Parker

Band practice isn’t doing it for me tonight. We’re jamming to “As Long As You Love Me,” and by jamming, I mean my three besties are jamming and I’m trying to hold my shit together.

I hit a sour note on my guitar, and not only do Sia, Willow, and Eloise all stop, but Chase and Sia’s brothers look up from heh-heh-heh-ing over something on one of their phones to stare at me.

“You could text him,” Willow says. “It was a really nice article. Surely the library won’t fire him just because that applehole didn’t confess to being a mean banana.” Either wedding stress has finally pushed her over the edge, or there was another crackdown on cussing at the preschool this week.

“I did text him. Yesterday. Because we’re grown-ups, and you’re right. That was a very nice article in the Times. Not that it matters, because he had already quit his job.”

“Did you text him with your phone?” Sia asks. “Because you might want to follow that up with a voice call.”

Nope.

Not a chance.

I couldn’t even bring myself to correct that last text I sent him, because let’s face it. Having a memorable phone is really all I’ve got.

Well, that and the organic muffins, donuts, and chocolate bars I brought from the Crunchy down the street on my way to Chase’s Upper East Side brownstone tonight. Sia’s basically moved in here, and he lets us take over his basement mancave for band practice. As if he doesn’t have seven other floors he could decorate with dark leather couches, big screen TVs, and posters of Sia making duck lips and kissy-faces.

I don’t want to know what else those two do down here.

But I do know I need to get back to being happy, single Parker, superstar VP of Marketing by day, rapidly-growing-obsessed audiobook listener on the subway, and occasionally socially clumsy guitar player by night.

No matter how empty and broken that damn muscle in my chest feels.

“Take it from the top?” I say.

“How about some ‘Hanging Tough’ instead?” Willow suggests.

I shake my head. “His grandmother was a huge NKOTB fan. She wrestled me for rights to Joey.” Only half of truth, but it’s at least true. The other half is that I’ve been subtly attempting to remove all the New Kids on the Block songs from our set list for this weekend. No one else seems to have realized that Sia’s brothers only stage-crash us during classic NKOTB numbers. While I love those two overgrown puckheads almost as much as I love my own brothers—some days—I’m not feeling the energy to take our practice—or our next performance—to that level.

“One Direction?” I prompt instead.

“Sissies,” one of Sia’s brothers mutters.

“You think The Rock is a sissy,” Sia retorts with an eye roll.

Her other brother grunts. Chase fist-bumps them both. On his own, Chase is reasonably intimidating, but next to Sia’s brothers, he looks like a brown-haired, chin-dimpled bunny rabbit.

But then, so does The Rock. Minus the hair and the chin dimple.

“‘MMMBop,’” Eloise declares.

Willow groans. Sia pumps a fist in the air. “Yes!”

The men all roll their eyes. I pull out my phone and search the chords, because it’s been months since we’ve “MMMBop”-ed it in public.

As a band, I mean. Sia and Chase “MMMBop” in public all the time, which I honestly sort of understand now.

We’re stumbling over the second verse when Chase walks into the basement. I hadn’t noticed him leave, but once again, my fingers trip on my guitar strings.

Because Knox is here.

With pink carnations and the set jaw of a determined man.

My belly bottoms out.

Break-up flowers. Except they can’t be, because—

I can’t finish the thought, because he’s taking my guitar, pulling me to my feet, and then— “Parker Parker Elliott, I love you.”

I gasp, but now he’s kissing me—though kissing isn’t quite the right word, because the urgent intensity in the pull of his lips and the insistent glide of his tongue and the rumble in his throat isn’t just kissing.

It’s claiming.

I whimper into his mouth, my breasts getting heavy, my chacha stirring to life, my hands exploring his body, imprinting this memory on my fingertips forever, and—

And he’s gone.

Dangling in the air, wild-eyed, twisting and thrashing in Sia’s brothers’ grip. “What the fuck?”

“This guy bothering you?” Thing One growls.

“Don’t touch nice girl,” Thing Two adds.

I’m hot and cold, terrified and lustified, and once again, Sia’s brothers are being just as big of a pain in the ass as my own would be.

“Put him down,” I order. Because I can’t kiss him or talk to him or just look at him when he’s dangling like that.

Sia’s shrieking with laughter. Which was not what she was doing when the twin oafs pulled this move on Chase a couple months back. Then again, we’re in no danger of anyone being tossed four stories out a window this time.

I make eye contact with Zeus, who I can only identify because he was the one who used a multi-syllable word. “Don’t make me pull out the spiders.”

One-half of Knox’s body tilts toward the ground as Zeus drops his arm.

I poke the other twin on his rock-hard bicep and bend a nail back. Dammit. “Down. Or we will never play ‘The Right Stuff’ again.”

He whimpers and drops Knox, who lands gracefully despite the What the fuck? look still lingering on his handsome face.

“Congratulations.” Sia slaps my no-longer-fake-fiancé on the back. “You’ve just been Brute Forced. Welcome to the family.”

I stutter, but it gets caught in my throat, because yes, I want Knox in my family.

I just don’t know if he really wants me.

Her brothers grunt and fist bump each other, which I swear causes some kind of miniature air-earthquake, and then Zeus whips out a marker and takes aim at Knox’s forehead.

