Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Parker

Iwas turning into some cliché main character, brooding while staring out over the bay. It was perfect brooding weather—gray sky and winds sweeping in waves along the surface of the water, dishwater gray, seagulls crying overhead. One stood on the railing in front of me, looking at where I was sitting on the bench, like I was going to give the little punk something.

“Get lost, bastard,” I said, talking to a seagull. I’d officially lost it.

Crescent Point Harbor was quiet this time of year—through the summer this place was always packed with rich tourists here to sail yachts or do whatever the hell else rich tourists did out on the bay, and it was always swirling with noise. But here in the winter, the stalls were stripped bare, gates chained up, and right now, it was just First-Name Parker Ferris sitting alone on a cold metal bench still damp from the rain earlier today, all swaddled up in her trench coat, yelling at a seagull.

And to make matters worse? I was brooding over a girl.

“There you are,” her voice said from behind me, and I turned to the girl in question—Cass coming down the stone steps behind me, looking trendy dressed up in some of her latest free product, this time a pinstriped shirt dress and tights, a long coat with a fluffy hood pulled up. She waved to me, coming over and dropping onto the bench next to me. “What in the world are you out here for?” she laughed.

I kicked my foot up and pointed with my toe tip. “Talking to that smug bastard.”

She followed my point. “The seagull?”

“The one and only.”

“I don’t know, I think he looks pretty nice…”

I elbowed her lightly. “Don’t get suckered in by a pretty face, Unicorn.”

“I got suckered into living with you by your pretty face, and it worked out all right,” she said, leaning against me.

“Yeah, that one backfired against me…” I shoved my hands in my coat pockets. “I’m starting to wake up at five without an alarm. I hate it.”

She giggled, leaning into me. I could not express how upset I was that it made me feel warm and fuzzy when she did that.

Dammit. How the hell was I falling for Unicorn? Love was just… expectations, pressure from other people. If she liked me, she’d start expecting me to be a certain way. If I liked her, I’d start wanting to fulfill those expectations.

“You’ve been doing great at the morning routine. You’re a pro at warrior pose now.”

“I’m a pro at corpse pose.”

She tapped her foot against the side of mine. “They say corpse pose is the hardest.”

“Well, I’ve mastered it. That means I’m done, right?”

She laughed, and she glanced back over her shoulder—checking one way, then the other, and then she leaned in and gave me a quick kiss, her lips meeting mine. That soft pink flush when she pulled back spoke volumes.

I could not deal with her having feelings for me. But I couldn’t do anything about it when I felt the same way. The exact thing I’d always been so careful to avoid, and here I was.

“Not even close,” she said. “We’ve only just gotten started.”

I wanted to fall into her arms, have her wrap me up in them and hold me close. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. “Figures,” I mumbled, looking back out over the water. “Well, I can always fake my own death if I need to.”

“I’ll still find you. There’s no escaping the evil emperor.” She slipped her hand down my arm, and unconsciously, I pulled my hand from my pocket to hold hers, interlacing with her fingers. She squeezed once before she looked back out to the water. “So, no answers on why you’re actually out here?”

“You think I’m lying about a matter as serious as this jackass of a seagull?”

“In a word? Yeah.” She leaned her head against mine. “I just want to be here for you if anything’s wrong, Parker.”

“Nope. I don’t talk about feelings. That stuff’s garbage.”

“Mm-hm. Sounds unhealthy, darling.”

“I know, and I will keep it that way.” She was already my girlfriend, wasn’t she? Hell, we’d even already U-Hauled. What would have happened if I just asked her if we could be something official, just call it dating, call her my girlfriend? It wasn’t hard to figure out she’d say yes. I hated that I wanted it too.

“Well, there’s no pressure to talk about anything,” she said, giving my hand another squeeze, but there was something distant in her voice. “But I’m here if you ever want to.”

“I’ve been cursed by an evil witch and it keeps me from ever talking about feelings.”

“I’ve heard nothing removes curses better than a unicorn kiss,” she said, placing a kiss on my temple.

“The witch lived in a house made of unicorn bones and drank their blood every day. Unicorns have got nothing on her.”

She made a face. “Oh, brutal. Why were you hanging out around that kind of place?”

“Eh… I got good wi-fi reception there.”

She laughed, touching her foot to mine again. “You are so difficult. All right, we’ll say you’re just out here to look at a seagull. Now, you had me walk all the way out here for a rendezvous, so, are we talking business?”

Business was all right. I’d talked with one of the suppliers I was due for a contract renegotiation with, and things were starting to look okay. So why did I feel so rotten?

