Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I don’t know what I was expecting from a knock in my hotel door at 2 a.m.—but Magnolia Parks wasn’t one of them.

Not after how she looked when she saw me. Not after how we spoke to each other earlier. But there she is, other side of the peephole. Holding her own arm and wearing a jumper she stole from me about forty seconds after I got it from Gucci. She’s frowning, face a new sort of sad I don’t think I’ve seen on her before.

I open the door and it’s one look at her and I don’t give a fuck about anything else, and I wonder if that’ll always be us. Are we just those people who always find a way back to each other no matter what? Probably.

We’re the wooden figurehead carved at the front of an old, sinking ship.

I step into the hall, close the door behind me.

“What happened?” I wrap her in me.

She pulls back and looks up at me and I don’t know what gives it away—her eyes, the smell of him on her.

She doesn’t have to say anything. I know.

I wince a bit. Out loud. She hears me, I know, because she presses herself harder into my chest when I do.

“Oh.” Is all I say. Nod once. Hold her tighter.

Fuck, it’s a solid burn.

Is this what I’ve been doing to her all these years? Is this how her chest feels? Because it feels like I’ve got carpet burn inside my chest. This weird slow sinking like my ribs are collapsing in on themselves and that maybe I’m actually finally losing her.

Maybe the ship’s not still sinking, maybe it’s sunk. Maybe we’re on the seabed now. Maybe the ship’s wood is starting to rot and all the anchors in the world can’t save us anymore.

“Are you okay?” I ask her because I don’t know what else to say. She just cries more. I hold her against me, my hands in her hair, and I pretend I don’t notice that it’s clearly just been pulled and messed up by someone else.

What are we doing? Other than hurting each other. I don’t know what we’re doing anymore. Because I love her in a final way. This unbeatable, can’t trump it, will always win out, no matter what, fucked up kind of way—but I can smell him on her and I could actually. Probably will later.

“I’m sorry,” she barely says, all muffled into my chest.

I tilt her chin up to look at me. “I’m sorry too.”

She blinks a few times and her eyes remind me of raindrops on leaves on cold mornings.

“I hate you,” she says, swallowing heavy.

“Yeah.” I nod. “I kind of hate me too.”

She pulls back to look up at me, I hold her face in both my hands—heavy, light eyes, that blushing mouth of hers with those cheeks that always go pink when I’m with her. The caramel skin, the hand I’ve held since I was fifteen, the curves of her body that fit into me like we’re split from the same stone. How will I ever get past her?

I won’t. Can’t. Couldn’t.

She holds my hand against her cheek, not letting go, not wanting to know what comes next for us once she does. I don’t think either of us know anymore. We used to, I think.

Thought we did, anyway. It used to be all roads lead home to Tobermory—a quiet life in a coastal town up north because one night we had an unstoppable lust and a belligerent sense of fearlessness, and we’d have grown old there. Fell asleep on the couch holding each other, leave the curtains open and drown in the morning light of loving her every day and it’s what we should have done but then that day happened. Probably should have done it anyway. Should have pulled her out and away to the life we both wanted even still, but I didn’t. If I had, we wouldn’t be here.

And then my hotel door opens, and Bartender fills the frame wearing my T-shirt and nothing else. Magnolia freezes in my arms and I close my eyes tight, like maybe if I squeeze them enough, Bartender will vanish, but she doesn’t and I know what comes next.

Brace myself for it.

It’s a shove this time. She pushes me crazy hard, but I know it’s coming, my feet are planted—Parks moves more than I do, and her little body rebounds from the push into the corridor wall behind her where she stumbles a bit.

I go to catch her, but she smacks my hands away, looking up at me like an animal that’s been kicked.

“Parks—” I reach for her again.

She jerks away from me. “No—”

“Magnolia—” I call for her, but she’s already gone.

05:23

Parks

Hey

How’s the weather, Parks.

Fucked.