Blurred Lines (20 page)

Somehow I was hoping it was earrings or a stupid pin, or something.

Instead, it’s my worst fear staring back at me.

“Do you think she’ll like it?” he asks, having to shout over the crowd, and it strikes me how weird this is. What kind of douche carries around an engagement ring to karaoke bar?

An engagement ring.

Parker’s getting married.

To Lance.

“I’m not going to do it tonight or anything,” Lance explains. “I don’t know when…I just wanted your opinion first. You know her better than anyone.”

Damn right. I do.

And fuck, she’s going to love that ring. It’s a perfect (huge) diamond with a circle of smaller diamonds around it. It’s classic but with plenty of sparkle.

The dude
nailed
it.

And I force myself to focus on the important thing. Her happiness.

I look at him. “She’ll love it.”

He breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, man. You don’t how nervous I was to tell you about it. I don’t think I’ll be this nervous when I ask her dad for permission. Hell, I should be asking
you
for permission.”

“No,” I say, glad the loudness of the bar makes it impossible for him to hear the catch in my voice. “She’s your girl. She’ll always been your girl. I just watched over her for a while.”

I no longer care about making a polite excuse, or what everyone will think about the fact that I ditch the bar without so much as a goodbye.

I go straight home and fill out every one of those Seattle business school applications.

And then I mail them. Every last one.

Lance “hid” the ring in his underwear drawer.

I mean, leaving aside the cliché of it, does he really not register that I do all of the laundry? As in wash it, dry it, and
put it away.

Of course I was going to find the damn ring!

But in the end, it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter whether Lance was hoping I’d just stumble across the ring in the least romantic proposal of all time, or whether he’s just oblivious.

In the end, finding that red jewelry box was the wake-up call I needed.

Not just a wake-up call that I can’t marry Lance, because I’ve known that for weeks.

No, finding that box made me realize something even more disturbing:

I’ve been using Lance.

I’ve been lying next to him night after night, trying to remember how to be in love with him, when really my every thought and every dream was consumed with someone else.

Of course, I don’t tell him this last part when I break up with him.

Instead, I sit him down when he gets home from work and quietly, kindly tell him that it’s not working out.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

I didn’t intend to, but in the end, I dumped him in the very same location he dumped me months earlier.

And to his credit, he handles me breaking up with him with more dignity than I did.

He doesn’t even look surprised, and because I know him well—almost as well as I know Ben—I narrow my eyes.

“Lance.”

He looks up.

“You don’t exactly look crushed,” I say with a faint smile. “Particularly considering I found a certain key piece of jewelry in your dresser drawer.”

He groans and leans forward until his forehead touches the kitchen counter. “I’m an idiot.”

“Because you were going to propose when we’ve barely connected? Haven’t even had sex?”

He snorts. “I know. I was going to return it. I just…”

I prop my elbow on the table, then put my chin on my hand. “You just…”

“I thought that buying that ring…committing to you, would make me forget—”

I sit up straighter. “Oh my God. You’ve still got a thing for Laurel.”

“No!” He sits up. “No, I…fuck. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her but I keep thinking about her. Wondering…”

I smile then, a bittersweet kind of smile, and stand. I lean forward and impulsively kiss the top of his head. “You should tell her.”

“She’s got a boyfriend.”

I lift a shoulder. “Tell her anyway. I think we
both
know that it’s possible to be dating one person and thinking of another.”

He searches my face. “Ben?”

I swallow.

Nod.

Lance blows out a breath. “I knew it. That song at karaoke…that was for him, wasn’t it?”

My eyes fill as I remember that moment. It seems strange that it was just the night before, because I feel like I’ve had a lifetime to reflect on it.

I can’t stop thinking about what it felt like to pour my entire heart and soul into the lyrics of that gorgeous, heartbreaking song.

My heart still feels the ripping agony of telling Ben how I felt even if he didn’t
know
I was telling him.

My heart freezes as a thought strikes me. What if Ben
did
know?

If Lance caught on, why wouldn’t Ben?

Oh God. What if
that’s
why he vanished last night?

We all assumed he’d picked up some girl at the bar, and I’d
hated
that scenario, but I hate this one a lot more. What if Ben figured out what I was trying to tell him, and
ran
?

Lance stands and walks me to the door.

I pick up the overnight bag I’d left by the front door in anticipation of this precise moment. The moment when I walked away from the guy I once thought I’d marry.