Cass really had turned around Express’s fortunes. I swear, I saw the little blue-and-yellow armbands everywhere we went. The only problem was that now everything in my life was Cass, and once she started putting expectations on me, I’d have no choice but to play along.

“Business is good,” I said. “Thanks for all your help with Express. Everything’s starting to look up a little.”

“Um… of course. Might I ask why you’re saying something nice like that while looking so miserable?”

“I told you, it’s the seagull. The guy’s a real piece of work.” I hunched my shoulders. “Cass, what’s our actual plan? We’ve stopped Morning Magic from buying out all our cafés, but where’s this all heading?”

She looked down, toeing the coarse concrete underneath. A strong wind brought in the smell of the bay, tossing Cass’s hair across her face, and the cold nipped at my nose. “Well… we can keep building up Express’s brand. I know a few of my old Insta circle are big on Express now, and I think we could try getting them to sign up as actual sponsors too.”

Deeper and deeper into her unicorn web. I chewed my cheek. “I guess what I’m really asking is, uh…” Do I stay with you, do we keep doing this. Do I keep falling for you, when that’s the last thing I want right now. I cleared my throat. “Do I have to keep doing your horrible morning rituals? My thighs can’t stand one more chair pose.”

“Your thighs are great. You’ve made so much progress on chair pose.”

“Don’t even say that. You’ll make it sound like I should keep doing it.”

She laughed, but it was hollow, as she cast her eyes back out to the water. The distant cries of seagulls rang out over the water, and Cass sank slowly back against the bench.

“We can keep going as long as you like,” she said, finally, a neutral statement.

I looked down. “I’ve got contract renegotiations in three weeks.”

“What contracts?” She looked over at me, and I shrugged.

“The contracts. Supply contracts with the people who actually get me my espresso machines. I made a bunch of contracts when I started out, and I wasn’t really thinking, so I just set them all up for the same contract period, which means I have to renegotiate all of them at the same time. It’s my week from hell, because if I get bid up too high on the things, my profit margins are gone, and Express is dead.”

She stared at me for ages, and I let my gaze fall to the concrete, still faintly damp from the rain. “You never said anything,” she murmured, finally.

“Didn’t really need to.”

She pursed her lips. “Parker, you look so sad. I’ve never seen you look anything other than rumpled and vaguely annoyed. Is it something I did?”

Well, kind of. She’d kissed me. Or, well, I’d kissed her, but she’d been a very active part of that. I couldn’t tell which one of us had done what along the way. We’d just fallen into all of it at the same time. Life was easier when you had a clear person to blame. “I’m doing great,” I said. “This is my happy face.”

“It is so not your happy face.”

I pushed my cheeks up to make a smile. She scowled.

“That doesn’t count, Parker Ferris.” She looked back out over the water. “I feel awful if I did something wrong. I just want to know if there’s anything I can make better, or… maybe just stop making worse.”

“You like me,” I said, taking myself by surprise. The words hung in the air for a second before Cass glanced over at me.

“Yeah, of course. You’re my best friend.”

“Oh, I see we’re playing the lesbian game of holding hands with and kissing your best friend.”

There was the red-faced-Unicorn switch again. She swallowed hard, looking away. “Oh. You mean, like… oh.”

“Yeah.”

She sighed, shoulders dropping, staring at her shoes. “Well… of course I do, Parker.”

I couldn’t tell if I was excited or about to be sick. It felt like I’d been on a rollercoaster, my insides swirling. “Okay, but… why?”

“Why?” She gave me a look like I’d just taken the record for world’s strangest question. “Why do I like you?”

“Yeah. I’m not like your whole… this,” I said, gesturing up and down to her. “You’re sleek and fashionable and glossy as all hell, perfect Insta girl. My whole existence is antithetical to your entire… like… thing.”

She chewed her cheek, giving me a sidelong look. “Parker… you don’t just sit down and decide to like someone. You make me happy to be around. And you’re someone I trust when things are hard. And…” She shrugged wildly. “And you make me feel good being myself. I don’t think you need anything more than that.”

I dropped my gaze to the ground again. The wind whipped at me, cold enough the tips of my ears were numb.

“It’s… really okay,” she said, looking down alongside me. “I don’t want it to seem like you have to feel the same way.”

But I do, is the problem. I kicked at the ground. “I just think it’s too much work.”

“What—having feelings for somebody?”

I shrugged. “You get into that whole thing, the other person starts expecting crap from you. They want you to be a certain way.”

“Parker…” Her shoulders dropped. “I’m not trying to pressure you to be anything.”

