Sadly, she thought, she would never know. Some things you just didn’t come back from.
When the other man that she had been in the company of emerged from the club a little while later, an air of determination surrounding him, she very quickly shoved down all thoughts of maybes and what ifs. Of course, her life was not what it should be. Michael Parker was the walking, talking, living evidence of that fact. It did no good whatsoever to fantasise about what might have been and what had transpired instead. Her life had turned out the way it had and there was nothing that she could do to change it. However wonderful the alternatives might be.
‘Well,’ she peered up at Parker once he reached her, having to shield her eyes with a hand to block out the midday sun. ‘How did it go?’
‘Have you eaten yet today?’ he asked, which was not what she was expecting. At all.
‘No, I guess not,’ she said. ‘But that’s not really important…’
‘I’m hungry,’ he interrupted her, reaching down and offering her a hand.
Martha hesitated for a fraction longer than it took for it to be noticeable before reaching out and taking it. The physical contact was strange. Parker’s hand felt warm and real, strong but almost gentle in the way that it enclosed her own. She allowed him to pull her up onto her feet but then her mind seemed to go blank and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next.
There was eye contact. Blue on copper. The realisation that this was the first time that they had physically touched in over a decade was all of a sudden a little too much and she pulled away first, busying herself with brushing stones from the pavement off her bottom. When she looked back, there was a hopelessness in Parker’s gaze that tightened her chest.
Too much emotion. Far, far too much.
‘We should probably just go back to MPIA,’ she said, trying to do the right thing.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
Martha looked down at her feet for what must have been the umpteenth time since she arrived back in Marytown and instantly hated herself for it. As much as she tried, she could not deny the fact that she was struggling beneath the high levels of emotion that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. It was all too raw. Too raw and too much.
‘I…’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know how to do this, Parker. Not anymore.’
Gentle fingertips brushed her chin, urging her to lift her eyes. She froze, unable to help it because of the physical contact and because he had stepped a fraction closer, into her personal space and because she simply did not know how to emotionally assimilate the reaction her body made to the situation and because she couldn’t seem to think clearly enough to process any of it.
So she simply stood there, laid out bare to the intensity in his eyes.
It should have scared her and in many ways it did because it had been so very long and her mind seemed to only remember that close contact meant brutal pain but there was familiarity because it was him and her body decided that it remembered him and she was emotionally lost somewhere between the two impulses.
‘I’m trying here, Martha,’ he said, voice barely more than a murmur. ‘I really want to be able to focus and get all of this crap fixed for Amanda but it’s you. I can’t keep pretending that you being here is not affecting me. This is all far too personal. How could it not be?’
‘I… don’t know.’
‘Let’s just take a little bit of time. Just for us. Please, Martha.’
‘That’s not a good idea.’ She tried to shake her head, protest. ‘It’s not the right time for any of… that and the investigation… and my… There are more important things, Parker.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘None of it. Not any of it should matter.’
‘But it does…’ she said.
‘Yeah, it does.’ He sighed, deeply. ‘Let’s just run away and fuck it all, huh?’
Martha almost choked on a laugh. How many times had they each said that to each other as teenagers? It had almost become a mantra, for her crappy life and the trouble he’d find himself in because he was simply bigger, better and more able than a lot of his peers and the boys always seemed to want to prove their worth by taking on the best. It had never helped that he had been so close to ‘that strange Ford girl’ either. Life had been against them both from the very start.
‘Yeah,’ she couldn’t help but smile. ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’
Chapter 24
Parker’s apartment was in an old building on the outskirts of the modernised section of town that had been redeveloped into two separate homes. His unit was spread across the upper floor, the larger of the two homes, accessed by climbing a spiral staircase at the end of the communal hall.
Forged from heavy, dark oak, his door opened into a large kitchenette that had a polished hardwood floor, swathed by a large, plain black rug. The walls were painted a deep teal, the kitchen towards the back decorated in matching tile. The counters were stained dark grey wood and their tops were made from gleaming black marble, matching a complimenting breakfast bar that separated the two areas. Entering the apartment felt a little bit strange and Martha tried not to let herself think too much about what that meant or what the fact that she was even there meant too. On a basic level, she told herself that it made sense to take a small, refreshing pause. She had not eaten anything since before she had headed for Marytown and Parker had been on shift for over twenty-four hours and while he was not done, he wanted to freshen up.
An open set of double doors revealed that the lounge was on the left. It was sparsely furnished with a modern sofa and chairs, a small table, a large television set and little else. She might have once considered the décor style indicative of a male taste but it did not look all that dissimilar to the home she shared with Stefan back on The Mount. Tasteful, comfortable and yet, most importantly, functional. It was a place where you could relax after a long day but ultimately did not spend extensive periods of time. Shaking her head, she decided that she would not make judgements about Parker’s home nor make any more comparisons to her own.
It was not a safe train of thought to think about home while she was not there.
