“My phone.”
His expression blanked and he turned away as she pulled it out. Her finger ran over the screen, but nothing happened. “That’s weird.” She tried to turn it on again. When it didn’t work, she grew frustrated. It had been on the charger all night.
She hit the main power button and held it, but nothing happened. “What the fuck?”
Parker faced her. “Not working?”
“No. I can’t even get it to turn on.”
“Those phones are temperamental. Maybe you need to get a new one.”
She continued to hit the button, but nothing happened. She opened the back of the phone and slid out the battery and popped it back in. Nothing. “Damn it!”
She tossed it angrily back in her bag. Great. A horrible thought crossed her mind. What if Lucian tried to reach her and couldn’t? Not that he would call her, but if he wanted to for some reason . . . The phone was under his name. She couldn’t get another one on the same account. It was stupid, but not having that phone felt like her last lifeline to him was severed. She wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Can we stop at a phone store?”
Parker glanced at her. His lips parted and he hesitated. “Why don’t you just wait a few days and see if it fixes itself? Maybe the charger wasn’t working.”
Maybe, but she’d feel better if someone who knew what they were doing checked it. “I’d rather just take it to a professional. It shouldn’t cost anything for someone to just look.”
His expression was placid as he nodded. Parker directed the driver to a phone store near their place. When they arrived, there was a young guy named Brett at the counter, who looked at the phone. He removed the back and frowned. “This phone’s gotten wet.”
“What? That’s impossible. I never keep it anywhere near water.”
He flipped open the back panel. “See this patch—how it’s red? That tells us if it’s been near water. That’s really red. It looks like this phone’s been submerged in water.”
“I didn’t get my phone wet,” she gritted. It had to be something else.
The clerk shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do. Once a phone’s been soaked like this, it’s junk.”
“But how can that be?”
“Sorry. If you give me your account number I can see what kind of plan you had. If it was insured I can get you a replacement so there isn’t an interruption in service.”
She didn’t know the account number. Frustration choked her. She felt completely cut off from Lucian.
With a shaky hand, she took the phone. “That’s okay. I’ll just take it anyway. Maybe it will start working again if it dries out.”
“Oh, it won’t work again. It’s dry. The damage is done.”
She knew that, she just couldn’t seem to accept it. Taking the phone, she dropped it into her bag. Her eyes prickled with tears.
“Do you want to get a new phone? Set up a new number?” Parker asked. He wouldn’t understand. Having a phone wasn’t the point. She wanted this phone, in case Lucian needed her.
Fuck! She didn’t even know his cell phone number. Everything was gone.
She shook her head. Her eyes frantically blinked. “That’s okay. Let’s just go home.”
Parker kept glancing at her as they walked home. “I’m sorry about your phone.”
She shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”
They walked in silence back to the apartment, neither of them feeling much like talking.
Chapter 26
Dark Knight
Scout sat at the table, fingers curled around her useless phone, and stared at the surface. She was adrift, lost in a world she hated, floating along some destined path with no idea of where her fate intended to send her.
“Hey.”
At Parker’s soft word, she turned. He looked upset. Some odd emotion swirled in the depths of his green eyes. Was it regret? About inviting her here perhaps.
She gave a weak smile. Parker. He was an entirely different issue she needed to deal with. Everything had become so fragile. She wasn’t sure how to read him, how to interpret the casual gestures he’d been making, but she knew they needed to get back to normal or this delicate hold she had on herself might crumble and turn the little peace she had left into dust.
She was drained from overthinking everything. Sighing, she tried again for a smile and failed. “Hey.”
His gaze searched hers, and he hesitantly pulled out the other chair at the small table and sat across from her. “I think we should talk,” he quietly said.
Yeah, they probably should, but she was just so damn weary of everything. Life had never been this hard. The constant struggle to survive was nothing compared to this ongoing emotional battle to keep breathing, to keep seeing purpose and moving ahead. She could barely muster the attention she needed to form the proper facial expressions. How was she supposed to have a conversation about hypotheticals she might be imagining? The wrong words could make an awkward situation unbearable.
Her gaze connected with his and she waited. His hand slid across the surface of the table and curled around hers. She tried not to wince. More mixed signals. Maybe he was just trying to be supportive. The hand still holding her phone dropped to her lap, protecting the worthless device from others as though it were some sort of security blanket that could somehow protect her in return.
“Scout, I hate seeing you like this. It’s killing me.”
Did he think it wasn’t killing her? She felt like her body had started rotting from the inside out, all bits of life slowly breaking away, starting with her heart. What was the point of all this pain?
When she said nothing, anger briefly flashed in his eyes followed by some regretful expression. His face lifted, and he focused on her with what she could only identify as resolve.
“I’m going to make you forget about him, Scout. I won’t pretend to understand what you two had, but I promise I can be better, better for you.”
A better friend? Again, his words confused her. “Parker, I—”
“I know. I know you’re hurting, but . . . try . . . try to move past that.”
