Everything Changes (31 page)

“You look good!” I heard
Addy
say to him. She hadn’t seen him Washougal in July. “Look at you all tan and
shit.”

I heard Parker laugh at her before they embraced
in a hug. “It’s good to see you too.”

I stayed back in the office, hanging out the side
door. He did look good dressed in loose gray cargo shorts, a black O’Neil
Racing t-shirt, and a white hat. He stood tall and lean and it was everything I
missed since I last saw him.

Dark hair spilled out around the edges of his
hat. The scruff I knew well called to me. I wanted one of those pathetic
moments from movies where I’d run to him, wrap my legs around his waist, and
kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

Ben and Joey found him soon enough, escorting him
inside the shop. Loud raucous remarks followed until I removed myself from the
office and made my way into the shop.

Our eyes found each other across the distance.
The familiar heat spread over me when I felt his burning stare. He smiled and I
smiled. That always present electricity and draw lingered, charging the air,
and suffocated me to the point where I thought I would burst if I wasn’t in his
arms.

When he reached me, he immediately drew me in
close, his head buried in my hair as we hugged. “I’ve missed you,” he spoke
softly and only to me.

“Where’s Sean?” Ben asked, stepping inside with
Justin and
Addy
, ready to get the night started.

Parker’s arm dropped from around me as he created
space between us, sensing the crowd gathering near him. One thing was certain,
Parker didn’t like attention called to him. Now wasn’t any different.

“Ask Rowan,” Joey said bitterly, spitting into
his Mountain Dew bottle. “She was with Sean last night.”

Joey was bitter that I wasn’t dating him, and his
remarks reflected that. Was I even dating Sean? Was I dating Parker?

Parker’s eyes, apprehensively guarded again,
blinked slowly, dropping from mine to the floor when he heard Sean’s name
mentioned.

Without saying anything to me, he hung his head
and walked outside to talk about Justin’s bachelor party with Kurt and Justin’s
best friend, Adam.

If Parker didn’t know about Sean, he knew now.
The worst part for me was that he seemed upset about it.

Not once did I say or allow myself to feel
anything when I logged onto the AMA website and saw him with Kayla Lucas or
another Red Bull girl, Leslie Peterson. Not once did I give him the look that
he was giving me in that moment.

“Hey guys,” Sean said, walking in with his happy
go lucky grin he usually had. “Is that Parker out there?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, wanting to lick the side of
Parker’s face like my dad’s dog always did after he got into the garbage. It
worked as an apology for the dog, maybe it would work for me. But then again
licking Parker’s face would most certainly result in something else. Shit, I
wanted that something else too. “He’s in town for the wedding.”

Part of me wished that wasn’t the case. I wanted
him in town for me and only me. I wanted him to want me to lick his lick. It
was selfish but for someone who had been spending her life hung up on him, that
was how I felt.

“Oh...” Sean put his arm around me “...well that
was nice of him.”

Sean and I made small talk for a moment before I
made an excuse to leave and find Parker.

When I found him Parker was waiting for me at my
house, sitting on the porch with his head down. Knowing I needed to get to
Olympia for Addy’s bachelorette party, I didn’t have time to tell him
everything I wanted to say and that resulted in saying nothing at all. Instead,
we ended up in my room within minutes. Thankfully, my parents weren’t home.

It was the same scenario we found ourselves in
every other time we were together.

It was a battle of dominance to get clothes off
quickly, grunting with each forceful move. His hips were frantic. Arching into
him, my body told him just how much I still wanted him.

His mouth, soft and tender, quickly gave into the
urges, his arms of steel grasping me closer. “Fuck, I miss you,” he rasped just
before his mouth found mine again.

I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. We ran
right back to where we knew, a place and a moment we were comfortable.

“Oh God, Parker!” I moaned when he found all the
same spots that he knew so well. “Don’t stop.”

I had been so wound up with everything that this
was exactly what I was craving, a familiar out.

“Never.” He grunted, flipping me over. His large
hands covered my own as I dug into the sheets. His stomach pressed to my back,
pushing me further into my mattress. “I’ll never stop. I need this too bad.”

His hands withdrew, slowly moving their way over
to my hips. His thrusts seemed dominating whereas before, he was always gentle.
“Jesus, Rowan…fuck...” his grasp tightened “...tell me I’m the only one,
please
.
Tell me you haven’t been with him.”

“You are,” I moaned before finding his lips.
“Only you Parker.”

He panted, nodding against my shoulder, the
scruff of his jaw scratching against my back. “Thank you.” He grunted, pushing
harder into me, his hips erratic and just as forceful. His hands wrapped under
and over the tops of my shoulders pulling me into him.

There, he knew I didn’t do anything with Sean. I
didn’t dare ask the same of him because it would kill me if I wasn’t his only.

September
4, 1999

Parker and I parted ways that night, and I went
about my night with the girls. I’d love to say I was the Maid of Honor I should
have been that to my best friend, but I wasn’t. Instead, I was wondering what
Parker was doing and if he was thinking of me and if Sean would say anything to
him.

At the rehearsal dinner was where the shit hit
the fan so to speak.

Noticing my frequent and just downright blatant
starring at Parker, Sean said something I thought I’d never hear either of them
say. I think it’s was Sean’s way of testing the water.

“I’m surprised you could get away with all those
women all over you.” Sean scoffed at Parker with another beer in his hand. Sean
wasn’t exactly the best drunk, but then again, neither was Parker.

He gave Sean a look of pure hatred. “Yeah, well,
that’s never been my thing.” His eyes shifted to mine. “I only have
one
girl in mind.”

I never once told Sean I still saw Parker, but
now he knew for sure. He wasn’t stupid.