‘Home sweet home,’ he said, voice eerily mirroring her thoughts. He shut the door behind them and sealed them both inside. Martha suddenly felt very awkward, unsure of where to put herself and how she should be. It had been a very long time since she had been invited into another person’s private residence, even longer since it was somebody that she already had a pre-existing personal relationship with. Now that she was, she felt very nervous.
Which was ridiculous. She was safe in Parker’s home, surely.
‘You’ve got some mail,’ she pointed out the envelopes that lay on the ground at their feet.
Parker bent down and picking them up, sifting through the letters before make a noise of disgust, ‘It would be nice to come home one day to something other than bills.’
Martha didn’t really know how that felt so simply replied, ‘Yeah.’
Throwing the envelopes on the small table next to the door, he turned and walked into the kitchen. Martha followed because she didn’t know what else to do with herself, opting to take a seat on one of the breakfast stools so she at least could sit down and not simply stand there like a spare part. Opening the tall, dark chrome refrigerator, Parker peered inside and concluded, ‘I can do eggs, or fry up some of these leftovers. I really didn’t think this through.’
‘Anything you’ve got is fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t have much of an appetite.’
Pulling out a small collection of covered bowls, he set about throwing together what, to Martha’s unexperienced eyes, seemed like a hodgepodge of potato, bacon, vegetables, onions and garlic in a big, flat pan which he started heating up on the stove. Watching him, she realised that she could barely recall the last time she had stood in a kitchen and prepared a meal, even for herself and wondered if she ever truly had. A light snack before leaving the house she’d grown up in, perhaps. May
be even breakfast. Her dinners had always been cooked for her, wherever she had chosen to lay her head and she’d never been a big eater. Food was always a necessity and not something she’d given much thought to and the realisation made her feel a little bit disjointed. It was like there was a steel cable tightly fastened to her core, not only invisible but too durable to sever by willpower alone. She was ultimately getting in her own way because she was not cut out for the normality of everyday human life anymore. She wondered if she ever had been.
The unmistakeable aroma of home-cooking began to waft through the kitchenette as Parker, with his back turned to her, cooked up the array of food that he had thrown together. She shut down all of her inner conflictions and tried to enjoy it but ultimately ended up shaking her head and confessed, out loud, ‘I’m not used to this. Any of it.’
Parker responded, ‘It’s been a while for me too.’
Not really having the heart to try and explain exactly what she had meant she thought about what he had said. She was not foolish enough to have ever truly have thought that his life would have remained on pause in her absence. If she was brutally honest, she could probably even admit that she hadn’t thought about him as often as she could have. Life had moved on and it had changed them both, that much was obvious but being here, in his home while he cooked for her, she realised that she could not go on pretending that it did not matter to her either.
‘Parker,’ she said, finding it strange to use that name in such a personal setting. When they were growing up, he’d always been Michael but that didn’t quite feel right anymore. They were no longer love-struck teenagers or even close friends. ‘I think that maybe we should have that talk now. The one you wanted to have, in your office.’
‘I didn’t think you wanted that conversation,’ he said bluntly.
‘I didn’t,’ she admitted. ‘But that was… before.’
He paused his cooking for just long enough for Martha to notice the slight increase of tension in his shoulders and neck muscles. It made her heart pound a little bit in her chest and adrenaline kick in just enough to make her nervous. She was not sure how she should begin or again, where to put herself so she just dived in, picking what seemed to be the most difficult topic that had been causing awkwardness between them. ‘So, about Olivia..?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, as nervously. ‘About that.’
‘She mentioned her father to me last night,’ Martha started. ‘I brushed it off because I didn’t really know who she was talking about and I was a little intimidated by how… imposing she can be. But I got to thinking about it and put together that she’s the daughter of the man that you work for. Is that right?’
‘Yeah, it is,’ he confirmed. ‘She’s a Maxwell, though she didn’t grow up with her dad. Didn’t even grow up in this country. She only moved here about eight years ago.’
‘The two of you were involved. You had a relationship.’
Hesitating for another moment, he finally admitted, ‘We had a marriage.’
‘Oh,’ she said, genuinely surprised. ‘Wow. That’s… Okay. Wasn’t expecting that.’
Focusing on cooking much more than he probably needed to, he explained, ‘We met just after my folks died. She had not long moved here and I knew Maxwell because he was friends with my parents so our paths crossed a fair bit. It was… Well, you’ve met her. It was a brief and very chaotic relationship. We got married fast and it didn’t last more than eighteen months.’ He stopped, shrugged. ‘We’ve stayed friends because we work together and it’s been that way ever since. She’s… She’s just Olivia. Please don’t let her intimidate you.’
‘You married your boss’ daughter.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘I kind of did.’
Martha wasn’t entirely sure what she thought about all of that but she had asked and he had been honest. That had to be enough. It didn’t really matter what she felt. It didn’t.
Surprising her even further, Parker asked, ‘What about you?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No estranged spouses that I can recall.’
‘Not exactly what I meant.’
