Everything Changes (40 page)

His face fell and I realized that by not telling
Sean I was killing both of them. Parker’s eyes held the same disappointment
they did when he left the first time, only now any hope he once had was gone.

His face fell and I realized by not telling him,
I was killing both of them. His blue eyes held the same disappointment they did
when he left the first time. Only now, any hope he once had was gone.

It was hard to understand how we were here once again
when we swore we never would.

Parker turned to me, his face twisted both in
anger and hurt. “I won’t say anything. You can go back to your new life and
pretend this never happened.”

My hands found his and then his shoulders, hoping
he would look at me, really look at me, and see that even though I wasn’t sure
I could tell Sean about Parker, what we were doing wasn’t something I wanted to
pretend never happened.

His shoulders were tense, his body taunt against
mine as his breathing and mine seemed forced. He lifted his head a little, just
enough to see my eyes. “Do you regret it?”

“No,” I murmured, never looking away as I reached
up and traced the edge of his face, running my fingers over his temple and
cheekbone, touching him the way I always had before any of this happened.
Before Sean, before the phone calls, back when we were in this very valley and
whatever it was that formed here remained here.

His eyes closed and he kissed me again, soft and
gentle this time. His fingers slipped off my face, down my neck, traced over my
collarbones, dragging over my shoulders, barely skimming the sides of my bare
breasts. He was watching me again, waiting to see my reaction. I wondered what
his eyes saw as he looked at me. Did he see what I saw? A girl who held on so
completely to a boy that she gave up everything for in hopes that one day
everything would change?

Did he see a girl that loved a boy so completely
that she would do anything, be anything he wanted?

Part of me hoped that he didn’t see that because
I didn’t want to be that girl anymore.

I felt his hand sliding up my side, around my
shoulder, and up my arm until his fingers brushed across the metal on my left
hand.

“Take this off,” he murmured, never looking away
from me, but his eyes were cloudy, as if he was lost inside. Maybe he was
because I sure as hell was.

Without hesitation, I slid the ring off. He
reached for it and dropped it beside me knowing he held every string to my
heart. His hands came up to mine, lacing our fingers together. “Please don’t marry
him,” he said, his lips barely moving around the words.

It seemed
—
or maybe it was just me
—
that
epiphanies always happened at the worst possible time. Like how I realized that
what Parker and I had was real all along.

CHAPTER 26

Parker O’Neil

Blocked
Pass

A blocked pass happens
when a rider overtakes another rider by moving into his opponent’s path,
effectively blocking his line of travel.

July
29, 2002

I woke up in the morning wishing that our life
was right here in this very condo surrounded by steep valleys and the warm sun.
My neck was stiff, as always, my back sore, every muscle aching for a different
reason. I shifted and noticed her lying against me, her face pressed against my
arm, our sweat making us stick together.

How she could sleep all tangled up was beyond me
but someone reassuring that she felt the need to sacrifice comfort for
closeness.

Why did she control me this way?

Why did she always put the block pass on me?

I went for a quick run while Ro slept, trying to
clear my head, but it didn’t work. When I got back, sweating and panting, Ro
was there staring at me. The hunger in her stare took me by surprise.

I couldn’t stop myself. She begged me without
saying the words; her movement consumed and possessed me as I entered her
again.

Ro wanted to change this, she did. She wanted
what we had returning to the red rocks where our love was formed.

“I hate that it’s not easy.”

“Nothing is ever easy,” I said, feeling the warm
breeze against my back. Ro twisted, her heat consuming me as I consumed her.

We were twenty-one. Why couldn’t we finally get
our shit together?

Why was something always in our way?

I leaned forward kissing her forehead, my head
resting against her chest.

She looked up at me as though I was her answer. I
wanted to be. I could be. But I wasn’t. All these years I was never the answer.

Leaning in, her scent clouded anything I felt or
wanted to feel in that moment. “It’s your choice.” My heated breath swept over
her shivering skin. “I won’t be your reason.”

My words hung in the valley like fog waiting to
shroud everything we once were. She looked up at me, and I could instantly see
the combination of trepidation and happiness, but then there was that confusion
again.

Honestly, the situation itself pissed me off, and
I was left not knowing how to feel about it, besides being pissed that we
couldn’t change it. Part of me wished we could have just got our shit together
and talked.

I held her stare for a long beat before she
stirred below me. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel,” I said, sitting up
and removing myself from her. “Where does this leave us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to marry him?” I was pressing for
answers she didn’t have or maybe didn’t want to say.

“I don’t know,” she said, as she started to put
her clothes back on. My eyes immediately went to the ring that remained on the
nightstand beside her. I hated that tiny piece of metal, fucking hated it
because it told me I was too late. I let another opportunity slip away. I could
have shown her that I wanted her. I could have called more, begged her to stay,
gave more of myself, but I didn’t in fear it wasn’t what she wanted. And now a
ring haunted me.

I turned away, pulling my shorts on and buttoning
them. Ro’s eyes traveled down my stomach scattered with scars. “Why couldn’t
you have at least called one time? Why was it always me calling you?”

My heart dropped when I saw her tears again, and
I tried to ignore it but couldn’t.

“Honestly, Parker, I was afraid that if I called
you wouldn’t answer or that another girl would answer the phone,” she admitted,
and my heart sunk a little more knowing that she had called and a girl answered
—
Kayla.
I knew that because Kayla had my cell phone a lot managing my appearances and
schedule.

