Parker
I throw back my head, closing my eyes as my hips lift off the couch. His tongue licks a lazy circle around my clit, and my hands plunge back into his hair. His hands land on my hips, holding me in place as he laps at my clit, then covers it with his mouth and lightly sucks.
Oh my god, he’s good at this.
My belly warms. My toes, dangling against his back, tingle. I feel light-headed. It’s like that feeling you get on a roller coaster right before and after the first big drop, when you’re weightless and slightly terrified, but wide-eyed with excitement.
One of his hands flattens against my belly, then strokes lower. His tongue doesn’t let up on my clit as he inserts one, then two fingers, into my vagina, hooking them expertly to push against my G-spot.
I grind my head back into the sofa cushion as my hips lift again.
His fingers press. His lips suck. His tongue licks.
Oh my god, oh my god, ohmygod.
My muscles tense to a clench, a whimper blossoming into a scream that surges from the back of my throat as every muscle in my pelvis lets go. I’m loud when I orgasm against his mouth, weightless and wet, exhausted and replete. Waves and waves of pure pleasure overtake me, and I let them. Eyes closed, head thrown back, I feel safe in his arms. I want him to do that to me a million more times…but not right now. Now, more than anything else, I want—no, I need —to feel him inside of me.
He gently lowers my legs from his shoulders, and I open my eyes to find him standing by the side of the couch. I stare at him, hungry for more, as he flicks open the button of his jeans and unzips his fly. He eases the denim out and over the biggest erection I’ve ever seen, and while I’m grateful for the way he prepared me, I’m a little terrified about how he’ll fit inside of me.
My mouth drops open. I can’t look away as he reaches for his cock, rubbing the pre-cum around the tip, then stroking its length as he reads the trepidation in my eyes.
“I’m big.”
“No shit,” I murmur, sliding my eyes to his.
“ Too big?” he asks.
I drop my eyes back to his erection, tilting my head to the side, while trying to gauge the girth of him and the tightness of me. It’s going to be snug. That’s for sure. But painful? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I sure as fuck hope not because I want him. I need him. I’m throbbing with emptiness, and Quinn’s monster dick is the only thing that’ll ease that ache inside.
“Look, Parker…” He grimaces. “We don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Quinn,” I tell him, crooking my finger to beckon him closer. I’m lying a little when I add, “It’s going to be fine. Come here.”
Knees bent, I spread my legs wide, and he kneels between them. With his palms on my kneecaps, he stares down at me, his face full of love, but edged in worry.
“I love you so much,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“The only thing that’s hurting me,” I tell him, reaching for his hips to urge him closer, “is waiting.”
As he leans over me, closer to me, lining up the tip of his cock with the opening of my pussy, his eyes lock with mine.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You want this?”
“I want you. Kiss me, Quinn,” I whisper, reaching for his face as I lift my hips off the couch to welcome him inside. His lips crash down on mine, his tongue tangling with mine as his cock slides forward. Inch by inch, he invades my body with my permission, but I can’t lie. It hurts. It’s been a while since I had sex, and despite how wet I am, he’s really fucking thick.
I gasp a jerky breath, my knees lifting to cradle his hips as he breaks off our kiss, staring down at me in horror.
“Parker! I’m hurting you!”
“It’s okay,” I say, half-laughing and half-sobbing. I don’t want him to pull out, so I lock my ankles on his lower back. “It’s okay. I promise. Just…just give me a minute. Let me get used to you.”
His hands are planted on either side of my head, and he locks his elbows, keeping his body totally still. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it because it has to be excruciating for him, buried deep inside of me, but having to stay one hundred percent frozen while my body stretches to accommodate him. His cock is searing, which makes the wetness of my previous orgasm hotter and wetter. I can feel the throb of him, like a second heartbeat inside my pussy, which is so fucking new to me, and so fucking intimate, I can barely process the dual physical and emotional sensation. At some point, while I’m feeling so much in my heart and my head, I realize my body doesn’t hurt anymore.
“Ah,” I murmur, my voice low and breathy. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, this is good. You can move.”
