Page 65 of Mother Parker
“Maybe, but I’d be willing to bet on yours,” he whispered with all the confidence and apparently not insulted by my assumption.
“You’d lose,” I said.
He smirked, and it gave his eyes a wonderful, irresistible glow. He licked his lips as if inviting me to taste them.
“One way to find out. Tell me what happened next,” he said.
My throat dried out, and I picked up my glass to quench the sudden thirst.
“They had debts. Lots of them. Medical ones, mainly. And the insurance companies were chasing me day and night. Becca was getting fed up. All our money went to paying off my dead parents’ bills, and we had nothing for ourselves. She was already frustrated that she only saw me a few days a month. I warned her about it, but I guess it didn’t register with her until she was living it. So, you know, it was all too much for her. I couldn’t make her happy. I was drowning in debt. And the only way to get the debtors off my back was to pay them off. That was what I thought. So…”
I shook my head, the memory too sour to linger for long.
I was stupid. Just an idiot with muscles for brains.
“I sold my house. Our house. I sold it so I could pay off the bills. And that was it for her. She thought I was only thinking of myself, that I didn’t care about her, and that same night, she packed her stuff and went to sleep at her girlfriend’s. We’d only been married a year, and she left me. Because I’m useless and ruin everything. Because I can’t make anyone happy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It sounds like you were in a difficult situation with no way out, and you did what you thought was best. And it sounds like she never really loved you in the first place if she could leave you so easily.”
I pulled my hand from under his and laughed. This time it rolled through me like a stone tumbling straight off a cliff.
“See, I told you. You’re a bad judge of character.”
“Huh?” he asked, confusion wrinkling his face.
“I ruined my marriage because I wasn’t smart enough to know that I didn’t need to pay off those bills. If I’d asked around, or, I don’t know, Googled it, I’d have known that medical bills aren’t inherited. But I didn’t. I kept thinking that if I didn’t handle them, they’d hound Autumn and Camden for them, and they didn’t need to worry about any of that. They had enough to deal with on their own.”
“Wow,” Hwan said.
“See, I told you. I’m stupid, and you’re a bad judge of character,” I said.
He shook his head, frowning and blowing raspberries.
“No. The wow wasn’t because you’re stupid but because you’re blind. All I hear was what an amazing person you are trying to look after everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it.”
“I don’t think you’ve been listening closely.”
“I think I have. So what? You didn’t know you didn’t have to pay the bills. You’d never dealt with anything of that kind before, so why would you know? I thought they were inherited too. I would have been under the same stress if I were you. But you didn’t do anything out of malice. You didn’t try to hurt your wife. You were trying to look out for your family. For your sister and your brother. And your asshole bigoted parents. If she couldn’t see that kind heart of yours, she didn’t deserve it in the first place. You deserve good things, Parker. You deserve all the good things.”
When had he moved his hand to my face? When had he taken hold of my chin?
I didn’t know. I’d been too distracted by what he was saying to notice, but now that I had, I couldn’t stop noticing how his touch burned through my body, making me feel alive. Alive and intoxicated.
The kind of intoxication you achieved after making love to someone and they were the best lover they could be.
The kind of high that came from loving someone so fully and madly that your heart ached for it.
“Do I…do I deserve you?” I muttered before I could stop myself—if I even wanted to stop myself.
His mouth dropped open and he blinked.
I’d gone and done it. I’d gone and humiliated myself again. Why had I said that? Had that been necessary?
“I’m sor—” I tried to push off my chair and walk away.
“Wait, no,” he replied and held on to me, fire in his eyes.
Maybe I had misinterpreted. Maybe he hadn’t been appalled by my question. Maybe…
