“And?”
“And what?” Parker was being obtuse.
“And how are you going to do it?”
Parker opened his mouth, but before he could ask what Toby knew he was going to ask, Toby continued.
“How are you going to break up with Abbie? You need to do it before she’ll go out with me.”
Parker sighed. “We need to talk.”
This was the second time Toby had had a conversation that started this way today, and the first had not gone well. This one had better work out differently.
“OK.” They moved to the kitchen and threw themselves into the chairs at the table.
Toby waited for Parker to start, but his friend just sat there.
“So,” Toby finally began, “how are you going to handle this with Abbie?”
“What did you mean about Abbie before?”
“When? About you breaking up with her? I decided to forgive her and take her…”
“No,” Parker pitched in quickly. “I meant about me needing to break up with her before she’ll go out with you. Did you mean before you feel okay going out with her?”
“No. I meant what I said. She told me that she was dating someone new and wanted to see how it went with him. So I need you to break up with her so she doesn’t have to worry about you anymore.”
Toby noticed that Parker was trying to hold back a smile at that and he was staring into space.
“Well?” Toby asked. “How are we going to handle this?” The statement broke Parker from his reverie. Parker shook his head and looked at Toby. The smile was gone.
“We aren’t.” He said it so quietly Toby wasn’t sure he heard correctly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not breaking up with her.”
Toby jumped up from the table and muttered through gritted teeth, “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
Parker pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked up at Toby. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, but I really like Abbie. And if she likes me, too, I’m not going to end it.”
Toby sat back down and stood up and then repeated, not sure if he was hearing any of this correctly. “I don’t understand. You were faking. This was all fake.”
“No it wasn’t. I wasn’t” Parker said this sadly. “It wasn’t fake. Or at least I was never fake with Abbie. I just didn’t tell her that I knew her.”
“Why?”
“Because she wasn’t right for you. You guys bicker and fight and think it’s chemistry. I was hoping I could make you both realize that before it got to this point. I guess I was wrong. I shouldn’t have…”
Before Parker could finish, Toby swung his arm and connected with Parker’s jaw. Parker sat there shocked. He held onto his jaw and didn’t move.
“I deserve that, I guess,” Parker said. “But it doesn’t change how I feel about her. I’m sorry, Toby. I’m not trying to be a bad friend, but I have to do this.”
Toby stared at him. He knew what he had to do.
“Fine,” he spat out before leaving the room, “do whatever you think’s best.” He marched to his car and took off unsure of where he was going. All he knew was that he had never felt more betrayed. And despite what he had just told Parker, nothing was fine, and it was far from over.
19
Parker didn't know how to feel. His emotions had been going in a roller coaster all day. First, he had been at the hospital standing in the locker room when he got Toby’s text. For just a second, his heart stopped. It actually did. This wasn’t a figurative statement. He was a doctor, or almost one anyway, so he was able to make the diagnosis. His heart stopped, and for just a second he couldn’t feel anything. And then he felt everything.
First, fear. Fear and disappointment and, even if he had no right to feel this way, anger. Anger that Toby could, that Toby would without remorse, play with Abbie’s feelings like this. It wasn’t honorable to do what Toby was doing, and alright, it wasn’t honorable to do what Parker was doing, but at least he realized this and wanted to stop. He wanted everything out in the open. Well, with Toby. There were certain things he definitely did not want Abbie to know, at least not yet.
After he went through the fear and loathing, he moved on to determination. He was determined to explain his side to Toby and convince him that Parker and Abbie made a lot more sense than Toby and Abbie. Because they did, and once Toby accepted it, everything would be fine. Right?
Nervousness is the emotion that struck next. Because let’s face it, it was never going to be that simple, and tell himself what he would, Parker was never going to believe anything different. Nerves and determination were with Parker for the rest of the day, and he could not bring himself to respond to Toby. This was something, he told himself, that would best be done in person.
He drove home late that day, and if he drove home slowly, nobody needed to know. When he saw Toby in the living room, he could tell the guy was wound up. That wasn’t going to make things easier. He braced himself for the upcoming conversation.
After it was over, he sat at the kitchen table with a bag of peas on his face, and he felt even more. Obviously, he felt genuine physical pain because his jaw hurt like a mother. He felt horrible because he had betrayed his best friend. He felt hopeful he could turn Toby around. He had said ‘fine,’ but Parker knew he didn’t mean it, even while he wanted to believe Toby would mean it one day and hopefully one day soon. Parker felt a lot in that moment, but what he felt more than anything was happy. Abbie wanted him, and she wanted him more than she wanted Toby. It was, overall, a pretty good day. Did thinking that make him a horrible person?
Parker was meeting Abbie at her house. They were going to cook together. Parker was excited. Now that everything was in the open between him and his friend, there was nothing holding him back. He was free to be with Abbie completely.
He rang the doorbell and was greeted with Abbie throwing herself into his arms.
“I’m so happy, you’re here!” she squealed as she grabbed his hand and pulled him inside.
