Page 23 of Parker

“I never said so.”

“You didn’t have to. I just knew.”

She sits back in her seat, leaning her elbow on the open window frame, like she might just jump onto the road if this conversation gets more awkward. Heck, I might join her.

“I didn’t…” She starts then stops, takes a deep breath and lets it go. Finally, she looks over at me. “Sawyer changed around you. He was different.”

Huh. Interesting. And unexpected. Of all the things she might have said, I didn’t see this coming.

It’s my turn to ask, “What do you mean?”

She stares out the windshield as we glide along this quiet desert road. When I peek over, her eyebrows are knitted together, and her lips are turned down.

“Tell me,” I coax her gently.

“He wasn’t as nice when you were around. He’d started showing off the second you walked into the room. And I wasalwaysthe target.Alwaysthe victim. If Quinn showed up, I knew that I’d be teased to death. It made me dread…”

“Seeing me.”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Sorry, but yeah.”

Wow. Okay. So that stings.

But it also explains an awful lot.

I mean, obviously I didn’t know what Sawyer was like around his sister when Iwasn’tthere. I only knew what he was like when Iwasthere. And he was always teasing, always setting up practical jokes, always targeting Parker as the butt of his jokes. And since I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, I just followed his lead.

Though I never really gave it a whole lot of thought, in hindsight, it makes sense that he’d targeted Parker. Hunter and Tanner would’ve pounded him for half the shit we pulled. Harper was older and off-limits, especially since she was like a second mom to Sawyer once he lost his own. And Reeve was the family’s little baby. No one messed with her. But Parker? Parker was fair game. Or so he had led me to believe.

It makes me feel bad when I look at things through her eyes.

I must have ruined every camping trip for her.

Her heart must have fallen during every family event where I suddenly showed up.

How she must have hated it when my family wrangled an invitation for Thanksgiving Day or Easter brunch.

She hated me because every time I was around, her brother was an asshole to her.

And there was me, just going along with it like it was nothing.

A lump rises up in my throat, and the setting sun, bright through the windshield, makes my eyes burn like crazy.

“I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what?” she asks. This is usually when she’d start snapping at me, but her voice is inquisitive, almost gentle.

“I didn’t…” I gulp over the lump. “…know that. I didn’t know that Sawyer changed when I was around. I just…I think I just assumed that’s how siblings behaved with each other.”

“When youweren’taround, Sawyer and I got along great,” she says. “We’re only a year apart, you know? We were close. We had fun together. But then you’d come over and…”

“We’d gang up on you.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “That’s how it felt.”

To our right is a sign that reads, “White Rock Trailhead,” and I turn toward it, off the main loop, and put the car in park. I need to say something, and I should be looking at her when I say it.

“Why are we stopping?”

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