He turned away from the art tacked to the wall and smiled. In that moment, I realized maybe Parker and I weren’t so different after all. He may be outgoing while I hung back, but I think we both searched for a little understanding. Not many people understood the unique traits of an artist.
“What are those?” he asked, nodding behind me.
I whipped around, fully prepared to find a stack of my bras or something.
Worse.
My stack of journals piled as high as my nightstand. If I thought my drawings hinted too much to my inner soul, it was nothing compared to the nakedness that overwhelmed me at the thought of him reading my scribbled notes and poetry.
“Oh, um, just some writing stuff.” I waved my hand, trying to play it off.
“Cool,” he said, walking past me to the pile.
It took all I had not to slap my hand over the pile when he brushed his finger over the top one.
“Can I?”
No. Hell no.
“Um, sure.”
Wait. What?
All air ceased in my lungs, and blood rushed to my ears as he flipped through the pages. Maybe if I stood super still, I’d disappear, and I wouldn’t have to face the outcome of him looking over my words.
“You look at me, but you don’t see. You hear me, but you’re not listening. Why exist at all when the real me is a ghost haunting the person you really wanted?”
Hearing my words in his masculine voice turned my body into one live, vibrating pulse. This was it. This was the moment I’d pass out and make it a million times worse.
He flipped a few more pages, and I stood frozen like a statue.
“You should write music,” he finally said.
“What?” I squeaked out.
“Yeah. Your words are amazing. I could totally put this to a beat. I can already hear some of it in my head.” He bobbed his head to a tune only he could hear.
“Oh. I’ve never thought of that. They’re just random things. Nothing, really.”
“No.” He shook his head and looked up from the pages, meeting my eyes, and unlike the poem accused, he definitely saw me. “These are great.”
Fluttering fire burned its way up my chest and into my throat. My cheek twitched, but I stood in too much shock and awe of his compliment to even form a smile.
He obviously didn’t have the same struggle I did. He smiled enough for both of us, and it washed over me until finally, I found enough strength to smile back.
“Thank you.”
He opened his mouth, but the shrill ring of his phone shattered the moment. He closed the book and carefully placed it back as he tugged his phone out of his pocket. “It’s Ash. I was waiting for him to call.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah.”
With a head nod from him and an awkward finger wave from me, he left.
I didn’t know how long I stood there trying to see my small corner of the world from his point of view, but when I finally fell back on my bed, I saw it with more confidence than ever before.
Parker Callahan had been in my life for a few months, and already he was changing it.
Three
Parker
“You waiting on a booty call?” Brogan asked. “That’s the five-hundredth time you’ve check your phone this week.”
I expertly dodged the bass pick he flicked my way from where he sat perched on the edge of the stage. However, I missed the guitar pick Ash hit me in the side of the head with. Brogan high-fived Ash when he plopped down next to him, both their feet dangling like kids.
“I’ve barely looked at my phone.” The guys snorted and gave me matching looks that called bullshit. Rubbing a hand over my face, I glanced down at my phone again, like maybe a return message from Nova would randomly appear.
Still not there. But my seventeen messages stared back at me.
“You’ll never guess who I stumbled across.”
“Angelina Jolie?” Oren guessed, coming up behind the rest of the guys. “Please say Angelina Jolie. And that she’s coming to our show tonight and then back to the hotel to see me because she was just using you to get to me.”
“Wow, that’s detailed, bro,” Brogan said.
Oren shrugged. “We’re on tour,” he said like it explained it all. And it kind of did. The days blurred, and the mind struggled to keep up, even only a few days in. So, random ass thoughts and fantasies made sense.
“Who?” Ash asked, bringing us back to the point of the conversation.
For a second, I considered lying and avoiding telling them like I had all week, but frankly, I needed to get it off my chest, and no one knew what I’d gone through with Nova better than them.
“Nova.”
I wished I had a camera out and ready to snap the various stages of shock marring their faces. It ranged somewhere between the same wonder I felt and a minor flicker of hurt that they carried around with them, too.