Vacancy, page 13
“Good,” he slurred with a sloppy nod and then pointed at me as if trying to be serious, even though he could barely hold his head up. “You needed to send her on. That woman is not to be trusted; I’m telling you...” He paused a second, and froze with his finger lifted before belatedly adding, “Though, I gotta say, I do not fault you at all for thinking with your dick instead of your head on this one because, wow… She was seriously hot.”
I wanted to defend her, but I knew that would only get Parker going even more. And I didn’t want to listen to what he had to say about it. Especially while my body was still trying to recover after being with her.
So I diverted. “Where did your date go?”
“Who?” When I merely lifted my eyebrows, he sniffed. “Oh.” Grimacing, he waved a dismissive hand. “She was beginning to annoy me. I told her to get lost.” With a shrug, he concluded, “Can’t believe I let her hang around for as long as I did.”
“Fuck, man,” I said, shaking my head. “You can be utterly heartless, you know that?”
He rolled his head toward me until our faces were only inches apart. “But I still love you,” he countered.
I sighed. “I love you too, Park. And that’s why I’m going to say this.”
“No…no.” He shook his head. “Don’t even bother. I already know. I’m fucking spiraling again. I’ve been reliving that last night I saw them way too often lately.”
Surprised that he’d so openly admitted it, I patted his back sympathetically. “And why do you think you’ve been doing that?” I asked as I steered him toward my truck when it came into view. “What’s changed?”
“I don’t know.” With a loose shrug, he mumbled, “Nothing.”
But he did know. I could see the answer swimming through his eyes, tormenting him.
“Ohrley,” I warned. “Do I need to call a meeting?”
“No,” he rushed to answer. “Fuck no. And definitely do not call Thane. Dammit, why did I have to stumble across you tonight?”
“Because you’re one lucky son of a bitch,” I told him as we reached my ride.
But that only caused his eyes to water with distress. “I am,” he choked out painfully. “I’m luckier than I deserve, and it’s fucking killing me.”
After unlocking the doors and opening the passenger side for him, I turned to block the entrance before letting him in. “Here’s the deal. If you agree to tell me everything—no holding back or avoiding—then I won’t call Thane. Got it?”
Parker sniffed and wiped a hand across his nose. “Fuck. Fine,” he grumbled.
“Great.” I stepped aside and gave him a shove. “Get in.”
He stumbled forward, and I had to set both hands on his back to keep him from falling right back out again, but after plenty of cursing, we got him settled into his seat, and once he was belted in, I shut the door to jog around toward the driver’s side.
Before sliding behind the wheel, however, I glanced around the parking lot in the hopes of spotting Oaklynn one last time, except she was nowhere to be found.
Hissing out my regret, I got in and started the engine.
“So what happened?” I asked as I reversed us from the spot.
Parker was moodily silent for nearly a minute as I navigated out of the parking lot before he grumbled, “I bought and sold another business this week. My net worth is now just over twenty-eight million. Which is a new record for me.”
“Jesus,” I breathed, shaking my head in amazement.
Parker was a financial genius. After his parents died in an accident when their car had an electronic malfunction, he got paid, like, two million from the automobile company in recompense. And he’d been playing the stock market with it ever since, starting out by transferring funds through Thane’s parents and letting them invest for him until he turned eighteen. From there, he’d taken over the reins himself, and these days, it seemed as if he doubled his money every few months.
He was still enrolled in college, working toward a business degree, but the classes bored him. He thought he knew more than his professors, and hell, maybe he did; he definitely made more than them. I was curious if he was going to stick around until the spring to graduate or not.
“That’s awesome,” I said, impressed by his skills.
But Parker scoffed and pulled his flask from his jacket, only to realize it was empty. Scowling, he tossed it into the backseat and muttered, “Yeah, real awesome. And all I had to do was scream I hate you to my parents as they were walking out the door to go meet their deaths.”
I nodded, having heard this before. “So it’s just guilt you need to work through this time?”
“Just guilt?” he mumbled snidely. “You say that as if it’s nothing.”
“I know it’s not nothing,” I promised before shrugging. “This shit sucks. But…it is what it is.”
“What it is, is not fair,” he grumbled. “I mean, why do I still have the hardest time dealing with this? Why can’t I get over it like the rest of you did?”
“It’s not a cold you get over,” I reminded him, using the same words our first counselor had all those years ago. “It’s a life-long condition you survive, and we all still deal with it, just like you do. The only reason you make it so hard is because you avoid and suppress more than the rest of us do. You always act like it’s going to hurt more if you face it head-on. But it doesn’t. The pain actually moves through you faster if you just open your arms and taunt, bring it on, motherfucker.”
Parker sniffed out an amused sound and shook his head before he sighed and let his head fall back against the headrest. “And what if I don’t feel as if I should be allowed to work through it? I don’t deserve to heal.”
“Then I would say…” I blew out a breath and glanced over at him as we approached a red light. “Who really deserves any of the good things they get? Just be grateful for it. I guarantee you your parents would be more upset if they learned you squandered this precious gift they left you. They’d be proud of your success.”