“Bye, Lance.”

He leans forward, kisses my cheek. “Bye, Parker.”

And just like that, it’s over.

It’s over and I’m okay with it.

Well, not okay. Because there’s a huge hole in my chest—a hole that has nothing to do with the guy I’ve just broken up with.

The smart thing to do is to go to my parents’. Or Casey’s or Lori’s.

Or even a hotel.

I need to think things over. To figure out my game plan.

I get in my car and drive to my parents’. I make it all the way to their driveway, but not out of the car.

I put the car in reverse.

Retrace my route back to downtown, but this time, I’m not going back to Lance’s place.

I’m going
home.

I used to be pretty good about picking the noncrazy girls out at a bar.

But I must be out of practice, because the girl currently dancing on my coffee table—even though no music is playing—is all-out
nuts.

“Demi, honey,” I say, keeping my tone as calm as possible. “How about I call you a cab?”

The only response I get is a shirt in the face.
Her
shirt.

“Christ,” I mutter. So not in the mood for this.

“I wanna dance!” she hollers. “Come dance with me, Blake!”

I scratch my cheek. I swear to God she didn’t seem this weird in the bar. A little hyper maybe, but not loony bin.

I’ve just been so damn desperate to lose myself in someone else. To get rid of the ache that seems to have taken up permanent residence in my chest.

“I’ll dance with you if you get down from the table,” I lie.

She does this sort of saucy hip wiggle, and her fingers drop to the fly of her jeans. She wiggles her eyebrows as she unbuttons it, and I realize I’m about to be subjected to a nonconsensual striptease.

A knock at the door saves me from having to watch as she slowly turns around, bending over as her tight jeans start to make a downward trek over her ass.

“Please let that be John,” I mutter.

I’m obviously going to have to physically remove this girl from my coffee table, and an extra set of hands will be majorly appreciated.

It’s not John.

“Parks! Hey!” I say, registering that my chain of emotions is something like panic, joy, and then confusion.

Confusion,
because I know pretty much all of Parker Blanton’s expressions, but for the life of me, I don’t recognize the one on her face right now.

“Um, everything okay?” I ask.

Then I jolt forward as a candy-scented female comes careening into me from behind. Demi’s bra is still on, thank God. Her pants are not.

“Who’s this?” the surprise stripper chirps.

Parker’s smile is wide and friendly as she fixes her gaze on Demi. Uh-oh.
That
face, I know.

Poor Demi.

“Hi, I’m Parker.” Her voice is friendly.

Demi’s nose wrinkles. “That’s a boy’s name.”

“Mmm,” Parker says in a considering tone as she comes in and sets her bag down by the front door. A big bag. I wonder where she’s headed. “Is it? What’s your name, darling?”

“Demi!”

“Well, Demi.” Parker links her fingers together and gives Demi a polite, professional look. “I’m really sorry to ruin your evening like this, but my brother…he’s not well.”

For the first time, Demi’s tireless smile wavers. “Your brother?”

Parker gives a head nod in my direction and I hide a grin. “He’s supposed to be in rehab for sex addiction. Seems he got out.”

Demi gives me a nervous look. “I like sex.”

“I’m sure you do, dear,” Parker coos. “But see, Ben here, his tastes are a bit…singular.”

Demi licks her lips, nervous now. “Like…handcuffs?”

Parker’s laugh is just the tiniest bit condescending. “Oh, sweetie. No. He likes
dolls.
”

I stifle a laugh. Barely.

But Parker’s just getting started. “He likes to have them watch while he’s, well…rutting. Likes to brush their hair. Likes to line them up right next to him while he—”

“Thanks, sis,” I interrupt. “For making sure I get back to rehab.”

Parker pats my chest. “It’s the least I can do, bro. I
knew
something was amiss when they said you’d left Polly behind.”

Parker glances at Demi. “Polly’s his favorite doll. He was allowed to take one with him to rehab, providing he didn’t do anything, well…weird.”

By now Parker’s talking to Demi’s back as the younger girl makes a beeline for the living room, and comes back in record time, her jeans on but still unbuttoned as she scrambles to pull her shirt back on.

“Thanks a lot, ma’am,” Demi says as she brushes past Parker. She ignores me altogether.

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Parker says with a smile. “You need a cab?”

