Page 118 of Mother Parker
“Go. Go,” she said.
I picked up my car keys and went back outside. Trust a good tea and chat with Halmeoni to clear my head and help me see the truth.
I needed to find Parker. I needed to tell him I loved him too before I broke his heart irrevocably. I needed to save both our hearts.
He’d given me everything I could ever need or want. He looked after me and protected me even when I didn’t want to be protected. He’d opened himself raw to me, showing me all that was hiding under the surface: the good, the bad, and the amazing.
Because he was.
And I loved him.
Trust me to fall in love so quickly when I’d convinced myself I couldn’t.
I tried his phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I would try Autumn, anyone else’s, but there were only two places he could be. Wyatt’s or Ash’s.
The Outpost was shut when I passed by, and Ash never answered the door, even though Biscuit went berserk when I knocked.
Where is he?
Maybe he’d gone back to the shop.
Shit.
Maybe he’d gone back to pick up his stuff.
I got in the car so fast I gave myself whiplash, but I sped through the narrow streets until I got to my shop just down the road. I opened the backdoor and rushed upstairs, but when I got into the apartment, it was as cold and empty as I’d left it.
We need to talk. Where are you?I typed the message but then deleted it.
I couldn’t send that. That sounded ominous. Or stupid. I didn’t know which. Maybe both.
I started typing again but stopped mid-sentence when I heard a loud crack.
“What the—” I turned around.
There was nothing there.
There was another crack coming from downstairs.
I ran. I slammed doors open, barreled down the stairs, slammed more doors open, and when I entered the shop, I realized I was entirely unarmed.
I grabbed the broomstick by the door and walked farther into the café but stopped short when I came up to the counter.
The front windows, the ones that had been graffitied before—were smashed. Glass reigned supreme all over the shop floor. But that wasn’t my concern. My concern was the table and chairs that were on fire.
“What the fuck?” When I ducked behind the counter and grabbed the fire extinguisher, a bottle flew through the window and smashed in front of the counter, setting the floor on fire.
I looked outside the window and saw the culprits. Saw him standing in front of a black SUV with two more people, holding Molotov cocktails.
I pulled the pin off the fire extinguisher, put out the fire on the floor, table, and chairs, walked to the smashed window with the extinguisher at hand, and looked at them.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I shouted.
The only thing I could hear was the intensity of the flames dying down behind me, my bones shaking, and a passing seagull yelling outside.
The grimy lanky bastard that had dared threaten me smirked, and I stepped over the window to get outside, apparently unable to listen to reason when it told me to run.
I couldn’t though. I’d already ruined one good thing tonight. I wasn’t going to let another one get destroyed. Not my shop. Not my home.