With a pained shudder, he drew in a shaky breath and reached out to grip my dashboard as a wave of grief engulfed him. “But I’d rather have them back than all the cash in the world,” he ground out with tears trembling from his lashes and his teeth clenched. “God… This fucking sucks.”
“Embrace it, anyway,” I encouraged. “You think you deserve the pain, right? Take it. Feel it.”
“And I hate you,” he hissed as he bowed his head. “I want to scream. I want to shout as loud as I can.”
I rolled down both windows on my truck. “Then shout.”
So he did. He roared out all the agony inside him, cursing and yelling at the top of his lungs.
When I reached his place, I kept driving, circling the block until he’d worn himself out and was nothing but a panting, exhausted mass of raw emotion. He fell back in the passenger seat, sweating and breathing hard. When he lifted his hands to look at them, they were shaking.
“Damn,” he rasped. “That was…” He frowned in thought before concluding with, “Weird.”
I only shrugged as I finally pulled into his driveway and paused at the gate to punch in the code. “Feel better, though, don’t you?”
He glanced over at me. I think he wanted to deny it, but the pain just wasn’t there the way it had been a few minutes earlier. He’d successfully survived this round.
Lifting his brows hopefully, he asked, “Are you still going to call the others?”
I shook my head and drove through the opened gate. “Nah. I’m going to check back with you tomorrow, though, and if you’ve spiraled again, then I will.”
“I...actually think I’m good for a while,” Parker admitted, looking remarkably better than he had when I’d ushered him to my truck less than twenty minutes before. “Strangely enough, that did the trick.” He glanced at me in wonder. “Thank you.”
I nodded as I slowed to a stop next to his front walkway. “Want me to come in and stay awhile?”
Parker shook his head. “No, I’m good. I…” He sniffed as if in awe. “I’m honestly really good.” His gaze met mine again. “I reckon I’m going to hit the hay now. I have this feeling I’m going to sleep…well tonight.”
Insomnia had been one of his issues during the worst of his grief, so I reached out and clasped his shoulder, murmuring, “Good.”
He nodded back and reached for his door handle, only to pause and glance over with a wince. “I was really shitty to that girl, wasn’t I?”
It didn’t matter that I hadn’t heard what he’d said to her, I nodded, anyway. “Yes, sir, you were.”
He cursed quietly under his breath. “I should probably call and apologize.”
My nod morphed from up and down to sideways as I started to shake my head instead. “No. I would just leave her alone.”
He’d tried the apology approach before, only to accidentally lead another poor girl on, which had ended up hurting her more in the long run.
As if remembering that, he pointed at me and slurred, “Right. Good idea.” He opened his door and slid out into the night. “See you around, Arch. Thanks for talking me off the ledge.”
“Always,” I called after him.
He shut the door behind him, and I watched him mosey his way up the front walk to the grand entrance of his mansion.
The fucker had five bedrooms covering two floors and a total of six thousand square feet. I shook my head as he let himself inside the quiet, lonely house, wondering what he did with all that space.
I guess he’d recently moved a housekeeper and her family onto the premises, but they probably stayed out back in the pool house.
When lights came on inside, I finally put the truck into gear and pulled around through the circle drive, making sure the gate closed behind me.
From there, I knew I should’ve gone home, too.
But I didn’t.
I had no idea if it was okay to text someone after casual sex to make sure they’d gotten home okay or not. So I just drove to the brownstone, taking the street behind it so that I could make out her car sitting out back and nestled safely in its parking spot. Pausing at a stop sign across the street, I exhaled, glad she’d made it back safely.
Then, I stayed there a moment longer than I should have, gazing over the entire building.
Memories flashed through me of playing hide and seek in the attic with Thalia when our aunt had owned it, and then helping Thalia move in before her freshman year of college.
I swear, I’d lugged more boxes full of her damn clothes up those rickety metal stairs than anyone. And all Thalia had done was gripe at me to be careful—there might be breakables in them.
A shudder seized me as my memories of this place picked up speed, whirling through me faster.
I hadn’t told Oaklynn the truth.
I’d fully planned on spilling everything tonight before we’d even eaten, but the moment I’d seen her walking toward me in that skirt and those heels, with her rounded hips swaying and her smile saying, yeah, I know you want me, I’d completely forgotten about everything else.
God, I definitely should’ve told her before sleeping with her.
Now I felt like slime.
When the light in the rear bedroom on the second floor popped on, I physically jumped in my seat, not expecting it.
Swallowing thickly, I glanced up as a shadow passed by the window. She was lifting her arms and pulling her long hair into a ponytail.
I’d had my hand in that hair not more than an hour ago. Her peach scent was still on my skin.
And she’d hate me if she knew everything. Which was probably why it was best that our fling had only been a one-time deal.
But now, I also couldn’t ask if she would be willing to help me with Thalia. There was no way she’d agree to do anything for my benefit after all my stupid silence. Damn, I was a moron. And what was worse; I was letting down my sister’s memory by not doing everything I possibly could to bring her justice.
Glancing briefly toward the window of the front bedroom on the second floor, I winced over how dark and desolate it appeared. There was no ghost hanging around tonight.