With his arms still locked, he pulls his hips back a millimeter, then slides forward again. Gingerly. Carefully. So carefully, I barely clock the movement. I need more. I want more.
“Quinn,” I say gently. “I’m not made of glass.”
“You’re never gonna want to do this again,” he manages to growl through gritted teeth. “I don’t want—”
“Look at me. Quinn. Look at me. Now.”
I reach for his face, pushing my ankles down on his ass firmly so he understands that I’m serious. When he looks up at me, his eyes are narrowed, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his brow. I have to admit that the level of control he’s showing, while I don’t need it, is a total turn-on. I didn’t know he had it in him, and I’m a little bit in awe.
“I want this,” I tell him. “Do you hear me? I want this. I want you . And I promise you, if this goes the way I think it will, I will definitely want to do it again.”
His eyes search mine, and I can still see the hesitation in them.
Right. Okay.
“Fuck me, Quinn,” I order him, jamming my ankles into his ass. “Fuck me good and hard. Right. Fucking. Now.”
“Oh, god, yessss ,” he groans, pulling back his hips all the way, then thrusting deep inside of me.
I throw back my head and moan, but it’s not because I’m in pain. It’s because I’ve never felt anything this amazing in my entire fucking life. His balls slap against me as he drives forward again and again, his cock massaging the walls of my pussy with every thrust. That delicious swirling begins in my stomach, my breath choppy and shallow as he grunts over me, his own orgasm imminent.
And that’s when it occurs to me.
We’re having completely consensual sex—raw, bareback sex—but I haven’t been taking my birth control pill regularly. Since I haven’t had a sexual partner since the summertime, I only remember to take it a couple times a week at best.
My eyes fly open, and I flatten my palms against Quinn’s chest, pushing him away.
“Stop!”
He blinks at me, his hips freezing with his cock deeply embedded in my body.
“W-What?”
“Stop! We have to stop!”
With one quick, clean jerk of his hips, he pulls out of me completely. His cock, glistening between us, juts straight out of his body, visibly throbbing and twitching.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, his face stricken.
I gulp. What do I say? What do I tell him?
“No,” I say, sitting up and crossing my legs Indian style. He’s still kneeling on the couch in front of me. “You didn’t hurt me. Not at all. It felt amazing.”
“Then why are we stopping?” he pants, his eyes wide and confused.
“I stopped taking the pill in the fall. I…I didn’t need it. And I just remembered…”
“Oh,” he pants, shifting his position to sit down by my feet. “O-Okay. I under—I understand.”
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” I whimper. “I’m so sorry, but I didn’t bring condoms either.”
“No,” he murmurs, letting his head fall back, his eyes closed. He reaches for me, putting his hand on my leg. “No. Don’t apologize. It’s okay. I get it.”
I glance at his lap, feeling terrible for letting things get so far without being more mindful. His eyes clench like he’s in pain, and he probably is, and it’s my fault. Mine.
“Quinn?” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. I mean it.”
“It’s okay,” he says, cracking open one eye and trying to smile, but grimacing instead. “We’ll call it payback for all the times I teased you.”
“But I’m not teasing,” I tell him. “I want you. Literally, I want you so bad, I’m aching. My body wants me to make a really bad decision just to ease that ache.”
“I won’t let you,” he says softly, closing his eyes again. “I won’t do anything to hurt you, Park. I love you too much.”
I make a snap decision. Grabbing the scrunchie sitting on the coffee table, I tie back my hair and scoot closer to him. Taking his cock by the root in one hand, I hold him steady as I lower my mouth onto his turgid flesh.
“Parker!” he cries. “Don’t! You don’t have to…ahhhh…”
He fists his hands by his sides, otherwise keeping them to himself, which I one thousand percent appreciate as my head bobs up and down over his erection. I swirl my tongue around the tip, then deep throat his member, taking as much of him in my mouth and down my throat as I can.
“B-Baby!” he stutters. “Park! Park, I’m gonna…I’m gonna…”
Come.
I keep my mouth around his cock and stroke him gently with my hands, easing out the last of his cream as I swallow his load.
