Blurred Lines

by Lauren Layne

  The rest of my afternoon passes quickly. Gym. Shower. Take a call from my sister and listen to her ramble all about the uh-mazing new guy she’s dating. Do laundry, which I hate more than ever.

  I’m still living alone. I keep meaning to put up an ad for a new roommate, but over time I start fantasizing that maybe Parker will come home, and I find an excuse not to do it.

  It’s like I said. I really need to get to Seattle. Need to get on with my life and get my relationship with Parker back to a purely platonic, non-longing kind of place.

  By the time I show up at the karaoke bar at seven, my mood is veering toward irritable, and I’m wishing I had said no to the invitation.

  And then it gets worse.

  The seating arrangement ends up with Lance between me and Parker.

  Night. Mare.

  Thankfully the rest of the group is hyper and fun, and I feel my spirits start to lift despite the fact that Lance won’t stop fiddling with Parker’s earring like a total weirdo.

  I talk to Parker’s new friend Eryn, whom I’ve apparently met before but don’t remember. She’s actually kind of funny in a very forthright, Oh my God did she just say that kind of way.

  Parker finally manages to detach her ear from Lance’s fingers and the girls all traipse onstage to sing some girl-power anthem I’m only vaguely familiar with, while all the guys at the table take the opportunity to drink heavily in case we’re next for getting dragged onstage.

  “You know, I’ve never tagged along when Parker’s done the karaoke thing,” Lance shouts in my ear. “Always thought it was stupid. But she’s really good, huh?”

  I nod, because hell, yes, Parker’s good, and this shrieking song doesn’t showcase it all. It’s mostly a bunch of them jumping around and shouting.

  My brain’s already running through our usual duet options when it hits me that maybe a duet with Parker is off-limits now.

  As Lance just told me, he’s never come out with us before on our karaoke nights, which means he hasn’t seen just how good Parker and I are onstage. Together.

  And suddenly I want to show him how good we are.

  I want to show Parker. I want to remind her.

  But the duet opportunity never presents itself. Lori and her new boyfriend sing an off-key version of “Yellow Submarine,” and it’s terrible.

  Eryn gets up and sings a country song that I think might have a subtext of stalking, but I can’t be sure.

  Parker tries to drag Lance up onstage, but he flat-out refuses, and her eyes meet mine before looking warily at Lance, and I know she’s feeling conflicted. That she wants to sing with me, too, and knows that maybe we shouldn’t.

  Lori saves her from the choice. “Hey, Parks, get up there and do a ballad.”

  “A ballad?” Eryn asks, wrinkling her nose. “Isn’t that kind of a buzzkill?”

  “Not when Parker does one,” Lori says confidently. “Just watch. The room will fall quiet, but in the totally entranced way.”

  “Do it, babe,” Lance says. “I love your voice.”

  He’s looking at his cellphone as he says this, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Ass.

  Still, if I can’t sing with Parks, hearing her voice—just hers—is the next best thing.

  I glance up, surprised to see her watching me. Almost as though she’s looking for permission, although for what, I have no idea.

  “Do it,” I say, lifting my drink to her.

  She bites her lip and stares at me for just long enough that I wonder if everyone else thinks it’s awkward, and then she walks toward the stage.

  “Wait, we didn’t pick your song!” Lori shrieks after her. “Damn it, I hope she does Adele.”

  Parker doesn’t pick Adele.

  The song she does pick takes my breath away.

  It’s not a trendy one. Not even close. “I’ll Stand by You” by the Pretenders.

  Our freshman year of college, when she and I were just starting to get close, I’d gotten drunk one night. Not super drunk, just talk about things I shouldn’t drunk.

  And I’d confessed in a moment of weakness that this drippy, mopey song was my favorite.

  I hadn’t thought about it since that night.

  But Parker remembered. All this time, she remembered.

  Her voice is tentative at first, but grows in confidence as a hush falls over the room, and whoever’s working the lights must be paying attention, because everything dims so there’s just one shining down on Parker.

