by Shey Stahl
“Oh, I think I got the gist of it.” He snorted, annoyed. “You’re marrying another man,” he said, bringing a beer to his lips. He never drank. Now there appeared to be about six empty bottles at his feet. He tossed the one in his hand to the dirt and cracked another open. “Pretty much a deal breaker right there, don’t you think?”
“Is that why you came back?”
He let out a dark laugh. “Yeah, Rowan, I came back to see the love of my life and the only thing that got me through the worst time in my life is now with someone else. Welcome home.” He chucked the bottle towards a tree. It shattered on impact. “Goddamn it, how could you? You knew how I felt! You just…and you never came?”
“I told you, Parker, I couldn’t!” I yelled back, hating that our first conversation together was arguing. “I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t keep doing this with you and then being left wondering where I stood in your life or if I did. I told you that in Anaheim.”
“You know, that’s the fucking problem, Ro.” His voice broke and I didn’t dare look at him, knowing he was feeling the heaviness surrounding this. “I never once asked you to leave but you always did. You left me over and over again.” His hand came up to find his hair, tugging. “How obvious did I have to make myself?”
After five years, the truth was finally coming out. Both of us now had tears streaming down our heated cheeks.
“Parker, if I would have stayed with you, how do you honestly think it would have ended for us?” I reached for the beer he just took out. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“You don’t know how it would have ended because you never gave me a chance to do right by you.” His body swayed as he yanked the bottle back. Raising the back of his hand, he quickly brushed it over his cheeks. “You don’t get to decide when I’ve had enough anymore, and I was right there in front of you. All this time, but you never fucking saw me. You saw what you wanted too.”
“I saw all right, Parker. I saw you walk away from me after...” I couldn’t even say it.
“Oh spare me the fucking bullshit!” His hand slammed down on the bed of the truck. He wasn’t giving up easily. “You didn’t see what was right in front of you!”
“What didn’t I see?”
“That I was lying at your feet waiting,” he finally said, his chin quivering. “I was waiting for you to tell me to stay, tell me you felt the same way. All that time…four goddamn months in the hospital, I waited for you to at least call. I waited for you to call just once!”
“And what? Tell you I loved you and have you throw away a factory ride on a small town girl you messed around with? Don’t you see, I didn’t want to be that girl!”
“You’ve never been someone I’ve just messed around with. You know that.”
“Regardless of what I was, Parker, I refused to be that girl.”
“Kayla...” He hung his head when he finally realized why I left Anaheim. “That’s why you left that night in Anaheim...because of her? You thought you were just some booty call, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. There wasn’t much I could say right then. His expression made me want to take everything I had been saying back. His gaze faltered for the briefest moment, but it was enough to let me know I was wrong.
“Let’s just…it’s not worth fighting over.” My eyes burned from the tears and the cool night air. I shifted my stance, curling into myself with my arms hugging my waist. “I’m glad you’re okay and I want us to be friends.”
That set him off again. “That’s where you’re wrong. This...” he motioned between us with an agitated flick of his wrist “...is worth fighting for! I’m not okay. I’m not okay with you marrying another man, and I’m sure as shit NOT okay!”
I sighed and his anger flared again. All these years Parker had suppressed his anger around me and now he couldn’t stop.
“Jesus Christ, Ro, you act as though I shouldn’t feel any of this—like it never happened. You think I have a choice…I don’t. I don’t have any choice in this! I love you. I can’t just let you go. Believe me, I’ve fucking tried. I’ve tried for years…I want to let you go.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” His voice softened but there was still that edge that could twist any minute.
“Why was I the one?”
He stared at me for a long moment letting his tears fall freely. He swallowed, his voice cracking. “You didn’t feel it, did you?”
“Parker…” I turned trying to take the bottle again. He struggled and then pushed me away.
“Don’t, Rowan. Please just...” his hands roughly gathered mine. “I can’t be this close to you if…I just can’t. I can’t look and you and forget what we had, what I thought you knew.”
Pushing myself back to the edge of the tailgate, I started crying harder. “I loved you. I did. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t deal with the uncertainty. With everything in my life always uncertain, I needed something I could count on. I can’t count on anything but Sean. Even though my heart belongs to you, he is what’s stable.”
He nodded but said nothing.
The night air whipped around us creating a breeze when Parker pushed himself from the bed of the truck, dusting of his jeans. He stumbled and leaned against the bumper. His arms crossed over his chest, the pale moonlight highlighting the scar on his neck from the numerous procedures he went through in the hospital.
He was right. I never called. I never went to him when he was hanging on to life. I was with another man. How many more mistakes would we make?
Parker shook his head, bowing towards his feet. “I’ll never stop loving you.”
Turning towards Parker, my arms reached needing to feel him and comfort him any way I could. His eyes closed and I felt his chest shake and then his arms curled around me.
I gasped when I realized he was crying harder, his face pressed into my neck and my hair, his lips shaking. “I love you... I don’t want to let you go.”
“I don’t want you too,” I admitted in a whisper. I knew he heard me though.