Martha did not reply to that, simply because she didn’t know how to put into words the state of her personal life. Mostly because, there hadn’t really been one and she wasn’t sure where the only other person who could be considered a personal attachment fit into the scheme of things. In fact, she did not know how to explain Stefan, full stop. It was too many questions.
Apparently deciding not to push, Parker instead busied himself dishing up their food, which looked as delicious as it smelled. Placing a plate and fork in front of her, he smiled and said, ‘You look fantastic, by the way. I’ve been meaning to say that but the timing was wrong.’
‘Thank-you,’ she replied. ‘So do you.’
He actually blushed a little bit, rubbing his head with a hand. ‘If you say so.’
They sat together in relative silence as they ate, save for Martha’s initial confirmation that she thought it tasted really good, which seemed to please him a lot. There was something about the act of eating a meal in a home where, in spite of the awkwardness that had gone between them, she felt safe that was good, comforting. She was not used to it but she decided that she liked it. Especially there. Especially with him. Before she could overthink that though, she tucked in, apparently more hungry than she had considered.
Once she was about as stuffed as she could make herself, which sadly did not clear the plate, she had to concede defeat and resist the competitive urge she had to beat Parker who had finished his own meal long before she had given up, emphatically declaring, ‘I’m so done.’
He laughed heartily, ‘Okay then.’
Rather than moving to clear the plates however, he simply looked at her, though look was far too plain a word, as was simply. There was nothing uncomplicated about what seemed to be happening between them, again, after such a long time. Martha tried and failed not to feel the weight of his eyes, the potential in the air that sat between them. She didn’t know how to put it all in to words. Again, she failed. It simply wasn’t that simple.
Breaking the tension, Parker said, ‘I should go and get freshened up.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, trying and failing not to sound disappointed.
He scrapped of the remnants of her lunch into the bin and then dumped the dishes into what appeared to be a dark chrome dishwasher. Before he disappeared through a door that led off from the kitchen at the back of the room, he said, ‘Won’t be long.’
‘Okay,’ she replied, then blew an impressive amount of dejected air out of her lips after he was gone. She sat, pouting at the empty door frame for a good while, contemplating calling him back or going after him but she did neither. He wouldn’t be long. He’d said so.
Getting to her feet, she stretched, happy that the pull from her midsection was not as bad as it had been earlier in the day. As predicted, she was healing fast enough for it not to be an issue. By the end of the day, any bruising should have been gone completely, like the cut on her cheek which nobody had brought up. Also as predicted. It made her laugh that the only parts of her life that were predictable were the unpredictable aspects of it. Irony at its most derisive.
The lounge was a big as her bedroom back home, the window a large semi-circle of glass that let in a lot of light. There were two doors leading off to the left but they were closed and she didn’t want to pry. She looked around the wide room, taking in the few ornaments and photos that dotted the sparsely populated shelves, a few of his family. Martha recognised his parents and felt a momentary tug of loss for their passing. She had liked the Parkers a lot and they had always treated her as parents should. Bad things should never happen to such good people and Michael’s parents had been some of the best she had ever known. It was a great shame.
Other pictures showed Parker with another couple. Martha recognised the woman in the frame as his big sister, Sally, who was obviously much older now but sti
ll as beautiful as she had always been. In another photo, she appeared with the same man, most likely her husband and two young boys, likely her children. It was a stark reminder to Martha of how life kept on going, even if you weren’t there to watch it go by.
Stepping deeper into the room, Martha carefully eased herself down on the large sofa, admiring how comfortable it was. She leaned back into the soft cushions and sighed, feeling all of the tension in her muscles finally giving up and getting out. With her stomach full and finally feeling like she was able to relax, she felt her eyes getting heavy, her head even heavier. She had a brief thought that she should probably take her shoes off before she curled up into a snug, little ball but it melted away as she succumbed to the desire of her fatigue. Too easily, she drifted off, the sleep that was waiting to catch her deep. And utterly dreamless.
Chapter 25
When she eventually woke, the room was dark, illuminated only by a softly lit lamp. A large pair of crimson curtains had been closed over the window, blocking out the day. Or night. Martha had no idea how long she had been dozing but found that she did not particularly care. It was as if the universe had granted her the exquisite gift of restfulness to make up for all the crap it had pulled in the past twenty-four hours. She had deserved this. Surely, she had deserved it.
Yawning and stretching she realised that somebody had put a thin blanket over her and that she was no longer wearing shoes. Turning her head, she found the culprit sitting in a large chair on the other side of the room. Parker had pulled the small table across and appeared to be working from it, files and folders spread out across the table-top. He had changed out of his work attire, dressed much more casually in jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt that fit his upper body like a soft second skin. His dark hair was still ruffled, his chin still stubbly and set in determination as he focused upon his work – the investigation that she had completely pushed to the back of her mind but didn’t want to start thinking about again. Not yet. Not while she was so relaxed, and they were still there, still together.
Sins of the Father (Bloody Marytown Book 1) Page 16
