Park (Archer's Creek Book 4)

by Gemma Weir

  Park tilts his head to the side, then pulls me forward and into his arms again. He rests his cheek on the top of my head, and I feel his slow exhale of breath. “It’s fucked-up how much I missed you, Rosebud. I’m yours all weekend if you don’t have plans.”

  Pushing at his chest, I excitedly look up into his face. “Are you serious? You’re here all weekend?”

  His smile is so wide it splits his face in two. “All weekend.”

  “Oh my god, this is amazing!” I screech, throwing my arms around his neck and bouncing up and down with joy.

  “I missed you, my Rosebud,” he whispers, as he wraps his arms around my waist and holds me.

  “I missed you too.”

  Eventually we release each other and Park clears his throat. “What time do you get off work?”

  “Err, usually about five. There are a few nice spots in town, a couple of good restaurants and bars that you could waste a few hours in, or if you want, I can give you the keys to my place and you can wait there.”

  “Are you sure you’d be okay with me being in your place without you?”

  “Of course,” I say, moving behind my desk and pulling my purse out from the drawer. It takes me a minute of rooting around to find my keys, but once I do, I hold them out. Park leans across my desk and his fingers wrap around mine as he takes the keys from my hand.

  “My building is only about a ten-minute walk from here. Just head out the door, then right down 4th until you hit the Morning Brew coffee shop, then take a left and it’s the third building on the right-hand side. You can’t miss it, because it’s the ugliest building in the street. I’m up on the third floor, apartment thirty-six.”

  Park’s fingers don’t release mine. Both of our palms still holding the keys. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I say, looking directly into his eyes. “Make yourself at home. The WiFi password is taped to the fridge. I have cable; just don’t mess with my TiVo, and I’ll try to get off a little earlier if I can.”

  “Thanks, baby. I’ll see you later.” He leans in and kisses my cheek, then turns to leave, looking over his shoulder and flashing me a happy smile, before he disappears through the door.

  When he’s out of sight, I exhale an agonized breath and fall into my desk chair. I’ve never been more pleased to see someone in my entire life. What the hell is going on? I’m torn between jumping up and down and squealing with delight because he’s here in LA and curling into a ball under my desk and being mortified that I’m so excited to see him. The way I ran across my office and threw myself at him was bordering on psychotic, but all I could think about when I saw him was just getting as close to him as possible.

  I feel like I’ve been deprived of him for years not days and now that he’s here, in my town, everything seems brighter, more exciting, better.

  I rush through the rest of my day, counting each second until I can close down my laptop and leave. I write, but I know none of it makes sense, because my mind is at my apartment with Park and now all I want in the world is to be there with him.

  In the back of my mind, I know this behavior and the way I feel isn’t normal. Not even when I was a child was I ever this excited to see a friend, and from a bystander’s point of view I probably seem a little crazy. But no-one else is feeling the pangs of longing I have just to be around him. No matter what Eric says, Park and I are purely platonic. We’re friends, best friends, and I swear the weird rules about being obsessed don’t count when it’s a friend, do they?

  Barreling through the newspaper’s main door, I speed walk through the street and the ten-minute journey to my place only takes me five. By the time I get home, I’m flustered, sweaty, and so incredibly excited. I pull the hider key from beneath my neighbor, Mrs. Weinstein’s, potted plant and frantically jab at the lock, trying to make it work with shaking hands.

  It takes a couple of tries, but eventually I fit the key into the lock and open the door. My eyes scan the space for him, but I can’t see him. Cautiously, I pad fully into the room. The TV is playing quietly and as I walk toward the sofa my eyes find him. Park’s long body is folded awkwardly into the cushions of my cream sofa. His eyes are closed and he’s fast asleep.

  Like the creeper I’m becoming, I take in every inch of his gorgeous body. His brightly colored skin is in stark contrast to the sofa, and more so than ever, he looks like a painting. For the first time I notice that his hair isn’t the riot of color it was just last week. Instead it’s a dark blond at the roots and white at the tips. I don’t know how I missed it earlier, but it suits him.

