Brothers of Paradise Series

He runs a hand through his hair and faint color creeps up his neck. “Come on.”

“You’re popular, and likeable. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I can make people like me, surface-level. What’s the big deal?”

“It’s not a skill everyone has.”

“Sure. But I don’t want a lot of people to like me surface-level.” His hand tightens around my knee, and the blue eyes get serious. “I want one person to like me on a deep level.”

My heart stutters in my chest. The quick throws of the past hour have left me drained, and open, and I feel paper thin. Life is all around me, only a heartbeat away. “Oh,” I say.

His smile curves. “Yes.”

“If this person is who I think she is…” I start.

“Jamie,” he murmurs.

I smile. “Well, if she is, then she already likes you on a deep level.”

“She does, does she?”

“Yes. She likes you so much, in fact, that she’s a little bit scared of it.”

Parker leans closer on the bench. “It scares her?”

“Well, liking people hasn’t always gone well for her, and if she were to let someone in… hypothetically speaking, of course?”

“Of course,” he says with a grin.

“Things could go south again. It’s a question of being brave enough to open herself up to it again… It’s weird to talk about yourself in the third person.”

He chuckles. “Yes, but you’re doing it very well.”

“I don’t want to live in the past,” I say. “I want to live here and now. Not being afraid, not living in my head.”

Not living with my fears.

His arm tightens around mine. “You’re well on your way to do just that,” he says. “What do you want to do now? To kickstart your new attitude? Because there’s no way we’re going back to that party.”

“Are you sure? I didn’t mean to take you away from it.”

He rolls his eyes. “Come on, I’d rather be with you any day of the week than talk to my old coach.”

“Oh,” I say, and smile. “Right.”

“I can walk you home? Emma must be home from the beach by now. How does that sound?”

I take his hand. It’s warm and large around mine, and as we walk back toward my house, I experience a warped sense of déjà vu. A glimpse into what might’ve been, what could still come to pass. My teenage self would never have believed I’d be walking hand-in-hand through Paradise with Parker.

I want to act on that feeling, and I want to chase away Lee’s text, the thoughts, the return of the Jamie I’d tried so hard to bury. That’s in the past.

This is the present… and maybe also my future.

So when we reach my street, I keep walking.

“Jamie,” Parker says. His voice is teasing. “Have you lost your sense of direction?”

“No.” I release his hand and turn, walking backwards up toward the cul-de-sac. “But your place is on the other street.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Well, I figured… what if this was our do-over on prom? Do we really want the night to end yet?”

His eyes are blank on mine. And then they narrow in understanding, a whole new kind of focus transforming the tanned face. “Oh.”

“Yes,” I say. “Oh.”

We make it into his house. The front door shuts behind us, and Parker locks it, and I mentally vow to pay my mother back in dinners and laundry for the extra babysitting she’s doing.

Parker’s hands are steady on my waist, but the mouth kissing mine is hungry. He wants me, he wants me, he wants me.

I peel off his shirt and he tosses it away, groaning when I trace my hands over his chest. I hadn’t gotten my fill in the shower the other day. I don’t think I ever will.

“Jamie,” he murmurs, reverently running his hands down my dress. I raise my hands up and he lifts it over my head.

And we’re still in his hallway.

I laugh and take his hand, breathless, pulling him toward the giant couch in his living room. But he shakes his head. “My bed,” he murmurs. “We’re doing this right, James.”

“Fancy.”

He rolls his eyes again and bends at the waist. The movement is so quick I don’t realize what he’s doing until I’m hoisted up in his arms. He carries me through the back of the house, and my smile feels like a physical thing, etched into my face. Because of course this is fun with him, too, effortless with a man who doesn’t know how else to be.

He puts me down on his bed and I stretch out on the navy sheets. His bedroom is dark and simple with wooden accents.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Parker’s smile slowly fades as he watches me on his bed.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. My body is okay. It’s nothing special, and with faint stretch marks after my pregnancy, it’s not what it was before Emma.

“I can’t really believe you’re here,” Parker says. “In my house, in my bedroom.”

“That’s what you’re thinking?”

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He reaches for the buckle of his belt. “It feels like I’ve waited a lifetime for this. For you.”

It does, I think. Like the twists and turns of life led us to this moment, a winding road that took us far away before bringing us back together again.

And he doesn’t feel like a stranger at all. Not after the shower, the make-out sessions, the kisses we’d snuck in his office. He feels like Parker, my best friend’s older brother. Parker, the man who’d become my friend and confidante since I returned. And Parker… the man who looks at me like I’m a wave he can’t wait to sail.