  And then suddenly I can’t breathe, because her eyes find mine. They find mine and they hold.

  And even though there are a hundred people in the room, and her boyfriend is sitting right next to me, it feels like she’s singing to me. For me.

  I don’t move a muscle as she sings.

  Sings about friendship. About being there for another person.

  Her eyes never leave mine, and I know from the deepest part inside me that this song is for me. For us.

  And it’s not a bubblegum, best friend pop song.

  The song is bittersweet. Agonized. Raw.

  Tears are streaming down her face by the time she’s done, and I’ll deny it to my dying day, but my eyes feel a little damp, too.

  I can’t shake the feeling that Parker just told me goodbye. Not goodbye to our friendship, because that will always be there in some capacity.

  But goodbye to the way we used to be. The way we could have been.

  The crowd goes nuts for her. Of course they do. She’s the best damn singer in the room, and everyone knows it.

  “Damn, Lance, you better hold onto your girl,” Lori’s boyfriend shouts over the whoops and yells.

  I give him a sharp look, wondering if he was talking about me, but then he motions to the room in general. “Every guy in here wants to hit that right now.”

  I tense, but Lance merely smiles, looking completely unperturbed, completely confident that his girl is, well…his.

  And now I’m wondering if that moment was all in my head. If everyone in the room thought Parker was singing to them.

  The thought depresses the hell out of me.

  I feel someone staring at me and glance up, surprised to see weird Eryn studying me with those intense black eyes of her. And then she gives me an almost imperceptible nod. One of understanding.

  Of sympathy.

  She knows.

  I look away and am trying to figure out if there’s a good way for me to call it an early night, when Lance elbows me. “Dude, let’s go fetch everyone another round. I’ll buy, but need an extra set of hands.”

  It’s quite possibly the last thing I want to do: spend one-on-one time with the guy sharing Parker’s bed every night.

  But then I see Parker making her way back toward the table, and I realize between dealing with Lance and facing Parker when I’m still feeling like an emotional wreck, the first is my better option.

  Only I’m wrong about that. So wrong.

  Lance does order the drinks, but that’s not why he wanted me to come with him.

  “Hey, come here a sec,” he says, gesturing toward a less crowded part of the bar. I glance at the bartender, but, seeing as she has seven drinks to make, I’ve got absolutely zero reason not to cooperate with Lance’s weird demand.

  But I should have thought of a reason. I should have thought of all the reasons.

  Because Lance, the stupid asshole who once dumped Parker, pulls a small red jewelry box out of his pocket and, after glancing around to make sure nobody’s paying attention to us, opens it.

  Somehow I was hoping it was earrings or a stupid pin, or something.

  Instead, it’s my worst fear staring back at me.

  “Do you think she’ll like it?” he asks, having to shout over the crowd, and it strikes me how weird this is. What kind of douche carries around an engagement ring to karaoke bar?

  An engagement ring.

  Parker’s getting married.

  To Lance.

  “I’m not going to d
o it tonight or anything,” Lance explains. “I don’t know when…I just wanted your opinion first. You know her better than anyone.”

  Damn right. I do.

  And fuck, she’s going to love that ring. It’s a perfect (huge) diamond with a circle of smaller diamonds around it. It’s classic but with plenty of sparkle.

  The dude nailed it.

  And I force myself to focus on the important thing. Her happiness.

  I look at him. “She’ll love it.”

  He breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, man. You don’t how nervous I was to tell you about it. I don’t think I’ll be this nervous when I ask her dad for permission. Hell, I should be asking you for permission.”

  “No,” I say, glad the loudness of the bar makes it impossible for him to hear the catch in my voice. “She’s your girl. She’ll always been your girl. I just watched over her for a while.”

  I no longer care about making a polite excuse, or what everyone will think about the fact that I ditch the bar without so much as a goodbye.