“And I’d feel obligated to meet all your expectations,” I said, kicking at a spot on the ground, feeling the roughness of the concrete under my feet. “Because unfortunately, somehow or other, I guess I tripped and accidentally caught feelings for you too.”

She paused. “Parker.”

“Ugh, don’t get sentimental, please,” I said, a hand to my forehead. “I’m allergic. I will throw up into the bay and the environmental pollution will be your fault.”

“You will not.”

“I might,” I said. “I was supposed to keep things simple. That’s been my whole philosophy from the beginning, you know. I don’t want to do too much work. I started Express because it was easier than having a pain-in-the-ass salaried job or working hourly or something. Now it’s a whole… social media brand movement.” I stood up, feeling the blood rush to my head as I did, leaving me lightheaded. I took a couple tipsy steps over to the railing, leaning against where Jackass the Seagull had been standing, and I just breathed in the icy wind sweeping in across the bay. “I probably should have just sold my assets to Gary and gone off to Rose Village or something. Maybe Tat was right.”

“You’re this upset about the fact that we like each other, Parker?” she said, walking up next to me, leaning over the railing beside me.

“It’s bullshit. Feelings are bullshit. I want a refund.”

She elbowed me playfully. “You can only return them with the receipt, Scruffy.”

“Ugh, they never gave me a receipt. This is bullshit.”

She looked down into the water. “I… understand if you don’t want to be with me.”

I looked away. “Don’t say it like that, you’ll make me feel bad.”

“No, really. I get it. There’s a big difference between liking someone and wanting to be with them. We all like a good yogic workout, but sometimes we don’t really want to get into one, you know?”

“I’m sorry, do we all like that?”

“And just because you like me doesn’t mean, well… you know,” she mumbled, looking down.

We fell into silence. The cold metal of the railing was wet under my arms, and I shuddered against the way the wind felt cold and clammy where my skin was streaked wet.

Cass spoke with her eyes on the horizon. “We’ll still be friends, right?”

I shrugged. “Doing anything else sounds like too much work.”

She sighed, hanging her head. “I don’t know how to stop kissing you, Parker.”

It would have been so easy to just tell her to keep kissing me. But that would have just made things worse in the long run. It wouldn’t even be a very long run. “Eh… we’ll probably slip up here and there.”

“Oh, once or twice?”

“Possibly thrice.”

She bent in and laid a slow, barely-there kiss on my lips, holding it for the longest time before she pulled back. “Oops,” she said, a sad, far-off look in her eyes. “I tripped.”

“I do it all the time.”

She flickered a smile. “Eagle pose will help your coordination—”

“Don’t get any ideas, Unicorn.” I smiled, but I brushed it off, turning away from the railing. “I’m heading back to the apartment. I’ll see you there, I guess.”

“I can walk with you. I’m heading back there now too.”

I gave her a lazy, one-shoulder shrug. “I’m kind of feeling this atmosphere to just brood, you know?”

“Parker…” I could see the look on her face without even looking back at her—the little pout in her lower lip, the crease in her brow. “You can talk about your feelings with me. I’ll never judge you for it.”

The problem wasn’t her judging me. The problem was judging myself. “I told you, evil witch curse. My bones will turn to candy if I talk about my feelings. The worst part of that is that then, someone else will be the one getting all the candy.” I raised my hand over my shoulder in a wave as I strode on down the concrete, back towards the lonely stretch of Newsome Road that let the long way round towards Southport. “See you, Cass.”

Unicorn and her rainbow sparkles really had been getting to me, because I felt myself wilting like a sad little flower as I trudged down the path until Cass disappeared behind me. Crescent Point was deathly quiet, which just left me walking alone in the driving winds, hands in my pockets, gritting my teeth as I trudged with my head down.

Cass saving Express had been a mistake. We were in deep now, and there was no turning back. I hated when there was no turning back.

When I felt my phone buzz against my hand in my pocket, I ignored it, because in my experience, people texted when things were urgent and called when they had a problem and also were just kind of lonely and needed a chat. But when it buzzed a second time immediately after it rang out, I sighed and pulled the phone out, my heart sinking at the name on the screen.

Mom.

One of very few women I didn’t like to see calling me.

“What’s up?” I said, answering the phone and holding it up to my ear. I had to strain to hear her voice through the line, turning away from the railing and ducking in front of a shuttered storefront.

“Amy. It’s about time you picked up.”

“For crying out loud, Mom, quit calling me Amy.”

“Now is not the time for this argument, Amy.” She paused. “It’s Sutton. Your sister’s in the hospital.”

The wind picked up, howling harder down the lonely street of Newsome Road, the distant cries of seagulls coming louder, as if the whistling wind carried their voices over the bay.