Things weren’t what they seemed with Kayla. She
was my agent but also a friend. Maybe a shitty one, but she usually looked out
for me on the business side, or so I thought. I was wrong again. It was a dirty
pass, really, but a lesson learned.

“You know that I was never with Kayla, right?” I
asked, my hands finding her cheeks to make her look at me. So much had already
been said but we needed the truth out there finally. Every hesitation needed to
be put to rest.

Ro nodded, no more fears for this. “I know that
she lied to me. I know…it was only me.”

“Do you believe what you’re saying?” For once, my
words weren’t in my way, no more fears.

Finally, after five years, she gave me some
truth. “Yes, I do.”

CHAPTER 27

Rowan Jensen

Pitched

Being pitched happens when the bike or rider is
thrown awkwardly due to changes in the terrain.

July
29, 2002

I’m not sure how the conversation between Parker
and I switched the morning we left, but it did and words replaced movements,
speaking was easier now.

Only now we were discussing why Sean. That was
Parker’s constant persistent question, why Sean?

And then he asked if I was with Sean physically,
though he already knew the answer. He knew my body was only his. As strange as
that sounded, I couldn’t be with Sean like that.

“I never asked who was in your bed when I wasn’t,
Parker.” I knew he had women worshiping his every move as it came with the
fame. Like I said, I couldn’t understand how our conversation got to who we had
and hadn’t slept with.

“No one ever was,” he said, throwing a clean
shirt over his scarred shoulders.

“Huh?”

“Rowan...” he shook his head with a small smirk
“...you’re the only girl I’ve ever been with intimately.” I knew that from his
words a few nights ago when he said he tried and couldn’t.

“Ever?”

“It’s only been you,
ever,
” he repeated,
nodding as though he was trying to convince me of this. Time and time again, I
imagined Kayla and Parker together, and now that I knew for sure they hadn’t
been together, it was like a weight was lifted.

We were quiet before he spoke again, his voice
nervous as we made our way outside to where his bike was. “Did you…” He paused,
swallowing thickly, and eyed me with extreme caution. His words came to him
after he threw his leg over the bike. “What about Sean?”

“I couldn’t do that to you,” I whispered in his
ear, sliding in behind him. For a moment my confession just hung between us.

“I never asked you
not
to.”

“You didn’t have to.” He knew, he always knew,
but the reassurance was nice. “It felt wrong to me.”

“Me too,” he agreed, but then shifted his position
on the bike to look back at me. “Didn’t he ever question it? I mean the
sex...you guys were seeing each other for years and it never came up?”

It wasn’t an accusing question. He was honestly
curious how a guy could go nearly four years with someone and not have sex, but
I also wasn’t sure by the look on his face if he really wanted to know the
answer.

It took me a moment to answer but I did. “It came
up a lot, and we got close a few times…” Parker closed his eyes. I was sure the
images in his head weren’t pleasant ones. I knew that the ones I had of Kayla
and him weren’t, and those were images that weren’t real. “I told him I wanted
to wait, and he never pushed the issue.”

Parker gave me a nod, his stare on my left hand
again and the ring I had yet to put back. He knew that I hadn’t made my
decision and that was bothering him.

We made it to Salt Lake City and stopped for
lunch that afternoon.

“What should I do?” I asked him, staring at my
ice tea and the blinking light on my cell phone.

“We’ve solved absolutely nothing.” He growled
into his hands. “We’re back to where we were before, me waiting, you leaving.
Everything I said is true but it’s you who needs to make this decision. I can’t
do it for you.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I don’t understand why I
can’t just change the situation. Why did I have to mess things up so badly?”

Parker squinted at me wrinkling his nose as
though I should have known. “Sometimes everything changes and you’re left
wondering how it happened and where you could have down shifted.” He shrugged,
toying with a sugar packet in his hands. “Sometimes you wonder how you missed
the track changing and then before you know it…” he ripped the sugar packet
open and let the tiny grains fall on the table at his fingertips “…you’re
pitched from the bike.”

We stared at each other for a moment, the waiter
taking our empty plates, eying Parker’s sugar mess and then leaving us alone.

“I want to do right by you, Ro,” he said,
sounding sincere. “I always have. I don’t want to see you put that ring back on.
I only want to see you wearing a ring I give you…but I can’t make you do that.
I want you in every way possible. But you’re not mine to have right now.”

“I know you do, Parker.” I sighed resting my head
against my hands. “And more than anything I want to do right by you. I don’t
want to hurt you…and I don’t want to hurt Sean.”

It was easy for Parker to hate Sean and for Sean
to hate Parker, but the reality of the situation was Sean had done nothing
wrong. He was an innocent bystander in all this and deserved someone who truly
loved him, not a girl whose heart was held by someone else.

“I never stopped thinking about you. Every
thought I have is related to you…and I hate that at times,” Parker admitted
when we were back standing by his bike. “And I know that shouldn’t be your
problem. It’s just that I can’t let you go.”

 
I leaned
into him, sliding my hand down his arm until I found his hand and intertwined
our fingers as soon as they met. “Sorry,” I said, looking into his eyes,
wanting to apologize for every time I ran when I should have stayed.

Parker smiled down at me, understanding. “I know
it was hard for you too.”

“Why do we do this to each other?”

“I wish I knew why, Ro, I really do. It could
have been a lot easier these past five years.”

I remembered what Justin and Parker had talked
about that day I was in the hot tub. “Tell me about your dad.”