  In sleep, his features seem younger, almost vulnerable, and the urge to reach out and stroke his cheek is so strong I actually lift my hand and reach for him, before stopping myself and wrapping my arm around my waist to hold it in place. His long body is too large for my sofa, so his one arm is flung above his head, while the other hangs off the side.

  I exhale and a sense of belonging pulses through me. Coming home to Park in my apartment feels right. His scent fills the room, and for the first time in a week, this place feels like home. Not wanting to disturb him, I tiptoe into my bedroom. Pushing the door half-closed, I make my way to my bathroom and take a quick shower.

  “Rosebud,” his sleep roughened voice calls out to me.

  “I’m just in the shower,” I shout, stepping from beneath the warm water and reaching for a towel.

  “I must have fallen asleep. When did you get back?” His voice is louder, so he must have moved closer to my bedroom.

  Turning off the shower, I quickly dry my body and wrap a towel around my sopping hair. “Not long. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I’m sorry. I planned to come meet you at work.”

  “Don’t be silly. You must have been tired. Plus, you looked all cute, fast asleep on my sofa.”

  Closing my eyes, I curse myself. Why the hell did I say that? Friends, I remind myself, just friends.

  She’s naked beyond this door. The thought is running on a loop through my head and has been since I woke up and heard the shower running. My hand is pressed up against her bedroom door, since I pulled it closed to stop myself from pushing it open and stealing a glance at her.

  My friend is naked and wet only a few feet from me and I should be immune to that thought, because she’s my friend. My cock shouldn’t be twitching when I think about how she looks, but apparently all the lines between friendship and want have blurred, because I would give anything to be able to see through walls right now.

  I slap the palm of my hand against my forehead. No. I need to sort my shit out; this isn’t right. She’s Taylor’s. I can have her friendship but that’s all. It takes all of my self-control to step away from her door and move back to the sofa. For the hundredth time since I opened the door to her place, my eyes take in her space. It’s surprisingly sterile and empty of personality. There are a few items that just scream Rosebud and lots of photos of her and Taylor, Eric, and people that I’m assuming are her parents. But the beige walls and cream furniture are not at all what I’d expect from her.

  Her bedroom door opens and a freshly showered Rosebud steps into the room. She’s changed from her work outfit into a pair of sweatpant shorts and a plain white tank top. Her hair is twisted inside a towel and her face is free of makeup. She looks beautiful.

  “Hey,” she says, smiling shyly and crossing the room to sink down beside me on the sofa.

  “Hey,” I say, nudging her shoulder with mine.

  Her laugh warms my chest. “You hungry?”

  “Starving,” I say.

  “You want to get takeout or go somewhere to eat?”

  Flopping back against the sofa cushions, I fling an arm across her shoulder, pulling her with me so she settles into the hollow under my arm, her back half rested on my chest. “I don’t care, Rosebud. Whatever you want to do. Stay in, go out. I don’t mind.”

  She tilts her head to the side, toppling the swirl of towel until it flops over, unravelling and revealing her m
ass of beautiful red hair. “Let’s go out. There’s a great new microbrew pub I’ve been wanting to try; they do bar snacks and burgers and stuff. Does that sound good to you?”

  I pull her in closer, inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo. “That sounds perfect.”

  An hour-and-a-half later, we’re sitting at the bar in a funky, hipster pub, drinking beers and eating nachos. Rosebud is talking, but I’m not really listening to her as my eyes keep raking over her face and body. This all feels surreal. I’m here with her and everything seems right in the fucking world. Literally all I need to make this my perfect life is my bike, my shop, and my brothers.

  That thought makes me pause. Has she become that important to me? Is my happiness dependent on her being in my life? My mind tunes back in on what she’s saying and when she laughs, I can’t help but laugh with her.

  “I still can’t believe you’re here,” she gushes, her hand reaching out to squeeze my arm.

  As she pulls her hand back, I grab it and entwine my fingers with hers, watching how my tattooed skin looks against her creamy flesh. “I missed you. Have since the day you left. You should move to Texas. This would be so much simpler if you did.”