She scoffed. “I am.”
“I can help you.”
“You’re my friend, Parker. I don’t want anything to ruin our friendship.” She lowered her head. “You’re all I have left.”
He drew in a deep breath and looked away. “I would never let anything destroy our friendship. We’ve been friends for almost a decade, been through freezing winters, sweltering summers, hungry springs, and dry autumns. We’ve seen children come into this world and watched acquaintances go out. You and I, we have an understanding for life that men like Lucian Patras will never grasp. You and I are the same, Scout. Nothing will ever change that.”
Yet she couldn’t shake the sense he was somehow trying to change everything.
She needed to clarify, needed to state the obvious and make sure he was on the same page. “You’re my friend, Parker.”
He took her hand. “And you’re mine.”
She carefully extricated her fingers and he frowned. “I’d never jeopardize that.”
“Me neither.”
Why was this so difficult to talk about? Maybe because if she misinterpreted something and said the wrong thing she’d be putting it out there, and once something was out there it was impossible to pull back. She didn’t want to inadvertently put ideas in his head.
She met his gaze. “Good. I’m glad we’re clear on that.”
When he looked back at her, something tightened in the air. Their eyes locked, both pleading for something, but something altogether contrary. Her heart began to race at the unwanted feelings his intense look brought about inside of her. It was different yet familiar. She looked away.
“You’re too pretty for all the ugliness of this world, Scout. Too special
. I want to help you find the beauty in life again. Help you find your smile again.”
Heat rushed up her neck and she blushed. She didn’t know what to say.
Her heart began to race as she briefly let her mind entertain the chance that he might be saying more than just words. She missed being touched, missed the feeling of being kissed, the rush of blood and surge of nervous energy that came with being intimate. What would that be like with a man like Parker?
The vision she tried to conjure was immediately rejected by some part of her. She simply couldn’t see him as more than a friend, and maybe she was imagining all of these mixed signals. She frowned inwardly. This was also Lucian’s fault. He’d suggested Parker had more than platonic feelings for her, and now she was paranoid.
Her voice was a choked sound. “I’m trying to get back to the girl I was. That’s what I want. I want everything back to the way it used to be. I just feel so . . . I’m . . . broken.”
His jaw clenched and she recognized the glimpse of anger flashing in his gaze. His hand again gripped hers. “You are not broken, Scout. Don’t say shit like that.”
Too much introspection, too many emotions, the abyss of fear broke and the pain suddenly seeped out. She’d kept it locked in for most of the day, but she was getting tired again. Something close to a dried-up sob slipped past her lips. “But I am. I’m not even sure if I left him or he left me, but I do know if he welcomed me back I’d go running to him.”
“He’s an asshole!”
“He’s also incredibly sweet. He loved me the way no one else ever has.”
He suddenly released her hand and forked his fingers through his hair. “You can’t say that if you’ve never given anyone else the chance to love you.”
Oh, God, please no. Don’t take us there. “Why would I want to? This is the first time I’ve ever experienced love, and I’ve never known such pain or misery.” She wiped her eyes. “I love my mother and she . . .” The ache in her chest bloomed. “Love is so powerful. It lifts you up and cuts you down. I hate it and want nothing to do with it.”
He stood abruptly and began to pace. “It isn’t natural to scorn love. That’s what I’m trying to get you to see. He’s the one that’s broken. You can’t go by what he showed you. You need to stop defining things in his terms. Love is the underlying motivator in this world, beyond wealth, beyond anything else; only love could drive a person to such a ceaseless place of want and need. It’s the most powerful driving force of life.”
“No, Parker, it’s the most powerful distraction to our existence.”
He came over to her chair and dropped to his knees. “Why exist at all if it’s not beside someone you care about, someone to share it all with, the ups, the downs, the great moments and the hardships that cut us in two? We’re meant to have partners in the world, Scout, someone to make us feel complete and right. Don’t close yourself off because of one asshole. Time will fix things. You just have to be patient.”
It shouldn’t bother her, but every time Parker referred to Lucian by a nasty label, her mind conjured a memory that disproved his words. She thought of the moment Lucian burst into the mill last winter, how he scooped Pearl into his arms and carried her out of that hellish place. She remembered the day they celebrated her first birthday. Her heart tightened. He wasn’t an asshole.
Or was he? She recalled the day he had embarrassed her in front of Shamus and the look in his eyes when he realized he’d upset her. His apology was so raw and clearly unfamiliar to his lips, yet he looked at her with humbled confidence and vowed to never do anything so thoughtless to her again. He’d kept that promise . . . for a while.
Her head was all over the place, no room for more. There simply was no space left to consider more of the unfamiliar.
Why did people try so hard to find love? It was awful and cruel when taken advantage of. And like all things of power, the temptation to abuse it was too easy. When someone loved a person, they surrendered everything so completely it was against human nature not to take advantage. And when they walked away, one was left exposed and vulnerable to all the ugliness.
