Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Riven

After he blew me by the lake, we cleaned up, got dressed, and went back to camp. We made lunch, then went for a hike. Parrish would give me a knowing smile when I checked the security cameras at home, or called to check on Grandma.

His optimism about the world was so confusing to me. He’d grown up surrounded by the same shit people I had, only he’d lived with it every day of his life, in his home before moving out, so I couldn’t understand why it was so much easier for him to look on the bright side than it was for me. Why he still had hope and tried to spoon-feed it to me, and why I wanted to let him.

Being around him felt so damn good, and I’d had so little of that, which made it hard for me to accept it, or know what to do with it. But at the same time, I wanted to hold on tight, to pull him close and feed off that goodness until it filled me up too. I needed to soak it all in before it was taken away from me, or before I fucked it up somehow.

The last thing I wanted was to hurt Parrish, but I was good at hurting people who cared about me. It made me think about the ways Grandma had shown her love while I was growing up, how she had tried to get me to smile or get me into healthy activities, to join school clubs and things like that, but all I had ever done was shoot her down, while inside, I’d wanted to pull her closer.

After dinner that night, we sat around talking, Parrish pulling words and stories out of me that I’d somehow forgotten until I told him—good things, things that made me smile and helped brighten some of the darkness inside me. Like going to drive-in movies with Grandma, or the laughs when she had taught me to crochet. There were pockets of moments when I’d let my guard down, and looking back, they were beautiful.

We slept under the stars again, me fucking Parrish while he rode me, looking down at me while he gave me his body.

I let him hold me, which was so strange for me. Even before, I hadn’t been the cuddly type. It was something Bec and I used to fight about. But with him I needed him close, like I could breathe better with him in my arms.

Sunday morning we went swimming again before packing up to head back to Clayton, and…I didn’t want to leave. I would stay here with him if I could, away from everyone else, living in the woods where there weren’t shitty people and bad situations. Where life was simple, and there weren’t bad memories around every corner, and it was easier to forget the things I’d done.

We didn’t talk much on the drive back. It was hot today, over a hundred, so sitting inside, even with my shitty window AC, would be better than dealing with this weather.

“I should probably head home,” Parrish said. “I need to do laundry and shit like that before we go back to work tomorrow. And I haven’t talked to Bec in a few days, so I want to check on her.”

Did Parrish fix everything for everyone around him? He took care of Rex’s responsibilities, was there for Bec and the girls. He was there for me too, carrying the weight of everyone else’s shit on his shoulders. Who helped with the burden on his own?

Instead of responding with words, I grasped his nape and tugged him forward, taking his mouth with mine. His lips were stiff for about half a second, not having expected it, before he was kissing me back, pushing his tongue inside, like he would die without one more taste. I’d hooked up a lot, but none of it had felt as good as just touching him. It was a mind fuck, to say the least.

When we pulled back, I noticed movement in front of the truck. Grandma was standing there with a wide, knowing smile. Well, shit. She’d known something was going on with us—that couldn’t have been more obvious—but seeing it was different, proven when she gave us two thumbs-ups, which made a laugh burst from Parrish’s lips.

“Damn it.”

“Now you have to be my boyfriend. I’ve clearly got your grandma on my side.” He said it playfully, and I knew he wouldn’t pressure me to label this, but I thought maybe I wanted to.

Parrish didn’t wait for me to respond, just clutched my nape the way I had done with him just moments ago, and tugged me in for another kiss.

And I let him, still surprised that the word boyfriend didn’t scare me. It maybe set me free.