Pulling back, his eyes searched mine. Blinking away his tears, he moved closer, widening his stance as he picked me up and set me on the tailgate. He moved between my legs, his hands sweeping over my thighs before he slipped between them to stand closer. Running my fingertips over the scar along his scalp, I apologized. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer before his lips were on mine. The same desperate need was there. We always had this way about us that seemed like our bodies took over, needing to feel something to just calm our nerves. Now wasn’t any different. To my surprise, he pulled away and stumbled back.
“You should leave.” He shook his head against his own will. “You need to go home, Ro. I can’t be around you right now.”
It seemed like a good idea. We had said a lot to each other, and I was mentally drained. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep at my shitty decisions.
Do you ever look at your life and think to yourself, if only I did this differently?
Yeah, well, I thought that a lot these days.
When I got home that night, Sean wasn’t there but Addy was, waiting to comfort me.
“You okay, sweetie?”
I cried for nearly three hours in her arms and told her everything I hadn’t over the last few years. Addy would always be my best friend, but I just felt like I couldn’t tell anyone how childish I was really being. I mean who really ran away to sleep with one guy while dragging another around? Me. I did.
The worst part was I hurt Parker.
CHAPTER 22
Rowan Jensen
Tank Slapper
A tank slapped would be an incident on the track when a rider skids his bike and it slides to the left and then the right, as though the back of the bike were being hit from different directions, before the rider can correct it.
July 18, 2002
At work, Parker and I tried to avoid each other, but it was impossible. For one,
we worked together, and two, there was that draw that we just couldn’t break.
One night when I was locking up, I heard music coming from the shop. I thought it might have been Sean. I really wanted to talk to him about this whole wedding thing. Curious to see if Sean was back from his Alaska trip early, I peeked my head out only to find Parker out there working on a Chevy pickup. That draw led me outside where I didn’t belong.
“You’re still here,” I said, trying to make conversation. “It’s pretty late to be at work, isn’t it?”
Parker grunted as a reply but said nothing. Instead, he kept his head done while replacing the brakes on Ford pickup in his stall.
Watching him work was when it hit me that this had to be difficult for him too. He went from being a pro rider just a few months ago to replacing brakes on a truck.
“Parker, can we at least talk? I hate this.”
He turned, dropping the tools to the ground. The sound echoed off the walls and I jumped back. “You hate this? Really? That’s what you have to say?”
I started to walk away. I didn’t want to argue, not now. I wanted to be adults about this, but obviously he didn’t.
The crash of tools had me turning back around to see Parker hunched over a tool car, body shaking, gripping the handle.
I reached out for his back. He turned and faced me, his jaw trembling. “Hey,” I said, pressing my fingers to his cheeks, searching his eyes. “Hey,” I said again, like I was coaxing him to look at me.
Then Parker just gave in, dropping his face into my hands like he used to the day before I would leave, his eyes pained and vulnerable.
And then his lips were on mine. They were soft, just as I remembered from the other night. When he gasped against my lips and pushed me against his tool box, his mouth was hungry and frantic. I could feel his want swell against my stomach. I wanted to badly to reach inside his jeans and feel him and remember.
I panicked and pushed him away.
We stood there face to face, breathing heavy, when Parker sighed and stepped away, picking up the tools he knocked over.
“This can’t happen,” I said, trying to convince myself my actions were ridiculous. “I’m getting married.”
Parker slammed the hammer he was holding against the wall. “You don’t think I fucking know that, Rowan!” His voice was hard as he stepped closer, his breath blowing across my face. “I want to leave you alone. But you’re here, all around me, haunting me. You do things, say things...you suffocate me without even trying.” His voice was lower, just above a whisper, as his eyes that held mine dropped to the concrete floor. “I want to leave you alone...” he nodded “...but I can’t.”
That but seemed to be the same but I had.
I couldn’t be here...but I was. I didn’t want to marry Sean but I was. I never wanted to leave Parker but I did. I didn’t want things to change but they did.
“Leave,” he told me when I reached for him. His voice was desperate and pleading.
“No.”
“Goddamn it, Rowan,” he screamed, trying to make me see what I was doing to him by being here, “leave!”
I couldn’t help it. Neither of us could.
Whatever the force was that drove us together all these year was doing everything in its power to drive us together now. I knew this was wrong. Jesus, it was so wrong, but it didn’t stop either of us.
Parker’s face grew solemn as we stood there staring at each other, his breathing slowed. “I’ve tried to forget you but I can’t.”
There was that but again.
July 20, 2002
A few days passed after the night in the shop. Again, we avoided each other, but we always managed to run into one another.
The next time was when I agreed to go have a drink with Addy and Justin. Sure enough, Parker was there. I was sort pissed at Addy because she knew the situation, but she kept getting us together. She didn’t like Sean and did everything she could to make me see Parker.
The thing was for the first time since I had met him, Parker was a dick to me.
It started sometime after his third beer and got worse by the sixth. Justin tried to get him to leave a few times, even took his keys and offered to drive him home, but he wouldn’t leave.
He slurred his words and wasn’t making any sense and I wanted to punch him.