“Nah, my friends are at the bar just around the corner.”

“Okay, then,” Parker says with a little finger wiggle. “Bye-bye now!”

Neither of us move after she shuts the door behind Demi.

“I know what that was,” I say finally. “Payback for that time I told that one girl that
you
had a doll collection—”

But Parker’s not interested in memory lane, because she interrupts me.

“Talk or mute?” she asks.

“I, um, what?” I ask, confused at the sudden appearance of our old game. Generally we do it only when the other person clearly has something on their mind.

And while I definitely have stuff on my mind, it’s nothing that I can talk about—

“You’re not deciding whether
you
talk or mute,” she explains. “You’re deciding whether
I
talk or mute.”

What the hell?

“Why would
I
decide whether you talk or not?” I ask.

She meets my gaze steadily. “Because there’s a very, very good chance you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

I’m not really loving the sound of that, but…

“This something you want to get off your chest?” I ask warily.

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

I blow out a long breath. “Then tell me.”

She opens her mouth, then seems to lose her nerve, because she shuts it. “Can we do this in the living room?”

“Um, okay,” I say, because she’s already walking away.

“And I could use a drink for this!” she calls.

Do I need one? I wonder quietly to myself.

“You should get one for yourself, too!” she calls again.

Great.

I dig around behind some embarrassingly old leftovers until I find a bottle of prosecco left from when this used to be Parker’s fridge, too.

I pop the cork and dump hefty pours into two coffee mugs.

As I pour, I wonder if I hadn’t left the sparkling wine in the fridge for precisely this reason.

A hope that she’d come home.

And here she is. And I’m glad to see her, I am. It’s just…I almost wish she hadn’t come over.

Because all I can think about is begging her to stay.

But we have to get through whatever big announcement has her all wound up and pacing around the living room like a caged animal.

I hand her a mug and she stares at it for a moment, but doesn’t move to take it.

“Sorry it’s not crystal,” I say. “This is a bachelor pad now.”

“Obviously,” she says. “Demi seemed…um, partially clothed.”

I take a big sip from my own mug. It’s not my favorite drink, but my beer supply is low and I need the booze.

“For the record, I didn’t know she was crazy when I brought her home,” I say.

“Uh-huh.”

The skepticism in her tone says she clearly thinks I’m still sleeping my way through Portland, and I open my mouth to refute her, but think better of it.

The last thing an almost-engaged woman needs to hear is that her best friend is still hung up on their last sexual encounter.

I freeze as a horrible thought occurs to me.

Suddenly, I know
exactly
why Parker is here.

I know why she’s so tense.

And I know why she thinks I won’t want to hear what she has to say.

Because I don’t. I don’t want to hear it.

I don’t want to hear that Lance proposed. I don’t want to hear that she’s going to get married to someone else.

“Mute,” I say a little desperately. “I want you to mute.”

Her eyes flicker. “But you said—”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to hear it.”

I know it’s selfish. Of course I know.

And
eventually
I’ll hear, and I’ll congratulate her and I’ll even toast her wedding, but I just can’t hear it right now.

I can’t hear that the girl I love is going to get married to someone else.

I love her.

I swallow and turn away from her, squeezing my eyes shut.

I love her so much.

“Ben, wait,” she says, coming toward me. “I won’t talk if you don’t want me to, but at least tell me why you changed your mind—”

I spin back to face her, and my pain must be all over my face because her eyes widen and she takes a step back in surprise.

And all of a sudden, it becomes too much. She’s too damn beautiful, and I care too damn much.

“Talk or mute,” I say roughly.

“But you just said—you’re confusing me, Ben.”

“Me,” I say. “We’re talking about me now. Do you want
me
to talk?”

A little line appears between her eyes. “Do
you
have something you want to get off your chest?”

It’s a nearly verbatim replay of our earlier conversation, except with the roles reversed, and suddenly I lose patience with all our stupid word games and how we’re tiptoeing around each other.

“Sit down,” I say.

“You’re being weird,” she says.

She moves toward the couch anyway, but then I change my mind about her sitting, and my hand snakes out, grabbing her arm and pulling her around so we’re face-to-face.

We’re both breathing harder than the situation calls for. But maybe that’s not true, because the bomb I’m about to drop on her is a big one.

“Parker, I—”

“Don’t go to Seattle,” she blurts, interrupting me.

“I—what?”

