“Hazel, I gotta go.”
I went back inside and prepared to tell him the truth.
Parker turned around and grinned. “I think we should pay Mikey back by sending random hookups to the Lodge. Tiller will…” He must have seen something on my face because his grin faded. “What’s wrong? Is Hazel okay?”
I reached for his hand and pulled him over to the sofa. “Yeah, she’s fine. Everyone is fine. Listen…” How the hell was I supposed to tell him his ex-fiancée was this selfish?
“I told you Erin went to Mexico,” I began.
Parker’s eyebrows came together. “Yeah?”
“She didn’t go alone. She went with Nolan.”
He looked crestfallen. “Oh shit.”
I squeezed the hand I still held. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait. What? Why are you sorry? I’m sorry. I know you said you didn’t have feelings for him but…”
I stared at him. “Parks. I don’t give a shit about Nolan. I told you he and I weren’t a thing. This is about Erin. She went on your honeymoon with someone else.”
He looked down at where he now held my hand between both of his. His thumb rubbed gently across the back of my hand enough to almost distract me from the conversation. Almost. “He’s probably a good fit for her right now. I bet they’re out there climbing a Mayan ruin and reveling in their freedom, opening their minds or whatever. I’m sure they’ll have fun together.” He shrugged and looked back up at me.
I yanked my hand out of his grip and stood up to pace. “Fun? Fun? Didn’t you hear what I said? She’s with Nolan. Probably sleeping with Nolan. On your honeymoon.”
Parker tilted his head at me. “Yeah… you told me. So?”
I flapped my arms up and down like a deranged chicken. “Are you kidding? Your fiancée—”
“Ex-fiancée,” he interrupted from the sofa.
I glared at him. “Ex-fiancée is sleeping with him. How is this okay with you? How is any of this okay with you?”
Parker shrugged. “I don’t know. Just is.”
“It can’t be. You’re repressing, or—”
“I’m not.”
I shook my head. “You haven’t processed—”
“I have.”
“Then for fuck’s sake, explain how you didn’t even want me sharing a room platonically with the guy the night before the wedding ago, and now you’re perfectly calm at the fact that he ran off with your fiancée!”
“Because she’s not you, damn it!” he exploded, nostrils flared, then blinked as what he’d said caught up to him. He didn’t back down, though. “She’s not you,” he repeated softly. “And once again, she’s my ex-fiancée, Jules.”
“For now.”
“Forever.”
“And what does that even mean,” I whispered, almost afraid to look at him. “She’s not me?”
Parker stood up and grabbed my hands to hold them down by my side. He suddenly seemed so close. Uncomfortably close. Intimately close.
I sucked in a breath.
Meanwhile, Parker looked as calm and unruffled and confident as I’d ever seen him. “It means she’s not the person I obsess about when they’re gone. She’s not the person I want to run to when I have something cool to share.” His eyes pinned me with an intensity that made my stomach drop to the floor. “And she’s not the person I want so fucking badly to kiss right now.”
What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck. Was happening.
I stepped backward and nearly fell over a side table. I turned to grab it before it fell, and then I scrambled to right the few items that had fallen over. “Nope. Nope, you didn’t just say that. Stop doing this. You’re saying things you don’t mean. You’re upset. Understandably so. You were left at the altar. On Valentine’s Day. That has to cut deep. So… so, yeah. That’s all this is.” I turned back and glared at him. “Confusion.”
Parker stepped close again, that sexy little smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not confused. Not anymore.”
My breathing came fast and jagged. “Well, I sure as fuck am. This is ridiculous. This… this week was supposed to be… not about this,” I said frantically, running my hand palm out in a circle between us to indicate everything encompassing the two of us. “This week was supposed to be… supposed to be…”
He leaned in until our noses almost touched. Almost.
“Supposed to be?” he asked in a low, breathy voice that made my balls ache.
“Supposed to be me moving on from you.”
9
PARKER
My dick was hard.
My dick was hard for my best friend, and my heart felt like it was going to skyrocket out of my chest. I wanted him so fucking much. It was like someone had popped the cork on a bottle of champagne I’d spent twenty years inadvertently shaking.
For the past two days, I’d been staring at a bunch of troubling puzzle pieces, trying to make them make sense. I couldn’t be gay, since I still had zero desire to kiss Tiller, or the guy at the bar, or any other man I’d ever met. But then, why had I been subconsciously cockblocking my best friend for years? And why was the idea of Julian having a crush on me so damn thrilling and satisfying? And why was my cock suddenly malfunctioning every time Julian grinned or stretched or spoke or breathed, like it was a radio permanently tuned to the Horny Channel?