“So tell me, Ro,” Parker said to me, his eyes half closed. “Is Sean that good in bed? He must not be if you kept coming back to me.”
Like I said, he was being a dick and I refused to acknowledge him. Eying Addy, I gave her a look that screamed she was in trouble for setting this up.
“Come on, man...” Justin reached for Parker’s beer “...I think you’ve had enough for one night.”
Parker grunted his reply, pushing himself from the table and tossing a twenty down. “Yeah, I have had enough.”
Addy sighed when Parker left, her eyes on mine. “You should go talk to him.”
Of course she thought that. Shaking my head, I took one more drink from my own beer and stood. “He hates me. I don’t see how I’m going to convince him of anything.”
Justin shook his head setting his own beer on the table. I looked at Addy and she looked defeated as if this had ruined her night. “He doesn’t hate you, Ro, he never could. He’s just confused and hurt.”
I understood that very well because I felt the same way. That was the part they were forgetting. All this time I told myself I couldn’t have a life with Parker and that it was out of the question. Now, the opportunity was here.
I found Parker sitting on the tailgate of his truck staring off into the woods, his legs dangling on the edge.
“I can’t find my keys,” he said when I stood next to him.
“I know…” I patted my pocket. “I have them.”
“Give them back.” He scowled, trying to persuade me with a look. It wasn’t working. There was no way I was letting him drive this drunk.
We said nothing for close to twenty minutes when I tried to get him to look at me. I had some things I wanted to say.
“Are you still marrying that douchebag?”
I shook my head and sighed. He really was being a dick tonight. “Stop it. Stop acting like this.”
Parker grunted, removing himself from the tailgate to stand in front of me. His hands hung loosely on his hips as he faced the woods behind the bar, his breathing rapid.
I placed my hand on his back but he refused to look at me. “Parker?” Why I was comforting him after all this was beyond me. I was angry that he made me feel this way, so of course I turned it around on him. When he jerked away from me, my temper came to life. “You said we would always be friends, no matter what. Remember? Now look at us! You’re such a hypocrite!” I yelled, pulling away from him to look at his face finally.
“I’m a hypocrite? Oh Christ, Rowan!” He pushed away further from the truck pacing the concrete and then stopped suddenly and looked directly in my eyes. “You…you have no idea what this is like for me, you have no fucking clue. To see you with that guy with…with his hands all over you and to have you ignore me. You—” He stopped suddenly, his words hanging between us.
“Why do you even care, Parker? How do you think it felt to see you with Kayla?” It was such a shitty thing to say because he was never with Kayla.
“What are you doing with him?” He trembled, ignoring my comment about Kayla, moving closer to me again. “You don’t love him…I see it in your eyes. You love me and you know it. I know every time he kisses you, you’re wishing it was my lips on you, my tongue tasting your skin.” His breath blew across my face, sweet as the day I met him, but there was anger there too. I could see what he was trying to do.
Backed against the truck, I had nowhere to go. I started to stammer. “I’m…I’m trying…to move on. I can’t do this with you anymore. At some point I have to have a life of my own where I’m not sucked back into this. I can’t…”
“Bullshit! It’s all bullshit, Ro!” His rough voi
ce echoed through the parking lot. “You’re with him because he’s there for you. He’s safe, he’s easy. You don’t have to try with him. You’re with him because he fits in your world because you think he’s what you think is good for you. You’re with him because, someone, anyone is better than having nothing. You’re with him because you’re scared, scared of being with me and scared of what that would mean,” he said, staring at me, his breathing heavy as his words crashed over me.
The truth was out. He knew everything. He saw through all my bullshit excuses and bared the truth I couldn’t speak, wouldn’t speak. So many times I had wanted to ask him what his problem was and why he called me. I wanted to ask him why I was strung along for so long and forced to move on with my life behind his back. This had just as much to do with him as it did with me.
“I am not scared!” I lied through clenched teeth, my eyes blurred, my skin prickling at his words. The truth stung but I refused to acknowledge it. “Everything changed, that’s what happened. Everything changed and you know it! You made me do this. You are just as much to blame in this shit.”
“I know what exactly what you’re doing.” Parker snorted, his current lifestyle and the amount of alcohol he consumed evident in his bloodshot eyes. “I used to do it. You’re trying to fill the void, trying to keep your mind off of me. I did it with racing for years. I know…because I did exactly what you’re doing now. I know because I’ve only ever felt whole with you. You feel this unbearable ache that you can’t get rid of. I know because I feel it too.”
“You’re just jealous that I’m not moping around after you.” I threw it out there just for spite. “You’re jealous that I’m not hanging on your every word like Kayla did. You’re jealous that I don’t want you.” It was probably the biggest lie I had ever said to him and the rage in his eyes told me he knew it.
“Jealous?” Parker’s eyes flashed with uncontrolled anger and shock. “Yes, I’m jealous. Crazy fucking jealous that I can’t even see straight! But I’m also not going to stand back and let you make the biggest mistake of your life because I know you feel this too...” he motioned between us “...you do want me, and that’s why you turned to him to try and forget me. But you can’t. I won’t let you.”