Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Parker

When Cass got back from work, she looked like she was a million miles away. I knew that look—the vacant stare, the slumped shoulders, the way she just pushed in through the door like someone else was controlling her body. That was her I just ran into Gary look, and already I was ready to pull his dick off and choke him to death with it.

Problem was, I didn’t have an alibi, and if you asked anyone who knew me, they’d say something like yeah, Parker’s the kind of person who would pull a guy’s dick off and choke him to death with it, and that would look pretty bad for me.

“Hey,” I said, standing up from the sofa, setting my laptop down on the coffee table. “Your timing’s great. I was so sick of filling out the expense reports Justin left when he up and quit that I was about ready to throw the laptop out a window, and myself out a different window.”

She gave me a distant stare, like she was looking right through me, not even smiling. I didn’t recognize her without a smile. Who was this strange woman in my apartment? “Parker,” she said, “I need to talk to you.”

Well, that was ominous. “Isn’t that what people say before they kill somebody?”

“Is now a good time to talk?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Hey. Only I can dodge the question.”

That got the tiniest little bit of a smile from her. “I’m serious, Parker.”

I dropped my arms. “And I’m serious, too. You look awful. I don’t think you’re in any state to talk. Why don’t you do one of your magic-sparkle cleansing yoga rituals while I go grab donuts from Westwind, and we can do a Q&A over donuts, and then we can talk?”

She stared for about a million years before she slumped. “Thanks, Parker,” she said, her voice small.

Always. No matter what. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and kiss her and tell her how happy it made me to help her feel safe. You know, all those non-Parker things. “Eh, I just want a donut before I die,” I said. “All right, Unicorn Emperor, go get ready. I’ll be back whenever I am.”

It was about twenty minutes later I got back with a half-dozen donuts and a massive iced coffee for both of us, and Unicorn stepped out of the shower with wet hair down around her shoulders, dressed in that branded athleisure that was so much more expensive than it looked. I wasn’t going to complain about seeing her ass in leggings, though.

Except—well—we didn’t do that whole sex thing anymore. Nor the nights together in bed idly kissing while I multitasked between answering emails and watching Anyone’s Guess on her laptop. It was a difficult adjustment to make.

The stress of my mom wanting fifteen thousand dollars for Sutton’s hospital bills didn’t help.

“Hey. I got you sprinkle donuts,” I said.

“I like more than just sprinkle donuts, Scruffy,” she said, but there was a little more life to her as she came down the hall drying her hair off on a towel.

“But you still like them.”

She swatted playfully at my arm once she reached me, taking the box and opening it. “I was expecting plain cake donuts for yours,” she said.

“Excuse me. How boring do you think I am?”

She laughed lightly, stepping up against my side as she took the coffee and took a long sip from it. “Ugh. I needed this. Thank you.”

“Feeling any better?”

“Yeah, a little. Thanks.” She set the coffee down, and next thing I knew, I felt her lips on the top of my head, a quick kiss before she pulled away. “Oh. Crap. Sorry,” she said, turning away, a hand to her mouth. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Do it again. I shook it off, picking up the coffee and drinking from it too. “I’m never thinking,” I said. “Taking the casual look for the Q&A today?”

“Yeah. You don’t think it’s weird, do you? I mean, everyone showers.”

“I think you’ll get those fifty thousand straight girls who would fuck you at a moment’s notice really excited seeing you in athleisure and messy hair.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m just going to assume that’s a good thing.”

Once again, Cass flipped like a switch the moment we were sitting on the couch together and recording, instantly all bubbles and sunshine. Apparently today we were doing a reaction video instead of a Q&A, which just meant sitting there watching videos and making faces at them, and we talked about our donut choices in between clips. Unicorn laughed as she insisted she didn’t just eat sprinkle donuts, and that it was just a little joke between us, but she looked seriously happy about her sprinkles.

The moment she switched off the recording, she slumped backwards on the sofa, rubbing her forehead.

“Thanks, Parker,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything.”

