Page 6 of Parker
Ever since junior year in high school, when I sprouted up and started working out, I’ve been in fairly decent shape. I’m definitely a bigger guy, but that doesn’t bother me a bit, especially after being a runty kid. At six foot four inches tall and weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, I’m roughly the same size as Kansas City tight end, Travis Kelce. I keep busy, spending my summers crabbing and bicycling, and the off-season drinking, eating, snowmobiling, and skiing. My arms and legs are sinewed with muscle from use, but I’d have to hit the gym harder for a well-defined six-pack.
I have thick black hair and long black eyelashes that girls seem to dig, and green eyes that change color in the sunshine and contrast dramatically with the onyx of my pupils. I usually wear my hair long, in a bun or ponytail, but I cut it recently. Sometimes I like a beard in the wintertime, but the one I have right now is neatly trimmed at my father’s request. He said I needed to project a “clean cut, family-tour-guide image” for this conference, which was fine by me. I don’t get hung up on the way I look, but I’d say, without bragging or ego, that I’m, objectively, a pretty good-looking guy.
And more than that, I’m a prettygoodguy.
I’m a good son to my parents and a good friend to the guys I work with. I’ve managed to stay friends with Sawyer for my entire life, despite his sister’s disdain. I’m easygoing and easy-to-please, a decent storyteller, a fair advice-giver, and generally well-liked.
But Parker’sneverbeen able to see the good in me.
And while I know that’s partially my fault, it’s partially hers, too. She got so used to seeing me a certain way, she didn’t noticewhen I grew up. And so I just kept being a pain in her ass. Maybe that was easier than trying to show her the real me and still being reviled and rejected.
Because I can bear it that she hates the wisecracking, irritating, over-the-top me, but I think it just might break my stupid fucking heart if she hated therealme.
***
“Park,” I whisper two hours later, tapping gently on her shoulder. “Wake up. We’re landing.”
She cracks open those stunning baby blues, registering recognition, then annoyance.
“Don’t touch me,” she groans, closing her eyes.
“Fine. Go back to sleep. You can sit here all day and miss your connection to Vegas. See if I care.”
Taking a deep breath to rouse herself from sleep, she blinks slowly, then scowls at me. “I’m up. I’m up.”
“You were always a heavy sleeper,” I remember, grinning at her. “Your dad could never get you up on those camping trips we used to do.”
Her lips quirk up for a second. “The camp would be completely packed up except for me and my tent.”
“He’d send Harper or Reeve in there to wake you up because the rest of us would’ve caught hell.”
“Made sense. Harper was my second mama, and Reeve’s the baby.”
“Not so babyish anymore,” I say, pushing up my tray table and locking it in place.
“What doesthatmean?” she demands, her voice cracking like a whip.
I turn to find her sitting up straight, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed.
“What? What’d I say?”
“Are you checking out Reeve?” she asks, her face appalled.
“What? No! Never! Reeve’s like a little sister to me!”
“Except she’s not so ‘babyish’ anymore?” she snaps.
“Geez, Parker, I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Save it,” she says, plucking the earbuds from her ears and jamming them into her backpack. “Just. Yuck. Stop.”
“I literally can’t sayanythingaround you.”
“Because everything you say pretty much sucks. And FYI, I better not see you looking at Reeve. If I do, I’ll tell my brothers, and they’ll—”
“End me?” I finish for her. “Yeah. I know. You’ve been singing that song since we were kids.”
“Don’t forget it.”