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But he did know. I could see the answer swimming through his eyes, tormenting him.
“Ohrley,” I warned. “Do I need to call a meeting?”
“No,” he rushed to answer. “Fuck no. Anddefinitelydo not call Thane. Dammit, why did I have to stumble acrossyoutonight?”
“Because you’re one lucky son of a bitch,” I told him as we reached my ride.
But that only caused his eyes to water with distress. “I am,” he choked out painfully. “I’m luckier than I deserve, and it’s fucking killing me.”
After unlocking the doors and opening the passenger side for him, I turned to block the entrance before letting him in. “Here’s the deal. If you agree to tell me everything—no holding back or avoiding—then I won’t call Thane. Got it?”
Parker sniffed and wiped a hand across his nose. “Fuck. Fine,” he grumbled.
“Great.” I stepped aside and gave him a shove. “Get in.”
He stumbled forward, and I had to set both hands on his back to keep him from falling right back out again, but after plenty of cursing, we got him settled into his seat, and once he was belted in, I shut the door to jog around toward the driver’s side.
Before sliding behind the wheel, however, I glanced around the parking lot in the hopes of spotting Oaklynn one last time, except she was nowhere to be found.
Hissing out my regret, I got in and started the engine.
“So what happened?” I asked as I reversed us from the spot.
Parker was moodily silent for nearly a minute as I navigated out of the parking lot before he grumbled, “I bought and sold another business this week. My net worth is now just over twenty-eight million. Which is a new record for me.”
“Jesus,” I breathed, shaking my head in amazement.
Parker was a financial genius. After his parents died in an accident when their car had an electronic malfunction, he got paid, like, two million from the automobile company in recompense. And he’d been playing the stock market with it ever since, starting out by transferring funds through Thane’s parents and letting them invest for him until he turned eighteen. From there, he’d taken over the reins himself, and these days, it seemed as if he doubled his money every few months.
He was still enrolled in college, working toward a business degree, but the classes bored him. He thought he knew more than his professors, and hell, maybe he did; he definitelymademore than them. I was curious if he was going to stick around until the spring to graduate or not.
“That’s awesome,” I said, impressed by his skills.
But Parker scoffed and pulled his flask from his jacket, only to realize it was empty. Scowling, he tossed it into the backseat and muttered, “Yeah, real awesome. And all I had to do was screamI hate youto my parents as they were walking out the door to go meet their deaths.”
I nodded, having heard this before. “So it’s just guilt you need to work through this time?”
“Just guilt?” he mumbled snidely. “You say that as if it’s nothing.”
“I know it’s not nothing,” I promised before shrugging. “This shit sucks. But…it is what it is.”
“What itis, is not fair,” he grumbled. “I mean, why do Istillhave the hardest time dealing with this? Why can’t I get over it like the rest of you did?”
“It’s not a cold you getover,” I reminded him, using the same words our first counselor had all those years ago. “It’s a life-long condition you survive, and we all still deal with it, just like you do. The only reason you make it so hard is because you avoid and suppress more than the rest of us do. You always act like it’s going to hurt more if you face it head-on. But it doesn’t. The pain actually moves through you faster if you just open your arms and taunt,bring it on, motherfucker.”
Parker sniffed out an amused sound and shook his head before he sighed and let his head fall back against the headrest. “And what if I don’t feel as if I should be allowed to work through it? I don’t deserve to heal.”
“Then I would say…” I blew out a breath and glanced over at him as we approached a red light. “Who really deserves any of the good things they get? Just be grateful for it. I guarantee you your parents would be more upset if they learned you squandered this precious gift they left you. They’d be proud of your success.”
With a pained shudder, he drew in a shaky breath and reached out to grip my dashboard as a wave of grief engulfed him. “But I’d rather have them back than all the cash in the world,” he ground out with tears trembling from his lashes and his teeth clenched. “God… This fuckingsucks.”
“Embrace it, anyway,” I encouraged. “You think you deserve the pain, right? Take it. Feel it.”
“And I hateyou,” he hissed as he bowed his head. “I want to scream. I want to shout as loud as I can.”
I rolled down both windows on my truck. “Then shout.”
So he did. He roared out all the agony inside him, cursing and yelling at the top of his lungs.
