Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (41 page)

His eyes flutter open and he quickly sits up, turning to face me with an uncertain look. He’s wondering if he heard right.

I laugh at his reaction and watch as his questioning look morphs into one of pure bliss. “Say it again,” he says, his eyes sparkling.

I laugh harder. “I love you,” I say once more. He pushes his lips to mine urgently, letting me know through his kiss exactly what those words have done to his soul. He’s uplifted; vindicated of everything else Fate has handed to him over the years. For just a moment, there is no sadness in him at all, and it’s a beautiful thing to experience.

“I knew you did,” he says, once he breaks away from the kiss. I playfully shove him away from me.

He lays himself down on the bed once again and pulls my body to his gently. “I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say that,” he confesses.

“I know,” I reply, placing my hand over his heart. “I had hoped that even though I wasn’t saying it, that you knew that I always did love you back. Ever since the day you told me that you wanted me with a person who deserves me, my heart was yours.
I’m
yours…and you’re mine. Nothing is going to change that anymore.”

He looks completely relieved. As though he’d been waiting to hear those exact words the entire time he’s known me.

“Not even all of this? Who I am… or who I used to be?” he asks, motioning around the room.

“Nothing will change it, Parker. Where you come from doesn’t matter to me. It never has.”

“Well, that’s good because all of this isn’t me,” he says, “not anymore. Everything you saw in there are pieces of who I used to be. And that person is long gone. Don’t fall in love with him. I promise you, he doesn’t exist anymore. I’ll never be the person whose pictures you saw on that wall again. I’ll never be the guy who won all of those trophies. That guy died a long time ago.”

“I know that,” I say. I understand what he’s telling me because I get the pain of losing yourself. I live it everyday. Keegan died when I was nine. He was my world and the only thing I had that was a constant in my life since Cecelia became our guardian. He was to me what Parker’s mom was to him. Then he was gone, and I was left with an emptiness I couldn’t fill, an ache I couldn’t move passed, and a life I no longer cared about. I get it. I’ll never be the Skylar I used to be before he died and sometimes I wonder who I would have become if he hadn’t. But that’s useless because what’s done is done, and no one can turn back the hands of time.

“So, you’re in my bed,” Parker says with a smirk, attempting to change the depressing topic, and his smile makes me eager to oblige.

He puts his hands on the small of my back and pushes in closer to me, kissing me softly. He runs one hand along the curve of my hips and then up the side of my torso, over my shoulders until his hand is resting on my neck. He runs his fingers through my hair with his other hand, taking a firm grasp of it as he continues to kiss me. I shudder with excitement. I’m suddenly reminded of why it is we are here tonight or at least the possibility of why we are here. We didn’t actually discuss it at length, after all.

“So we are,” I say with a giggle between kisses. I roll onto my back forcing him to have to get up and partially lie on top of me. He places his hand under my shirt and rests it above my belly button, tracing his thumb gently around it. I unzip my hoodie revealing my low cut tank top and the lace bra peering out of it.

“Did I tell you how much I love you?” he says with lust filled eyes. I love how much I turn him on. It makes me feel beautiful.

“Me or my bra?”

“You. But I definitely love that bra just as much.”

“Just wait till you see the matching panties that go with it,” I reply with a mischievous grin.

He throws his head back and groans loudly. “You are making my plan for us to only sleep together tonight nearly impossible,” he says.

“I knew nothing of this plan,” I say with mock seriousness. “Maybe if you had told me, I could have made sure to wear ugly underwear in order to keep you away.”

“Impossible,” he says, pushing his body even closer to mine. “You make everything you wear sexy. I can’t stay away.”

I laugh. “I bet.”

This is different for us. I want him and he wants me, but it’s like we both want to savor every second of it and there’s something beautifully sexy about that. Who would have thought that, after all of this time, Parker and I would finally get our shit together long enough to be like this with one another?

This is comfortable. This is love.

Evan

“You’re hanging around with Tris and Parker?” I ask Ellie the minute I step foot into our house and see her sitting on the couch in the living room. It’s well after midnight, and I know our mom should be getting home from work any minute but I don’t care, this conversation can’t wait.

She puts the remote control down on the coffee table and turns her whole body to face me. “I’m hanging out with my friends,” she says point-blank, with little emotion. The lack of concern in her voice irritates me. She’s not even slightly worried that I might tell our mom what I saw tonight.

“Friends,” I scoff. “Yeah, Tris used to be my friend before too. Did he ever tell you why that didn’t work out?”

She shrugs. “Something to do with Adrienne Ambrose, no doubt. Doesn’t matter, though, Tris isn’t my friend anyway. He’s Parker’s friend.”

I raise an eyebrow. “But you’re friends with Parker, though,” I accuse.

She hears the judgmental tone of my voice and sighs. “You don’t know him Evan, he’s not a bad person. He really isn’t.”

“Well, he’s not exactly a good person,” I return, moving in close and pointing to my face. “Have you taken a look at my face lately? I didn’t do this to myself, Ellie.”

She examines my bruised face and shrugs. “If Parker did that to you then you deserved it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Parker doesn’t just go around beating people up for no reason. You had to have said or done something to piss him off first.”

“He was being a dick, so I punched him.”

“There you go,” she says. “Sounds to me like you deserved it. You know he fights, right? Like for money. You’re kind of an idiot, Ev.”

He fights?

Her comment leaves me confused, although it really shouldn’t. In retrospect, it actually makes a lot of sense. Derrick said that Parker continued going to the mansion after Skylar stopped going, and he also said that people fight at the mansion. Add to that the fact that Parker has cuts and bruises on his face on a daily basis, and I’m an idiot for not putting two and two together.