“No signing!” I shriek. “Put that thing away!”

But Knox is two steps ahead of me, executing some jungle dodging moves that I’m pretty sure even Rhett would be impressed with.

“Out.” I point to the door to the stairwell.

None of my friends move.

“Out,” I growl.

Eloise stands first. She elbows me on her way out. “Bang him like a drum.”

Willow follows quickly. Sia grabs Chase and tugs him to the door. “This is my house,” he says.

“Shut up and give the lovebirds some privacy.”

Sia’s brothers are still eyeballing Knox like they’re contemplating the world’s biggest noogie. I point harder at the door. “Spiders. No more NKOTB. Got it?”

Zeus scowls. “Evil short one.”

Ares hangs his head with a defeated sigh.

They both head toward the stairs, and I have this odd wish that my brothers were here too.

Because I don’t know if that was a thank you kiss or a true I love you kiss or a—

The door to the stairs shuts behind the twins and Knox pounces, stroking my cheek, the gold flecks in his olive eyes ablaze with an intensity that makes my core clench.

“I love you,” he repeats.

I suck in air, my chest squeezes, and a wash of heat starts in my core.

In my entire life, no man has ever told me he loved me. Not even Randy when we got married. And no man has ever looked at me with the kind of conviction radiating out of Knox.

“Parker, you’re under my skin. You’re in my bones. You’re here.” He touches his chest over his heart. “No one—no one—has ever gotten me the way you do. I want you to push me. I want you to make me a better man. I want to find a job closer to you, see you every day, wake up in the same apartment, eat tacos with you, take care of you, watch you take care of yourself, watch you bloom, be there with you for everything.”

A dam bursts in my heart and all the hope and love and need I’ve tried to hide for all these years bursts out and swells hot and fast through my chest. “You—”

“I love you. I want you. I love your smile. I love your heart. I love your strength. I love your crazy phone and your guitar and all those sexy noises you make when we’re in bed, and I don’t want to let you go. Ever. I don’t give two fucks about our deal. I care about you.”

There’s something hot and wet clogging my throat, but it’s not fear, it’s not heartbreak, and it’s not bottomless desperation.

It’s hope. And possibly joy. And definitely love.

His fingers brush my ear, stroke my hair, his body presses against mine as he drops his head to my shoulder and holds me. “Everything in my life has always come easy. Friends, school, work—I’ve never had to fight for a damn thing. I’ve never had to be brave. I’ve never had to be strong. I’ve never had to struggle. And I always took it for granted. But you—Christ, Parker, you are the strongest, bravest, most inspiring woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I love you, and I don’t know if I deserve you, but I swear to you, I will show you every single day for the rest of my life just how precious and perfect and loved you are.”

I can’t form words. They just won’t come.

Instead, I kiss him. I kiss him like he’s my sun, moon, and stars, because he is.

His hands are all over me, on my breasts, my ribs, my ass, firing my nerve endings through my thin cotton tank and jeans. I paw at his T-shirt and rub my hands up his hard, solid chest while he devours my mouth and I match him stroke for stroke with my tongue.

When I snap the button on his jeans, he wrenches out of the kiss with a groan to take my face in his hands. “You’ll keep me?” he pants.

His hair’s sticking up at odd angles, that perfect hard ridge pressing into my belly, but his eyes—oh, his eyes.

Desperate and hopeful and searching, like I’m his sun, moon, and stars. As if all his light depends on having me by his side.

“Yes.”

His mouth crushes mine again, hard and needy, and then I’m on my back on the couch, and we’re pulling my jeans off, and then his mouth—ohmygod, that talented mouth—and his fingers—ooh, that’s new, and yes yes yes more more more—and my hooha’s throbbing and my nipples ache and I’m coiled so hard and tight deep in my core that every stroke of his tongue in my pussy and flick against my clit lifts me higher and higher until I’m coming all over the place, and he’s telling me I’m beautiful and sexy and fucking irresistible, and then he’s sliding into me with all of his long, hard, thick length, mine, filling me and stretching me and thrusting and rocking my already over-sensitive lady bits, and oh holy fuck I’m coming again, clenching hard and fast, over and over, while he groans out his own release, and I don’t want this to end because this—the two of us, together—is so much more than everything I thought I could ever hope for.

He collapses on top of me. We’re both straining for air, and I want to hold him so tight he can never move again, except my arms are like wet noodles and it’s all I can do to fling one around his back.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Fuck, Parker, I love you so much.”

We lay there, panting for another minute, his weight solid and comforting, his hot breath tickling my skin. And slowly, he starts to chuckle.

The vibrations light up my hooha, that lusty wench. I run my fingers through his thick hair. “What?”

“We need to go ring shopping.”

My belly flips inside out, and tears sting my eyes.

“No rush.” He kisses my shoulder. “But I’m going to marry you, Parker Parker Elliott. One day, I’m going to marry you.”

“We should probably go apartment shopping too. Your bed won’t fit in mine, and you know I don’t share.”

Oh, fuck.

I just said that out loud, didn’t I?

But he’s laughing again, and I can’t help smiling.

I think this man understands me.

For that alone, I could love him forever.

In fact, I think I will.