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But she wasn't – her sweater was a ridiculously big monstrosity, knitted and bulky, hiding her body. Skinny jeans were tucked into thick, scrunchy boots. A scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck, under the braid, and there she was, covered from neck to toe, ankle to wrist. All her harsh edges and sharp lines, covered and softened by warm knits and thick hair.
It was like looking at a different person. Still incredibly beautiful, she still took his breath away, but so different. It made him nervous. But when she'd finally calmed down, the same Paige he'd known all those months ago came pouring out of her mouth.
Parker was surprised when she led him to a car. He couldn’t picture her owning a vehicle, and especially not a gray Toyota Corolla. When he'd looked at her in horror, she'd shrugged and told him it was cheap.
But if Paige owning a car was weird, being in her apartment was downrightbizarre. The hobo had found a home, and he was standing in it.
He'd never tried to picture what kind of place Paige would live in, but he guessed that if he ever had, it would've looked exactly like how she had it. It was very sparse, a sofa facing a small television on a stand. One large plant standing in a corner. There were very little decorations, except for a huge corkboard that took up a large chunk of one wall.
When she excused herself to do something in her room, he wandered over to examine the board. It was covered in pictures. They'd just been printed on regular paper, but there were tons of them. Looking them over, it slowly dawned on him that most were from their road trip.
He instantly recognized one he'd snapped with her camera in Moab. A sketch that he himself had drawn of her, when she'd been sleeping, was tacked up. He also found another picture he'd taken of her in Galveston. She was in his uncle’s pool, her back to the camera, staring out at the ocean. He loved that picture, could remember that day.
But he soon realized there wasn’t one single picture of him. He looked them all over,twice. He knew she must've had lots of him, she'd had her camera out all the time and was not shy about taking photos whenever she felt like it. She probably even had some pretty scandalous ones of him, but he didn’t see any. There were several of Joey, and even a couple of The Beast, but not one single photo to show he'd been with her on that trip.
He wondered if that meant something.
Realizing she'd been gone an awfully long time, Parker wandered through her apartment. It wasn’t very big, an eat-in kitchen facing the living room, and a tiny bathroom that only had a shower, no tub. A cat streaked across the floor in front of him at one point, and he almost burst out laughing. Paige owned a cat. It was either perfect, or a sign of the Apocalypse.
At the end of his self-tour, he stepped up to her bedroom door. He was about to knock on it, but then saw she'd left it cracked open and he could see inside.
She was leaning against a dresser, her face in her hands. She was only wearing a thin black tank top and black underwear, obviously in the middle of changing. Her hair was now a loose ponytail, the braid taken apart. At first, he couldn’t figure out what she was doing, but then he realized she was crying.
He wasn’t sure what to do. Parker had seen Paige without her clothes on lots of time, but he felt like he wasreallyseeing her naked just then. Before that day, he'd never seen Paige cry before, not ever. Not when they'd fought. Not when she'd talked about her childhood or her family. Not when Trent had attacked her. Not in the hospital.Not even when he'd left her. And now here she was, crying in a parking lot, and then five minutes later, crying alone in her bedroom.
He began to think maybe he shouldn’t be there. He hadn’t meant to upset her, he'd just wanted to see her. He had the overwhelming urge to go hold her – he hadn't seen her in what felt like forever, but she still felt like his. Like she belonged to him and it was his job to make her feel better. But he didn’t know if he was right.
It had been a very long time.
He finally walked back into the living room and sat down on the couch. About five minutes later, she finally appeared. She'd pulled on a pair of leggings and thick socks to go with the tank top, but that was it. As she walked past the sofa, she gave him a nervous smile and pulled her now wild hair up into a knot on top of her head.
“Sorry I took so long. Do you want something to drink?” she asked, her voice light as she went to her coffee maker. She'd composed herself so well, he couldn't even tell she'd been upset, so he decided not to ask about the crying, since she obviously wanted to keep it to herself.
“No. Sit down, chill out, put your feet up,” he urged, patting the couch next to him. She smiled again and came around, sitting in the spot and turning to face him. She brought her knees up in front of her and he laughed at her thick wool socks.
“They’re practical, Seattle is cold,” was all she said.
“Why did you move here, Paige?” he asked.
“It wasn’t my first plan. I tried hitchhiking again, but couldn’t do it. I had a breakdown in a hotel room in Phoenix. After that, I think I had some half-baked notion about storming in here and sweeping you off your feet, but I was too late,” she said.
Parker nodded, surprised at her candor. He'd been positive that a couple days, or weeks at most, after him leaving the hospital, she'd already forgotten him. When two months had passed without a phone call or any kind of contact, he'd been so depressed that he had taken a job in the Bahamas.
“Yeah, I didn’t stick around too long. Pity, I love to be swept,” he joked, and she laughed.
“Joey said you were in the Bahamas?” she asked.
“My uncle’s involved in this resort that’s getting built there. I was going stir-crazy here; you infected me with your wanderlust. I finally headed down there, worked around the site, stayed till January,” he explained.
“Did you work out the whole time you were there? You’re so muchbigger,” she commented, poking his bicep. He burst out laughing.
“Jesus, Paige, you must really think I’m some sort of nancy-rich-boy. When I say I was working on a site, I wasworking on a site. Doing construction, building things, being all manly,” he laughed. She raised her eyebrows.
“Well, it worked, you certainly look ... manly,” she finished in a questioning tone. He glared at her and flexed a bicep comically.
“You know you can’t resist me.”
She kicked him in the hip.
