Page 88 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

JULIAN

I showed the repair guy where the ladder was and tried to apologize for Parker’s behavior, but it was hard to sound sorry when I couldn’t stop smiling.

If you’d asked me two weeks ago whether I was doing okay, I would have told you I was.

I had good friends, a great family, the excitement of a new job with Tiller and Mikey.

I’d told myself I was reconciled to Parker marrying Erin even though it would change our relationship forever, and I had purchased a wallowing hole where I’d naively thought I’d get over the brunt of my sadness within the span of a week.

It hadn’t been until this morning, when I’d leaped out of bed to hear my naked boyfriend yelling at the man he’d thought was another Grindr hookup, that I’d realized how close I’d come to utter disaster.

A life that didn’t have Parker Ellis in it every morning and night, making me smile, driving me crazy, grounding me in the constancy of his presence so that I could draw a deep breath… that was no kind of life at all.

Not for me.

I looked back at the house, no longer bothering to restrain my grin, while Tiny got the ladder in place.

I made a mental note to ask Parker what he thought about adding a deck area off the kitchen where we could entertain in the summer.

Or maybe he’d rather move to a new place entirely.

The wallowing hole really wasn’t built to entertain friends and family, and I knew Parker would?—

My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my sweatshirt pocket to see my sister’s face on the screen.

“Hazel?” This early on a Thursday morning, she was usually busy with important meetings at work, so I assumed a legal issue had come up she needed my help with. “What’s up?”

Hazel didn’t bother to greet me. “Has Parker heard from Erin?”

“Uh.” It took me a second to mentally shift gears. “No… at least, I don’t think so. Why?”

She hesitated. “Look, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on because her texts are all disjointed, like she’s consumed every ounce of tequila in Mexico, but from what I’ve managed to piece together, Nolan realized yesterday that fate was, like, totally calling him to go surf in Costa Rica, brah . Without Erin.”

I winced. “Oof. That sounds like Nolan, yeah. I’m pretty sure the months he spent in Colorado were the longest he’s ever stayed anywhere. Did Erin get attached?”

I loved Erin, but given what she’d done to Parker less than a week ago, I was feeling more than a little cold-blooded about her getting dumped.

“Maybe? I think it’s always been easier for Erin to do the leaving than to be the one who gets left.

But she made some new friends at the resort—you know how she can talk to literally anyone, right?

—and they were partying and having fun… until the resort manager came up and asked her how she’d like to pay for the tab Nolan had rung up before he left. ”

“He left her with his bar tab?” I shook my head. “Classy.”

“Not just a bar tab,” Hazel corrected. “He also hadn’t had any warm-weather gear with him at the wedding, so they’d bought him a whole wardrobe when they got down there and charged it to the room. Then there was the fee for the private catamaran they rented?—”

“A catamaran ?”

“Oh yeah. And some Jet Skis they returned damaged because they’d been drinking.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Fuck. Parker’s gonna lose his mind. Let’s not tell him about that part right away.”

“Well, that’s the problem, though. Erin’s freaking out right now. And when she gets like that, she doesn’t want me to help her, or her parents…”

“She wants Parker,” I said grimly.

“Right. Even when she knows he’ll be upset. Remember what happened when she got a DUI a couple of years ago?”

I did. Her parents had lost their minds and come down on her hard.

But that had been nothing compared to Parker’s reaction after he’d gone to bail her out.

After I’d been hit by a drunk driver in graduate school, Parker had gotten militant against driving under the influence.

He’d seen Erin’s action as a betrayal in many ways.

They’d fought about it so much, he’d broken up with her.

At the time, he’d sworn that was a permanent deal breaker, but then—just like always—he’d fallen right back in with her when she’d come to her senses and apologized.

At least she hadn’t been texting him last night. But then again… if she’d been texting Hazel, maybe she’d been texting Parker, too, and he just hadn’t had his phone on.

