by M L Sparrow
Confused, Chloe glanced over at Riley to see that her face had fallen, a barrier coming down over her eyes. “Thanks,” she replied, with a smile that didn’t quite stretch as far as it usually did, “it was nice seeing you, maybe I’ll see you around campus.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he echoed, brows drawing together in a slightly crestfallen expression. Chloe felt kind of sorry for him as he watched Riley walk away; he looked like a kicked puppy.
Parker’s hand clasped in hers, she followed her friend towards the kitchen, hearing the guy who’d spilled his drink say, “That was Riley Murphy? No way! She’s like famous, why the would she be here?”
In the kitchen, Chloe watched Riley closely as she threw alcohol into a red cup, but it was pointless, because her happy-go-lucky mask was firmly back in place.
Having danced the night away, they returned to their rooms in the bleary pre-dawn. As she’d predicted, Riley did indeed need Parker to help drag her home as she stumbled over her own two feet, weaving across the path. They’d met up with Joey at the party, but he’d disappeared at the end of the night, evading his duty to get his drunk girlfriend home safe. Already, Riley had puked-up on the pavement and in somebody’s bushes, and she was beginning to turn green once more.
“Just hold it in until we get to the bathroom,” Chloe said, stabbing at the correct elevator button and watching the door slide shut with an unhealthy rasp. She hoped it didn’t break down again with them inside.
Luckily, the doors reopened on the sixth floor and she hurried ahead to open the door. As soon as she got in, Riley bolted for the bathroom.
Shaking her head, Chloe commented, “You’d think she’d learn.”
Coming inside, Parker sat down on her bed and kicked off his shoes, “I don’t think she cares.”
Stepping out of her heels, she padded gingerly across the room on sore feet and got out a pair of pyjamas, which she took into Riley before going to sit next to Parker on the bed. Exhausted, she yawned and leant her head against his shoulder as her eyelids slid shut of their own accord. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he lay back and brought her down with him so that her head was nestled upon his chest.
“I should get changed,” she murmured drowsily, even as she snuggled closer to him, unwilling to get up.
Grunting noncommittally, he turned his head to kiss her forehead, his breath rustling her hair. When his breathing turned deep and heavy, she tilted her head back to see his face and found he was asleep, his eyes flickering behind their lids. Reaching up, she stroked the stubble growing on his chin and cheeks, traced the arch of his nose and pushed strands of unruly blond hair off his forehead.
Wasn’t it weird to sleep with her boyfriend, when her roommate would be sleeping only a few feet away?
Yawning again, she lay her head back down, sliding one hand beneath his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin. Vaguely, she heard Riley coming out of the bathroom and getting into bed, the mattress creaking beneath her.
“You okay?” she managed to mumbled, the words coming out muffled against Parker’s chest.
“Yeah.”
“‘Kay. Na-night.”
It smelt like disinfectant and there was an annoying, persistent beeping coming from somewhere nearby. Her limbs felt unbearably heavy and there was a persistent ache in her head. For a moment, she panicked because her eyes wouldn’t open, but then a slice of light appeared, getting bigger and bigger as her eyelids lifted.
As her vision cleared, the room came into focus. She was in a hospital bed, she thought groggily. In a chair pulled up to the bed, her dad was slumped over, snoring softly.
What was going on? Why was she here? Her mind was muddled and she couldn’t seem to figure out the last thing she remembered doing.
“Dad,” the word was a thin rasp that slithered out between her dry lips. He stirred, but didn’t wake. Stretching out her hand, she winced at the feeling of something sharp digging into her forearm and glanced down to see a catheter poking out of her pale skin. With a strange sense of detachment, her other hand reached over to prod at it, before pulling off the tape which held it on place.
“Don’t pull it out.” A hand shot out to cover hers, big and warm, with dark hairs on the backs of the knuckles.
“Dad,” she rasped, looking up at him.
“I’m here, baby,” his deep voice broke at the end and tears welled in his eyes, trickling down his plump cheeks. Standing up, he wrapped his arms carefully around her, enfolding her in his familiar embrace. “I thought I’d lost you too.”
“Water.” That single word felt like sandpaper, scraping her throat raw.
“Of course, of course.” Pulling back, he wiped at the wetness on his cheeks, fumbling around for the jug on the nightstand.
A second later something cold touched her lips and she forced her jaw to open so that he could slip the ice chips into her mouth. They melted on her tongue, blissfully cold and wet.
Once she could speak, she asked, “What happened?”
Again her dad’s eyes watered and he swallowed tightly, his lips pressing together for long minutes before he could answer, “You were in a car crash.”
“A car crash?”
“Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head, but it sent pain streaking through her brain from temple to temple, sharp and sudden like a bolt of lightning. Instantly, nausea rolled over her, the taste of vomit filling her mouth.
A cardboard bowl appeared in front of her, just in time.
When she was finished, she slumped back against the pillow, totally depleted. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on breathing in and out. Aware of her dad disposing of the bowl and then coming around to the other side of the bed, she opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to watch him, as he picked something off the bed and clicked a button.
“I’ve called a nurse,” he told her, reaching down to take hold of her hand once more, as if he couldn’t bear to let go for too long.