“It smells good inside. Have you started without me?” She didn’t need to answer. The flour in her hair said everything.
She gave him a guilty pout.
“Maybe,” she told him. “I just couldn’t help it. I had all this nervous energy, and I just needed to get it out. So I started baking our dessert. You can still help with dinner, though.”
He laughed and kissed her on the forehead.
“Fine with me. I got to walk into a house smelling like cookies. Can’t complain about that.”
They walked into the kitchen, and she handed him a cucumber, tomato, and a bag of lettuce.
“You, my friend, are in charge of the salad,” she told him.
“Hey! That’s insulting! You don’t think I can cook? I’m only good at cutting things?” he asked her in a mock-outraged voice.
“No. I’m sure you can cook. You’re pretty perfect. However, I know I cannot cut up vegetables unless you want half of the cucumber gone yet somehow, inexplicably, most of the skin still left. And tomato juice would be everywhere but in the salad. It’s pretty impressive how bad I am at it.”
“Good. Then the bar for me is pretty low. That takes a lot of pressure off of me.”
They laughed, and worked together in relative silence and never once was it awkward. When the chicken was ready, they sat at the table and talked about their days. And when they were done, they settled into the living room. Parker couldn’t deny he felt nervous. This was it. There were no more games holding him back. It was just him and Abbie and …
“I want to tell you something,” Abbie said, and it brought him back to the present.
“What?”
“I really like you.”
Parker beamed. “I really like you too,” he told her.
“Good.”
“Good.”
They sat there staring at each other with goofy grins on their faces.
“And I want us to be together,” Abbie broke the silence. “Really be together. I don’t want to see anyone else, and I hope that you feel the same way. If you want, we can wait until we get to know each other before we do…other stuff. But I want to see if we have a future, and I don’t think we can do that if there are other people we are worrying about.”
Parker just listened to her voice throughout the entire speech.
“So,” she continued, “what do you say? Will you be my boyfriend?” She blushed, and Parker thought she had never looked more beautiful.
“I like the sound of that,” he said and leaned in towards her. Their lips met and it was even better than he remembered. They fell back against the couch, and he deepened the kiss. Her hands were on his lower back and they were tugging at the back of his shirt. He put his knee between her legs, and lifted himself up to pull off his shirt, and then he was back on top of her, kissing her lips, her jaw, her neck.
Somehow, her shirt was off too and it was thrown onto the floor beside his. Then her bra, and he looked at her fully, hungrily, before leaning back down. His hand rose up and caressed her breast, and she sucked in her breath and so did he. He lowered his mouth to where his hand just was, and she fit in his mouth perfectly.
Her hands were running up his back, and the noises she was making were doing things to him that he really liked. She touched him there, and he couldn’t hold himself back. He reached for the button of her jeans.
“We aren’t taking it slow?” she whispered in a husky voice.
“I hope not,” he told her. “I want you now.” She moaned at the words.
“I want you too,” she told him. And then she was kissing him again, and his hands were pushing down her zipper and then her jeans. She kicked them off unto the floor and moved to his.
“Roommates?” he asked her.
“Not here. Do you have something?”
“I’m like a boy scout, always prepared.” All of this was whispered in between them as they writhed against each other. Parker reached into his pants’ pocket for his wallet, when the doorbell rang. They both groaned.
“Are you expecting someone?” he asked her, and she shook her head.
“Let’s just ignore it. They’ll go away.” She grabbed his hand and said, “let’s take this to my room.” Parker was definitely not arguing with that.
They got up and gathered their clothes, but the ringing at the door just became more and more insistent.
“I don’t think they are going away,” Parker told her.
“Damn,” she told him before getting redressed. Despite her now disappointingly clothed state, though, her mussed hair and swollen lips gave away what the interloper at the door was interrupting.
“Please try to get rid of them fast,” he begged.
She replied, “That’s definitely the plan.”
He threw on his jeans, and sat back down on the couch. “Toby?!” he heard her say in the foyer, and his heart leaped into his throat. What was he doing here? What was he planning? He went out into the hall and saw his friend was indeed standing in the doorway.
“Abbie,” Toby was saying, “I have to tell you about something horrible I did, and I hope that you can forgive me for it.”
“No you don’t,” Parker was quick to interject, and it was the first time the pair saw him standing there.
Toby looked back and forth between the shirtless Parker and flustered Abbie, and his eyes developed an evil glint. “I didn’t know you were here, Parker,” he said through gritted teeth. “Did you park on the street?”
“Yep,” Parker answered cautiously, and Abbie’s eyes were darting back and forth between them. She looked confused. And not happy.
“You guys know each other?” she asked.
“Parker didn’t tell you?” Toby questioned, and Parker knew what was about to happen.
“Please, Toby,” Parker pleaded, hoping against hope that the best friend portion of Toby’s heart would prevail over the hurt, angry part of him that felt betrayed.
“Parker and I are roommates,” Toby went on, ignoring everything that Parker had just said.
“Roommates?” Abbie repeated and her voice was so sad, so scarred, that it hurt Parker to the core.
