Chasm groans, slapping his hand over his face.
“Your honesty is so annoying sometimes. Ease him in, you idiot.”
Parrish looks over at Chasm and then over at Maxx and then … down at me.
“How many times?” he manages to grate out, but his voice is a honed blade, deadly and sharp.
“Technically once,” I start, maintaining eye contact. “And then he fingered me after …”
“Fuck.” Parrish shoves up from the bed and starts to pace. He runs his fingers through his hair and then pauses with his hands on his hips, dropping his head down. His body is laced with tension. His eyes when he lifts them up again are dark with rage. “Fuck. I told you. This is what he wants.” Parrish throws out a hand to point at me. “He’s trying to strip Dakota of all her allies; it isn’t going to work.”
“Are you upset?” Maxx queries, and Parrish spins on him.
“Am I upset?” he hisses out, getting close to the bed and leaning down to put his palms atop it. “Of course I’m upset. I’m fucking furious. I would love nothing more than to punch both of you right now, just to get it out of my system.” Parrish stands back up and glances over at Chasm, clearly indicating that when he said ‘both’, he meant the boys.
“I was a part of this, too,” I start, but Parrish is shaking his head rapidly.
“No. This was the Slayer’s fault. Every bit of it.” He starts to pace again. “It won’t work.” Parrish nibbles his thumbnail and recognition sparks in me. Is that where I picked up that habit? I stifle an inappropriate smile.
“We’ve been a little … lovey,” I admit, wanting him to know the full scope. “Me and Chasm. Me and Maxx. There were consequences to not being lovey, but that isn’t the whole story. We all like each other.”
Parrish pauses, his gaze on the matte black walls of his room. He turns very slowly to look at me and then storms over to the bed, grabbing my hand and yanking me up. I’m surprised by the strength in it—pleasantly surprised—and I stumble a bit as I try to keep up with him.
“Back me up if Tess shows up?” he offers as Chasm gapes at him.
“What are you—” he starts, but then Parrish is pulling me into the bathroom and pushing my back against the door.
His mouth descends on mine, hot and possessive, the fingers of his left hand curling around my wrist. He breaks the kiss but only after we’re both gasping for breath, sliding his right hand up the wall to flick the switch for the bathroom fan.
“I know I haven’t been gone very long,” he whispers, looking away from me, hurt etched plainly into the beautiful lines of his face. “But it feels like an eternity. The three of you have developed something without me; I feel like a stranger.”
“No,” I whisper, but he isn’t wrong about everything, just the last bit. “Everything I did, I did for you. I would never have touched Chasm or Maxx otherwise. But I can understand if you don’t want to continue what we started—”
I stop talking because the look that boy turns on me is reminiscent of the scathing ones he used to chuck my way at Whitehall, when he was telling me I was crap in bed while we were both virgins.
“Don’t ever suggest something like that again,” he declares, releasing me and standing up straight. “Did you hear anything that I said to you? Either in the basement that night or before, during, or after sex?”
My cheeks flush, but I hold his gaze as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Your everything is beautiful,” I murmur, because I could live a hundred more years of this life and never forget the things Parrish said to me. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it every day since you went missing. That morning, when I woke up and you were gone, I was worried you might’ve left because of what we did.”
He’s already shaking his head, putting his palm on the door above my head and leaning in toward me.
“Never. How do you think I stayed a virgin until now? Because I’ve never met a girl that I wanted to sleep with before. And trust me: many have tried,” he adds dryly, and my mind strays to Lumen.
Oh.
The item she slipped into my hand!
But now isn’t the time to ask Chasm to take a look at it. We’ll get there, but first … this.
“Are you sure you still want me after …” I trail off, shaking out my hands. “I devirginized both of your best friends.”
Parrish’s face gets pale, and he turns away, like his emotions are about to get the better of him.
“They’re both good guys,” he murmurs, glancing back at me. “But it killed me to watch you and Chasm in that video. You weren’t just fucking because you were told to; it was more than that.”