“Are Mum and Jack here?” she whispered tiredly, her whole body aching. The car crash must have been bad, she realized. She hoped no one else had been seriously hurt.
More tears filled his eyes and when he spoke his voice was choked, “Mum went home to shower.”
“Jack?” she repeated. Her heart started to pound, something niggled at the back of her mind, something bad. Fear made her throat tight and suddenly she couldn’t drag in enough air.
A nurse appeared, a big blonde woman with a bright smile. “So you’re awake, are you? It’s about time.”
“Dad, where’s Jack?”
His entire face crumpled as he stepped back, away from the bed so that the nurse could get to all the machines surrounding her.
“Dad…” she pleaded, a sob catching in her throat. She needed to know, but she couldn’t bear for him to say it.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, one hand coming up to cover his eyes, “baby, I’m sorry.”
Everything inside her went numb, her entire body just shut down. She felt the scorching tears that were running down her face, but the emotions that went with them were absent, as if her mind had turned off in order to protect itself. It was only later, when she was alone, that reality truly set in, along with the horrific memories that made her scream in the night.
Chapter Fourteen
Chloe’s dreams continued night after night; sometimes they were proper, screaming nightmares that had them both jolting awake, sometimes she just cried softly against his chest as he held her, unable to comfort her, and other times he wondered whether she slept at all since he woke early for practice only to find her already showered and dressed, head bent over either her laptop, or a book.
As a result, they were both exhausted. She kept suggesting that he sleep in his own bed, get a good night’s rest so that he’d be refreshed for practice in the mornings, but Parker couldn’t bear to do it, not when he knew the pain she’d be reliving all alone.
“You should go see a shrink,” he suggested one morning
over breakfast, after a particularly bad night, looking at her tired face with dark bags under her bloodshot eyes. The mirror had told him that he didn’t look much better.
“I did after the crash.” He knew that tone, it meant that she didn’t want to discuss something, but neither of them could carry on this way, not for much longer.
“Maybe you should go again.”
“It won’t help.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her palm slapped down on the top of the table and he jerked his head up from his food. Several people near them turned to look, but he wasn’t paying them any attention. Putting down his fork, he leant forward with his forearms braced on the table as she did the same.
Tiredness made her tetchy and it showed in the hiss of her voice, “I do know. All it’ll do is dredge up memories that make everything worse. Why would I want to spill all my secrets to some shmuck who doesn’t know a thing about me?”
“I get that, but what else do you suggest?”
For a long moment her angry eyes held his, but then the rage slipped away and her lips pressed together in the tell-tale sign that she was trying not to cry. Shit, now he felt like an asshole.
Reaching across the table, he grabbed her hand, “Don’t worry, sugar, we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, blinking rapidly as she stared at their hands, his skin dark in comparison to hers.
“Don’t worry about it, you’re just tired.”
“You’re tired too, but you’re not being a cranky jerk,” she grumbled, running the index finger of her free hand over his knuckles, her frown creating a small, adorable dip between her brows.
Shrugging, he stated, “You’re cranky when you don’t get sleep, I’m cranky when I don’t get sex.”
Looking up at him, her eyes wicked, she commented wryly, “At least that’s one department we don’t need to worry about.” And it sure as hell wasn’t.
He couldn’t get enough of her and, if the way she’d jumped him last night was any clue, the feeling was mutual. He’d never had such an enthusiastic partner; she wasn’t content to just lay back and let him do all the work, every step of the way she was right there with him, thrusting her hips, arching her back, sinking her nails into his shoulders. Not to mention she was intent on learning how to please him… and she did, without even trying.
They fit just right; her hand in his, her long legs wrapped around his waist, his cock inside her. If only they could sleep through the night together everything would be perfect.
Next Saturday, he had an away game, which meant he’d be spending the night at a hotel two states over in Mississippi. At least that meant he’d get a good night’s sleep.
Shoveling the last of his scrambled eggs into his mouth, he stood up and held out his hand, pulling her up beside him. “Come on, I’ll walk you to class.”
“I know where my classroom is by now,” she protested, even as she linked her arm through his and started walking.
Saturday, Parker went to hang out with Dawson and the rest of the team at Jenkins’ in the evening, while Chloe went shopping with Riley – he hoped she found him something in the lingerie department, preferably something red because he loved the color against her pale skin. Crap, now he was hard, sitting in a bar surrounded by guys. That did not look good.
“Wanna play pool?” someone asked and he shifted uncomfortably, surreptitiously trying to adjust his jeans so that the zipper wasn’t digging into him.
“I’ll join you in a bit.”
Once the others were gone, Dawson slid into the booth next to him, a smug grin on his face. “Looking a little uncomfortable there, mate.”
“Fuck off.”
Throwing back his head, Dawson laughed, leaning forward with his arms braced on the table. Even when blind-drunk he had a sort of attentiveness to him, as if he were constantly listening, which Parker guessed was a good thing since he wanted to become a lawyer.
“So, going well is it? I gotta say, I like her. She’s way better than Karla.”
“Yeah, it’s good.”
Tilting his head slightly to one side, Dawson’s brows pulled into a frown. “What’s up?”