  She laughs again, like I’m making a joke, but I’m not. I don’t want to only see her once or twice a year. I want to see her every day. I want her with my friends, at the shop, the club, my bed.

  Without releasing her hand, I signal to the bartender and order us some shots. Realizing that your life is lacking without someone and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it calls for tequila and plenty of it.

  “Tequila,” Rosebud says, eying the shot glasses as the bartender fills them and places a platter with salt and limes to the side.

  “Hell yes. You game?”

  Her eyes look from me to the glasses and back again. She obviously isn’t convinced, but with a shrug she licks the side of her hand and pulls the hand I’m holding free, to sprinkle some salt onto her damp skin. My eyes barely leaving her, I do the same. She turns to me, a wicked grin on her face and winks just before she licks the salt, slams back the shot and then bites down on the lime wedge, her face screwing up as she swallows.

  The smile on my face is so wide, my cheeks hurt. There’s something about watching Rosebud take a shot that makes me want to whoop and cheer for her. Maybe it’s that she looks like such a good girl. I know she’s not exactly the paragon of virtue that she first appears, but she’s also not exactly a wild child either.

  I take my shot then bite down on the lime, the sour juice coating my tongue; but this isn’t my first rodeo and I barely grimace.

  “That’s not fair, you almost look like you enjoyed that,” Rosebud calls, shoving me in the shoulder playfully and lining up her next shot.

  If I’m honest, even though I ordered her three shots I only really expected her to do one, and I hold back my laughter as she chokes down her second. “You don’t have to drink that. I can order you a girlier shot, a lemon drop or something, if you want.”

  Her eyes narrow and she glares at me. “Are you calling me a girly drinker?”

  I mock gasp. “Never, Rosebud. Never.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that. I’m gonna drink these three disgusting shots of tequila and then I’m going to make you drink three shots of something pink that tastes like cotton candy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.” I say in my best soldier drill tone.

  She giggles, licking more salt from her hand and throwing the shot back like a pro this time, her grimace less dramatic than before.

  The night carries on like this. We laugh, drink shots of hard liquor, then shots of girly sugary crap that make my teeth hurt. We eat bar snacks, sliders, fries and wings, then drink some more.

  By the time the bartender calls last orders, we’re both sloppy drunk and giggling like teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. I sling my arm across her shoulder, and she wraps hers around my waist as we stumble walk the few blocks back to her apartment.

  “Shhhhh,” I say loudly as she tries to jump onto my back for a piggyback when we finally get the door to her building open.

  “Park, my legs won’t work anymore. Maybe we should just sleep here?” she slurs, melting into a heap on the floor.

  “Rosebud, we can’t sleep here, we need to get upstairs,” I say, trying to creep across the building’s lobby and instead drunkenly stomping around, stumbling into the mailboxes and ricocheting toward the stairs, my body moving faster than my feet.

  With her ass on the floor, she lifts both of her arms into the air and wiggles her fingers at me, like a toddler wanting to be carried. It takes me a while, but I finally get to her and haul her into the air. She wraps her arms and legs around me like a monkey, then rests her cheek against my shoulder and sighs tiredly against my neck.

  Thank God, Rosebud’s building has an elevator, because I stumble the few steps to it and then almost fall straight through the doors when they slide open. What seems like forever, but is probably only a few minutes later, we reach her front door and Rosebud drunkenly reaches over my shoulder and stabs her key at the lock a few times before finally twisting it and opening the door.

  We fall through giggling and laughing as I kick the door closed behind us. I walk across her apartment and try to lower her onto the sofa, but when she refuses to release my neck, my wobbly legs give out and we crash down onto the cushions, my body nestled between her legs, our chests pressed together.

  A flurry of titters pours from Rosebud’s lips, but she doesn’t let me go. Instead, she holds me tighter. “Baby, you need to let go, so I can get off you.” I slur.

  “No.”

