Page 7 of Parker
“I don’t need to remember it because I have zero designs on Reeve.”
“Well, you better not.”
“I don’t!” I bellow. “So, just shut up about it.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up, Quinn.Youshut up.”
“Oh my god,” says the girl on the other side of Parker, “can youbothjust shut up?”
We stare at her for a second, then Parker turns to me and sticks out her tongue.
“So mature,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.
“Takes one to know one,” she whispers back.
“Pain in the ass.”
“Annoying as ever.”
“I can still hear you,” says the girl by the window, leaning forward a little to glare at us.
Parker crosses her arms over her chest and stares straight ahead. I do the same. Ten minutes later, we’ve landed in Seattle and we’re taxiing to our gate. As we wait for the okay to unbuckle our seat belts, Parker turns to me.
“Quinn.”
“Parker.”
Her forehead wrinkles. Her eyebrows snap together. She gulps before speaking to me in a soft, level voice.
“Can you please, like for real,pleasejust ignore me this week? Please just leave me alone while we’re in Las Vegas? Can’t we just act like we don’t know each other? Like we’ve never even met? Can’t I just be some stranger you’d pass in a hotel lobby, or in a train station, and never even notice? Please, Quinn?”
It twists my heart in knots to think of Parker being a stranger to me and me to her. Moreover, if I say yes, I’ll be lying to her. I can’t imagine a day—an hour, a minute, a second—in which I could ignore Parker Stewart. Since I was five years old, all I’ve craved is to know her.
But then it occurs to me, in a flash of awareness, how amazing it would be to benewto her, to be someone she’s never met before…someone she doesn’t know…some stranger who she happens upon for the very first time while on a business trip in Las Vegas. Would sheseeme then? Without the baggage of our shared past, could she see therealme? And if she did, would she give me a chance? Might she evenlikeme?
“Strangers?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she says. “Strangers. No history. No familiarity. Nothing. I’ll just be a face in the crowd, and you’ll be the same to me.”
I scan her eyes. “You sure that’s what you want?”
“Quinn. It’s what I’vealwayswanted,” she says earnestly.
And that’s when it occurs to me all over again.
She willneversee you.
She willneverknow you.
She willneverwant you.
And she willnever, everlove you the way you’ve always loved her.
“Always,” I repeat, darting a quick glance at her lips before sliding my eyes back up to hers.This time I won’t dig my heelsin. I won’t double-down. I won’t annoy her just for the sake of being near her.“We’ll just be…strangers.”
“Yes,” she says, nodding once, with a quick jerk of her head. “No more teasing. No more sparring. No more pranks. Just peace. Please, Quinn.”
No more of seeing her eyes flash with annoyance, or her lips purse with fury. No more of Parker Stewart. Can I live like that? Without her?