Page 16 of Twisted Needs

“It happened,” he kind of shrugs. “I’m just glad he went out with the memory of all of us together as a family. Katya and I running through the snow, my mom yelling at us from the front of the apartment building slinging a bottle of vodka in her hand.”

“Sounds like your mom,” I chuckle softly. And maybe it’s because this is the first time he’s ever opened up to me like this, or maybe it’s the six beers…

“Crap.” Parker swipes his back hand over the side of my cheek. “You’re freezing.”

He looks at me like I’m some sort of rare specimen, rattling me in every possible way. I genuinely pause dead in my tracks for a moment.

“I’m horrible,” he jokes, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “Holding you captive. Forcing you to stand outside in the middle of a blizzard.”

“I think I can already hear the police sirens,” I snort. “World’s worst kidnapper.”

Parker laughs, dragging me back inside. “When did you get so funny?”

The warm air hits me like a flame. Immediately warm on the outside, but I can still feel a coldness in my bones. I walk past him, straight over to the couch to grab a blanket.

“I have a heated blanket,” Parker tells me, then quickly disappearing upstairs for a few beats before returning with a massive American flag-printed blanket.

“Sochi Olympics,” I say without even thinking the moment he throws it to me. “Did you get this in your little Team USA bag?”

“How do you know?”

I look up at him and shake my head. “It was, like, 2014. I was fully sentient back then.”

Parker snorts.

“And why else would you have a massive heated blanket with a bunch of little flags on it?” I pause briefly, pressing my lips together. “Besides the fact that you’re a Republican.”

He takes a few steps closer to me without even thinking. “I’m not a fucking Republican, you goof.”

I just smirk at him.

“You’re impossible,” he sighs, giving me a look that lingers for a second longer than it should.

Later into the night, we had more beers than we could even count.

Parker sits at one end of the couch with his legs kicked onto the coffee table. His arm rests on the cushions, outstretched and in dangerous proximity to my end of the couch.

“So you ran over a bear…brought it back to your cabin…and you cooked it?” I say to him, the tone in my voice making it clear how unbelievable the story is.

“Your brother ran over the bear,” Parker clarifies before laughing. His face brightens immediately, illuminated by his own amusement. “We called the ranger and he just told us to bring him some bear loin.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He just laughs again, bringing his bottle to his lips and taking another sip.

“Mm.” He holds a finger up to me and sets his bottle back down on its coaster. “So we used the bungie jumpers…right?” He gives himself a moment to catch up while dying of laughter. “And we had the smart idea to sorta tie them together and hoist the bear up in the air, like, over a trash can…” Parker then goes into extreme graphic detail. “And Luca—your brother—” he squeezes my shoulder twice like it means nothing. “Oh my God. This fucking dumbass. He googled a tutorial on how to skin a bear…with a pocket knife.”

I know it’s completely subconscious the way he brushes his fingers over the back of my head, threading them through my hair. I know that…but my body still reacts like it was deliberate.

Parker snorts like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. My heart buzzes like it’s the most beautiful face he’s ever made.

“The snow was way too deep to drive in by then, so we had to put on our skis and walk through the two feet of snow to get to the snow mobile, drive it to the ranger station, borrow his butcher knife⁠—”

“And you guys brought it all the way back?”

“No,” Parker shakes his head. “We somehow convinced the ranger to leave his post and ride back with us to the cabin so he could do the whole thing for us.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this story. It’s not even the first time I’ve heard Parker retell it. But it’s the first time he’s telling it to me. In a way, it feels like it’s all mine. Like the memory belongs to me and no one else.