I hold his gaze and give a sharp nod.
“It was. Did you know that night, after I left you, I found a vase full of sunflowers in my room? He was coming to confess his feelings. Instead, he gave us condoms and walked away.”
Parrish stares at me for a minute, and then nods.
“I know. He said as much to me in Korean.”
“I know about that, too,” I admit, and Parrish sighs again, stalking over to the shower. He turns it on and then spins back to face me.
“I’m having a really hard time with this, I won’t lie to you.” I nod at his words, because he has every right to feel that way. “But there’s one thing that I know for absolute certain.” He covers the distance between us in a few, careful strides, capturing my face again and brushing his mouth against mine. “While I was gone, all I could think about was you. How much I missed you. How angry I was that our time together after that night was stolen. We deserved to have that. I could barely sleep that night. All I wanted was to go in your room and touch you again, talk to you.”
He kisses me again, and that pretty glass heart of mine throbs painfully in my chest.
Parrish pulls back, that aristocratic face of his carved up into a thousand different emotions.
“I thought about all the things that I’d say to you in the morning, all the places I’d touch you, the ways I’d kiss you. And I practiced my speech for Tess.” He puts a hand on his chest. “Because I meant what I said: I’m going to tell her everything.”
Fear skitters across my skin, but at the same time, it’s accompanied by a surge of affection for this boy. He was so worth it. Every terrible moment. Every sickening second of angst. So fucking worth it. I’d do it all over again. And I will, if I have to, in order to save my sister.
Maxine, please be safe, I think, reminding myself that Justin won’t hurt her because it will ruin his ultimate plans. That is, to have me in his life. It makes no sense and, as psychotic as he can be at times, he’s a very careful, very meticulous monster.
“We’ll give her … a week or so to get used to me being back.” Parrish glances to the side again before turning back to me. “I’m not sure if I can keep my hands off of you any longer than that. If we don’t tell her, she’ll figure it out just by watching me.”
“Tess was destroyed without you,” I admit, and he shudders. “She barely ate, barely slept. She alternated between being cold and distant and emotionally destroyed. Are you sure you want to do this? We can keep it a secret if you want.”
“I’m sick of secrets,” he admits, gritting his teeth. I can’t say I disagree with that.
“I’ll leave you alone so you can shower,” I tell him, and he gives me a look.
“No, you won’t.” Parrish steps back from me and then pauses, as if he’s just thought of something. “Wait here.”
He scoots me away from the door and opens it, walking out to stare Chasm in the eyes.
I’ve never seen the other boy look so … well, not like a black knight riding into battle with full armor. He looks like an unsure seventeen-year-old for the first time in his life, amber eyes flicking back to catch on mine.
“Can we just pretend that it never happened?” Parrish asks, and Chasm goes completely still. Maxx, he pauses with one hand inside GG’s cage, glancing back to stare at us. He doesn’t look any happ
ier than Chas does. “Dakota and … the two of you. I appreciate everything you guys did for me, I really do. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt. I just want to forget about it.”
I step up beside him, but I’m not sure what to say.
What’s the right move here? Do I speak up for Chasm and Maxx? Do I side with Parrish for now, seeing as we just got him back? Do I tell them that my feelings for the three of them are more confusing than anything I’ve ever experienced before?
I hate Justin, don’t get me wrong. And the situation with him is intense. But it isn’t confusing. I know exactly where I stand on those matters. This, on the other hand, is not so easy to parcel out.
“Is that what you want, Kota?” Maxx asks softly. Parrish curls his hands into fists, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Chasm is still staring at me.
“I care about all three of you,” I admit, even though the words grate past my lips, scraping them like sandpaper, making them bleed. Parrish glances my way and then back over at Chasm, at Maxx.
“Is that … not an option?” Parrish asks, his voice tight and unreadable. He spreads his hands. “Is it over for me? Have I been gone too long to make this work?” He looks back at me with a crestfallen expression that cuts me to the bone.