“Yep,” Toby continued oblivious to what he was doing to a girl he was supposed to have feelings for. “Roommates.”
“And you guys didn’t know you both knew me?” Abbie asked in a small voice with little hope that she was right.
“I wish, Abbie,” Toby told her, “but it isn’t the truth.” Parker ran his hands through his hair and moved back into the living room. He couldn’t watch Abbie as she heard what she was about to hear.
“You see,” he could hear Toby saying, “when you first wrote about me, I was hurt, and I was not thinking. I shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me. So I asked Parker to fake being your perfect guy and make you fall in love with him.” Parker looked back and could see Abbie through the entryway. She was pale, and she had fallen against the wall, a look of disbelief on her face. He hoped she would hear his side of the story before she kicked him out. If only she would listen and believe when he told her he had never used her.
“Once you were hooked, he was going to dump you, and give you something to write about in your blog, but I realized how wrong that was and called him off. Only then you wrote that second one and in a moment of madness,” he paused, “both of anger and insanity, I asked him to do it for me for real this time. Only, I realized how much you mean to me and how much I had overreacted, and I told him to stop. He wouldn’t, though. So I had to come here tonight to tell you the truth. I couldn’t keep lying to you, Abbie.”
When he was done with his speech, there was silence. When Parker thought she had enough time to process what she had just heard, he went back into the room.
“Abbie?” he started, but she put up her hand effectively silencing him.
“There is nothing you can say,” she told him in a voice so calm it scared him. “Nothing will make what I just heard okay except if you tell me it was all a lie.”
She stopped and looked at him. When he saw the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, it broke his heart. He wanted to say something that would take those tears away, but he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear.
“Is it?” she continued and her voice broke as she said it. “Is it a lie?” He wanted to say ‘yes.’ What he wouldn’t do to be able to say that one little word. But he couldn’t.
“No,” he said instead, “it isn’t a lie.” They stared into each other’s eyes, and when the tears started flowing, Parker reached for her.
“But,” he began, hoping to explain.
Abbie wasn’t having any of it. “NO!” she yelled. “Get out!” She marched into the living room and grabbed his shirt from the couch where he had laid it, and threw it at his chest. “Get out!” she yelled again and pushed him toward the door.
“Abbie,” he tried again, but she was not listening. She was crying, and sniffling, and trying her best not to, and she wasn’t hearing any of it now. Toby, who had been standing there watching the showdown, started to comfort her, but she pushed him off just as she had done Parker. So Toby left, and Parker followed right behind him.
Parker didn’t talk to Toby. He didn’t even acknowledge his presence. What Parker had done to Toby was bad, but what Toby had just done to Parker, to Abbie, even to Toby himself, was unforgivable to Parker. And Parker was normally a very forgiving person.
Insects, Lies and Dirty-Rotten Snakes
Abbie Baker | May 2, 2015
Abbie the bitch is back, and she is in full-force.
Hello, readers. Did my opening line catch your attention? Good! Because I am revoking all of my silence clauses and I am giving you all the dirt. Because I have been victim to two of the worst bastards to ever live, and I want to warn all of you against them.
If you ever meet Toby Lockland or Parker Bryant (the former Prince Wesley) (bot
h pictured below), please know that they are both sons of bitches that do not deserve your notice unless it is to spit in their path. And I wish I was being too harsh here, but I promise you I am not.
Remember when I told you how I was on speaking terms with everyone at work? I’m not any longer. Remember when I told you that things were going great with ‘Wesley’? I was wrong. As it turns out, I was wrong about everything I thought I knew, and it was all because of these two... damn. There aren’t words to describe them.
Let’s get down to what actually happened so you can see how much you should be on my side and so you will agree I have been treated terribly.
Parker, or as you know him Wesley, and I agreed to be exclusive (does that sound high school or what?) and right after we had “the talk,” the doorbell rang, and my life was changed irrevocably. Toby was at the door.
What I learned, and what I had no way of knowing before, was that Parker and Toby knew each other. In fact, they were roommates. Funny coincidence, huh? Nope. As it turns out, this was no accident. The only reason I ever met Parker was because of Toby. He set us up. Sound sweet? It wasn’t.
You see, Toby created my Parker. I never met his roommate Parker. I met Perfect Parker. The epitome of my ideal man. His assignment was to steal my heart, which he did so easily, fool that I am, and then shatter it into a million pieces. Because malicious heartbreaking is apparently now the equivalent of a drunken mistake for which one apologizes.
As I understand it, they wanted me to write this very post. You see, the end goal was to “give me something to write about.” Since, you see, I like writing about the horrible things that happen to me so much, I must want people to purposely hurt me so I can write about it.
I know I shouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I should write about something else and act like none of this bothered me. But I can’t. I can’t be silent anymore. It’s too hard. And I want to be able to be free to write about what I want again. So they can go to hell. Both of them. This is what I’m writing about today, and if it gives them satisfaction, that only means they are the bastards I already know them to be.
The Abbie Diaries: The Complete Series Page 11
