I kissed her, and I prayed that she’d give us the chance that I’d let slip through my fingers.
17
Parker
The most annoying voice in the entire world filtered through my supposedly soundproof headphones, and my teeth ground so hard that I cringed.
Admittedly, he wasn’t annoying so much as he was aggravating. After he had kissed me more passionately than I ever thought possible, Remy threw down the challenge of a lifetime and refused to take it any further until I made the first move.
“When you’re ready for more, Parker, you know where to find me.” He walked away, leaving me in a melted puddle of need and desire. That was a week ago. A week of hidden glances, of him staring at my every move, and a senseless game of seeing who would break first.
He wanted me; he even told me so. But he refused to do a thing until I gave in.
Fucker.
“Sorry,” Remy practically shouted to be heard over noise-canceling hum in my ears while I glared at him. I was already dealing with the side effects of two concussions, and the only quiet I could find was with the headphones, which apparently sucked.
I definitely needed to invest in better soundproof headphones if I was going to spend any more time around him. When ignoring him didn’t work, and Remy didn’t immediately leave so I could get back to taking care of payroll, I pulled the headphones off so they weren’t blocking out all of the noise and set them on my keyboard. He stood there with his short hair rumpled, staring at me with the scruff on his face, and I had to bite my lip to keep from licking my lips.
The black-and-blue BPD sweatshirt he wore was the same one I kept trying to steal from him every time he left the house, but he kept hiding it so I couldn’t. To top it off, he was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants that did absolutely nothing to hide the bulge of his cock and left my mouth watering with what I knew they were concealing. He wasn’t even trying, and I had about three seconds, tops, until I threw myself at the man.
The groan left my lips before I could stop it, and for a second I thought he’d missed it. That is, until he swooped down and pressed a kiss against my lips and wrapped one hand around the back of my neck to keep me from leaning away from him.
We’d been playing the same game for a week. I wanted him; he knew I wanted him, but he wouldn’t make a move until I did. Literally all I got from him was a kiss strong enough to melt my panties every time we were alone. I was so close to breaking it wasn’t even funny, but I’d rather implode with sexual need than admit to him that he’d won.
I didn’t bother looking up from Remy’s dick, which I could very clearly see outlined in those gray sweats that might very well be the death of me.
“Um.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Nox and I are gonna go for a run before I take him to school.”
“Wait, what?” I wiped the corner of my mouth, not realizing that I’d been drooling. “You’re gonna do what?”
Remy’s smile spread all the way across his face as he realized what I’d been doing, and he motioned to his body. “I’m going running. Nox wants to go with me, pretty much insisted on it as soon as he got up. So we’re gonna head to the trail before I have to take him to school.”
Biting back the sting of jealousy that he’d been the one taking Nox to and from school for the last week, I nodded. “Okay. But keep an eye on him.”
Remy surprised me by squatting down in front of me so that we were face-to-face. “I would do anything to keep him safe, Parker. For both of you.” The gravity of his statement, followed by the fact that he leaned forward and kissed me right on the nose, brought me close to tears.
“Hey, Remy.” Nox whistled as he walked into the living room. “Are you ready yet?”
I choked on air when I saw that he was wearing the exact same outfit that Remy was. From the black child-sized hoodie that had ‘BPD’ emblazoned on the front, to the same gray sweatpants that Remy had on. The hero worship reflecting out of his eyes sent alarm bells ringing all the way through my body and down into my bones. And I didn’t miss that he was no longer referring to Remy as ‘Uncle Remy’ anymore.
Remy must have caught on to my anxiety because he placed one of his hands on my crossed legs and squeezed. “Don’t worry, Mom.” He winked. “Nox promised he’d take it easy on me.”
He let go, and the two of them walked out together with Daisy at Nox’s side, taking a huge piece of my heart right along with them.
In the silence left behind I stared at the dimly lit laptop screen and tried to concentrate. After being discharged from the hospital, Remy retrieved my laptop from Lucy’s. He told me that I could work, as long as I worked from home and that was it. His argument, and it was valid even if I didn’t want to believe it, was that I could do everything I needed to from home. Payroll, scheduling, and ordering were all things that could be dropped off or done electronically.
I knew that if I just pushed through, I would be able to go back to work, and I would be back in my own house. But I also knew that Nox needed me to be healthy. Not only that, but if we were staying with anyone else in our family, I wouldn’t actually get any rest. Between Linc and his chaos, Rose and the amount of attention she’d try to give us, and Jake with his newborn baby, there wasn’t really anywhere else for us to go.
Remy let me be me. He didn’t force me into conversation and didn’t interrupt the time I spent with Nox every night reading. Actually more often than not I found him sitting there listening to the stories right along with Nox.
In an extremely short period of time, he’d found a place in our routine. Going home seemed to fade a little more every day that I spent with him.
Realizing that I’d been staring at the computer without actually doing anything for over ten minutes, I shut the screen with a sigh.
Looking up, I saw the three-foot-tall photo that Remy had hanging on the living room wall. The same one I walked by multiple times a day, and remembered the life I used to have.
Danny, Linc, and Remy stood there in the middle of the photo, all wearing their dress blues and smiles on their faces. Kennedy and I stood with them, along with Casper and Cassie. My heart ached when I thought about the fact that we’d never take a photo like that again. Both Danny and Cassie were dead, and nothing would bring them back.
“Oh, Danny,” I whispered with a groan. “What am I getting myself involved in?”
The dog tags.
Eyes wide, I searched around the room frantically. We had to have brought them. Nox needed them. That’s how he talked to Danny. But in the last week, he hadn’t said a word about it. The couch shifted underneath me, and if I hadn’t already been sitting, I might have fallen down. My hands, where they still held the side of my laptop, started to tremble uncontrollably.
Adrenaline shot through my system and my heart started to flutter, tightening at the same time. Every breath I took turned ragged, and spots started to appear in my vision.
“Not again.” The whisper forced its way through a scorched throat, and my face grew hot as I concentrated on taking in enough oxygen to keep from passing out again.
In and out. In and out. Over and over until the spots receded from my vision and I was left sitting there on Remy’s couch, staring at the photo on his wall, wondering what in the fuck I was actually doing with my life.