When I lean up, he snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me in for a deep, wet kiss, our tongues sliding against each other, the essence of our combined bodies and his cum mixing to create a taste that is totally and uniquely ours. I love it. I love how we taste. I think I might even love… him .
Oh my god.
Am I? Am I falling in love with Quinn?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell him, hoping he doesn’t see the shininess of my eyes as I hop off the couch and scurry, buck naked, from the living room.
“Thanks, Parker,” he calls after me. “That was…amazing. You didn’t have to, baby. But thank you.”
“You got it,” I say, pulling the bedroom door closed behind me.
I stand against the door, my heart thudding like crazy.
Love Quinn?
Love Quinn Morgan?
The words are so dissonant to my own personal common sense, they clang discordantly in my head. And yet…and yet…I feel protective of them, too. The respect, kindness, and love he’s shown me over the last week have been unparalleled in my life. I’ve never felt so cherished by anyone. Ever.
I cross the bedroom to brush my teeth and take a pee, then come back out and throw on an extra pair of sweat shorts and an oversized sweatshirt. Ill-equipped as we are in terms of birth control, we can’t have sex again. I may as well try to curb our temptation.
As I’m getting dressed, I realize my phone, left charging on the bedroom bureau last night, is vibrating with messages. I grab it as I head back into the living room, which is now mostly bright with early morning sun.
“You good?” asks Quinn, who’s put his jeans back on, but left his chest bare.
“Yeah,” I say, “but my phone’s going crazy.”
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sitting down beside him and unlocking my phone. I have six unopened phone messages and forty-seven unread text messages in my family text chat, in addition to more texts from individual family members.
“Whoa.”
“What? What is it?”
Quinn is staring at the screen over my shoulder. I click on the family chat first.
REEVE:
OMG. Have you guys seen this?
A chill goes down my spine.
“Click on the TikTok link,” he says.
I tap on it, and as it’s loading I glance up at him. “What do you think—”
Suddenly, the whiny voice of Skylar Jones fills the room.
“Hey, you guys! It’s Sky-Sky, coming to you from the City of Siiiiiiiiin—Las Vegas! Now, as you all know, I usually stop by TikTok to give you travel and tourism tips…but today we’re going to change up that format, right, lil’ bro?”
Rick Jones appears next to his sister, wearing a matching red polo shirt. With their blonde hair, freckles, perfect teeth, and can-do smiles, they could be Bible salesmen…if they weren’t so totally sleezy on the inside.
“That’s right, Sky! Today we’re going to talk about something that’s all too common. INAPPROPRIATE AND UNPROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOR AT TRAVEL AND TOURISM CONVENTIONS!” he bellows, as a graphic reading the same flashes on the screen. The sound of “boo-ing” plays briefly in the background. The text disappears as Rick waggles one finger back and forth. “Folks, what you’re about to see is a serious no-no.”
Skylar nods vigorously. “It’s so cringey, you guys. Like, save it for the bedroom. No one wants to see you getting in on in a public space. Try being professional for a change, huh?”
“I bet you guys are wondering what we’re talking about, right? No worries,” Rick assures their audience. “We have videos of the offending couple…” He leans forward. “And I do mean offending. The following clips are pretty racy, folks. Maybe ask younger viewers to leave the room.”
My stomach turns over. I think I’m going to be sick.
“What the fuck?” Quin growls. “Is this about…us?”
“Shhh. Watch,” I order him.
As Lizzo sings in the background, drawing out the word “Naaaaaaked,” a video clip plays of me pulling off Rick’s polo shirt, handing it to him, and strutting out of the convention center in an aqua bra and no shirt ( the use of slo-mo as I walk away makes me look super slutty ), followed by another clip of me punching Rick in the face, which honestly, without context, looks like it comes from out of nowhere .
The video montage pauses, and Skylar’s stupid face pops up in the corner of the screen.
