“Are you upset?” Maxx queries, and Parrish spins on him.
“Am I upset?” he hisses out, getting close to the bed and leaning down to put his palms atop it. “Of course I’m upset. I’m fucking furious. I would love nothing more than to punch both of you right now, just to get it out of my system.” Parrish stands back up and glances over at Chasm, clearly indicating that when he said ‘both’, he meant the boys.
“I was a part of this, too,” I start, but Parrish is shaking his head rapidly.
“No. This was the Slayer’s fault. Every bit of it.” He starts to pace again. “It won’t work.” Parrish nibbles his thumbnail and recognition sparks in me. Is that where I picked up that habit? I stifle an inappropriate smile.
“We’ve been a little … lovey,” I admit, wanting him to know the full scope. “Me and Chasm. Me and Maxx. There were consequences to not being lovey, but that isn’t the whole story. We all like each other.”
Parrish pauses, his gaze on the matte black walls of his room. He turns very slowly to look at me and then storms over to the bed, grabbing my hand and yanking me up. I’m surprised by the strength in it—pleasantly surprised—and I stumble a bit as I try to keep up with him.
“Back me up if Tess shows up?” he offers as Chasm gapes at him.
“What are you—” he starts, but then Parrish is pulling me into the bathroom and pushing my back against the door.
His mouth descends on mine, hot and possessive, the fingers of his left hand curling around my wrist. He breaks the kiss but only after we’re both gasping for breath, sliding his right hand up the wall to flick the switch for the bathroom fan.
“I know I haven’t been gone very long,” he whispers, looking away from me, hurt etched plainly into the beautiful lines of his face. “But it feels like an eternity. The three of you have developed something without me; I feel like a stranger.”
“No,” I whisper, but he isn’t wrong about everything, just the last bit. “Everything I did, I did for you. I would never have touched Chasm or Maxx otherwise. But I can understand if you don’t want to continue what we started—”
I stop talking because the look that boy turns on me is reminiscent of the scathing ones he used to chuck my way at Whitehall, when he was telling me I was crap in bed while we were both virgins.
“Don’t ever suggest something like that again,” he declares, releasing me and standing up straight. “Did you hear anything that I said to you? Either in the basement that night or before, during, or after sex?”
My cheeks flush, but I hold his gaze as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Your everything is beautiful,” I murmur, because I could live a hundred more years of this life and never forget the things Parrish said to me. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it every day since you went missing. That morning, when I woke up and you were gone, I was worried you might’ve left because of what we did.”
He’s already shaking his head, putting his palm on the door above my head and leaning in toward me.
“Never. How do you think I stayed a virgin until now? Because I’ve never met a girl that I wanted to sleep with before. And trust me: many have tried,” he adds dryly, and my mind strays to Lumen.
Oh.
The item she slipped into my hand!
But now isn’t the time to ask Chasm to take a look at it. We’ll get there, but first … this.
“Are you sure you still want me after …” I trail off, shaking out my hands. “I devirginized both of your best friends.”
Parrish’s face gets pale, and he turns away, like his emotions are about to get the better of him.
“They’re both good guys,” he murmurs, glancing back at me. “But it killed me to watch you and Chasm in that video. You weren’t just fucking because you were told to; it was more than that.”
I hold his gaze and give a sharp nod.
“It was. Did you know that night, after I left you, I found a vase full of sunflowers in my room? He was coming to confess his feelings. Instead, he gave us condoms and walked away.”
Parrish stares at me for a minute, and then nods.
“I know. He said as much to me in Korean.”
“I know about that, too,” I admit, and Parrish sighs again, stalking over to the shower. He turns it on and then spins back to face me.
“I’m having a really hard time with this, I won’t lie to you.” I nod at his words, because he has every right to feel that way. “But there’s one thing that I know for absolute certain.” He covers the distance between us in a few, careful strides, capturing my face again and brushing his mouth against mine. “While I was gone, all I could think about was you. How much I missed you. How angry I was that our time together after that night was stolen. We deserved to have that. I could barely sleep that night. All I wanted was to go in your room and touch you again, talk to you.”
