“Parker?” She says, I like how she says my name.
“Yeah.” My heart rate picks up.
“How do pancakes sound?” she asks, surprising me and I smile.
“Perfect.”
I walk towards her, and she meets me half way, leaving her girls behind her. Ending the call the moment she’s standing in front of me in that sexy red lace dress that has been making my mouth water ever since I caught a glimpse of her tonight.
“There’s a diner close to here.” she says smiling brightly and I look at her eyes closely. They are clear and I am thankful that she’s not drunk.
“Sounds good, do your friends want to go?” I ask to be nice, hoping like hell she’ll say no.
“I think they're okay.” she says as she glances behind her. Watching the three of them looking and waving hi, a limo pulls up and the redhead urges them to slip into the car. They all yell their good-byes, and I watch Liz blush slightly as she waves to them, shaking her head.
Liz
The limo drives off with the girls. I turn to look at Parker, but I stiffen when I hear, "Hey, baby."
The familiar voice says from out of nowhere, Jake leans his body into mine, nuzzling the base of my neck. My body is completely still, not reacting to him.
"I didn’t know you were seeing anyone, Liz," Parker says calmly, but I can see a little confusion in his eyes. I roll my eyes and I try to shake Jake off of me.
"I’m not. What are you doing, Jake?" I ask him, thankful that there’s space between us.
"I wanted to make sure my car picked you up and took you home, safe and sound." He says nonchalantly, like we were together. The shock on my face must have shown because Parker smirked.
"Actually my car is going to take us to get a bite to eat," Parker says as he stretches out his body standing straighter, making him taller and broader.
Looking back and forth from one to the other I realize that Parker Stone is about two or three inches taller than Jake and probably about twenty pounds more in muscle mass alone. The thought of what Parker might look like shirtless tiptoes into my sex deprived brain making my mouth water.
"Don’t worry about that Stone, I was planning on cooking for her when we got back to my place, before we went to bed," Jake hisses as his arms go out to reach for my waist.
Thankfully I had been paying attention and took a step back away from him, only to take a step closer to Parker, bumping my back to his front. Turning around to face both of them, my eyes are going back and forth from one to the other when it sinks in.
Jake and Parker somehow know one another.
"You guys do realize, I’m standing here right?" I ask frowning. What was Jake doing?
I look at both of them. They are both handsome, and for some weird reason it was almost as if they were fighting with one another for me, but there was no way that could even be right. Parker is the first man I've been attracted to in a long time. I had butterflies. Me! The girl, who had her heart replaced with rocks, was feeling real life butterflies.
So I decide right there to go with my gut.
"Parker, we should probably get going. I’m starving. Pancakes sound really good right now." I step closer to him, our hands somehow twining together. His fingers lacing through mine, I look down at our hands joined and something in me shifts. I look up at him and his gaze tells me he felt it as well. As cheesy as it sounded it was a zing of electricity that went through us somehow and we had both felt it. God, I sound like a character from the romance novels Lucy makes us read.
"What are you doing, Liz?" Jake growls snapping me out of my Parker thoughts and I look at him. Frown lines appear on his forehead showing off how completely pissed off Jake is.
"I’m going to go eat," I say, giving him a sweet smile.
"Not with him," he hisses, fists at his side, for a second I’m surprised he hasn’t started to stomp his feet like a petulant child. At that moment Jake reminds me of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, the image makes me bite back a laugh.
"Actually Jake, I can go with whoever the hell I want. I’m single, not attached to anyone. Why the hell would you care anyhow?” I tell him, my annoyance with him growing. I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to be mad at me. Who did he think he was my owner? Not even when we had dated had he been possessive. He had never made a grand gesture or even a small one of claiming me as his.
Between school and his career, I had always fallen last on his priority list...and I had let him.
"Good Night, Jake." I mumble. Parker walks us over to his town car. His driver opening the door for us, I make it a point not to look back. That part of my life, the dreams of what could have been had been destroyed too long ago to let them surface again.
Parker
Her small body is sitting next to me in the car and I look at her. She’s is so fucking beautiful. Nervous energy is flowing through me like a teenage boy on his first date.
"So,” I clear my throat, “Should I ask how you know Jake?"
Our hands still joined together, not able to make myself let go of her. The warmth of her skin against mine was making my body hum. HUM! Hum in a way I had never experienced in my life.
"I guess you could say that’s a long story." she shrugs innocently, squeezing my hand trying to reassure me she’s exactly where she wants to be. At least that’s how I’m going to take it.
"We have time." I say softly, gently pulling her closer to me, her head leaning onto my shoulder. Her hair smells fantastic. A light floral scent I can’t seem to place.
Her body is soft and warm next to mine, all the blood in my body quickly flows south. I look at her. Dark chocolate brown eyes look at our hands she moves her other hand, so that she is holding one of mine with both of hers. Something about that tugs at me.
"We do, but do you really want to waste your time and breath on him?" Her pretty face is looking up at mine. Her eyes hitting mine, I see softness that is mixed with sadness, something I almost think she doesn’t ever let anyone see. It humbles me that she has let me see it even if it is only a brief, momentary glance.
