Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “Seeing as I figured you’d never get back to me about Melanie, I decided to be proactive and set up a little get together for you,” Jen said.

  “You set up a little get-together for me?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow. Just meeting for coffee—nothing too crazy. I told her you’d meet her at Superior Coffee, since I know you go there so much.” She paused. “Is everything all right? Are you mad that I did that?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not mad. I’m just not sure that now is the right time for me to be meeting anyone or trying to go on any dates or anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I paused. I could get into all the details with Jen, but then she would inevitably wind up saying something to my mother, who would then tell the whole family, and it would turn into this big thing. How Cole Had a Great Opportunity and Really Screwed It Up, Part 3954. Or something like that.

  “Nothing,” I said. “What time tomorrow?”

  “I told her five. I figured you’d be done with work by then. If that time isn’t going to work out, though, I’ll give you her phone number and you can text her. I should give you her number anyway. I’ll text it to you when we hang up.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sure.”

  It might be good to have some distraction, not that this Melanie person wanted to be a distraction. I certainly wouldn’t want to end up on a date with someone just because they were looking for a distraction, but maybe we’d hit it off.

  ***

  The next day, I went into Superior Coffee, a few minutes before I was supposed to meet Melanie. I was usually there in the morning to get coffee for everyone at the office, so I didn’t recognize most of the people behind the counter. I scanned the tables, looking for someone who might be Melanie. There were a few possibilities, but I didn’t want to start going up to the three different women sitting by themselves and asking if their name happened to be Melanie. Why hadn’t I asked Jen what she looked like? That obviously would’ve been the smart thing to do. One of the women looked to be around my age, but she had a laptop open in front of her, and a stack of legal pads positioned next to her cup of coffee. That was probably not Melanie. The second girl was eating a huge brownie and looked so caught up in doing so that I was fairly certain that was her sole purpose for being there. The third girl was arranging her coffee cup and her plate with a cookie on it just so, and then she took a picture, no doubt uploading it to Instagram with some clever caption. All the other tables were occupied by groups, or dudes, so I picked out my own empty table and sat down.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went onto Instagram. Not because I was going to try to find the post from the girl over there, but because I wanted to see Stella. Probably not the smartest thing to be doing whilst waiting for a new date to show up, but I couldn’t help myself. She had not posted any new pictures since we’d slept together, but I started to scroll through and look at all the pictures I’d already looked at before. Just seeing her face made my whole chest hurt, made it feel like it was filling up with this permanent sorrow that would never let up. Was she thinking about me, too? Or was it just something that she could forget about, like I was nothing more than—

  “Are you Cole?”

  The voice startled me and I dropped my phone onto the table, Stella’s face smiling up at us from the picture I’d just been looking at. I snatched the phone up and turned it off.

  “Hey,” I said. “Yes. That’s me. You must be Melanie.”

  I stood up and held my hand out, realizing as I did so that she was actually quite beautiful. She had long, dark hair and blue eyes, with very fair, smooth skin. She was the sort of woman you would definitely notice if you were to pass her on the street.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late. You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”

  “No, not at all. Just got here myself. Do you want something to drink? I didn’t order anything yet.”

  “Sure, that’d be great.”

  We went and stood in line and I got a coffee and Melanie ordered a cappuccino.

  “I’ve got this,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my pocket.

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “I really don’t mind.” I figured it was the least I could do, considering the “date” had started off with her catching me looking at pictures of the last girl I’d slept with. She let me pay, and we got our drinks and went to go sit back at the table, only to see that it had been taken. All the other tables were, too, so we went outside and sat on the window ledge, which stuck out far enough that it could be a comfortable enough seat, at least for a little while.

  “So, you’re friends with my sister?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I was Ella’s teacher last year, and Jen and I really hit it off when she came in for parent-teacher conferences. I moved here a few years ago from Wisconsin, and I admit that it’s been a bit of a challenge making new friends.”

  “Where in Wisconsin are you from?”

  “Eau Claire. I always wanted to live in California, though, and…”

  She continued to talk, and I tried to listen, but I kept thinking about Stella. Here I was, sitting next to a girl who one could arguably say was just as good-looking as Stella was, and she was clearly very smart and must be a nice person to begin with, her being a teacher and all, yet I couldn’t get my mind off of Stella. That was who I wanted to be with. But I couldn’t.

  Despite knowing all of this, I agreed to go for a little stroll when Melanie asked me if I wanted to do that, once we were finished with our coffees. Our forearms would periodically brush against each other as we walked, and the conversation between us flowed easily, even though I was only half-listening. God, I was awful. I barely even knew Melanie, but I knew enough to know she didn’t deserve to be on a date with someone like me. She deserved to be on a date with someone who would be able to appreciate her and be in tune with her, not some loser who couldn’t stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend.

  Except Stella wasn’t even my ex-girlfriend, which kind of made the whole thing even worse.

  After about an hour had passed, I knew I needed to find a way to bow out. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got this awful work thing I have to go to tomorrow, and it starts early, so I need to make sure I get a good night’s sleep and everything.” I realized, as I was saying this, how pathetic that sounded—it was six o’clock. Most people hadn’t even eaten dinner yet.