“That half-naked girl who’s walking around without a shirt and throwing punches because someone bumped into her online? That’s Parker Stewart. She and her family run a little, tiny tourism business in Skagway, Alaska.” She looks down at her chest meaningfully, then looks back up, cringing for the camera. “I guess we know how they get their clients, huh?”
“And Skylar, who wants to book a tour with people who embrace violence?” adds Rick, looking shocked and censorious. “Putting your hands on someone is never okay.”
“Shall we keep watching?” Skylar asks her brother.
“Let me brace myself.” Rick pretends to shiver. “I’m game if you are, sis.”
Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” starts playing as the video clips resume.
The next, of me and Quinn, was taken at the end of our fancy date. Which means that Rick, Skylar or both, were spying on us from down the hallway. Creeeepy . We’re kissing outside of my hotel room door, and even though Quinn didn’t come into my room that night, the video cuts off at a place where it’s definitely implied. Next, we have Quinn leaning over my convention table to kiss me yesterday morning, and finally, a video of us making out in the phone booth near the food court during our lunch break.
The sound of a record scratching coincides with the video pausing. A close-up of Quinn and me sucking face in the phone booth freezes on the screen.
The heat in my cheeks triples…quadruples…oh my god, my whole family saw this. My brothers. My father. My grandparents. I could die.
Finally, the screen fades to Skylar and Rick sitting side by side, looking as wholesome as can be.
“By the way, Rick, that guy she’s practically humping in public? It’s Quinn Morgan, who’s also from Skagway. What in the world is going on up there?”
“I don’t know, Sky. But, for a more rated-PG family experience, I’d definitely skip Skagway.”
“A word to the wise,” says Skylar, “when you come to a convention to work , don’t act like a whore . Don’t be Parker Stewart, ladies.”
“Stay classy,” says Rick, putting his arm around Skylar. “Like my sister.”
“Aw! Best bro ever! So, friends, if you find you must travel to Skagway? Skip the Stewarts,” says Skylar, “and book with Jones! I promise we won’t get naked in front of your kids…”
“…punch you in the face…” chirps Rick.
“…or make out with random guys when we’re supposed to be working,” finishes Skylar.
“That’s all for me, Rick—”
“And me, Skylar!”
They smile wide and recite together: “We can’t wait to see you and your family in Alaska!”
The Jones family logo, phone number and web address flash across the screen before the whole thing goes black.
I’m breathing so fast and furious, my chest hurts. My eyes sting with tears. My stomach rolls over again.
“I’m gonna be sick!” I cry, leaping from the couch and racing to the bathroom.
Quinn chases me, and I hear him knocking on the door once I’m safely inside.
“Parker! Park, that was a load of bullshit! A hatchet job! Don’t let them get to you!”
I retch a couple of times, but nothing comes up. I sit on the toilet seat and let my tears fall, but my heart is so heavy, it hurts.
My family trusted me to represent our business and act professionally at this convention, and that video makes me look horrible—exhibitionist, violent, unprofessional, and sleazy… and— oh, my good Lord !— I’m making out with Quinn , whom they all believe is my nemesis. I look like a whore and a liar. I look… terrible. The only thing that outweighs my embarrassment is my shame.
“Park.” Quinn knocks weakly. “Please come out.”
“Um…” My voice wavers, then breaks. I take a deep breath and try again. “Um, I think you should go, Quinn. I have to pack up and leave for the airport at—”
“Parker, come out and talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s a fuckload to say!” he insists. “I love you…and I—I know you care about me. We can—we can make a rebuttal video. Anyway, who cares what the Jones siblings have to say? I bet no one’s seen it!”
I flip over my phone and look at the number of views. My breath catches when I note it’s over 34,000. It’s bad enough that my family saw it. But if it actually impacts our business? If we lose potential clients? Stewart Travel is our livelihood. I’ll never forgive myself. Never.
Anger takes over a share of my current feelings, and let’s be honest, anger is so much easier to feel than shame or embarrassment or fear or sadness, isn’t it?
“Literally, thousands of people have seen it. So just shut up. Go, Quinn! I mean it!”
“Come out and talk to me. We can figure this out.”
