Vintage Volume One (13 page)

I knew if I reached out, if I spoke, if I indicated for even a second that I wanted his attention, my dad would focus on me.

But I didn’t want to have to do that.

I wanted the attention without having to ask for it.

So I stared out the window, lost in thought about everything my dad had revealed to me.

It was odd how little I felt. Maybe the door to feelings had been closed where Damien was concerned.

Maybe I was okay with that.

I’d already mourned the loss of Damien.

I wanted to feel angry, and a part of me felt betrayed. But it was hard to drum up feelings of anger over the pain that was a year old. If I’d never met Parker, surely I’d feel differently. But I had met Parker, and I was fine.

It was
because
of Parker that I was fine.

It was a strange feeling to rely so much on someone I knew so little about, but there it was.

George pulled into the Vintage lot.

“You okay?” My dad set his phone down long enough to say goodbye.

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Can we meet sometime in the next couple of days to go over the schedule?”

“Of course. I’ll have Rebecca email you everything you need.”

“Thanks, Pops.”

He grinned. He hated it when I called him that—said it made him feel like an old man—so of course I did it even more often just to be spiteful.

“George and I are going to follow you home just to make sure you’re safe. Okay?”

I shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”

“Nope.”

“See you at my place, then.”

I got out of the Tahoe and into my Porsche. As much as I would never admit it to my dad, I really did feel safer knowing he was behind me, making sure I got home safely. It felt good to know that the car following me was my dad’s instead of someone unknown.

When I pulled into my usual spot, I saw Parker’s old Jimmy a few spaces over. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, his face lit by his cell phone.

Oh God. This was awkward.

I wasn’t ready to introduce my dad and Parker just yet, but it looked like I didn’t have much of a choice.

I got out of my car. The Tahoe was double parked in the middle of the street. My dad opened his back door and stepped out to give me a hug.

“Thanks for telling me the truth,” I said, clinging to him. His arms were always warm comfort. No matter what. While he sometimes did things that pissed me off, and while he’d kept the truth from me about Damien, he was my dad and I loved him.

“Love you, CC,” he said. He got in the Tahoe and waited for me to approach my building, but instead I headed toward the Jimmy and knocked on Parker’s window.

He jumped a little in surprise at my knock. When he saw me, he tossed his phone on the passenger seat and smiled.

He opened his door. “Hey, Jimi.” He stepped out and pulled me into his arms, planting a kiss on my lips. Clearly he hadn’t noticed the Tahoe. “I’m sorry about earlier.” He leaned his forehead to mine, and I pulled back from him.

“You want to meet my dad?”

“Sure, babe. Whenever you’re ready. We can go to dinner or something.”

“How ‘bout now?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Now?”

I nodded toward the Tahoe.

“Oh. Now’s fine, then. I guess.”

I giggled. Parker James was flustered. If there was one thing I didn’t expect, it was to see him flustered over something as simple as meeting my dad.

But, then, my dad tended to be an imposing guy. He was a rock star, for God’s sake. He was intimidating just because of who he was, not to mention the fact that he was my father.

Meeting parents was never easy, but if Parker stood any chance of being a permanent fixture in my life, he’d have to meet my dad at some point.

My mother, too, I supposed, but I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen her.

We walked over to the Tahoe. My dad rolled down his window.

I wasn’t prepared for this in any way.

“This is Parker,” I said to my dad. “Parker, this is my dad.”

My dad nodded. “Gideon Price. You can call me Mr. Price.”

I laughed nervously.

“Don’t fuck around with her, kid,” my dad said. He had a hard edge to his voice that served as a warning, and I didn’t doubt that he’d fuck shit up if he got wind that Parker mistreated me in any way.

He rolled up the window and the Tahoe pulled away.

Parker looked mildly surprised, but not shocked. I, on the other hand, was a little shocked and more than a little embarrassed. I understood that my dad wanted to protect me, but he was straight up rude to Parker.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, pulling my key out of my purse as I walked toward the front door to my complex.

Parker was quiet behind me. There wasn’t really much to say. That had gone far worse than I’d expected in the twelve seconds I’d had to process the fact that Parker was going to meet my father. 

We walked through the front doors of my building. “He’s usually not quite that big of an asshole.” I pulled open the door to the stairs, opting for the exercise. Besides, the elevator would have been torture after that encounter. Enclosed in a tiny space? It would have been beyond awkward trying to avoid eye contact.

We walked in silence.

I unlocked my door and pulled it open, locking it behind us once we were inside.

“Want a drink?” I asked.

Parker headed toward the kitchen and helped himself while I stepped out of my shoes. Apparently we were at the stage where he was comfortable enough to dig through my fridge. He pulled out a beer I’d stocked especially for him. “What would you like?”

“I’ve got an open bottle of wine. I’ll get it.”

Parker settled into my couch, kicking off his shoes and setting his feet on my coffee table. I joined him with my glass of wine a minute later.

“Talk.” My voice was firm. I didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness that had fallen between us earlier. I wanted to move forward, and he said he wanted to talk.

He sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about why you look like you haven’t slept in three weeks?”

“I haven’t.” He chugged down half his beer.

“Why not?”

“Between writing, missing you, and working with our manager to set up a last minute tour, I feel like I haven’t had a minute to breathe.”

