“I worry about whether I’ll be enough for Erin,” Parker whispered. “You know? Fun enough. Exciting enough. What if I can’t be what she needs?”
“Parker Ellis, you’re the best man I know. You remember the winter we learned to ice-skate, and I was so in my head over it that I couldn’t figure out how to push off? Who spent a whole Saturday, just the two of us, making up ridiculous dance moves to help me? Who texts me pictures of fun billboards and mating squirrels twenty times a day? Who is always ready to celebrate someone’s birthday, or half-birthday, or quarter-birthday, anytime they need cheering up? You make every single day fun, Parker. You make regular life an adventure, and I…” Wow, I really needed to stop talking. “I think that’s enough for anyone,” I finished lamely.
“I kind of wish I was marrying you instead. Is that weird?” he asked with a nervous laugh.
I blinked up at him, batting down the hopeful idiotic butterflies that just took off en masse in my gut. “Yes. Yes, that’s weird.”
“I don’t mean like that. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I said with a sigh. And that was the problem. “Look, do you love Erin?”
“Of course I love her. I’ve always loved her.”
Right. A fact I needed to remember.
“Then I think you two will figure things out.” I picked at the label on my beer bottle. “I don’t ever mind listening. But, you know, maybe you need to talk to her about this, not me. She’s your life partner now. And she adores you. She would never want you to second-guess yourself around her.”
Parker got that affectionate look on his face that he sometimes got when thinking about Erin. “You’re right. She’s an incredible person. She wouldn’t want me to be nervous or scared. Besides, who wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their lives with one of the best women on the planet?”
I dug my fingernails into my thigh through the suit pants. “Exactly.”
“But even though Erin and I are getting married, you’ll always be my best friend. My other half. When we’re old and gray, it’s still gonna be you and me, Jules. Always. That’ll never change.”
Except it would.
He started talking about the Mexican resort they were traveling to, how he wanted to do some stand-up paddleboarding and maybe try kitesurfing. I listened with half an ear. If I let myself pay too much attention to his descriptions of a sunny paradise in which he would be golden-skinned and half-naked, I would start my ugly cry exactly twenty-four hours too soon.
“We should probably head back,” I said after the nachos were done and the server was bumping up her flirt factor a notch too high for my comfort. Not that she was flirting with me.
“Yep. You’re skiing with us in the morning, right?”
I shrugged. “I always feel like a little fat potato next to you on moguls. I just bump along and hope for the best,” I said without thinking. You would have thought I’d just kicked his puppy. Parker’s face dropped.
“What? You’re a beautiful skier. Are you kidding?”
“No, you’re a beautiful skier. I’m the guy who chucks himself at the first mogul and hopes for the best. And ever since the accident, I tend to pull to the right no matter what I do.”
It was a joke, but I should have known better. Parker still had a hang-up about the serious car accident I’d been in years ago.
“Not true. You have complete range of motion, and we both know it.”
If I did, it was thanks to him and his dogged insistence on hauling my sorry ass to physical therapy for months.
We argued about it most of the walk back to the hotel until I finally agreed to meet him at stupid early o’clock for the run. My dad never passed up a chance to ski with Parker and Rod Rokas so he could brag to all his buddies that he still had the legs to keep up with champion skiers. Even though Parker didn’t race anymore, he was still well-known on the slopes around here as one of the best, and my dad secretly preened when Parker gave Dad all the credit for introducing him to the sport.
With Parker here in Vail and Erin based out of Denver, I wasn’t sure if they’d quite worked out what their “married with kids” life was going to look like, and I’d sure as hell never asked for details on how they planned to play house, but I hated thinking about him giving up the career he loved.
When we got to the elevator bank in the hotel, he turned to me. “You’re staying with me, right?”
“Uh, no. Even if Nolan’s there, the room has two beds.” And I really needed some distance, because my ugly cry was looming closer and closer with every minute I spent thinking about Parker.
Parker clasped the back of my neck and forced me to meet his eyes. Every nerve in my body swarmed to take a hit off the feeling of that large warm hand. “I wouldn’t put it past that asshat to bring his hookups back to your place. No, you’d better come sleep with me.”
The man had no idea how his words affected me. “No, thanks. That asshat sucks dick like a pro. Wouldn’t be my first foursome.”
Parker’s hand involuntarily squeezed my neck harder, not enough to be painful but enough to know he didn’t like what I’d said. I didn’t understand why it bugged him so much when I talked about these things, but I usually didn’t push the issue, since I sure as heck didn’t want to hear about his exploits with Erin. I couldn’t say why I felt the need to push it tonight.
The elevator doors opened, and he guided me in before pushing the button for his floor. “Not negotiating this with you,” he grumbled. “You’re the best man. Consider this part of your duties. You know I can’t sleep alone when I’m anxious or upset. You’re lucky I’m not making you share the bed this time, since these beds are tiny. You can sleep in the second bed.”
I wanted to lean into his big body and take comfort in him, but that wasn’t my place. “Fine. But let me go to my room first and get my stuff so I don’t have to get it in the morning.”
“Fine.” He reached out and pressed the button for my floor before I thought to do the same. I was impressed that he remembered it.
He reminded me of his hotel room number when I got off at my floor and told me he’d leave the door propped open in case he was in the shower. That was enough to convince me to give him plenty of time to get showered and covered up before I entered the room and sprung Parker wood.
As I rounded the corner toward my hotel room, I saw my sister coming away from Erin’s room.
“Hey,” I said in surprise. “You’re up late. Everything okay?”
Hazel nodded. “Erin got kind of emotional while we were having our nightcap down in the bar earlier, and I wanted to check on her, but there’s no answer. I’m guessing she’s asleep. She’s been exhausted for weeks from the wedding planning, and I don’t think she’s been sleeping very well the last few days.”
“Is she sick?” I asked with concern. Erin’s wedding plans meant everything to her. Her dream had always been to have a big fantasy wedding on Valentine’s Day, and she and her mom had spent long hours putting it together on such short notice.
“No, I think it’s just wedding jitters.”