  My eyes lift to hers and despite the drunken haze we’re both under, I can see the heat in her eyes.

  “Rosebud?”

  She slides one hand into the hair at the nape of my neck and runs her nails back and forth across my scalp. When she pulls my head down, I can’t help myself. I go willingly, and when my lips meet hers, I lose myself in her kiss. I know I’ll undoubtedly regret this in the morning, but even knowing that, nothing could pry me from her in this moment.

  Her tongue slides into my mouth and I groan at the taste of her: sweet and a little like the watermelon shots we’d had last. She pulls on my hair, demanding more, and I give it to her, kissing her harder, like she were mine and I was laying my claim.

  The feel of her is heady: forbidden fruit and home all wrapped into one. I don’t know how long we kiss for, a minute, an hour? Who knows? I’d stay like this forever if I could. My cock is rock-hard and pulsing behind the zipper of my jeans, begging to find her heat and make her truly mine.

  My mind is swirling. A confused mass of want, need, and desire. But one thought is crystal clear. Now I know what she tastes like, now I’ve felt her lips on mine, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give her up.

  It takes a while to pry my eyes open. My head feels like someone is playing football on the inside of my skull, and my mouth is so dry, my tongue feels furry. There’s a dull pain in my stomach, like I’ve been kicked in the nuts, or had the worst case of blue balls in history. I’m hot, and one foot feels numb, like it’s been hanging over the side of the bed all night.

  Blinking my eyes into focus, I gradually take in my surroundings. Cream walls and exposed brick, Pottery Barn furniture, and a few nondescript ornaments. It takes me a moment to remember that I’m in Rosebud’s bland apartment. The pillow beneath my head belongs to the sofa and I’m in her living room after the heaviest drinking session I’ve had in years.

  The rest of my body gradually seems to realize I’m awake and I experimentally test out my limbs for aches and pains but find none. Whatever we got up to last night, apparently I never got into any fights, which is a good thing.

  A small groan sounds from below me, and my eyes immediately flit down to the small, warm body curled into my chest. Like seeing her flips a switch, all my memories of the night before explode in my mind. Drinking, eating, laughing, si
nging karaoke, and then coming back to her apartment. Falling onto the sofa, her refusing to let me get up, us kissing and kissing and kissing.

  The memory makes an erotic thrill prickle at my skin, and the pain in my stomach suddenly makes complete sense, when my still semi-hard dick surges back to life. Rosebud groans again, her body stretching like a cat, elongating her limbs before she curls back into my chest again.

  “Park,” she says, her voice husky and low.

  “Yeah, Rosebud.”

  “Did we fuck everything up last night?”

  I have no idea if we did or not. Did it change things? For me, yes, that kiss changed everything, but for her? Who the fuck knows? Could we go back to just friends? If that’s what she wants, then I’ll do it. I’d rather have her as a friend than nothing at all, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted for more with her.

  “We could never fuck anything up between us, Rosebud.”

  Her body exhales and I can feel the relief pouring from her in waves. I urge my excited dick to calm the fuck down, because I have no idea what she wants, and she might want to just forget the kiss ever happened.

  She wiggles and I loosen my grip on her, allowing her to shuffle upwards, until she’s propped on an elbow. Her tired eyes locked with mine. “So, last night…” she says ruefully.

  “Yeah, it was a bit of a crazy night.”

  “It was, and it got a whole lot crazier when we got back here.”

  “Not too crazy,” I say, stroking a finger along the skin of her arm.

  She closes her eyes for a second and inhales sharply. When she opens them again, they’re filled with heat and my cock jerks excitedly. “Look, we have this connection,” she says, and I nod, agreeing. “I’ve never felt it before. It’s, well, it’s unexpected, but it’s there. You feel like my best friend and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

  My blood runs cold. Friends. My erection withers and dies at the sound of the word. Friends. She didn’t feel like my friend when she had her tongue in my mouth, or when she was rubbing her pussy all over my hard dick. She doesn’t feel like my friend now, she feels like she’s mine. But if I tell her that I risk losing her entirely.