Page 64 of The Wrong Heart

“No.”

I hold back an abrupt laugh, tucking my hair behind both ears.

Both ears that are currently burning fire engine red as Parker’s arm tickles mine while we stand there, side by side.

Curse my Swedish genes.

Shane’s gaze travels between us until he slowly nods his head, then scrubs at his nose. “Got it,” he mutters, but he never indicates what he “got.” “Check is fine. Just give it to West, and I’ll grab it from him this weekend.”

“Oh, I can do it now. It’s n—”

“Take care, Melody.” Shane storms past us, bumping shoulders with Parker, and stalks through the living room to the front door, slamming it shut.

I brave a peek up at Parker, trying to read him, trying to make sense of what that was, but he just lets out a sigh, his eyes closed, then traipses back into the kitchen.

Giving chase, I call out, “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I reply to his flexing shoulder blades, molded into his wet shirt. “Why were you just standing there smoldering?”

Parker finally pauses his escape attempt and turns toward me, the power drill tapping against his thigh. His eyebrows arch with bemusement. “I don’t smolder.”

“You absolutely smolder.”

I swear his cheeks twitch with the hint of a smile. “I was telling your douche-canoe of a friend to back the fuck down,” Parker replies. He presses the finger-trigger on the drill, and it buzzes to life. “Points for subtlety?”

My mouth goes dry, like I swallowed sand, but I try to downplay the dust storm funneling inside of me. “That wasn’t subtle, Parker. Zero points… actually,negativepoints.”

“Then why did you ask me if you already knew?”

“I…” Shock, disbelief, denial. Swallowing down more grit, I reply in a whispered breath, “I thought you hated me.”

Parker frowns slightly, glancing away before meeting my confused stare. “Who says I hate you?”

“I got the impression you hated everyone.”

His eyes flick over me like jade flames, drinking me in from toes to top as his jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck straining when he makes his way back up to my face. “Not you.”

And then he spins back around and trudges toward the ladder, leaving me dazed and dumbstruck as I watch him retreat.

“I’m pretty sure a cow just flew past my window.”

There’s a resounding chill dwelling inside my bones as I watch the storm die out through the pane of glass, replaced by an eerie sky, painted dark and green. Only the howl of the wind can be heard while everything else seems to go still. A shiver sweeps through me.

The calm before the storm.

Parker plods back down the ladder, the soles of his feet against the metal rungs causing me to blink myself back to reality. I glance at him over my shoulder, his hair dusted with specks of white drywall.

“If you need to get home, you should probably leave now,” I encourage him, hugging myself to repel the chill. “It looks like Judgment Day out there.”

“And leave you here alone to be all scared and shit?” He musses his hair, the sheetrock scattering. “Kind of a dick move.”

Nibbling my lip, I look back out the window. “I’ve been through worse.” When I feel him approaching me, I twist in place, facing him, noting the way he fidgets with the bandage on his index finger. “How’s your finger?”

“Still attached.”

“You should change the dressing,” I tell him, pacing forward. I reach for his hand, not asking for permission, but he dodges me. “Let me see.”

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