“Nothing we can’t figure out.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough, if you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Come on guys,” Mark, their offensive guard, came up behind them.
Impatient assholes. Parker shook his head slightly, grabbed his beer off the table and followed Dawson out of the booth and over to the crowded pool table.
They played for a while and about halfway through their second game Trent appeared, one arm around his girl, who Parker now knew to be called Lara. The team called out drunken greetings and slapped him on the back in welcome, trying to convince him to join their game, but he just shook his head, glancing happily down at his girlfriend.
“Nah, guys, we’re off. Just wanted to say hi, before we went.”
“Aahhh, come on!” several of the guys groaned.
“Pussy-whipped,” someone else called out. Parker would lay money on it being Luis; clearly he hadn’t learned his lesson about smarting off to guys bigger than him. Luckily, Trent took it better than he had though, just shaking his head and laughing.
“Whatever,” he grinned in that easy way of his – Parker often thought he was far too laidback to be on the football team, but no one could deny he was a damn good lineman – “hanging with my girl trumps you guys every time.”
Load protests followed, much to the amusement of Trent’s girlfriend, who patted him on the chest and said, “Go on, have a game with them. I’ll go chat with Maisie and Becky for a bit.”
Watching as Lara walked towards the bar, Trent turned back to them after a moment, hands now shoved deep into his pockets, looking awkward. Undeniably, Trent was part of the team, he’d helped carry them towards their last few wins, but he never really hung out with them. Luckily, everyone else was too drunk to notice his unease and he quickly got pulled into their next game. Turned out he was a pretty good at pool, Parker needed to remember not to bet against him.
Catching the other guy looking toward the bar, Parker followed his line of sight and found him watching Lara. Unsurprising. Did he look at Chloe like that? The very thought made his heart beat faster. By now he was pretty sure that he loved her. It had snuck up on him all of a sudden; at first he’d merely liked her, he’d thought she was funny and sexy and he’d thought that he could love her in the future and then that day had come, sooner than he expected and he’d woken up one morning with her beside him and wondered what he’d do if she wasn’t there the next day. He couldn’t think of an answer and it terrified him.
So yeah, he was pretty sure he loved her.
Hand shaking slightly from the intensity of that thought, he lifted his beer bottle to his lips and took a long swig, draining it, before going to get another one.
Soon after that, Trent left and they got bored of pool, deciding to move onto darts, which made him laugh so much that his stomach ached since by that time most of the team were three sheets to the wind and couldn’t aim worth a damn. Jenkins’ bar earned itself a few more holes in the wall around the dart board. They got chucked out not long after that and, as he walked out onto the street, he was surprised to find how dark it was. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, his checked the time. It was almost two in the morning.
Shit, that meant Chloe would already be asleep, unless Riley had talked her into going to a party. The thought made him scowl; he didn’t like her going to parties without him. Not because he was a possessive, asshole boyfriend, but because he liked to know she was safe… and maybe he was a little possessive.
Leaving the others to weave along the street, supposedly heading to their own rooms, he turned towards his dorm building, the cool night air clearing the haze of alcohol. He hadn’t drunk that much tonight, just enough to feel slightly fuzzy and to find his friends antics funny as he listened to them singing loud, rude songs as they wal
ked away. For some reason, he no longer found the fun in getting wasted.
Reaching his room, he fumbled with his keys, having to focus on getting the key into the hole. Inside, he found Jet sitting up on his laptop.
“All right,” he greeted, nodding at his friend.
“Sshh,” Jet hissed back, jerking his head toward Parker’s bed.
Dragging his gaze over to the bed, he frowned to see Chloe curled up on top of the covers, cuddling his pillow and with an open book beside her.
“She came to wait for you,” Jet informed him, standing up and shutting his laptop. Sliding the slim silver device into his rucksack, he then hung it over his shoulder and jammed his feet into a pair of trainers. Heading towards the door, Jet grinned at him as he passed, “I’ll go finish this in the library.”
Grinning back, Parker slapped him on the back. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, well, don’t go making a habit out of it.”
Jet left and the door shut quietly behind him, as Parker stood there staring at Chloe’s curled up body: legs tucked into her chest, one arm cradling her head, all that thick brown hair fanned out around her, lashes dark against her pale cheeks and lips open as she breathed heavily, like she always did in sleep.
Going over to kneel beside the bed, he reached out a hand to trace a finger over her cheekbones and delicate nose. Leaning forward, he kissed her lips, making her stir slightly. He shouldn’t wake her, not when she was sleeping peacefully, but he couldn’t help himself. He was a selfish bastard.
“Hey, sugar,” he murmured as her eyes fluttered open, watching him blearily before she blinked and the sleep cleared away.
“Hi,” she returned huskily, with a small, sleepy smile.
Kissing her again, he swiped his tongue over her lower lip before pressing inside, turning his head for a better angle. Her hand slid into his hair, pulling as she moaned into his mouth, her tongue lapping eagerly at his.
When they drew apart, both breathing heavily, she panted, “You taste like beer.”
“I’ll brush my teeth,” he said quickly, going to stand up only to have her pull him back down again by the front of his shirt.