She moves closer, her eyes full of panic. “Don’t go to Seattle.”

I shake my head. “I already turned in the applications—”

“So? You can do more applications
here.
To Portland schools.”

This so isn’t what I want to be talking about right now, but I suppose it’s as good a segue to what I have to say to her as any, so I go with it. “I can’t stay here, Parker.”

“You have to,” she says, her voice breaking. She reaches out her hands toward my chest then yanks them back so they’re cradled against her own chest. “You can’t leave me.”

My heart breaks, even amid my confusion. “Parks—”

“Or I’ll go with you!” she says. “I mean, I’ll have to come back to Portland, like, all the time because of my mom, but I could live with you in Seattle some of the time, and—”

Something is wrong. She isn’t acting right.

I grab her hands, holding them still. “Parker. Sweetie. What’s wrong? Is it your mom? Has she taken a turn for the worse?”

Her eyes are overflowing with tears. “No. She’s the same. Prognosis is the same.” She licks tears off her lips, and my heart breaks all over again.

What is going on here?

I take a deep breath. “Did Lance—”

“We broke up.” She’s talking faster now.

My first reaction is relief. Deep, soul-wrenching relief. For
me.

Followed quickly with pain for
her.
I hate that I have to watch her go through this again. No wonder she’s so worked up. She just got dumped.

And yet none of this makes sense. Why would he go from carrying a ring around to breaking up with her in twenty-four hours?

“Did he say why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Why he broke up with you?” I say, keeping my voice as gentle as possible.

“You’re not getting it!” Parker jerks her hands back from mine and takes a step back, only to come right back toward me, closer this time.

She meets my eyes. “Don’t mute me, Ben. Please don’t mute me. Let me say this.”

My heart begins to pound.

With fear. And hope.

When her hands come toward me again, they’re shaking, and she hesitates slightly before resting her palms lightly against my cheeks.

“Lance didn’t break up with me,” she says. “I broke up with him.”

I don’t breathe.
Can’t
breathe. “Why?”

Her eyes roam over my features as though searching for something. “You really don’t know?”

My heart is pounding in earnest now, but still I don’t move.

“I don’t think—” I break off, having to clear my throat. “I don’t think I could bear it if I was wrong.”

“Last night, after I sang to you, where did you go?”

My hands lift, covering hers. “So you
were
singing to me?”

Parker’s eyes manage to roll despite the fact that they’re watery. “Of course.”

I hesitate, unsure of how much I should tell her, but it’s too late for either of us to go back now. “Lance had a ring,” I say slowly.

“I know. I saw it.”

“He showed it to me,” I tell her. “He asked my permission or some shit, I guess.”

“Did you give it to him?” she asks.

“What?”

“Did you give him permission?”

“Of course,” I say.

Her eyes go carefully blank, and her hands drop as she takes a step backward.

“No, Parks…you don’t…I thought you loved him. I thought you
wanted
to marry him.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t. I don’t.”

I close my eyes, hardly daring to hope.

“Parker—” My throat closes, and I have to clear it again. “Why did you come over here tonight?”

“Because I made a mistake,” she whispers. “Because I promised my best friend that if we slept together, that I wouldn’t fall for him. I promised him that nothing would change. That we could go back to where we were.”

She glances at the floor before looking back at me. “But I
did
fall for him. And I don’t want things to go back to how they were.”

I open my mouth, but happiness is getting in the way of words, and I can’t seem to make a single noise.

“If you’re going to reject me, do it quickly,” she says. “Like when you ripped off that Band-Aid after my tetanus shot last year. Just end the pain fast—”

I put my hands on her face. I cup her head.

And I kiss her.

The kiss is rough and desperate and I pour every last drop of my feelings for her into it.

I pull back slightly, searching her face to make sure she’s getting it, but she still looks confused, so I kiss her again, more slowly this time.

“Ben?” she says when I pull back.

“You recently pointed out that I haven’t had a serious girlfriend for as long as I’ve known you,” I say roughly. “Don’t you want to know why?”

She hesitates, then nods.

I gently kiss her mouth before continuing. “It’s because I fell in love with this incredible girl my freshman year. Only I didn’t know how to be in love, so I did the only thing I could to keep her close. I became her friend. I became her
best
friend, and buried all of my own feelings so deep that I didn’t even recognize them, because
her
feelings were all that mattered, and she wanted this other guy.”