Disheartened, I pressed on the gas and drove home.
I deserved this, I told myself. I deserved not getting a decade worth of questions answered. I should’ve just spoken up and blurted everything out. But my stupid, hesitant tongue had failed me again.
I felt like I was back to being timid, ten-year-old Damien, unable to just open my damn mouth to make friends at Little League. Except this… This was going to end so much worse.
14
OAKLYNN
That Saturday, Jaylani talked me into going to the beach with her.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “You’ve been here for two months now and still haven’t dipped a toe in the gulf. There is something wholly wrong with that.”
“What’re you talking about?” I argued with a laugh. “We just went the other week.”
“To look around, yeah,” she complained. “We walked the boardwalk. Now, I want to actually swim. The weather’s perfect for it.”
“But I need to research some—”
“Later,” Jay growled. “Right now, you’re shaving all your wooly bits and then putting on that hot bikini I got you as a welcome-to-town present because I’m picking you up in half an hour. No arguments.”
“Ugh. Okay. Fine.”
Two hours later, we were stretched out in matching beach chairs under a huge umbrella near a tiki hut drink kiosk where we’d just purchased peach-flavored ice tea that was to die for.
After taking a sip, I sighed, refreshed, and leaned my head back against the chair so I could close my eyes behind my shades and enjoy the moment. A warm breeze rolled through my still-damp hair, drying it, while the sound of nearby waves slapped rhythmically against the surf. It was all just so soothing and glorious.
People laughed and talked all around us. Seagulls cried overhead. Sunlight kissed my skin, smothering me with a pleasant warmth from the ends of my sandaled toes and up to the tip of my nose.
The only thing that would’ve made this moment better was if a certain, toned hottie was stretched out in the same chair as me, pressed close with an arm around my shoulders and my cheek resting against his chest.
When my phone buzzed with an incoming text, my heart gave a little gallop inside my chest because I couldn’t help but hope that maybe it was Damien.
But when I checked, the message was actually from Raina.
“Hey, you gave Raina my number.”
“Oh yeah.” From her chair next to mine, Jay waved a dismissive hand. “Forgot to tell you about that.”
“Well, she just messaged me, saying so. And she invited me to go on some haunted tour on Bridleway with her and a few friends on Friday the 13th.”
Jaylani groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Don’t bother. It’s super lame. Scar wanted to go last year, and all they do is walk you down the trail after dark, telling you ghost stories until some dork jumps out and scares you when you pass by the cemetery. The supposed grand finale was this place where some college chick was killed. We just stood there in front of her old apartment until the lights inside flickered on and off.”
“Well, that’s creepy,” I said.
Jay sent me a dry glance. “It’s not an abandoned apartment. People still lived there.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “Well, I can’t go anyway,” I said as I typed out my regrets to Raina. “I gotta work that night and get the set ready for our Saturday morning monthly broadcast.”
Getting to report on the monthly, Saturday morning specials was the goal of every broadcasting student, since they were the only times we got to go on live air.
Jay sniffed. “Set up? When the hell are they going to take you off the set-up crew and put that gorgeous face in front of a camera already?”
“Dude, I know!” I said. “I’m trying.”
“I’m just saying,” she went on. “If they have any brains, they’ll give you a spot.”
I smiled fondly and fluttered my lashes at her. “And that’s why I love you.”
She smiled back and reached across the space between our two chairs until I reached back to squeeze her fingers.
“Thank you for today,” I told her when I let go. “I really needed this.”
“Anything for you, babe.”
With a happy sigh, I lifted my arms above my head to luxuriate in the fact that I was able to hog the whole chair to myself. I didn’t need some hot guy here to cuddle against, didn’t need his unique masculine scent in my nose, or his fingers idly running up and down the side of my arm. This was the fucking life.
“Seriously, why did you not talk me into this sooner?” I demanded with another moan.
Next to me, Jaylani sniffed acerbically. “Because Scarlett would’ve had a conniption.”
My eyebrows lifted in excitement because that word would’ve sounded promising. “Does this mean she’s cool with me now?”
It would be so awesome if I’d finally managed to win over her girlfriend because I was always distinctly uncomfortable around Scarlett. It felt as if she’d been giving me the cold shoulder since I’d arrived in Westport.
But my best friend scoffed. “As if! She’s more intimidated by you now than ever.”
“What? Why?” I lifted my face, shocked because I’d been working my ass off to befriend her. Ripping off my shades to see better, I turned in my chair to scowl at Jay. “I moved out. I gave y’all space. I did everything right.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She shrugged as if fed up with the entire issue. “I swear, she’s convinced herself that I’m, like, in love with you or something.”
“Of course, you love me,” I uttered, blinking in confusion. “We’ve been best freaking friends since we were five.”
Jay sighed as if I didn’t understand. “Not that kind of love, sweetie.”
“Oh.” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Eww, seriously? How can she not know better than that?”
“Uh… Probably because you’re gorgeous.” Jaylani blinked at me as if I should be the one to know better before she added, “I mean, you’re, like, way hotter than she is.”