  “Oh, sure,” Melanie said. “I hear that. I’m basically useless if I don’t get enough sleep the night before. Would you... would you want to get together another time? I had fun with you.”

  I almost said “sure” because that would’ve been easiest; I could’ve ghosted her if I had to, later. But that would’ve been an asshole thing to do, and I already felt bad enough about everything as it was.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, and the smile that had been on her face faltered, and then faded. “I had a good time with you, too. You’re incredibly nice and really beautiful, and I swear, at any other point in my life, I most certainly would want to see you again and again and again. But... it’s just really bad timing right now. It has nothing to do with you. My sister didn’t know about this either, and maybe I should have told her when she first brought it up that now just wasn’t a good time.”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Melanie said, and the smile returned, though it was smaller and seemed somewhat chagrined. “I appreciate your honesty. Most guys wouldn’t be upfront like that.”

  “I just didn’t want to be ambiguous about it,” I said, thinking of Carrie. “I know how that can be.”

  After Melanie left, I went for a walk, no real destination in mind. She had been a nice person, attractive, and we had gotten along well. If this whole thing hadn’t happened with Stella, I’d probably be more than happy to go on another date with Melanie. But it just wasn’t fair for me to go on a date with someone if I was going to be thin
king about someone else the entire time.

  I was a few blocks from my apartment when my phone chimed. It was Drew. And sure enough, the info Drew texted me said that the workshop was going to be held at one of the hotels downtown. It started at nine, but I could check in earlier if I wanted, and have some coffee and light refreshments and the chance to mingle with my fellow “workshoppers.” No, thank you.

  Chapter 20

  Stella

  A girls’ night at the Doerflinger residence. That was exactly what I needed—especially because I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to endure a dinner with my mother.

  Lauren and I went up to their rooftop deck and I sat in one of the Adirondack lounge chairs. The sun was hot, but there was a breeze that seemed to know exactly when the warmth was getting to be a little too much, and it would come and blow the heat away.

  “Before we get started,” Lauren said, “I’m indulging in a little of this.” She opened her palm, revealing a joint. She stuck one end in her mouth and lit it with a pink Bic lighter. “You don’t have to have any if you don’t want to.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I had smoked pot a few times, but it had never been anything I’d really been into, especially when I’d been racing. Still, the times I had done it had been fun, in a goofy, dopey sort of way. I liked that it made everything so much easier to laugh at; it let me feel like it was okay to be silly, to let my guard down. I watched as Lauren took a long drag, squinting as she did so.

  “So, what’s going on with you?” she asked as she exhaled a plume of smoke. “My mother said she was on the phone with your mom for, like, hours, and that I better get in touch with you. She kind of freaked me out.” She took another hit.

  “Oh, my God.” I rolled my eyes. “Give me that.” I reached over and plucked the joint from her fingertips. She exhaled another big cloud of smoke as I did so, and leaned back, stretching her arms out.

  “I mean, we should do this more often and everything. It shouldn’t take some cataclysmic event for this to happen.”

  I took a toke. The smoke hit the back of my throat hard and I resisted the urge to cough. It tasted slightly sweet. My lungs seemed to clench as I breathed the smoke in, but then they relaxed and I exhaled. I didn’t really feel anything, so I took another hit, then handed the joint back to her.

  “My mother was surprisingly quiet about the whole thing, so I really don’t know any details.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “I have to say, I was a little surprised because I figured I’d at least have some inkling about what this whole thing was about, but I’m really clueless.” Lauren grinned and handed the joint back to me.

  I reached for it, and felt a smile spread across my face as I did so. A second later, I was cracking up. But what was so funny? Everything. This whole thing was.

  “I slept with Cole,” I said.

  Lauren’s eyes widened. “For real?”

  “Yeah. For real.”

  “Cole—as in the hot babysitter your parents hired? That Cole?”

  “Yes. That Cole.” We looked at each other and then simultaneously burst into hysterics.

  “Holy shit!” Lauren howled, slapping the arm of her chair. “Oh, my God, that is so perfect! How could your parents be mad at you for that, anyway? I mean, they basically set you up.”

  “That is so true!”

  We laughed about this for a good two or three minutes. Which was better than being angry about it, which was probably what would have happened if we hadn’t been high. The point Lauren had just made was so true: my parents shouldn’t be mad at me about this—I wouldn’t have had anything to do with Cole if it hadn’t been for them in the first place.

  “So, how was it?” Lauren asked. “Give me the details!”

  “It was pretty amazing. Except for the part where we fell asleep on my bed and my mother walked in. That wasn’t so amazing. She fired him and forbade me to ever see him again and now expects me to just forget about it and never get back on my bike again.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “I guess that’s not entirely surprising. My mother would flip out if she caught me sleeping with someone who was supposed to be working for us.” Lauren gave me a salacious look. “Not that that’s prevented me, of course.”