“I’d be lying to you if I told you I could forget about the things that happened with Maxx and Chasm while you were missing. But I’d also be lying if I said I wanted things to change between us.” I stand there, unsure of what I’m even asking. If it’s even fair for me to ask anything of him at all.
Maxx hands over a carrot to GG and then carefully steps back, closing the cage door before turning around. Chasm slides his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket, frowns, and then withdraws a tiny square of paper.
It’s the item that Lumen slipped me at the party. As if he’s looking for a distraction—any distraction at all—Chasm unfolds it and reads the message before offering it up to me. I step forward and take it, ignoring the surge of fire in my hand when our fingers brush together.
We need to talk. Meet me in the hedge maze on Monday after school.
My blood goes cold.
“Lumen,” I murmur, and Parrish’s body gets tense.
“Don’t tell me that fucker made you sleep with Lumen, too?”
I lift my gaze up to meet his.
“Definitely not,” I tell him, clutching the note in my hand. I knew it; I knew something was going on with those girls.
“Lumen’s posse kicked the shit out of Dakota and broke her nose,” Chasm explains as Parrish’s eyes get wide. He vaguely heard of the attack on one of our video chats, but I’m certain he never got any details. “Broke two of her fingers, too.” Chas gestures at me, but I’m not wearing my splints like I’m supposed to. I ditched the gloves and the white fur wrap long ago, but I’m still wearing the bloody princess dress—and the tiara. “Things have been bad since you left, Parrish. Veronica and her buddies whipped out a bunch of utility knives on us out back of the hedge maze.”
“You better be fucking with me?” Parrish growls out, clenching his hands into fists. He closes his eyes and forces himself to exhale, sweeping his hands over his hair. “Let me guess: Whitehall is falling apart without me?”
“As always, your majesty,” Chasm drawls back, with just the right amount of humor.
Parrish opens his eyes again and drops his hands by his sides.
“I’ll handle it,” he declares, but I don’t see how. Tess is unlikely to let him finish the last week of school out. “I see that we have a lot to catch up on.”
He pauses suddenly, turning his head to the door, and we all stop talking as Tess’ heels approach and she knocks lightly, peeking in the door. She’s holding something in her hand; it looks a bit like a first aid kit.
“Just checking on you,” she says, and Parrish forces a smile that reminds me of my own.
“We’re just making small talk, to keep me calm,” he says, and her eyes crinkle with love and worry. “It’s weird to have been gone for so long; I feel like I missed out on a lot.”
Tess’ attention turns to me and Chasm for a moment, and I’m sure she’s thinking about the condom the authorities found, about my confession that I was ‘sleeping with’ Chasm at the time. How now, I actually am sleeping with Chasm.
“It’s okay, honey. It’ll take time to readjust. What matters is that you’re here, you’re safe.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she moves into the room again to give Parrish another hug, one that she holds for so long that he starts to get annoyed.
“Mom,” he murmurs, and she finally releases him, smoothing his hair back and then looking over at the bathroom. Steam is rolling out from the shower and drifting into the bedroom.
“Are you showering? I can reapply your salve and bandages when you get out. Also, did you take the antibiotics they gave you at the hospital?”
“I did. And the pain pills.” Parrish gestures at me with a tilt of his head. “Dakota is going to help me put the salve and bandages on after; I’m good for now.” He takes the first aid kit from Tess’ hand and tosses it onto the bathroom counter before returning to his spot near the doorway.
Tess gives me an odd sort of look in response, and I resist the urge to shiver.
She isn’t going to take the news of Parrish and me as a couple very well at all.
“Okay, well. Please leave the bathroom door unlocked. I won’t bother you, but I’d like the option of being able to check on you anyway.”
Parrish sighs heavily and gives her a two-fingered salute.
“Yeah, okay.”
