Page 130 of Mother Parker
“What…what are you guys doing?” I asked once I’d taken it all in.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Carson asked as he came through from the storeroom.
I bit my lip and looked at everyone again. A symphony of good mornings rang through and my heart filled with joy.
“You guys shouldn’t have—”
“Nonsense. You’re a friend and a member of this community. Of course we’d help,” Penelope said from seven feet up.
“You’re very lucky, Hwan. There was no significant damage other than the windows,” Autumn said. “Well, and the table and chairs.”
She pointed to the other side, and I looked at the charred table and molten chairs. Parker came up behind me and grabbed my shoulders with his big hands.
“See? You were worried about nothing,” he said and dropped a kiss on the top of my head.
“So…this is a thing then?” Carson asked, and I turned to find him staring at Parker with a raised eyebrow.
I put my hand on top of Parker’s on my shoulder and nodded.
“Is that okay?” Parker asked.
I wasn’t exactly sure why he would ask that, but Carson stared at him and bobbed his head.
“Of course. Yeah,” he said.
I looked from one to the other with half-slit eyes, waiting for an explanation or trying to figure it out, but I couldn’t crack it, so I gave up.
“Anyway, we should be good to open in the next hour. We’re just waiting for the tapioca to cook,” Carson said.
“Thank you, guys. Thank you so much.”
I searched for everyone’s eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. My omma might not have had a community to get behind her and help her, but I did. Just because something happened to her didn’t mean it would happen to me. I had to keep remembering that.
Hopefully, with Parker by my side, it would be hard to forget.
“Right, where am I needed?”
I tried to recalibrate myself, but I wasn’t used to someone else doing all the prep for me.
“At the station, that’s where,” Wyatt said, putting down a sheet of plywood.
“Oh yeah, that,” I mumbled.
He beckoned Parker and me closer, and we approached him as Ash and Maddox also joined.
“How much and what do we tell them?” Parker asked Wyatt.
“Everything. Carson’s asked Nimit and the Blueberry Girls shop to press charges against Collins, and Elliot’s going to testify against his brother, so there’ll be a warrant for his arrest soon,” he said.
“You would trust Elliot after what he did?” I asked.
“He’s not a bad kid. His brother is an abusive son of a bitch. He was just doing what he needed to survive,” Wyatt answered.
“I thought you didn’t trust anyone,” Parker said.
Wyatt glared at him.
“He’s a sixteen-year-old boy. I doubt he’s running any criminal rings, do you?” he said.
