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~14~
“... will you please be my girlfriend? Circle yes or no ...”
Joey had been ableto tell something was wrong the next day – Paige had slept next to him and not Parker, so that had been a pretty good clue. But Paige was busy trying to pretend like everything was normal, and Parker wasn’t saying anything at all, so when Joey got on the airplane that afternoon, he felt like he'd failed in his mission to make Paige fall in love with Parker.
Parker and Paige still hadn’t spoken when they checked out of the Bellagio. After they'd been driving for an hour, she ventured a question about where he wanted to eat, but he just turned the radio on – something heneverdid. She hadn't even been sure it actually worked
She didn’t try to speak again until they got into San Diego.
“Parker, you can’t just not speak to me,” she said once they were in a dingy motel room. He slung his bag onto the floor by the bathroom and readjusted the baseball cap he was wearing.
“I can try,” was his short reply before he wandered into the bathroom. She followed him.
“This is stupid. Like you said, is this how you want to spend our last days together?” she asked, holding her hands out. He leaned against the bathroom counter and folded his arms over his chest, staring at her.
“So I’m being stupid,” he clarified. She rolled her eyes.
“Yes! Do you want me to lie to you? I can do that, you know. Oh, Parker, I’ll go with you to Seattle, where we can have two-point-five kids and a mini-van,” she cooed. He pushed himself away from the sink, shoving past her.
“Your sarcasm is appreciated as always, Paige,” he snapped. She grabbed his arm.
“At least I’m being honest! Parker, c’mon! You want the truth? Fine, I wish you would just abandon your life and take off with me,” she said suddenly. He stared at her and she nodded. “I do. But I know you won’t, or you can’t, and I’m okay with that. Why can’t you be?” He covered his face with his hands.
“Because. Just because, Paige. Sometimes you act like I’m asking you for marriage or something. A mini-van!? I just want you to meet my sister, hang around Seattle for a little bit. Maybe we can drive some more after that, maybe we could find somewhere we both like, maybe you’ll actually drive me insane and I’ll dump your body in a lake somewhere.I don’t know, but unlike you,I’mwilling to try. That’s the thing, Paige – you use the excuse that you don’t wanna settle down or move in with me or have my millions of babies or whatever, but you conveniently seem to have ignored the fact thatI never asked you to. Christ, I feel like a twelve year old, passing notes or something. ‘Paige Davis, will you please be my girlfriend? Circle yes or no,’ for fuck's sake. And you always circleno,” he said.
Paige’s breath caught in her throat. He was right. He was absolutely right. He'd never asked her for any of that stuff, her paranoid brain had just gone and made it all up. But still. She couldn’t say the words. She liked Parkera lot, but she couldn’t help the way she felt. If there was the barest potential for her to lose her hard won and highly coveted freedom, then she just couldn't wrap her brain around submitting in any capacity. Not even to Parker, which she took as a sign that she wasn’t ready to be with him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m the one who's sorry,” he replied, before walking out of the motel room.
*
PARKER WAS BEGINNINGto get a little tipsy. And he knew that was probably bad, but he didn’t care and ordered another beer.
He'd found his way into a dive bar down the street. He'd wanted to take the car, really scare her into thinking he’d actually leave her. But he'd chickened out and just walked down the street.
Pussy.
“Hell, another round for the table!”
At first, he'd sat alone at the bar, feeling sorry for himself. But an older guy sitting next to him had struck up a conversation. Eventually, some other guys at the bar joined in and soon they all moved to a table in the back. Someone broke out a deck of cards and they started an impromptu game of Texas Hold ‘Em. They were only playing for peanuts and pretzels, but it was good fun, and after a couple hours, their table held about eight guys.
A gaggle of girls had come to see what all the energy and laughing was about. Two of the girls had joined the game, and a redhead with a loud laugh and full lips had taken a shine to him. She stood next to his chair, leaning her hip against his arm, laughing at everything he said and doing her best to help him win. She would lean down and whisper close in his ear the hands she could see from her standing position.