More hot, stinging tears sluice down my cheeks, and I swipe them away, feeling this white-hot, profoundly intense, boiling fury start in my belly and quickly fork to all parts of my body. As it ramps up, taking root and ripening instantly, I feel totally and completely unhinged. He needs to go…and if he stays, I won’t be responsible for what happens next. The next words I say are a warning to him.
“Quinn, I’m not going to say it again. I’m not in the mood to talk! I need you to go. Now!”
“I love you, baby. I’m not leaving until—”
He’s not listening. He’s not hearing me.
I snap.
“I’m surprised you’re not enjoying this more!” I cry. “Parker, the butt of another prank.”
“What? Park! I had nothing to do with that video—”
“Yeah, but you love teasing me. You love pranking me. You must love this! This is the ultimate Parker take-down! Tell me how much you’re loving this!”
“I don’t like anything about it! And it’s fucking unfair for you to even say that!” He bangs on the door. “I’m worried about you! This is—this is bullshit, Park! Come out!”
“No!” I yell, feeling furious with the Joneses, with myself, and yes, with Quinn. “You want to know about bullshit? After a lifetime of you torturing me, bullshit is me taking a chance on you! On us ! Oh my god, it’s so ridiculous , I can’t even believe it! I mean, in what universe do Parker Stewart and Quinn Morgan work out as a couple?! None!” I take a breath, and my fury assures me that it’s deep and crystal clear. No sobbing jagged pants. No stuttering. No breaking. “I wanted to be strangers, but you wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone! I didn’t ask for any of this! I don’t want to be with you, Quinn! It was all a fucking mistake. The worst mistake of my entire fucking life!”
“Parker, it wasn’t a mistake…” Quinn’s voice is soft and hurt when he finally speaks. I imagine his palm flush on the door, his eyes shiny with tears. “Don’t say that…I mean, I—”
“Get out, or I’m calling security!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
I listen for the sound of his retreat and the suite door opening, then latching shut. Only then do I open the bathroom door to find the room empty.
And I feel so excruciatingly alone, I physically hurt. More tears fall, punctuated by the kind of sobs I wouldn’t wish on Skylar Jones.
My phone rings.
HARPER.
I don’t know if she’ll be pissed or sympathetic, judgey or compassionate. I only know that I need her.
I take a deep, shaking breath and answer.
***
Quinn
As I throw my shit in my suitcase, I talk myself out of knocking on Rick and Skylar’s doors and punching their lights out. I want to. Oh god, I want to mess up Rick Jones’s smug, condescending face so bad…but the reality is that an assault charge won’t help anything. And if Skylar films it, I’ll be giving them the perfect Part II to their Stewart-Morgan smear campaign.
Besides, if I’m honest, I’m far more hurt by Parker calling us a “mistake,” than I am by Rick and Skylar’s heartless video. After the week we spent together? After last night and this morning? I was sure we were on our way to someplace amazing. I even thought that maybe Parker was falling in love with me, too.
My heart twists and clenches because now it all seems lost. And—oh my god—I’m so pissed and frustrated, I just want to release this fury inside, hit something, hit someone… Fuck. Maybe I should find out where Rick and Skylar are staying. I could knock on their door and—
Buzz. Buzz, buzz.
My phone, sitting on the bedside table, has a call coming in.
SAWYER.
My breath catches.
Oh, fuck.
I pick up the phone, sit on the edge of the bed and grimace, wishing I didn’t have to have this conversation with him right now. I’m broken-hearted over Parker’s rejection of me and our budding love affair. I don’t want to talk to Sawyer. There’s too much to explain, too much to make him understand. It feels utterly exhausting to even contemplate.
Don’t be a coward. You need to face this.
I press Talk and hold the phone up to my ear.
“Sawyer?”
“Quinn?”
“Hey.”
“ Hey ? That’s what you’re going with? Hey ?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Um, okay. I’ll start, then. Why the fuck is there a video online of you fooling around with my sister? My sister who fucking hates your guts?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh. Okay. That wasn’t my sister walking around in a bra in a convention center in Las Vegas? That wasn’t your tongue down Parker’s throat in a-a…what was that? A fucking phone booth? Oh, and hey! That wasn’t you muscling your way into her room?”
