Page 32 of Turn

I pushed my chair back to the table. “It’s nothing.”

“I promise not to chase you into anymore bike racks,” Parker joked.

I snorted. “And I promise I’ll no longer wish for you to contract an intestinal parasite.”

“Intestinal parasite?”

“Yes. Or something equally disgusting.”

He smiled at me. I resisted for a second and then I smiled back. I felt lighter, unburdened. This had been the right thing to do. The right thing for me. And if Parker was able to come to terms with his past misdeeds and find some inner peace of his own, was that really a bad thing?

As I left Parker sitting there at the table I was still smiling.

Then I stopped abruptly because someone was standing on the other side of the glass doors of the coffee shop and silently observing.

His expression could be categorized as halfway between surprise and disgust. He knew nothing about the situation between Parker and me because I hadn’t given him any details.

Yet when our eyes met, his answering smirk said he’d just lost a little bit of respect for me.

I raised my chin in defiance and stared him down. Curtis Mulligan had no right to pass judgment. But when he laughed to himself and walked off my good feelings evaporated. I waited until he was out of sight before exiting the coffee shop and returning to Scratch.

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