  “Well, I’ve never done anything like that. And I wasn’t even looking at it like he’s someone who works for my family. I just... I see him as a person. A really good person. And the sex was…” How was I supposed to accurately describe it? Everything I could possibly think of saying was just going to sound like one cliché after another. Mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. Jaw-droppingly delicious. Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t such a cliché. “It was the best sex I have ever had,” I finally said.

  ***

  We lounged up there on the rooftop deck for a while. The warm sun felt good, like if I absorbed enough of its rays I would be cleansed of any and all of my problems. Maybe the pot was helping with that, too. Lauren had a seemingly endless supply of joints, and we indulged in another one when we felt the high begin to ebb, and then we laughed for about forty-five minutes straight, though neither of us could remember what exactly we were laughing at. We eventually made our way inside and ended up watching Fatal Attraction on Netflix. We got delivery from Spagnoli, which served the best Neapolitan pizza—we ordered two large pizza margheritas, and Lauren swiped a bottle of Chianti from her parents’ wine cellar.

  “I am totally going to regret this tomorrow at spin class—but tonight, I don’t care!” Lauren said, taking a huge bite of pizza.

  “I’m going to eat this entire pizza,” I said.

  Lauren laughed. “I believe it! I bet I can eat, like, almost all of it.”

  After our pizza, we went down to the kitchen and found pints of ice cream, which we ate sitting on the marble countertops. Then we smoked a little more pot, watched Sixteen Candles, and by that point, Lauren was yawning and said she wanted to go to bed.

  I couldn’t tell if I felt tired or just high. I changed into my pajamas, brushed my teeth for about five minutes, and then climbed into Lauren’s king-size bed. But I couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe it was because I wasn’t in my own bed, or because I’d smoked all that pot, or eaten so much food. Maybe it was all of those things. But I lay there, my eyes closed, my mind racing. I wanted to see Cole. That was the one and only thing I wanted right then, more than anything else I’d ever wanted in my entire life. I felt as if I was experiencing actual physical pain.

  I pushed the back the covers and stood up, feeling surprisingly alert, considering what time it was and how much pot we had smoked. I tried to move quietly, but I either wasn’t being as stealthy as I thought or Lauren wasn’t asleep either, because she sat up.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “I can’t sleep. I’m going over to Cole’s.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know this?”

  “No. I’m just... I’m just going to go over there.”

  There was a pause. “You’re not going without me,” Lauren said.

  ***

  We took an Uber to his apartment building. It was well past midnight, and the street was mostly quiet. Lauren glanced at me. “So, are you going to call him?”

  “No,” I said. I looked up at the building. The ladder to one of the fire escapes had slid down enough that if Lauren gave me a boost, I could probably reach it. Cole’s window was right there, I was pretty certain of it. “Give me a lift.”

  “Are you serious?” Lauren exclaimed. “And how do you even know that’s his place?”

  “I’m pretty sure it is.”

  “Are you trying to get arrested for breaking and entering?”

  “No one’s getting arrested.”

  “Girl, you’re crazy. How much pot did you smoke?”

  “Probably way too much.” My whole body was buzzing, but not because I was high—it was mo
re like adrenaline, something close to what I would feel right before I started a race. It had been such a long time since I’d last felt anything close to this, this sort of nervous energy that could only be tamed by a hyper-focused, laser sort of precision. And that focus was on getting into Cole’s building.

  I slid one foot onto Lauren’s interlaced fingers, and, as I held on to the side of the building for support, she hoisted me up. “Good thing I’ve been doing those CrossFit classes!” she said. “I’m not saying that you’re heavy!” she quickly added.

  I grabbed on to the ladder and it slid down the rest of the way. “I got it,” I said. Once I was on it, it was easy to get up. A taxi turned onto the road, its headlights sweeping over us. I froze, thinking that it was all over, we were caught, but the taxi kept right on going, the driver even giving us a little wave as he passed.

  “This is nuts!” Lauren whispered.

  The window was ajar, and I slid my hand underneath and pushed the sill up further, far enough that we’d be able to slip in. I slid one leg in, then the other, felt the solid ground underneath my feet as I pushed myself the rest of the way in. The orange glow from the streetlight outside the window cast just enough light that I was able to see I was in Cole’s bedroom, and that he was in bed, asleep. Now what?

  Bam!

  I jumped as Lauren knocked into something as she slid in through the window. We froze, but Cole only stirred, the blanket on the bed shifting back and forth a little before settling again.

  “This is who your parents hired as your bodyguard?” Lauren whispered.

  “Shh,” I hissed.

  She muffled her laughter with the back of her hand. “Not like it’s going to make a difference. What the hell did I knock over, anyway?”

  We stood there for a moment, listening to the sound of Cole’s steady breathing. He sighed.

  “So, what’s our next step?” Lauren asked.

  I hadn’t actually thought that far into it. I had wanted to see him, and though it was late, part of me had thought he would’ve still been up, or, if not, he would’ve at least woken up once we clambered up the fire escape and into his open window. But, no, he was sound asleep. Should I leave him a note? Wake him up?