Tess drags herself away with obvious effort, leaving the door wide. Maxx moves over and adjusts it back to a sliver again, peeking out to make sure she’s gone into her office before he returns back to the open area beside Parrish’s gaming chairs.
The four of us stand there in awkward silence.
“Give me a chance to recoup what I lost,” Parrish murmurs, looking down at the floor. He glances up at Chasm, at Maxx, and then over at me. “Give me some time. If it doesn’t work out … we can all try to woo you and best man wins.” His jaw clenches, but he hides his anger well.
“You don’t need time to recoup anything, Parrish,” I tell him, putting my hand on his arm. “My feelings for you haven’t changed.” He looks at me before turning his face toward his friends again.
“What about Maxine?” he asks, directing the question to, of course, X.
X grits his teeth, but he doesn’t look away.
“Maxine broke up with me before anything happened between me and Dakota. She wouldn’t give up on the notion that something was happening to Kota, and I had to discourage her. She didn’t like that, so … Anyway, she knows about us.” He gestures at me with his left hand. “I told her everything. It’s completely over between us—permanently.”
“Hmm.” Parrish’s brow crinkles. He can tell he’s missing a lot of the story here. “I knew you had a thing for my Gamer Girl. I could tell right off the bat.” He gives Maxx a dark look, one that his friend returns without flinching. “And you …” He glances over at Chasm who exhales and then spreads his hands in a placating gesture.
“I was honest about it from the beginning,” he admits, and Parrish scowls at him.
“Who has the biggest dick?” Parrish asks abruptly, and I flush all over, tits included. It’s a very obvious sort of blush in this stupid dress, too.
“Uh, what?” I choke out, but I am not about to answer that question. It’s bound to make at least two people even angrier than they are now. “That has nothing to do with anything. If it were just sex, this would be easy. I would say thank you, Maxx; thank you, Chasm. Then I’d move on. This isn’t that.”
Parrish snorts and swipes a hand over his face.
“We all know who has the biggest dick anyway,” X jokes, and both of the other boys give him dark looks. “It goes without saying, I think.”
“You’re not any nicer now than you were in high school,”
Parrish tells him with narrowed eyes. “So stop pretending. Have you seen him at his worst yet?” He glances over at me and my gaze locks with Maxx’s.
“I have. He went full asshole on me and Chasm when he thought we were keeping secrets about you from him. He also organized search parties and spent all night and all day for a week searching for you.”
That softens Parrish somewhat, but he still isn’t happy.
“I don’t know what to do about this. I’m … it’s a lot to deal with.”
“Let’s not talk about this for a while,” Chasm suggests, glancing at me again. His heart looks like it’s breaking, like he feels second place all over again, second choice, a backup plan. None of that is true, but I’m not just going to be able to tell him that with words. Actions, only. But how? How do we do this? “Let’s finish school up so we have one less thing to worry about and focus on Maxine instead. Once she’s safe, we can … talk.”
“I’m okay with that if Kota is,” Maxx says, studying me. He stares at me like he’s simultaneously my last and first choice all at the same time. “We can revisit it later, after you’re caught up, and we’re caught up, and … well, of course, Maxine is the most important thing.”
“Right now, it’s just me and Gamer Girl.” Parrish looks over at me, and I glance back at him. “Is that okay? You and me, dating. Like we would’ve been if I hadn’t …” He trails off, and my throat gets tight with emotion. If he hadn’t gone missing, I’d have never experienced the things I did with Maxx and Chasm. Would that have been easier? Harder? I don’t know. I can’t imagine not having shared those moments with them now that they’ve happened.
“I’m okay with that,” I tell him, deciding that a single week isn’t a big ask whatsoever.
“Will you go to prom with me?” Parrish asks, surprising me. “Unless my days are all screwed up, or if Whitehall’s cancelled it, it’s still happening on Friday, right?”
My eyes drift to Chasm’s, and his nostrils flare, but he gives a slight shake of his head.
Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2) Page 52
