You can’t help the way you feel. I’m sorry she put you in that position.”

She screwed up her face. “I’m sorry, weren’t you just saying you’re mean and nasty?”

I laughed. “I am,” I said, and I shuffled up to plant a quick kiss on her lips.

I didn’t really know what drove me to do it. I didn’t typically feel the urge to kiss a girl unless I was planning on taking her out of her clothes. Not that I would have minded stripping Cass bare and having her against the wall, but that hadn’t even been on my mind.

I pulled away, but she chased the kiss, leaning after me and meeting my lips again, another quick kiss before she turned back to the screen, another pink flush over her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not really up for sex right now.”

“That’s fine. Just don’t accuse me of being nice.” Some level of stubbornness drove me, and I kissed her shoulder, too. “It’s just fun seeing your reactions when I kiss you.”

She cleared her throat. “I mean—you can kiss me all you like.”

This was definite girlfriends territory. I was not thinking about that. First-Name Parker Ferris lived in the moment, and did not think to such distant points as five minutes in the future. I kissed her cheek, and she went back to trailing her hand up and down my back.

“Sorry for being all down and miserable on you,” she said. “Thanks for, you know. Being really nice about it. I mean—mean. Thanks for being so mean and cruel and terrible about it.”

“Always here to be mean as much as you need, hashtag-sparkles.” I kissed her cheek again. I needed to quit doing that. “This a good activity to keep distracting yourself with? We can switch it up if Guess isn’t doing it for you.”

“No, no, this is really nice.”

“You just like it when a half-naked girl is on top of you.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling. “And you don’t like being the half-naked girl on top of me?”

“I did not say that.”

“Good. Then hush up and stop complaining, scruff-ball.” She kissed my forehead, and she turned back to the screen, watching as Sierra Wheaton’s character broke down crying in a car. I turned my head watching, feeling a nervous rumbling in my stomach.

This was definitely not right. All the pet names, the constant touch, the way Cass trusted me with her deepest insecurities, and now soft little kisses, too?

Cass was absolutely going to develop feelings for me at this rate. I could not deal with that—the pressure, the obligation. It made my stomach turn thinking about it.

But I couldn’t really find it in me to stop this, because she was hot, and good with her tongue, and good for Express, and her boobs made great pillows, and…

And no matter how many excuses I made for myself, it was because I was kind of starting to like her.

And that was not okay.