“First of all. Rick -fucking -Jones spilled coffee on her shirt, burned her, gave her his shirt, and she was returning it to him.” When Sawyer doesn’t say anything, I keep talking. “And I didn’t enter her room that night! The first night, she came to my room, but the second—”
“Why was my sister in your room, Quinn? She hates you!”
“I don’t think she hates me anymore,” I tell him, flashing back to this morning. “I actually think…”
“What? You think what , you piece of shit? This better be good!”
“I think she might love me as much as I love her,” I confess, blinking my burning eyes rapidly. I gulp over the lump in my throat, remembering her face an hour ago when we were intimately connected—when we were one, in every way possible, and so fucking beautiful—
“Okay. Um. Are you on drugs?”
“No!”
“Have you started drinking in the morning?”
“No.”
“THEN ARE YOU FUCKING DELUSIONAL? PARKER HATES YOU. ALWAYS HAS. ALWAYS WILL. And just in case you forgot…YOU HATE HER BACK!”
I can hear the frustration, confusion, and hurt in my best friend’s voice, and I wish I was explaining all of this better. I wish I was sitting across from him, although that wouldn’t be good either. He’d be whaling on me, and that’s a fact. I’m lucky there are a handful of states between us.
“I have never hated Parker,” I say, starting at the beginning. “Teased her? Yes. Pranked her? Yes. But I never, ever hated her. Sawyer, you’ve got to believe me because this is the truth. I’ve been in love with your sister since we were in fifth grade.”
“Oh yeah?” he says, laughing humorlessly. “Well that’s news to me and my entire fucking family.” He pauses. “You better watch your back when you get home. Tanner’s ready to pound you into the pavement. And I’ve got half a mind to give him a hand. And just wait ’till Hunter comes home in May—”
“Bring it on!” I yell, at the end of my rope. “Go ahead! Fucking beat me bloody for loving Parker. Good. Go ahead. It’ll feel way better than how I feel right now!”
There’s a long silence before Sawyer speaks again, and when he does, he’s a lot calmer. “Okay. Quinn, I’m gonna sit down for a few minutes, and I want you to start at the beginning and explain this to me. I’m not gonna interrupt. I’m just gonna listen.”
I take a deep breath and let it go slowly, beginning at the beginning, when we were in fifth grade and Sawyer’s slightly older sister caught my eyes after my ancestry presentation, and I fell instantly and irrevocably in love with her.
As I talk, he questions me from time to time, but mostly lets me speak, as promised.
I remind him of little facts that he’d forgotten or missed—the fact that I always sat near Parker at holiday events like Thanksgiving, always sought out time to talk to her, even if it was just sparring back and forth, always asked about her, as recently as when he asked me to be in Bruce’s production of “Wuthering Heights.”
“She’s furious with me right now, but I’m crazy about her, Sawyer. I’m totally in love with her. I feel the same way for Parker that Tanner feels for McKenna, or Joe feels for Harper, or Hunter feels for Isabella…or you feel for Ivy. I love her, man. I love her so bad, I-I can’t…” My voice trails off. I don’t want to be with you, Quinn! It was all a fucking mistake. I swallow over the ginormous fucking lump building up in my throat. “Thinking about a life without her is…”
“I get it,” says Sawyer. “I don’t know if I’d survive losing Ivy.”
“Yeah,” I manage to murmur. “Exactly.”
“And you think she feels the same?”
“No. Not yet. But I think she was getting there.”
“So you two…got together? While you were in Vegas?”
“You saw the video, man.”
“In every sense of the—”
“Yep. Pretty much.”
“So…you two—”
“Yes. Last night.”
“Wow. Okay. And since there’s nothing on earth that would make Parker do something she didn’t want to do, she must have wanted to be with you,” he says. “I mean, yeah, I saw the video. She wasn’t exactly pushing you away in the phone booth.”
“Sawyer. Come on. You know me! I would never pressure her to do something she didn’t want to do.”
