“I had no intentions of ever coming home, and I sure as hell didn’t plan on being anywhere near you.” That one stung, but I understood. I hadn’t planned on being around her either. “If you can be civil, so can I. I’ll do my job then I’ll go home. I won’t be in your hair or your business.”
“Livy, you don’t have to convince me. If you want the job, it’s yours. We’re completely different people than we used to be.” That was an almost truth. “We can be friends.”
I watched her wince. That same fucking line having left my mouth before, but this time I actually meant it. I was man enough to be able to work around her every day. Would it be difficult? Sure, but it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle.
I would just need to repeat that mantra in my head every day. I can handle this. I can handle this. I can handle this.
Because despite everything, the idea of being around her, of getting to know who she was now, it excited me more than I was willing to admit.
“Okay.” She nodded her head as if she was convincing herself. “Friends.”
“Friends,” I repeated the word. It tasted foreign on my tongue, but mixed with the intoxicating scent of her I could swallow anything.
P A R K E R
Four Years and Five and a half months earlier
I never really did plan things out. I just knew that I had to see her and there wasn’t any other option.
I guess there never really was.
Her brother had plans with some new girl he met the night before. I knew because he told me in sordid details how amazing her rack was and what he planned on doing to her tonight.
That was the thing about Mason. He was an amazing guy. The best guy I knew. My best friend. But he was also a bit of a manwhore. Tonight, I was thanking God for that.
Her mother wasn’t home when I pulled into the driveway, and I wasn’t surprised. I knocked on the door, which felt incredibly awkward since it may have been the first time I had knocked on their door in over ten years.
I could see her through the glass of the front door. Her hair was on top of her head in a messy bun, she was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a tank top, and a spoon was hanging out of her mouth, which probably had icing on it. She opened the door with her brow scrunched.
She pulled the spoon from her mouth, and just as I expected, I saw remnants of vanilla icing. “Did you just knock?” She looked at the door like maybe it was broken.
“Yes. I did. Would you like to go out with me, tonight?”
Her eyes widened at my question, and she looked so fucking adorable. I couldn’t stand not to touch her. I reached my hand out and wiped the icing off her bottom lip before tasting it on my own tongue.
She held her breath when my skin touched hers, but I watched her chest shudder when I put my finger in my mouth. It tasted like vanilla icing and something even sweeter, and I was dying to put my lips on her to chase it.
“I need to change.” She looked down at her clothes before she reached on the top of her head and felt her bun.
“Well hurry up. We have plans.”
She smiled at me. That fucking smile that made me feel weak in the knees before she took off running up the stairs to her room.
I had been in her house so many times, hell, I practically lived here some days, but I had never been here like this. I had never been here with her instead of her brother.
It felt weird, but it also felt good.
She got ready in record time. It wasn’t even ten minutes before she came back down the stairs dressed in a pair of cut-off jean shorts and a white top. Her hair was still on top of her head, but it looked much more orderly than it did before.
She looked like a dream.
A dream I had way too many times to count, and for the first time in my life, I truly felt nervous to go on a date with someone.
“You look beautiful.”
She smiled before tucking a nonexistent piece of hair behind her ear.
“Thanks. If I had known before, I would have dressed up or something.”
“You’re perfect, Livy.”
Her shoulders relaxed a small bit and one of her hands toyed with the loose strings of her shorts. I wanted to be the one to do it. I wanted to touch every piece of her body. I wanted to explore every part of her that no one else got to see.
“So, where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.” And she was going to love it.
…
When the bright lights of the bar sign came into view, she looked at me, confused. When I opened the door for her, she hesitated.
“I’m not going to be able to get in here, Parker.”
“They don’t ID at the door. Come on.”
She grabbed my hand, climbing out of my truck, and we headed inside. It wasn’t necessarily a bar, per se, more of a karaoke bar.
As soon as the lyrics to some Carrie Underwood song hit our ears at an alarmingly horrible octave, Livy’s smile lit up her face.
I wanted to put that look on her face every single day.
“Are we going to sing?” She was already bouncing on her feet.
“Umm, no.” I shook my head as I pulled out her chair that had a tear across the seat. “You are going to sing while I watch you.”
“What?” She gave me a look that made my stomach tense up. “You have to sing with me, Parker. It will be so much fun.” She batted her eyelashes.
“It’s not happening.” I chuckled. She could try to persuade me all she wanted, but there was no way in hell that I was getting on that stage and singing in front of this group of strangers.
She let the idea drop as she started scrolling through the book looking for the perfect song to sing. She flipped the pages one by one, and her eyes roamed over all of her choices. Livy was always singing. In the car, at the lake, in her bedroom. She constantly had a song stuck in her head, and I think that most of the time she didn’t even realize she was singing out loud.
But she did.
And I fucking loved it.
When she found the song, she quickly wrote her selection on a strip of white paper before folding it up.
“What are you going to sing?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s a surprise.” She mirrored my words from earlier.
“You’re really not going to tell me?”
“Nope,” the word popped out of her mouth, “and you can turn those puppy dog eyes to someone else because they’re not going to work.”
I reached out for her hand but she held her arm in the air, far away from me.
“Livy,” I smirked.
“Parker,” she mocked.
I reached for the paper again, but she was too quick. All I managed to do was press my body against hers as I reached behind her for the paper. She was giggling, her body shaking against mine.
“Please.” I looked down at her, her chest pressed against mine, her lips still in a perfect smile only a few inches away from mine.
“That’s not fair, Parker.” She put her hand on my chest, my heart racing beneath her touch.
“Life’s not fair, Livy.” I breathed out her name, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t give a shit what was on that piece of paper. I just wanted to touch her, to feel her, to taste her.