Pushing aside the vague memories, I follow Owen across the room and pause beside his work desk, bestrewn with all kinds of wooden creations on wheels.
It’s actually really… impressive.
I clear my throat, crossing my arms. “You made all these?”
“Yep. Do you like them?” His face lights up as he reaches for a car painted red with yellow lightning bolts. “This is the Kamikaze. He’s the fastest.”
Owen makes a few zoomy sounds through his teeth, and I feel myself relaxing. Softening. “I do like them. You’re talented.”
A smile washes over his innocent face, his cheeks round and pink, his nose spattered in freckles. “Thanks. My neighbor thinks they’re dumb.”
“Your neighbor?”
“Yeah… Brody. He thinks I should be playing video games like the other kids, but I’m not any good at that.”
“I don’t care much for those either.”
I’ve never really liked video games or watching television because my mind always wanders. Mindless activities are a cesspool for unwanted flashbacks and overthinking. That’s why I work with my hands—I need to keep busy. Focused on a task.
Owen’s smile broadens. “You’re really cool, Parker. I bet you have a lot of friends.”
My body tenses, wondering how he came to that conclusion. It couldn’t possibly be my dazzling smile or charming personality. “I don’t.”
“You don’t have friends?”
“No.”
“Not one?”
“Not one.”
Bree doesn’t count. She’s just stuck with me.
Owen considers this, worrying his brows together, his tongue poking out to wet his lips. “I don’t either. Maybe… maybe we can be friends?”
This fucking kid might actually raise my cold, decrepit heart from the dead. I swallow, shifting from one foot to the other. “Yeah, okay. You can be my very first friend.”
Jesus, who am I?
It must be the cupcakes. She laced them with her happy sunshine juice.
“Cool,” Owen beams, setting down his car with an extra bounce in his step. “I think my mom wants to be your friend, too. She was watching you paint the other day.”
Yikes.
“Was she?”
“Yeah, and I heard her talking about you to her lady friend. She said she wanted to take out a second mortgage on the house just to hire you as a live-in contractor. Then she did that weird giggle she does sometimes.”
I almost laugh. “You remember all that? Those are big words.”
“Yep. I like to listen.”
Nodding, I take a quick step back and click my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Hey, wait here. I have something for you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later, I traipse back up the staircase with the container of cupcakes from Melody—minus one. I devoured it in my truck the second I hopped in, and goddamn, I have no fucking regrets.
Owen is sitting on the edge of his bedspread when I return, kicking his legs forward and back. His big chocolate eyes light up, only, he hasn’t even noticed the cupcakes yet. He’s just smiling up at me, overjoyed. “You came back.”
“Of course I did. You thought I wouldn’t?”
He shrugs, and it’s a little dagger to my chest. I wonder what this kid has been through.
“What are those?” he wonders, his attention finally landing on the treats. His irises sparkle with excitement when he makes the discovery. “Are those for me?”
“Sure.”
“Wow… thanks, Parker!”
Owen jumps off the bed and reaches for the confections, and when he takes them from me, I feel something shift. A little weight lifting. It makes me uncomfortable, unsettled even, but it also prompts me to snatch the sticky note off the top of the plastic container and stuff it into my pocket before I trudge out of the room. “I need to finish up, but I’ll see you around, okay?”
He bobs his head, his lips already dusted in peanut butter frosting. “Okay!”
Once I’m alone again, about to finish up my paint job, I reach into my back pocket and uncrumple the pink paper square, then scan the girly handwriting staring up at me:
Parker—
I have my starting points.
Now, I have my turning point.
I think you saved my life that night.
—Melody
—FOURTEEN—
This cannot be happening.
I’m standing in my kitchen, ankle-deep in water and drywall, with a caved-in ceiling and a screaming Leah.
Actually, she’s kind of squawking. Her arms are flapping, and she’s hopping up and down, shaking insulation out of her hair while her voice shrieks in a way that does not sound human. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
I just stand there numbly, staring up at the giant hole that used to be a ceiling, wondering if this is some kind of twisted metaphor for my life.
Twenty minutes later, West is beside me whistling his condolences as Leah recovers on my living room couch with an oversized blanket and leftover cupcakes.
“Leaky pipe,” my brother says, shaking his head. “Not good.”
“Not good?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Thanks, West. A startling revelation.”
He fills his cheeks with air and blows out a hard breath, planting his hands on his hips and gazing up. “My buddy, Shane, is a plumber. The best. I can probably get him out here by tomorrow.”
“Does he fix ceilings, too?”
“Doubt it, but I’ll check. You might have to call your guy for that.”
I blink. “My guy?”
“Yeah, the douchey one.”
Oh. Parker.
Fidgeting, I cross my arms and pick remnants of my ceiling off my shirt sleeve. “Maybe.”
West throws me a probing glance before wading through the two inches of water in my kitchen and bending down to the lower cabinets for pots. Then he asks casually, “You sleeping with him?”
“What?” My head jerks up, my cheeks instantly flaring red. “No!”
“So, what you mean is… not yet.”
Leah pipes up from the couch. “Don’t be a dickhole, Westley.”
“I can’t believe you asked me that,” I snap.
“Why? You guys looked like… I don’t know, like there was something.”
“Something?”
“Yeah, something. Don’t know, Mel—that’s why I asked.”
My arms tighten defiantly across my chest. “Loathing and disgust are probably what you saw.”
West straightens, seemingly considering my response, then quips, “Nope. Wasn’t that.”
“It was called: none of your business,” Leah adds, gliding off the couch and strolling over to us, licking peanut butter frosting off her fingertips and making little popping noises.
“Put the claws away, Tiger.” West gives her a blatant once-over, then shoots her a wink. “For the time being, anyway.”
“Gross.”
“Can we stop with the sexual innuendos while we’re standing in my flooded kitchen?”