  I go straight home and fill out every one of those Seattle business school applications.

  And then I mail them. Every last one.

  Chapter 31

  Parker

  Lance “hid” the ring in his underwear drawer.

  I mean, leaving aside the cliché of it, does he really not register that I do all of the laundry? As in wash it, dry it, and put it away.

  Of course I was going to find the damn ring!

  But in the end, it doesn’t matter.

  Doesn’t matter whether Lance was hoping I’d just stumble across the ring in the least romantic proposal of all time, or whether he’s just oblivious.

  In the end, finding that red jewelry box was the wake-up call I needed.

  Not just a wake-up call that I can’t marry Lance, because I’ve known that for weeks.

  No, finding that box made me realize something even more disturbing:

  I’ve been using Lance.

  I’ve been lying next to him night after night, trying to remember how to be in love with him, when really my every thought and every dream was consumed with someone else.

  Of course, I don’t tell him this last part when I break up with him.

  Instead, I sit him down when he gets home from work and quietly, kindly tell him that it’s not working out.

  The irony isn’t lost on me.

  I didn’t intend to, but in the end, I dumped him in the very same location he dumped me months earlier.

  And to his credit, he handles me breaking up with him with more dignity than I did.

  He doesn’t even look surprised, and because I know him well—almost as well as I know Ben—I narrow my eyes.

  “Lance.”

  He looks up.

  “You don’t exactly look crushed,” I say with a faint smile. “Particularly considering I found a certain key piece of jewelry in your dresser drawer.”

  He groans and leans forward until his forehead touches the kitchen counter. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Because you were going to propose when we’ve barely connected? Haven’t even had sex?”

  He snorts. “I know. I was going to return it. I just…”

  I prop my elbow on the table, then put my chin on my hand. “You just…”

  “I thought that buying that ring…committing to you, would make me forget—”

  I sit up straighter. “Oh my God. You’ve still got a thing for Laurel.”

  “No!” He sits up. “No, I…fuck. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her but I keep thinking about her. Wondering…”

  I smile then, a bittersweet kind of smile, and stand. I lean forward and impulsively kiss the top of his head. “You should tell her.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend.”

  I lift a shoulder. “Tell her anyway. I think we both know that it’s possible to be dating one person and thinking of another.”

  He searches my face. “Ben?”

  I swallow.

  Nod.

  Lance blows out a breath. “I knew it. That song at karaoke…that was for him, wasn’t it?”

  My eyes fill as I remember that moment. It seems strange that it was just the night before, because I feel like I’ve had a lifetime to reflect on it.

  I can’t stop thinking about what it felt like to pour my entire heart and soul into the lyrics of that gorgeous, heartbreaking song.

  My heart still feels the ripping agony of telling Ben how I felt even if he didn’t know I was telling him.

  My heart freezes as a thought strikes me. What if Ben did know?

  If Lance caught on, why wouldn’t Ben?

  Oh God. What if that’s why he vanished last night?

  We all assumed he’d picked up some girl at the bar, and I’d hated that scenario, but I hate this one a lot more. What if Ben figured out what I was trying to tell him, and ran?

  Lance stands and walks me to the door.

  I pick up the overnight bag I’d left by the front door in anticipation of this precise moment. The moment when I walked away from the guy I once thought I’d marry.

  “Bye, Lance.”

  He leans forward, kisses my cheek. “Bye, Parker.”

  And just like that, it’s over.

  It’s over and I’m okay with it.

  Well, not okay. Because there’s a huge hole in my chest—a hole that has nothing to do with the guy I’ve just broken up with.

  The smart thing to do is to go to my parents’. Or Casey’s or Lori’s.

  Or even a hotel.

  I need to think things over. To figure out my game plan.

  I get in my car and drive to my parents’. I make it all the way to their driveway, but not out of the car.

  I put the car in reverse.

  Retrace my route back to downtown, but this time, I’m not going back to Lance’s place.

  I’m going home.