She bumped her foot against mine. “Flaming liar. You always know the instant I’m sad and you take a quarter second to come up with something that makes me feel better. You’re too good for me.”

I shrugged. “I just wanted donuts. And this was an easy way to get my social media obligations done with for a while.”

“Parker,” she sighed, frustration lacing her voice.

“It’s true. Don’t accuse me of being nice. I’ll—”

But I stopped when she turned to me, leaning across the sofa, and brushed the back of her hand over my cheek, because wow. I’d ridden her mouth to orgasm before, so a little brush over the cheek shouldn’t have been anything, but—maybe it was the stress of the past few days navigating my finances trying to find any way to pay Sutton’s bills without ruining us before renegotiation, or maybe it was just watching Cass while knowing I couldn’t have her, but either way, her touch was electric. My whole body melted just at that little thing.

She moved in closer, sidling her body up next to mine on the couch, and I watched breathless as she leaned in towards me, her hand tucking around to the back of my head, burying in my hair. “Why can’t we, Parker?” she breathed, resting her forehead on mine.

“You know why,” I said, throat tight.

“I want you.” Her nose brushed against mine. I bit my lip involuntarily. “And you want me, too. Shouldn’t that be all there is to it?”

I was having a hard time remembering anything when she was this close. With her hair still damp, the smell of sweet apple was so strong in the air, it was intoxicating. She really went the whole nine yards with the forbidden fruit. Was I any better, using pomegranate shampoo and luring her into the underworld?

“Parker,” she murmured, fingers trailing back along my jawline. My whole body yielded into the sensation.

“I don’t do attachments.”

“We’re already attached, Parker. The question is, what do we do about it?”

I could feel her breath on my lips. I knew exactly what it would taste like if I leaned in and captured her in a kiss. I wanted it worse than I should have wanted anything. “Run in opposite directions?” I said.

“I want to kiss you, Parker.”

Christ, saying things like that wasn’t fair. I should have been more in control than this, but the past few days had been a whirlwind of stress, fear, uncertainty, and bad stomach cramps. I was weak. And I kissed her.

It felt like letting go of some massive weight I’d been lugging around, like I’d been holding back a door and finally let it flood through. I tilted my head just an inch to meet her lips, and the taste of candied apple there flooded my senses, equal parts sweet and wrong. She moaned into the kiss, her hand gripping me by the back of the head, the other falling to my thigh, and we kissed, lips moving slowly, sensually. Slowly, it deepened, until our tongues touched, licking up along her lower lip and across her tongue and up to her top lip before plunging into a deep kiss, feeling her lips close around my tongue and tug on it. Pleasure raced through every little inch of me. Out of intellectual curiosity—was it possible to climax from a kiss?

My hands roamed. Fingers tangled in hair, clothes moved under my fingertips, and Cass’s hungry groans drove me on, until clarity struck me like a lightning bolt, and I pulled away, my body flushed with heat, arousal.

“Sorry,” I said. “Tripped.”

“Parker,” she growled.

“I can’t.”

“I thought you wanted to keep things simple,” she said, moving her hand up my thigh, up to my hip. God, it was hard to think with that hand on me. “What’s simpler than kissing someone you want to kiss, and who wants to kiss you too?”

“Not kissing anyone, probably,” I muttered.

“Really? Because we’ve been trying that the past few days, and I don’t know about you, but it’s been literally impossible for me.”

“Again with the—”

“No, literally. I mean it this time. Case in point, I’m here, kissing you.” Her lips found the nape of my neck, and it sent a charge through my body. “Do you want this?”

“Of course I do,” I said, still looking away, out the window. Evening was sinking over Amity Street, people swirling around every which way, people in all their messiness. I didn’t get people.

“Will you look at me?” she breathed.

“Nope. I’d kiss you if I did.”

“Parker…” She trailed her hand down my neck, but slowly, she pulled away. “Tatiana told me how you’ve been moving money out of Express secretly into some personal account. That you never told anyone what it was for.”

Christ, the amount I did not need this right now. I wasn’t about to get into some sob story about my family not getting any steady work, needing constant payments sent back to them to keep Sutton fed and clothed. “My retirement fund,” I said.