"Come on. Please. It’s not very often, well at all that Thompson gets riled up like that. I’d love to know why or who I’m with that makes him get all unhinged. It was very amusing to see Mr. Calm Cool and Collected lose it. Call me intrigued." I say trying to lighten the mood. Even though part of me wants to know how this beautiful angel can rile up Thompson the way she had.
She laughs, making her even prettier. Something about her laugh, the way it softens her face, makes my chest and body warm all over. Part of me wants to start spouting jokes just to keep hearing her laugh and have it be me who entertains her.
"Is he really known as Mr. Calm, cool and collected?" she asks and I nod.
"Angel, I’ve seen him make twenty million dollar deals without breaking a sweat. Not even raise his voice to anyone. Then tonight, I meet the one person who has ever made him lose his cool, you have to get why I’m intrigued." I tell her. Her eyes go wide at the mention of the big deals Thompson has made and then she frowns.
"So you work together?" she asks slightly sitting up straighter, putting a little space between us, and I instantly missed the warmth of her body pressed up against mine.
"We use to. Now we are at different places. I’m more into private investing, I guess you could say," I answer her and she raises an eyebrow.
"Are you competitors?" she asks and I smile at her.
"No. I really do private investing." I say and she looks as if she is thinking hard about something, so I keep sharing, “Movies mostly.”
“Movies?” She asks, raising a delicate dark eyebrow.
“Feature films. Nothing bad.”
“Oh. That’s interesting.” she says, her body leaning into mine slightly as she relaxes. Something about that makes me want to beat on my chest like a caveman. I like that she can relax around me, even if we don’t really know one another yet.
"We use to know each other. A lifetime ago, like
in college. I haven’t seen him in five years. I didn’t even know he was back from London until about a couple of hours ago."
The way she says this, I know she’s holding back more. There’s a story there. A big one! One she just doesn’t want to talk about. But I try to push a little more.
"So you were friends?" I ask.
"How do you two know each other, is really the better question," she asks me back, clearly avoiding letting me in on how exactly they knew one another.
"We use to work together," I answer casually. We had. In London, I had let myself believe we’d been best friends, until he stabbed me in the back.
"But you don’t like each other?" she asks and I laugh. I can tell she likes it when I laugh, by the soft look on her face.
"I guess you can say that. Honestly, it’s not like I hate him, we just use to work in a dog eat dog world. Some habits are hard to kill, if that makes sense?" I tell her, as the car starts to slow down.
Liz
He hops out the car and gives me his hand to help me out. We walk into a little 24 hour diner, and sit across from one another at a booth. Our waitress comes over and takes our order. He orders a Denver omelet and I order pancakes with a side of bacon. The pretty waitress comes back serving us coffee, smiling at us she walks away silently. The diner is quiet and pretty empty. Parker keeps holding my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine, softening something in me, something that I wasn’t sure how he had been able to reach with just a touch.
"Can I tell you something?" his deep voice makes my body tingle and all I can do is nod.
"I’m surprised you decided to come out with me tonight. I was pretty sure I was going to have to call you about three times at least to get you to meet up with me again." He says smiling. His smile is beautiful too. Now, seeing him in the better lighting of the diner, the dimple on his left cheek stands out more. His face is, if possible, is even more handsome in this lighting, making it impossible to look away, not that I was even going to try to look away.
"Why did you think that?" I ask, intrigued by how right he was.
I wasn’t the type to leave clubs with men. Not even when I had been drunk off my butt and broken hearted. There was something about Parker that was different and it had caught me off guard.
"You seem cautious."
"You can never be too safe in this city, Mr. Stone." I answer smiling.
"You’re right."
"Now my turn, would you really have called three times? Or just gave up and called one of the other women’s numbers you got tonight?" I ask to see how he answers, to see if I’d be able to sense if he was being honest.
"I would have called at least four times." The way his voice sounded completely sincere makes me want to believe him. When was the last time I wanted to believe in someone?
His smile is distracting me from thinking too much about what he just admitted. It’s not lost on me that he didn’t deny getting other phone numbers. I’m glad he didn’t, I would have known he was lying. He was hot. Sex on a stick hot and it would have been impossible for him not to have got other numbers. The idea of him getting other women’s numbers didn’t bother me, if I was being honest. Maybe it was because at the moment he was sitting across from me, his eyes on mine, and a hint of a smile on his gorgeous face, his huge hand covering mine like a blanket on a newborn baby. The way he is looking at me makes me feel like I am the only one he can see. No. He made me feel like I was the only one that existed around him.
"Why? The possibility of free baked goods?" I ask raising an eyebrow. He laughs again and I smile as I enjoy the sound of his laughter. He shakes his head.
"You’re intriguing. You’re beautiful and obviously smart and successful. Why wouldn’t I want to get to know you?" I smile and roll my eyes.
"So tell me about yourself. You said you met Jake in college, so you went to USC too?" he asks.
"Yeah, I did. For two years, until my financial aid ran out. I was an Art major, I waitressed for a long time after. I actually even still pick up a shift here and there when my old boss needs the help." I admitted, surprising myself.