Lucian had always been a danger to her. He did something nameless to her. He could tease her in a way that delivered her from life’s challenges. How she wished she could find that deliverance now.
Being with him gave her a sense of falling that was more addicting than anything she had ever known. He’d conditioned her to crave that loss of control he created. He taught her to wholly surrender and simply be. It was without thought, and for the first time in her life, during those moments of intimacy, she saw herself in her rawest form.
And he crushed her.
“What are you thinking?” Parker whispered, still holding her hands.
The phone pressed between her palms was a weight she couldn’t seem to let go. “I don’t know. My head’s a mess. I feel like I’m dying.”
“I’ve watched you with quiet fascination for years, Scout. You’re strong, driven. You have a fire inside of you that no one can bank. With time the hurt will fade.”
She wanted to believe he was right, but her pain was so consuming it seemed impossible. She’d been someone else over the past few months. It was her, but not. And the woman Parker was describing . . . that didn’t fit either. “You’re glorifying someone I don’t know, but I’m certain she isn’t me.”
“How can you say that? She is you.”
She was turning into some pathetic, tortured soul. Why couldn’t she see herself the way he saw her? Anger washed through her. Life was never this complicated.
Her face crumbled and she cried. The weight of all her confusion finally fell like an avalanche inside of her.
“Talk to me, Scout. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
“Why?” She had so many questions as to why. Why had she not been enough for Lucian? Why did he need her to marry him? Why had he simply let her walk away? How was she still living with so much agony?
“Why what?”
“Why did this happen to me?”
He touched her jaw, dragging his fingers lightly to her ear and down her throat. “Because you’re different and people see that. Patras saw it and he won’t be the last. You’re special.”
“No, I’m not. I’m incredibly selfish. I only know how to think about myself.”
“That’s not true and you know it. Every choice you’ve ever made has considered others. You never make a single move without thinking about what consequences it might hold for the people you care for. You move with purpose and always try to predict how others will follow.”
She was tired. “Like chess.”
He frowned. “What?”
“You describe me like chess.”
“I suppose that’s a good way to put it.”
“I can move whatever direction I want, yet I won’t leave the king.”
He released her and sat back, his expression suddenly hard. “And he’s the king?”
Of course. She nodded.
“What does that make the rest of us, the sacrificial pawns?”
She smiled sadly. “If you asked Lucian, he’d call you a dark knight.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you come off unthreatening, but really, you’re quite stealthy.” She was still amazed she was sitting in Parker’s apartment, on his furniture.
He chuckled and arched his brow. “Stealthy?”
She smiled. “Yes. The knights appear to be focused on one direction, but are known for making swift, unpredictable shifts and hijacking the entire game. He said I should watch out for you.”
“Maybe he’s right.” The momentary ease of their conversation evaporated. He’d done it again, slipped in some confusing sentence that had her questioning the ever-dependable presence that was Parker.
She met his stare head-on, a glint of assuredness making his g
aze sharp in a way she’d never seen him look before. This was what Lucian had been referring to when he called Parker shrewd. It was a worrying side of him to see. Instinctively, she withdrew her hands from his grip.
“Parker.” She swallowed. This time there was no misinterpreting the look in his eyes. When he eased forward, she drew back. “I can’t.”
“Scout, can’t is a word outside of your vocabulary. And it’s a very extensive vocabulary.” He quickly brushed his lips over her cheek and stood, leaving her frowning. It was the kiss a brother would give a sister. She was mangling everything. She needed to just stop, stop thinking, stop worrying, stop her brain from overthinking.
She took a moment to scrutinize him. She didn’t know why, but she continuously compared him to Lucian. Parker was so different from Lucian, younger, leaner. Parker was a handsome man. He had a sophisticated air and an earthy edge, while Lucian was all chiseled edges and sleek control. Lucian was contained authority, and Parker was reserved vigilance.
As she analyzed the soft curve of his lip, the dappled golden shade of his haphazard hair, she saw a man who was quite attractive. Her fingers went to her cheek, where his lips had briefly touched. Maybe she was the one mixing things up.
Parker saw her as a girl she no longer was. His opinion of her remained unchanged. She was the one who suddenly saw him differently. The boy she’d grown up beside was gone, and in his place stood a man she sometimes couldn’t recognize. Perhaps if she could somehow make herself feel something for Parker, her heart would stop pining for a man who no longer wanted her.
No! Her mind immediately rejected that suggestion. But the thought remained. She trapped it away, labeling it as destructive and wrong.
As she struggled to predict how long she would hurt, she couldn’t help but scrabble for anything that would numb the pain. Was this what Pearl felt like, helpless to have what she’d become so addicted to?
She was painfully aware of the fact she was holding on to something she no longer had. Her heart constricted. For the first time ever, she saw shades of Pearl in herself.