I smiled and told her Parker was having similar nerves. “I think if we’d stayed at the bar much longer, he would have tried to drink them away. I get it, though. I can’t imagine making a lifelong commitment like that. It makes sense they’re nervous.”
Hazel squeezed my upper arm. “You’ll find someone one day, and then it’ll be you pacing the hotel room with cold feet.”
Parker’s smiling face popped into my head. “If you say so,” I said. “I’m just glad it’s not me this weekend, how about that?”
Instead of chuckling, she frowned. “You holding up okay?”
Hazel and I were close, not just because we were siblings but because we were friends. The six of us—Erin, Hazel, Tiller, Sam, Parker, and me—had been close for years, so it wasn’t easy to hide my feelings from any of them. But, despite being Erin’s best friend, Hazel also knew the truth about my feelings for Parker. She’d seen my face when I’d learned Erin had asked Parker to homecoming just hours before I’d planned to ask Parker to be my date instead. She’d also been with me two years later at a party when we’d accidentally spotted Erin and Parker half-naked and engaged in sexual shit I really wanted to scrub from my brain. I’d been tipsy enough to burst into tears and admit everything to her. The next day, I’d tried to walk it back by blaming it on the alcohol, but she knew me too well to believe it.
My nose stung in that way that warned me not to let this conversation happen unless I wanted the ugly cry to begin immediately. “Yep! Never better. So good.”
“Liar,” she murmured, pulling me into her arms for a hug. “You’re going to get through this. I promise.”
“Yep. Not sure how, though,” I admitted into her familiar dark waves. “Being his best man was supposed to make things easier, but it’s getting harder. Pretty sure I’m going to die of a broken heart.” My voice broke, so I pressed my lips together and stopped saying anything at all. Eventually, she pulled away and wiped her own tears. She knew how torn up I was about this wedding, but she also knew that as long as Parker was straight, the best thing to help me get over my debilitating crush was to have him officially off-limits to me forever.
Besides, I wanted Parker and Erin to be happy. I did. I loved Erin. She was one of us. Like Parker, I’d been close to her for as long as I could remember. We’d been a pack. And packs stuck together even when there were obstacles to overcome.
Loving Erin while also wishing Parker would throw her over for me in some kind of fantastical grand gesture fit for a Disney princess movie was one such obstacle. And it made me feel guilty as hell.
I was a terrible person.
After attempting a reassuring smile that made Hazel’s eyes widen in alarm, I kissed her cheek. “Gonna be fine. Eventually. G’night.”
She sighed and headed down the hall as I made my way back to Nolan’s room to grab my sleeping and ski stuff. Thankfully, he wasn’t there. I grabbed my stuff and headed up to Parker’s room.
When I got there, he was already showered and dressed in a thin old T-shirt from college and a pair of pajama pants that made his ass look like something I’d pay good money to squeeze if given the chance.
“Hey, took you long enough,” he said. “Did Nolan give you a hard time?”
I wasn’t about to tell him I’d been chatting with my sister about his bride having a particularly aggressive bout of cold feet, so I just shook my head. “Nope. Apparently Nolan found a welcoming path for the evening. I’m going to hop in the shower. I feel like I still smell like Aunt Tina’s perfume. Did she hug you, too?”
It was a lame attempt at changing the subject, but it worked.
“Dude, someone needs to have a talk with that woman,” Parker griped. “When is she going to realize that the reason your mom gives her a new perfume every year is in desperate hopes she’ll stop using whatever the hell pickle juice that is. Remember when Hazel gave her a bag of free samples from the mall one time? Didn’t make a difference.”
I laughed and grabbed my sleep pants before heading into the bathroom. When I came back out, Parker was safely tucked in his bed and scrolling through his phone. His ski clothes were set out neatly on one of the tables, and he’d put two water bottles on the table between our beds. He was always thoughtful like that.
Erin was a lucky woman.
Parker put his phone on the table and stretched. I ignored his bulging biceps and adorably messy hair.
“Did I tell you what I got her as a wedding gift?” he asked with a grin.
“A ring?” I asked. Wasn’t that what a husband bought for the wedding?
He flapped a hand in the air. “That, too, of course. No, I found out that Kygo is going to be at the same resort we’re going to. He’s doing some kind of VIP concert, and I managed to get tickets. Cost me an arm and a leg, but Erin’s going to freak.”
“Holy fuck. She is going to freak. How the hell did you manage that?”
He settled back under the covers and lay on his side to face me. “I called the concierge to arrange for a few special extras. I asked him to help me think of something huge that would really impress her. He set it all up.”
Parker was a good man. I knew he wasn’t necessarily an EDM fan, but that wouldn’t have even crossed his mind when planning something wonderful for Erin.
“She’s going to love it, Parks. Good job.”
He smiled at my approval. I hated that he seemed to need it, but I was happy to give it. I knew he’d grown up with parents who were never proud of him or impressed by anything he did, so he’d always sought approval from others. As if he needed to make up for never getting it from the people who’d mattered the most.
He opened his mouth to tell me more. One of Parker’s weird, adorable quirks that he hadn’t outgrown since childhood was that when he was anxious, he couldn’t seem to fall asleep without downloading every single thought in his brain. He claimed it calmed him down. I wasn’t sure what he did all the nights he slept alone.
But it occurred to me all of a sudden that this might be the last time I got to be the person to hear his nighttime rambles, since he’d be rooming with Erin until death did them part, and the pain of that nearly took my breath away.
“Go to bed, Parker. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
My chatterbox friend closed his mouth again and nodded before shooting me a wide grin. “Just think, once all this wedding shit is over, I get a whole week of hot sex at a luxury resort in the Caribbean.”
I threw a pillow at his face. Fucker. The last thing I wanted to think about was him and Erin having a honeymoon fuckfest. And I didn’t much care for the implication he wanted the “wedding shit” over with like it was a burden rather than something to savor and appreciate.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of other things, like how well stocked my little Aster Valley cabin was for the week ahead. While Parker and Erin were enjoying the exciting—sexual—celebration of having their whole glorious life ahead of them, I would be wallowing in my wallow hole with plenty of hard liquor and ice cream, trying very hard to forget the perfect day I was going to make sure they had.
It was fine. I was fine. Their wedding day was going to be great.