“And Jules, that’s not the worst part,” Hazel continued. “When Nolan packed up yesterday, he just stuffed his clothes into a backpack he and Erin had used on a hike the day before…”

“Oh, god. Do not tell me?—”

“That Erin’s wallet and passport are at the bottom of a backpack, which is right now somewhere between the Mexican resort and a tiny Costa Rican surf town, so that she’s stuck at a resort with no money and no way to get home?

Yeah.” Hazel sounded weary. “The thing is, I can’t even blame Nolan for all this.

I mean, he’s a total airhead, but she was right there, signing the receipts, letting it all happen.

It’s like she forgot that actions have consequences. ”

Because for Erin, they didn’t seem to. Not permanent ones, anyway.

“She’s my best friend, Jules, but I can’t figure out how to help her anymore or if I should even try.”

I waved Tiny down and apologized. “I have to take this call inside. You okay out here?”

He nodded and began to climb down. “I’m going to go get you a new fixture. This one’s not rated for this temperature.”

I thanked him and returned to my call. “Let me ask Parker if he’s heard from her,” I told Hazel. “We’ll reach out to Rod and Lorraine if not.”

“Rod and Lorraine are visiting Erin’s uncle Dave in California on a kind of post-wedding golf extravaganza.

They were my first call, but I had to leave them a message.

I didn’t want to bring you or Parker into this unless I had to…

but then I realized maybe Erin already had.

” I could hear the hesitation in her voice. “Jules?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I asked. But I knew. She was sorry that, once again, my life was going to turn on Erin’s whim. Because when Erin called, Parker answered. And when she needed him, he came running.

And Hazel didn’t know how much worse it was going to be this time, because she didn’t know that Parker and I were together now.

Parker’s selfless friendship was one of the things I loved about him. He was loyal to the people he loved. He’d drop everything to keep his friends from feeling pain. But when he dropped everything for Erin, it usually ended in a new attempt at a relationship with her.

At least, it had .

“Let me know what you find out,” she said.

I ended the call and opened the front door. Parker was in the kitchen area putting bread in the toaster. The scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the air.

I wondered if this would be the end of our time together here in Aster Valley. Would we come back here? Would this all disappear like a popped soap bubble once Parker realized Erin needed him?

I walked over and put my arms around him from behind, tucking my nose into the side of his neck to inhale the Parker scent of him.

He grabbed one of my hands and pulled it up to kiss it. “Hey. You want jam on your toast? There’s some strawberry left, but we’ll need to get more. I may have snuck eight or ten pieces of toast yesterday before you woke up.”

I moved around to grab the coffee he’d already fixed for me. “Yes, please.” After taking a sip to fortify myself, I asked him if he’d heard from Erin.

“You heard, huh?” Parker rolled his eyes as he slathered jam on the bread.

“Yeah, Erin called right after you stepped out. Nolan left with her money and her passport.” He slurped a blob of strawberry off the side of his finger and somehow managed to make it sexy.

“Not to beat a dead horse, baby, but your choice in boyfriends has improved. Like, exponentially.”

He was not wrong about that. But also…

“Nolan was never my boyfriend,” I repeated for the billionth time.

“Right. Because you loved me even then.” He pressed a quick, satisfied kiss to my lips, then shoved a piece of toast between my teeth. “Hey, you want eggs, too? I’m not that hungry after everything I ate last night, but I can make you some?—”

“No, I don’t want eggs,” I said around my mouthful of toast. “I wanna know what’s happening now. With Erin.”

“Well.” Parker shrugged, but his eyes didn’t meet mine.

He took the plate with a stack of toast over to the small table and gestured for me to sit and eat, then returned to grab his coffee.

“I told her to ask the resort people the best way to get her some cash so she can at least get to an embassy and start the process of getting her passport reissued. She’s gonna text me back when she finds out.

But other than that, I told her she’s gonna have to swallow her pride and ask her parents to help her pay the bill.

” He huffed out a laugh as he took his seat.

“I have no idea how she racked up twelve thousand dollars of charges when the trip was already paid for in advance.”

“Probably the Jet Ski,” I said without thinking.

“The what?”

So much for not telling Parker right away. I blurted out the whole story that I’d heard from Hazel and watched his green eyes darken with anger and disappointment.