Ellie knows way too much about Parker and it’s unsettling. “How well do you know this guy?” I ask suspiciously. Is she a
Misfit
? I want to ask, but a part of me isn’t ready to hear the answer, so I don’t.

“I know him well,” she replies, not catching the real reason why I’m asking. “He’s a really good friend.”

“He’s bad news, Ellie. They all are.”

She shakes her head stubbornly. “Dealing the drugs, that’s not who they are, it’s what they do. It doesn’t make them bad people, it makes them people who’ve made bad choices.”

Of course, she’d be making excuses for them.

“It’s not safe,” I return, exasperated. “They can’t escape those bad choices now. They don’t work for themselves, they work for powerful people who won’t hesitate to hurt you to get to them. Do you understand what I am saying? They could kill you.”

She lets out an exaggerated laugh.

“And this guy you’re seeing, Colt,” I continue. “He can’t keep you safe.”

“Colton,” she whispers, correcting me. I don’t bother telling her that I only called him that because it’s what Parker called him. She doesn’t need to know that this whole speech is basically coming from my conversation with him earlier.

“You can’t see him anymore,” I say instead, and the command stirs anger in her that she rarely ever shows me.

“Oh for God’s sake, Evan!” She yells, picking the remote up off of the table and launching it at me. I dodge it so that it hits the wall behind me instead, breaking into a bunch of pieces before falling to the floor.

“I’m serious,” I say, in spite of how angry she is at me right now. I should digress, but that’s not my style, especially with her. “I’m sure he cares about you, I don’t doubt it actually, but it’s not safe being with him. If he pisses off the wrong person, just once, you’ll be the one who’s going to pay for it. Why the fuck can’t you see that?” I growl.

“You’re not Mom, you can’t tell me who I can and can’t date.”

She’s impossible! I don’t know why I told Parker I’d talk to her. This is a complete waste of my time.

“I don’t want to have to tell Mom about who he is and what he does, but I will if you don’t leave me any other choice,” I threaten, and I mean it too. I won’t hesitate to tell mom if it means that she’ll stay safe.

“You don’t know him!” She screams angrily. She looks at me with fear in her eyes, silently pleading for me to understand. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Colton’s gentle, and kind, and caring. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Evan, ok? I love him.”

The pleading gaze she’s attempting to hold with me makes my heart ache for her and I quickly look to the floor. She loves him… of course she does.

I hate this. It becomes very clear to me in this moment that Parker’s making me the bad guy because
he
doesn’t want to be… as ironic as that might seem. It makes me wonder more about him, about who he really is as a person. Something tells me that only Skylar truly knows.

“You can’t stay with him,” I say.

It’s obvious that my reply isn’t exactly what she’s expecting for me to say after baring her soul because her voice becomes loud and harsh once again. “Don’t kid yourself,” she says through clenched teeth. “I’m not breaking up with him because you don’t like who he hangs around with. Stop thinking you have actual control over my life because you don’t.”

“God damn it, you’re being an idiot. Even if he does love you, he’s no good for you! It’s not safe to be with him, and I know deep down you know that!”

“I’ll take my chances,” she hisses.

I shake my head in frustration. “I never thought you’d be so stupid.”

I’ve hit a nerve.

“You want to talk about stupid?” she says, stomping toward me and giving me a hard shove. “How about getting involved with a girl who’s obviously gay.”

I stumble backward and catch myself against the wall in the hallway.

Bitch.

“Bree’s not gay,” I say defensively. Who the fuck does she think she is? She chats it up with Parker and now suddenly she knows everything there is to know about my girlfriend?

“You think that you have sex with a lesbian and she’s miraculously straight? Newsflash, brother, it doesn’t work that way.”

“I didn’t have sex with her,” I lie.

“Yeah, the grunting and panting in your room the other night was just an R-rated movie,” She returns sarcastically.

“I didn’t grunt,” I say back too quickly. It’s a trick comment to get me to admit the truth and it fucking worked!

She wrinkles her nose. “I knew you brought her here to have sex. Jeez, Ev, you really are trying to un-gay her, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t bring her here to have sex. It just happened. And she’s not gay!”

“If you say so,” she says with an uninterested shrug. I know she doesn’t believe me and it pisses me off.

“Oh my God, you’re a bitch, you know that?” I ball up my fists and attempt to hold back my anger as best as I can. I know what she’s trying to do and I’m determined not to let it work. “So, what about Skylar then?” I ask instead. I’m not ready to digress. There’s just something in me that, for whatever reason, needs to prove to her that she’s totally wrong about Bree’s sexual orientation. She’s attracted to me. I know she is.

“What about her?”

“Skylar’s into Parker. She’s with him now and I bet you don’t think she’s a lesbian.”

“Because Skylar’s not a lesbian, she's bisexual,” Ellie replies, matter-of-factly.

“What makes her bi and Bree not?” I ask, exasperated by the ridiculousness of this argument. This girl is relentless.

“You’ll see it eventually. I hate to break it to you, but even if Bree doesn’t get back with Skylar, you’ll never be what she needs.”

I take a sharp breath and look away from her so she doesn’t see the pain in my face. What she says hurts more than I will ever admit to her. She definitely knows what to say in order to kick me to the ground and make my head spin.

My relationship with Bree is rocky and uncertain enough as it is. I’m already all over the place emotionally about her continued feelings toward Skylar, and I hate that Ellie knows this and is using it against me.

I’m trying hard not to let what she says bother me but it does. I wholeheartedly hate her right now! If I was an asshole brother, I swear, I’d hit her. “You need to mind your own business,” I growl, taking a step toward her, attempting to intimidate her in some way.

She stubbornly stands her ground, knowing very well that I would never hurt her, “You need to mind yours,” she sneers.

“Fine. Whatever. You want to be with a delinquent and get yourself killed, that’s your business.” I start toward the front door.