Page 67 of Chosen

Parker’s question came out of nowhere. I quirked an eyebrow over at him before I replied, “No, but I think that’s mainly because we just met for the first time today. I haven’t had a chance to hear any of your stories about Damon. Yet.”

“Yet.” Parker smirked. “Well, we might not have a lot of time together, but I think I can get through a few of the classics—”

“Oh, here we go.” Damon shook his head with a grin. “You couldn’t even wait until tomorrow before trying to spill all my secrets?”

“Uh, it’s not a secret.” Parker laughed. “Everyone knows what happened that day. You just don’t like talking about it.”

“Because it was just a little mistake—”

“Anyway,” Parker cut him off as he looked over at me, “one day, Damon Anderson, yours truly over there, was manning the cameras at HQ. This was early days, before any of us really knew how to run a business, how to incorporate, yadda, yadda, yadda. It was late at night and Damon thought he saw something on the camera, something huge that looked like it was about to break through the glass out back.”

“In my defense, it did break through the glass—”

“Let me finish!” Parker cut him off again, another laugh moving through him. “So, Damon starts to freak out, thinking it was a bear or wolf or something. We couldn’t really see because of the position of the camera and the shadows and all. Next thing we knew, we were being told to evacuate the premises, danger, danger, danger. I was so freaked out I ran out barefoot, right into the danger that’d gotten into HQ…”

Parker’s grin took up his whole face as he finished with the story. “And you could only imagine my surprise when I was standing face to face with a very confused deer. There were glass shards all around it, but thankfully, it hadn’t been hurt by any of them. I think it was having trouble telling what was forest and what was the building, the glass may have thrown it off.”

“And after that, we did a better job signposting for the rest of the animals of the forest. No more huge glass windows without any wooden barriers,” Damon added. “And we did better about the camera placement, too.”

“That sounds both terrifying and hilarious.” I tried and failed to hide how amused I was by the story, unable to stop imagining a scared Parker running right into an even more scared deer.

“It’s okay. You can laugh,” Damon assured me as he chuckled himself. “It’s a pretty funny story. Especially since no one was ever in actual danger.”

“And Jacob appreciated how proactive Damon was that night, too,” Parker replied. “Probably why you’re his favorite.”

“Jacob doesn’t play favorites, Parker.”

“That’s what people say when they’re the favorite!” Parker grinned as he pointed his fork at Damon. “That’s how I know it’s true!”

I smirked at their back and forth, before taking another bite of my meal. There was something comforting about the nature of it, like I was sitting at a family dinner, able to relax and share a few laughs as we digested our food.

A family dinner.

My heart sank at the possibility that this was going to be the first and last time I ever got a chance to have a night like this, with Damon and Parker as part of their pack. There wouldn’t be any other family dinners, with Damon’s or my own, no chance to bring him around my friends, no Queer Christmas, no kissing under mistletoe in downtown Roanoke, no playful arguing over where to go for dinner on a busy Friday night in Atlanta—

This could really be it.

“So? Did you two get up to anything fun while you were out here?” Parker asked as he looked between the two of us. “Any good trees to climb? Valiant attempts to dig holes to the other side of the world?”

All of a sudden, Damon went completely still. “Uh… not really no. We… didn’t get up to much.”

Shit.

Parker didn’t know.

It was obvious from Damon’s shift in body language, the way his gaze was trained on Parker’s, unmoving and unrelenting. Like he was waiting to see what Parker’s next move would be.

“Oh. That sounds…” Parker’s words trailed off as he replied. “Extremely boring.”

“Extremely boring. That’s the perfect way to put it.”

“Right,” Parker murmured, seeming like he wasn’t buying Damon’s response. “Well, I guess boring isn’t completely out of your wheelhouse.”

“Ha, you got me again,” Damon said, unconvincingly, like his heart wasn’t in it. He then went back to eating his dinner, as if the conversation hadn’t happened, at all.

Parker looked over at me for a split second, something behind his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. Afterward, though, he went back to eating, too, the conversation dying down as everyone finished their meal. Once we were all done with our plates, I offered to take them to the kitchen, cleaning up in exchange for Damon cooking dinner for us.

“Thanks, Sam. That’s very thoughtful of you,” Damon said as he handed me a plate.

---