“I know. I know. It’s just…it’s hard to get my head around it.”
“It was consensual. All of it. Everything.”
“If it wasn’t,” says Sawyer, dead serious. “I’d kill you.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” I tell him. “I’d already be dead. She can look out for herself, that’s for sure. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it when she gets home…but that part of the video when Parker punches Rick Jones in the eye? That was because a little bit of food fell on her shirt, and he leaned forward to lick it off. She didn’t like that.”
Sawyer laughs. “Now, that’s my sister.”
“Hell, yes, it is,” I say, grinning at the memory of Rick walking back into the convention center with a red, angry ring around his eye. It’s the first time I’ve smiled since being thrown out of her room. “Here’s the truth. I love her, Sawyer. I always have. I’d do anything for her.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” says Sawyer with a sigh. “But I actually believe you.” He laughs softly. “You and Parker. I mean, I believe you, but I also can’t believe it.”
“She hates me right now,” I say. “So ‘me and Parker’ may never happen.”
“That video’s gonna shake her up bad,” he says. “She’s private. And proud. And having her love life splashed across the internet sucks. Especially since the dude she’s making out with is well-documented as someone she intensely hates.”
“Yeah,” I say. “The whole thing is just…oh, god. The worst.” I pause for a second, picturing her face in the rays of an early morning sunrise, soft and willing beneath me. I want this. I want you. And I promise you, if this goes the way I think it will, I will definitely want to do it again . “It was going so well, Sawyer. So fucking good. I just…Fuck. I don’t know how I’m going to fix this.”
“Give her time. Parker gets mad fast, and when she’s mad, she’s mean. But when she cools down, she’ll be sorry.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy. The Jones’ video…I think it triggered her. It brought back her feelings about all the times I teased her and pranked her and gave her a hard time. I thought we were getting past that, but suddenly she was…different. She shut down. It was like the past week didn’t happen at all.”
“That sucks, man.”
“Yeah. Like I said, I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t think I can help you…the only person who might be able to give you a hand is Harper. She and Park are super close, you know? All I can say is give her time. She’ll eventually cool down, and then you might be able to talk to her again.”
“And lose all the ground I made this week? Fuck.”
“Not ideal,” says Sawyer.
“No,” I say, “but if that’s the way it has to be, then that’s the way it’ll be. I’m done dating, Sawyer. I’m done fucking around. If I’m gonna be with someone, it’s gonna be Parker, or no one. I’ll wait for her. I’ll wait until she’s ready to talk to me again…no matter how long it takes.”
“You know what?”
“Tell me.”
“I like this version of Quinn for my sister,” he says.
“That’s funny. Your sister said something similar about a week ago.”
“You’ll get her back,” he tells me. “I know, Parker. You’ll get her back.”
We catch up for a few more minutes, making a date to meet up for beers next week, before hanging up. I’m still sitting on the side of my bed when I remember something Sawyer said …only person who might be able to give you a hand is Harper.
I open up a text chat to my mystery texter from earlier in the week.
QUINN:
Harper? Is this you?
907-555-1623:
Will not confirm or deny.
QUINN:
Do you know what happened? The video on TikTok?
907-555-1623:
Yes. I know.
QUINN:
When you talk to her, will you tell her that I love her? Tell her that I’ll wait for her? No matter how long it takes for her to stop being mad, I’ll wait. I don’t want to be with anyone else in the world but her. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove it to her.
907-555-1623:
I’ll tell her.
QUINN:
Thanks, Harp. I owe you one.
907-555-1623:
FYI: I take payment in babysitting.
It’s definitely Harper. I chuckle to myself as I type up a reply.
QUINN:
Sign me up. Anytime.
907-555-1623:
Saturday after next. 6-9pm. Rooting for you, Quinn.
QUINN:
I’ll be there. Thanks, again, Harp.
“You’ll get her back,” I whisper to myself, a hopeful echo of Sawyer’s words to me.
Fuck, I hope so, I think, as I put my phone away and get back to packing.
It’s time to go back to Skagway.