“It was horrible,” I tell her with a laugh.
“I don’t believe you,” she says primly.
I run my hands through my hair and chug the last of my beer. It’s my turn to look at the ceiling and try to put the whole experience into words.
“Sadie Jones was Lilah’s best friend in high school. She was a year older than me and I thought she was the hottest thing this side of the Sierra Nevada’s, but she never noticed me. Not for years. Not until I hit a growth spurt and bulked out. It was like, overnight, she was all over me every time she came around. I was too young and stupid to know any better, so we started going out. It was just a bonus that it pissed off my sister. Young and stupid, keep that in mind, please.”
Parker laughs and relaxes into my side again. “Got it, young and stupid. The mantra of the teenage boy.”
“Exactly. So, a couple months in, Sadie decides we should have sex. I was a teenage boy, so I thought she deserved a Nobel prize for that idea.”
Parker covers her face with her hands. “What happened?” she asks, voice muffled.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I tell her the truth. “I couldn’t really… get it up.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yeah. She was slobbering everywhere and making these annoying fake moaning sounds. It was like she watched the worst porn she could find and then copied it. Which, in hindsight, I’m almost certain she did.”
Parker laughs behind her hands and makes a sympathetic groan. Her hair is starting to dry in wild pale coppery waves and they tickle my bicep.
“Okay, that’s— that’s pretty awful.”
“That’s not even the worst part,” I tell her. “Sadie was so offended by what she perceived as my lack of interest, that she told everyone that I took her virginity and then dumped her.”
Parker gasps in outrage. “What a bitch!”
I whip my head down to look at Parker. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard you swear like that.”
“I swear. I’m just judicious about it,” she grins back at me before yawning.
“Well, it’s adorable,” I say before reaching to turn off the light.
Parker settles in next to me, her head on my shoulder, a warm hand resting on my chest. Reaching down, I slide my hand over one gorgeous ass cheek and down to her knee so I can hitch her leg over my thighs. Light from streetlamps trickles through the blinds, and I can see the little freckles that dot Parker’s thigh. I trace their path with my fingertips.
Perfect. This feels absolutely perfect. A possessive thought overtakes me. My family is going to jump all over us as soon as they find out. I’m not ready for that. I want to keep her all to myself, at least for a little while.
The worst part is, I know it won’t be long before my family finds out. I love my sisters and Gran, but they are nosy as hell and have opinions spilling out of their ears, especially Lilah. I’d be surprised if Gran doesn’t know I took Parker to Anita’s by now. At least Gran probably won’t say anything until family dinner, which gives me almost a week to figure this out.
But my sisters… they’ll talk to Parker before then. I get the impression they see each other nearly every day. Would she say anything to them? If I was any other guy, she probably would. Shit. That could ruin everything. Lilah might try to talk her out of seeing me again. Probably tell her all the worst things I’ve done and all the awful things she suspects me of.
Parker isn’t a pushover and I doubt she would let anyone talk her out of doing what she wants to do, but… I can’t bear the thought of someone poisoning this. This thing between us is real. I just need more time to make Parker see how special it is and show her I’m more than just a good time. If I can just keep everyone else out of it until Parker feels the way I feel… that would be best, right?