Not even the girls knew that I sometimes filled in when Belle needed a bartender at Shine. It was rare but it happened. He obviously hadn't expected that either since he looks completely surprised.
"Why not take out a loan to finish up school?" he asks.
"You need a cosigner when you are young and naïve. Plus, I didn’t want to owe anyone anything." and I had decided that Jake’s career was more important, so I had helped him get through school I think to myself.
"Your parents could have co-signed for you." He says, pushing the subject a little more.
"No. They couldn’t, they died when I was ten." I quickly answer.
Through the years I realized that the faster I said it the faster we moved on from the subject I didn't like talking about. It was like removing a Band-Aid, the faster the better.
"Anyhow, about five years ago I met Tess and the girls at my last job, and we really hit it off. Tess and I figured out we were both really great at baking sweets. One thing led to another and two years ago, we opened Izzy Tizzy’s. Not to brag but we’ve done well so far." I shyly look up at him and his intense gaze makes me nervous..
So nervous I start to babble random things that come to mind.
"I love baseball and football. Please don’t ask me to watch a Lakers game, because honestly I could care less. Ducks over the Kings is my choice when it comes to California hockey. Oh, and if embarrass easily, we shouldn’t go to sporting events because I am one of those people that yell and scream at bad calls and cheers loudly when her team scores," I can feel the heat emanating from my cheeks from embarrassment as I spout out the oddest random things possible about myself. It’d been a long time since I’d had an urge to share things about myself, especially to a man.
Luckily our waitress chose that moment to refill our coffees and immediately afterwards brought us our food. We both stayed quiet only smiling slightly at her and mumbling our gratitude as she left.
Throughout the night my messy bun had come apart and my hair was now down on my shoulders. I grab a ponytail from my small clutch, bringing my hair together into a low ponytail. I can feel his eyes on me, but the whole time I get myself situated, I avoid them. Worried about what I would see, mentally preparing myself for his questions about my parents.
In the eighteen years they’ve been gone, I had a customary answer I gave. Just enough for people to know what happened, without the details that haunted me even almost two decades later. The same customary answer I had even given Jake when I had first met him. Maybe if at some point in the three years Jake and I had been together he would have asked, I would have given him more details. But Jake never asked. If it didn't pertain to him or benefit him in some way, he didn’t care. But for the first time, as my heart beats furiously in my chest with wanting to tell someone everything. Not just someone, him, Parker.
Everything.
I didn't want to hold back with half-truths and easy answers, and for someone that had to learn to hold tight to everything, it was terrifying.
I look at him from under my lashes as he picks up his fork and is about to take a bite of his food, his expression is slightly dumbfounded as if he had somehow been caught off guard. He cuts into his omelet but then puts his fork down. My heart is beating hard because I know it is coming. I know he's about to do the whole "I’m so sorry your parents are dead" thing and then he will ask how it happened. He won't be pushy about it, but he would ask and I was afraid of what I'd say.
"I can’t believe you don’t care about the Lakers." He says looking almost devastated and I giggle out of surprise.
Surprised that I giggled! Surprised that he had seen that I had rushed through it because it was a painful subject and whether it was self-preservation on his part that he didn't want to pry or deal with drama or that he wanted to give that easiness to me, I didn't care. This beautiful, perceptive, piece of man candy had ma
de me giggle when I hadn't done that in years.
Decades.
"Sorry I don’t care for basketball. If it makes you feel any better, it’s the sport as a whole, not just exclusively the Lakers" I say smiling, biting my lip when his hand covers mine.
"I might have to take you to a game, to show you the way. Right your wrongs." The way he was talking to me made me want to laugh and at the same time freak out a little. Right your wrongs. The way he said it made me think he was talking about more than the lackluster way I felt towards basketball.
"You might actually be one of the few people who would be able to talk me into going." I say realizing I had actually said the words out loud when he smiled at me.
Conversation with him is easy as we eat. The silences are comfortable and not awkward, almost as if I had known him for a long time. He doesn't bring up my parents and I don't share. The vibe is lighthearted and easy. No talk about dead parents or Jake freaking Thompson ruining it. Easy, God how long had it had been since I had met someone and had this? Had I ever had it? Maybe just a little with the girls. Even with them though, even with how long we’ve been friends, I had a hand up. With Parker, that hand seemed to be down and it was nice.
"I can’t believe you didn’t like FRIENDS! What kind of person are you?" I tease him.
"Come on, you really believe that they all somehow didn’t all hook up with one another?" He asks his handsome face amused and serious at the same time I can't help but laugh.
We did this a while, talking, teasing and laughing. Time flew by and I was intrigued by him. Intrigued by whatever electric current was running between us, his hand covering mine as we sat in front of one another in the small almost empty diner. Our food done, coffee mugs empty, the night was coming to an end and I wasn’t ready for that. Holding my hand from across the booth, he lifts it up and kisses it.
“I’m not ready for the night to end.” he shares, somehow reading my own thoughts.
“What do you suggest?” I ask without double thinking my words. Everything had gone so smoothly and conversation had been so easy between us.
Etched in Stone (Six Degrees Series Book 2) Page 5