He was quiet for a moment, but then he stood up and reached for my plate. “Are you finished?”
I was so surprised by the change in him that I just nodded and then watched as he picked it up and carried it back through to the kitchen. For the first time in a while the atmosphere between us was tense and uncomfortable, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“How did the boy’s surgery go?”
There was no misinterpreting the relief on his face at the change in topic. “He’s in recovery, but they think it went as well as it could. Now we just have to hope and pray that his body doesn’t reject it as he heals. They ended up doing a split liver transplant on him at his family’s request, and because he was on the organ donor list, the other part of it went to a sixteen-year-old girl who was also a match. They also found patients for some of his other organs, so he gave the beauty of life to more people than he realized he would.”
Damn, this poor kid.
“What about his dad?”
“From what I could understand, they’re delaying his funeral until the boy can go.”
Since his dad's accident, I’d been thinking about the poor boy and whether his family might struggle now without his father and his job income. That’s why he was here when he died—he was doing a final assignment for his job so that they had enough money for after the surgery. I had an idea of how we could help him, but I needed to discuss it with my sisters-in-law and the girls first.
“Listen,” he rasped. “I’m sorry about just now. Some of the things you described reminded me of Chantal, and I’m wondering if I should maybe speak to Ren and Luke, maybe even Mace, to get them to check if she’s still in Piersville.”
This information made it feel like ice had taken over the muscles in my back. “Do you think she’d come here?”
Looking uncomfortable, Parker scratched the back of his neck, chewing his lower lip while he thought about it. “I think she’s unhinged enough to do it. You know the girl who took the photos in my car while I was at work?”
How could I forget? Those photographs had made me want to shove whatever was closest up his ass when I saw them.
Still, I was meant to be mature Ariana now, so I refrained from telling him that. Instead, I nodded.
“Well, I was leaving work one night, and I saw Chantal standing near the exit of the hospital watching me. She’d approached me before and was hinting at having photographs of us together that she was going to show Dad—”
“Hold up,” I snapped, holding my hand up in the air to stop him. “She’s blackmailing you? What’s in these pictures?”
“Considering I never technically did anything to her, I have no idea,” he sighed.
Something struck me as familiar about this, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then, I got it. “Ren—didn’t some chick that was trying to break him and Maya up Photoshop photos of him and someone else with a girl?”
It’d happened years ago, but I was sure that was what had happened.
“Yeah, but Chantal’s too smart for that shit. That was immature bullshit, she’s more of a pro.”
“Do you think she has photos?”
“Fuck if I know,” he shrugged. “Anyway, I know her body language and facial expressions well, I dealt with enough of them, so when I saw her standing there, I grabbed the chick as we were leaving and asked her out to dinner.”
Don’t puke, don’t puke. Also don’t pick up the knife beside him and burst his ball. Definitely don’t puke in the pot beside the sink and then throw it at him.
“Ari, nothing happened,” he said gently, “I don’t use pretty words because I don’t usually have pretty words to give anyone. But I was—I am—absolutely consumed by you. From the moment I saw you during Tom and Sonya’s thing, that was it for me. Then, during Adam and Scarlett’s problems, I knew I was in trouble with you. If we hadn’t spent that night together and I hadn’t fucked up as badly as I did, I was already looking at seeing a therapist and sorting my shit out so that I could be who you deserved.”
“Parker,” I snapped. “You keep saying you want to make yourself in the man that I deserve. Don’t you think that you’re the one who deserves to be that man more? I mean, Christ,” I slashed my hand through the air, “you spend your days and nights saving other people’s lives and searching for people who are going through what you did. You’ve worked for Doctors Without Borders during your vacation time.” This tidbit of knowledge surprised him. “You had a really shitty thing—no, a lot of shitty things—happen to you at a time when you were meant to be supported, loved, and appreciated. That’s not on you, that’s on her and your dad. So, you recognizing that you weren’t in a good place and that you were living life in a way that you didn’t want to live it means you’re doing it for you.”