“You’re here with me, Parker. Take a breath.”

“But even here I’m out of my element, Jimi. I hate talking. I hate feelings. I hate being away from you. I’m not used to this shit.”

“What shit?”

He chugged down the other half of his beer and stood up, heading to the kitchen for another one before answering. “Caring about someone other than myself.”

“Sorry for fucking up your life.” I did my best to keep the sarcasm out of my tone, but I failed miserably.

“Stop. It’s not like that, and you know it. I’m not being fair to you. We’ve hardly seen each other, hardly even given this a chance. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think we both want to give this a chance. Yes?”

I nodded.

“Nods are good. Better than shrugs.”

I smiled. “This is new for both of us, Parker. But I have some things I need to talk to you about, too.”

He looked at me curiously. “So who talks first?”

I shrugged.

“And there’s the girl I know.”

“Shut up.”

“You first, then.”

“I’m going out of town for a few weeks.”

He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “I am, too.”

“So let’s sort this out when we both get back. Let’s just have some fun tonight and stop with all the serious talk. I get it, Parker. You’re stressed. You’ve got a shitload on your plate. You’re a musician. I know what that entails, and I’m not going to sit here and hold you back from your dreams. So maybe we need to just put this on hold for a minute and resume when we both get back.”

I really wasn’t sure where that speech had come from. I didn’t want to put things on hold with Parker, but I’d found out an overwhelming amount of information that night that I wasn’t prepared to deal with. The words had spilled out of me unfiltered.

I needed some time, and going with my dad would give me that. It would allow me to push everything out of my mind for a while. It would give me time to put Damien truly in my past so that I could look ahead to my future—hopefully a future that included the man fidgeting on the couch next to me.

“You want a break? From us?”

“No, I don’t.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. It was hard to tell the person who you wanted to spend all of your time with that maybe we were better off without each other for a while. “But it might be healthy for us, Parker. It’ll give us time to figure out what this is. I don’t know about you, but my feelings for you are intense. Strong. Undeniable. Scary as fuck. And then my dad filled me in on some shit tonight that I need to deal with.”

“Jimi,” he said softly, his fingers lacing through mine, “I don’t want a break.”

“I don’t, either, but our lives are going to pull us away from each other for a little bit, and maybe we need to just let it happen. When you’re back, when I’m back, we can reevaluate.”

“I guarantee I’ll be in the exact same place where I am now.”

I finally glanced over at him, and our eyes locked. His eyes flashed with a hundred different emotions.

“I will be, too.” I sighed. “So it’s not an official break. It’s a temporary pause. We’ll find our way back.”

He leaned over to me, his lips finding my neck. “Maybe I can find a way to convince you that it’s not even a pause.”

The scruff on his chin scratched my sensitive flesh. His lips trailed from my neck up my throat, up my chin, and landed on my lips.

Our mouths opened to each other, his tongue darting against mine with aggression and intensity. I felt everything inside of me tighten with desire. Tingles zipped up my spine. Butterflies soared in my belly and up into my chest. His kiss held intensity and passion.

His hand danced slowly up my torso, landing on my breast. A quiet groan emanated up from his chest when my hand advanced toward the rock solid erection confined in his jeans.

He leaned up over me and shifted us so that I was positioned beneath him. The two other times we’d had sex hadn’t been quite so intimate. Kissing him while I was under him gave me a completely different feeling from kissing him any other way.

I felt cherished beneath him. I felt like he cared for me, like he wanted more with me than a good time. I knew he did, but his actions spoke volumes. And when he kissed me that way, as his body thrust toward mine even though we were both fully clothed, that was when I felt the honesty in what we were doing.

This was more than a good time. This was more than a couple of nights. This was more than feeling good.

This was real emotions, intense and powerful and undeniable.

He backed off of me and pushed off his pants. He tore his shirt over his head. I shimmied out of my own clothes from my position on the couch, and when I looked up and saw Parker James standing in front of me, fastening on a condom, I realized that it was the first time I’d seen his naked body in the flesh in front of me.

I’d dreamt about it, though. And he looked exactly as delicious as I’d imagined in my wildest fantasies that attacked my subconscious in the middle of the night.

He was gorgeous. He was perfect in every way.

And, at least for the time being, he was mine.

He made his way over to me. My eyes were glued to the snake that wound its way around his torso. It struck me that we had the same image tattooed on our bodies. The only difference was that his was on his front, and mine was on my back. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me.

Snakes were symbolic for many things. In many cultures, they represented healing. Rebirth. Life.

Snakes also meant evil. Many religions saw the serpent as a representation of the devil.

I wondered which symbol Parker was going for.

I read the words that he’d permanently etched onto his skin. I didn’t have much time because he pounced on top of me, but I’d read enough to make out the lyrics in the chorus of Flashing Light’s “Trial and Error.”

It was one of the songs that had made me feel again after a year of numbness when Damien had left me.

I’d selfishly only considered myself for so long that as Parker pushed into me, I couldn’t help but think about what he’d gone through that had prompted him to write such an intense song that clearly held meaning to him.

I can’t keep trying

You’re killing me slowly

I can’t keep dying

But I’m dying for you

You told me I’m a sucker

Just a crazy motherfucker

I’m done with this life

You’re handing me the knife

We tried, we tried, we tried