Sean got defensive, his brow scowling at me and
then Parker. “I think she’s moved on,” he said, stepping towards Parker with a
new confidence.

“I don’t know about that, Sean.” Parker laughed
softly and I knew where it was going. His eyes darted to mine in warning. Then
he winked and looked back to Sean. “Why don’t you ask Rowan. She never
mentioned you while she was on my dick last night,” he said arrogantly. “Maybe
she hasn’t moved on like you think.”

My head whipped around to look at him. I’d never
heard him so crass, so bold. “Parker!” I shouted, pushing him back away from
Sean. “Stop it.”

Sean stepped forward calmly. “You’re right
Parker
…”
He paused, his brow pulled together, his jaw tight. “She never mentioned me…or
you for that matter.”

Kurt and Justin heard the commotion and came
running before a fight could break out.

“Fuck you, Sean!” Parker shouted before he
stormed out.

To risk ruining my best friend’s pre-wedding day,
I excused myself and found Parker not far from my car pacing with Kurt
near by
.

“I’ll let you two talk.” Kurt walked back inside
leaving us alone in the dark parking lot.

“Have you been with him? Were you lying to me
last night?” I knew what the questioned implied and wasn’t sure how to answer
it. Moments passed and he pressed again. “Have you?”

“No, not physically. But…”

“You’re with him when you’re not with me, aren’t
you?” His eyes pierced through the dark night. Standing in the shadows of the
building, the heavy thudding in my ears drowned out the laughter coming from inside.

Just saying that to him was suffocating. My mind
scrambled to provide some sort of justification to the words, but it wouldn’t
do anything. It wouldn’t mean anything.

His back turned and he started to walk away, his
suit jacket over his shoulder before he turned to face me again. “I don’t want
to be that guy. Goddamn it, Rowan!” he shouted, suddenly seeming angry, or at
least more angry. I flinched at his words having never been on the receiving
end of this in the few years I’d been with him. “I thought you knew. I don’t
want to be this guy holding out hope the girl he loves is waiting for him. I
don’t want to be him.”

I shivered in fear. Fear that I’d lost him
completely and I would never have what I had been waiting on. “Then don’t be
him.” I stepped towards him ready to tell him how I felt. “I…”

Parker’s hand cupped my cheek. “Do…I uh…do you
love him?” His gaze seemed to shift. That guarded side took over, and I knew my
next set of words had the possibility to break him completely. Even though
Parker had broken my heart when he left, I couldn’t and wouldn’t do the same to
him.

“No.”

Something told me it would never be quite the
same between Parker and me after this. Something told me that I had broken his
heart a little more.

CHAPTER 17

Parker O’Neil

Arm
Pump

Having arm pump is a
condition that occurs when a rider grips the handlebars too tightly and the
muscles in his forearms become so tense that it is difficult to hold on to and
work the handlebars.

July
21, 2000

Supercross was glitz and glamour with night
races, highly polished fenders, and Troy Lee painted helmets. The grit and
grime of the outdoor Motocross is what I loved because that was where I grew
up. I enjoyed the technical, grueling woods, deep ruts, and rocks cars couldn’t
maneuver through. That was me. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy Supercross,
because I did. I wanted to be the best and that was where the best riders went.

After a while though, it was losing its appeal
for me because to do this, I couldn’t have the girl I wanted. I was in love
with Rowan, and I wasn’t pleased by that.

I asked her to stay a couple months ago when I
saw her at the Bristol Nationals. She made an excuse about work and school. I
asked her to come to
Budds
Creek Nationals, but
Addy
was in labor and she couldn’t come then either.

Sometimes, knowing another guy was there when I
wasn’t, I often thought I was too late. Every time I didn’t want to give in and
call, I did. The harder I resisted, the weaker I got. I didn’t want it to be
over, so I kept calling and she kept making excuses.

I couldn’t understand why all of it, the entire
relationship that we had, was so hard. Why couldn’t we just get our shit
together?

Why couldn’t either one of us talk about our
feelings?

The problem was the weight of the words that
remained unspoken between us had been building, and now it was crushing both of
us.

I stared at myself in the mirror the morning of
the Washougal Nationals asking myself why I kept doing this. Girls were all
around me. I had options so why couldn’t I just forget about the one that I
couldn’t have or didn’t want me?

I told myself to forget her and move on but it
was Ro, my heart, that I couldn’t move on from. When I thought about any time
in my life where I was truly comfortable, it was with her. The more I tried to
move on, the harder it got and the more I called.

I tried everything from breaking my phone into
pieces to keep from calling and then taking a girl home after Red Bull
Nationals. Nothing worked and I couldn’t even kiss a girl without feeling like
my heart was going to explode.

Girls were never shy about their intentions. I
never paid any mind to them as most were only hypnotized by fame and money.

Two things I couldn’t care less about. As the
money and wins came, so did the women, but not the woman
I
wanted. No,
she was finding comfort in the arms of another man while I was gone. That
killed me to even think about it. All the women that threw themselves my
direction, none of them held an ounce of my attention the way Ro did, and not
once did I sleep with any of them. I tried, but I couldn’t seal the deal.

Since that night at my brother’s wedding, I
hadn’t seen Rowan. It was going on a year and I was starting to think I would
never see her again. She made her choice and that was that. It was over. So I
thought. It wasn’t for me. It couldn’t be.

When Washougal came around, I called again,
knowing if there was ever a chance she would come, it would be when I was in
Washington again.

She answered first ring. “Hello?”

I gasped, falling against my hotel bed. Not
saying anything for a long moment, she knew it was me. “Congratulations on the
championship.”