“You’re lying.”

“It’s to help me pick up girls. I get extravagant hotel rooms and—”

“Parker.”

I turned back to her, now sitting a foot or two away—miles away, it felt like. “It’s my own private business, Cass.”

“It’s ours. I’m a part. I want to know what’s going on.”

I pursed my lips. “It doesn’t affect your work.”

“I care about you. And I care about the fact that you never… that you won’t open up to me about anything, ever.” She pursed her lips, looking down at the space between us. “Why do you keep secrets from me? Am I doing something wrong?”

“It’s not you, I just—”

“I was just a pretty face to have sex with a few times, huh?” She shrank into herself, looking down, lips drawn in a tight line, and I churned with indecision. I wasn’t an indecisive person. But Cass tore me in two.

“Thought that was clear from the outset,” I mumbled, looking away. The words felt like stepping onto thin ice, and even in the silence that followed, I could feel the hairline cracks spreading outward.

“You’re not going to tell me,” she said, quietly. “It’s not even anything wrong, is it? It’s nothing worth hiding. You’re just hiding it from me because you want to hide things from me.”

“Cass—”

“The only thing you’re afraid of in me finding out is… me finding out,” she said. She pushed herself off the sofa, rising slowly, her back to me. “You’re afraid of me knowing things about you because you think then I’ll be attached to you. You’re not afraid of whatever it is you’re hiding. You’re afraid of being loved.”

I turned away, folding my arms on the sofa arm, staring out the window. “I didn’t sign up for an influencer and a psychoanalyst in my home.”

She sighed, long and hard, still staring away from me. “I have to meet with Gary tomorrow,” she said, quietly, and it took me a minute to process the words.

“You have to—what? Why?” I turned back to her, brow creased. “To kill him?”

She looked down. “He wants to meet to talk about me leaving Express and joining Morning Magic, Parker.”

The words pressed against me like ice to the forehead, aching and numbing at once. “Are you serious?” I pushed myself to my feet, facing her. “What happened?”

She was quiet for a long, long time before she said, her voice just a crackling little whisper, “He knows. About me.”

My gut twisted. Gary Founders. As if he hadn’t scored enough points on the shitty-man rubric, now here he was threatening to out Cass if he didn’t get his way.

How did he even know? It wasn’t like he worked with a lot of queer girls who would have known about her. Unless…

“Tat,” I said, my voice low. “That sniveling little rat.”

“What?” She turned back to me. “Tatiana?”

“She must have told him.” I looked down, squeezing my hands. “Shouldn’t have let her go. Dammit. She must have just let it slip accidentally, but… I am going to flay her alive.”

“Parker…” She swallowed. “I don’t know what would happen. If people found out. I can’t risk it. I don’t know what’ll happen at that meeting, but—”

“I’ll go with you.”

She paused. “What?”

“He didn’t specify to go alone, did he?”

She stared at me for a while before she looked down again. “Please don’t aggravate this, Parker. Please don’t give him a reason to…”

“He’s threatening to out you. I need to go meet him in person. And bring a crowbar.”

She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t. Please. Just let me handle this. I can do this one thing. I’ll go talk to him tomorrow. I’ll convince him to lay off.”

“You really think he’s going to? You think you’re going to be the one persuading him, when he’s the one who has the information and the sliminess to use it?”

She turned back to the hallway. “I’ll tell him… something. I don’t know. I have to do this. It’s my responsibility. Just let me do this.”

“You don’t even know what you’re going to try doing. You’re going to go along and numbly agree to—”

“And you want me to bring you along—to trust you—when you won’t even tell me anything?” She whirled back on me, and my heart jumped into my mouth. I pursed my lips.

“Because people finding out things about you clearly goes so well?” I shot back, and she flinched.

“Parker… this is nothing like that. Nothing at all. I’m going to my room. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Cass,” I started, but I was useless to say anything to stop her as she spun on her heel and marched down the hallway. I watched her go, disappearing around the corner, until all that was left of her was the latching sound of her door shutting.