  Chapter 32

  Ben

  I used to be pretty good about picking the noncrazy girls out at a bar.

  But I must be out of practice, because the girl currently dancing on my coffee table—even though no music is playing—is all-out nuts.

  “Demi, honey,” I say, keeping my tone as calm as possible. “How about I call you a cab?”

  The only response I get is a shirt in the face. Her shirt.

  “Christ,” I mutter. So not in the mood for this.

  “I wanna dance!” she hollers. “Come dance with me, Blake!”

  I scratch my cheek. I swear to God she didn’t seem this weird in the bar. A little hyper maybe, but not loony bin.

  I’ve just been so damn desperate to lose myself in someone else. To get rid of the ache that seems to have taken up permanent residence in my chest.

  “I’ll dance with you if you get down from the table,” I lie.

  She does this sort of saucy hip wiggle, and her fingers drop to the fly of her jeans. She wiggles her eyebrows as she unbuttons it, and I realize I’m about to be subjected to a nonconsensual striptease.

  A knock at the door saves me from having to watch as she slowly turns around, bending over as her tight jeans start to make a downward trek over her ass.

  “Please let that be John,” I mutter.

  I’m obviously going to have to physically remove this girl from my coffee table, and an extra set of hands will be majorly appreciated.

  It’s not John.

  “Parks! Hey!” I say, registering that my chain of emotions is something like panic, joy, and then confusion.

  Confusion, because I know pretty much all of Parker Blanton’s expressions, but for the life of me, I don’t recognize the one on her face right now.

  “Um, everything okay?” I ask.

  Then I jolt forward as a candy-scented female comes careening into me from behind. Demi’s bra is still on, thank God. Her pants are not.

  “Who’s this?” the surprise stripper chirps.

  Parker’s smile is wide and friendly as she fixes her gaze on Demi. Uh-
oh. That face, I know.

  Poor Demi.

  “Hi, I’m Parker.” Her voice is friendly.

  Demi’s nose wrinkles. “That’s a boy’s name.”

  “Mmm,” Parker says in a considering tone as she comes in and sets her bag down by the front door. A big bag. I wonder where she’s headed. “Is it? What’s your name, darling?”

  “Demi!”

  “Well, Demi.” Parker links her fingers together and gives Demi a polite, professional look. “I’m really sorry to ruin your evening like this, but my brother…he’s not well.”

  For the first time, Demi’s tireless smile wavers. “Your brother?”

  Parker gives a head nod in my direction and I hide a grin. “He’s supposed to be in rehab for sex addiction. Seems he got out.”

  Demi gives me a nervous look. “I like sex.”

  “I’m sure you do, dear,” Parker coos. “But see, Ben here, his tastes are a bit…singular.”

  Demi licks her lips, nervous now. “Like…handcuffs?”

  Parker’s laugh is just the tiniest bit condescending. “Oh, sweetie. No. He likes dolls.”

  I stifle a laugh. Barely.

  But Parker’s just getting started. “He likes to have them watch while he’s, well…rutting. Likes to brush their hair. Likes to line them up right next to him while he—”

  “Thanks, sis,” I interrupt. “For making sure I get back to rehab.”

  Parker pats my chest. “It’s the least I can do, bro. I knew something was amiss when they said you’d left Polly behind.”

  Parker glances at Demi. “Polly’s his favorite doll. He was allowed to take one with him to rehab, providing he didn’t do anything, well…weird.”

  By now Parker’s talking to Demi’s back as the younger girl makes a beeline for the living room, and comes back in record time, her jeans on but still unbuttoned as she scrambles to pull her shirt back on.

  “Thanks a lot, ma’am,” Demi says as she brushes past Parker. She ignores me altogether.

  “You’re welcome, sweetie,” Parker says with a smile. “You need a cab?”

  “Nah, my friends are at the bar just around the corner.”

  “Okay, then,” Parker says with a little finger wiggle. “Bye-bye now!”