Page 84 of Mother Parker
“What? So because I’m not a SEAL, I can’t handle myself? Because I’m gay, I need to hide away and let people run all over me.”
He opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him say whatever he was about to.
“Don’t. I just…I can’t talk to you right now,” I said and ran through the back door, up the stairs, and into my apartment.
These guys thought they knew everything. Because they were physically superior, the rest of us mortals couldn’t handle anything. Fuck that macho, sexist bullshit, and fuck him for even suggesting it.
I inhaled and exhaled. Took breath after breath, but I couldn’t shake it off. I couldn’t shake the arrogance of someone saying something like that and what it meant.
Had I misread Parker? Was he not the soft giant with a heart of gold I thought he was? Was that how he acted with everyone? Had I been too busy drooling over him to notice, or had I misinterpreted parts of him to fit my crush on him?
If he truly was a good guy who wasn’t just using his flirt and sex appeal to sleep with me, he’d be here now, wouldn’t he? He’d be knocking on my door and apologizing. He’d be putting his tail between his legs and begging for forgiveness. But he wasn’t here, was he?
Agh, Hwanchan. Why do you always go for the assholes?
I pushed myself off the door. He wasn’t coming. And I had shit to do.
For starters, I had to find out if I could get any sort of compensation from my insurance company for having to close the shop today.
Highly unlikely, but one didn’t get if one didn’t ask.
I also had to let Halmeoni know before she found out through the grapevine and became unnecessarily worried about me.
But most of all, I wanted to go downstairs and help the guys, but I couldn’t while Parker was here. I didn’t want to look at him and feel like I had to apologize for standing up for my beliefs. And I knew if I saw him, that was exactly what I’d do.
So I got busy. I called the insurance company—the answer was no, by the way, since I could still operate the business. They didn’t account for traumatic homophobic attacks. I called Halmeoni, and I vacuumed my apartment. Anything to keep me busy and take my mind off everything.
And eventually, I tired myself so much I went to sleep.
Knock, knock.
I opened my eyes and rubbed the sleep away.
What was that? Was someone trying to break in now? Wouldn’t that be the cherry on the cake right after I told Parker to stick it for suggesting I couldn’t take care of myself?
Knock, knock.
I sat up on the sofa and grabbed my phone. It was afternoon. How long had I been out for?
In all fairness, I’d stayed up most of the night letting that idiot fuck me, so no wonder I was tired.
Knock, knock.
Well, I doubted the thieves would knock if they were trying to break in, and I was even more confident they wouldn’t do so in the middle of the day.
So with that reasoning as my armor, I got up and went to answer the door.
It was probably Ash or Maddox wanting to update me on the state of the windows.
Only it wasn’t.
It was a pair of puppy dog eyes and a big black backpack.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when all I wanted to do was jump him.
He came. He came. He was late, but he ran after me.
But he’d still said all those things.
