Page 23 of Taurus

“What? Yes, I have,” I tell him, still staring out the windshield, but switching to the passenger window rather than straight ahead.

“Parker, we may not have spoken in over a decade and we may not be as close now as we were back then, but I can still read you like a book.”

I swallow the knot forming in my throat at his words, because he’s right. I know he can. That’s precisely why I don’t want to look at him. “You don’t know me anymore, Austin. We don’t know each other anymore.”

“Then look at me, Park. Look at me so we can have this conversation.”

I don’t know if it’s out of pure aggravation or because he asked me to, but I turn my gaze over to him and it makes my heart squeeze in exactly the way I thought it would.

“The last thing I want,” he continues, “is to steal anything from you, especially not Pesca. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but…”

“No, let me finish before you say anything else.” He pulls his ball cap off and tosses it to the dash. “I don’t want to steal anything from you, but I also don’t want the entire property and business sold off because the staff is my family. That place is their livelihood just as much as it is mine. I want to make it all work in any way we have to in order to make sure they are taken care of. If that means we have to coexist for a while, then so be it. I’m not thinking about me or you in this scenario, really. I’m thinking about them.”

“Austin, I—” I sigh and turn my eyes back to the windshield. “I know how much Pesca means to you and I have seen firsthand what a family you all actually are. That’s made things somehow easier and yet more complicated.”

“I have no power here, at the end of the day. You’ll do what you think is best, but I can only hope you’ll think of more than yourself, or even me, when it comes time to choose.”

I look back toward him and tears are pricking my eyes, and I don’t even know why. When I see him now, gone is the hotheaded teenager, who broke my heart, and here sits the caring, kind, and incredibly generous grown man I longed for back then. We both just needed some time to grow up, I guess.

“You’ve changed,” I tell him plainly. “In so many ways, you’ve changed, but in the same breath, you’re the same.”

“I know the feeling. I have had the very same thought about you.”

Austin

We shopped for our things side by side after our conversation in the truck.

Of course, it took us ten times longer than it needed to because we ran into half a dozen people who hadn’t seen Parker in years and wanted to catch up in the middle of the grocery store. Obviously, that meant we had to answer the same question half a dozen times.

Are you two finally back together?

Obviously, the answer is no, but the first time we were asked, Parker looked at me like she didn’t know what to say, and honestly, neither did I.

I mean, no, we aren’t together, but I’d throat punch anyone for looking at her or touching her.

No, we aren’t together, but I want to run my hands over her skin and remind her why we were so good together in the first place.

No, we aren’t together, but I think I’m still in love with her.

When we got back to the house, we went our separate ways for the evening, but I never stopped thinking about her.

I could hear as she made herself some food in the kitchen and as she showered in the bathroom next to my room.

The scent of her shampoo made its way under my door and wrapped me in many delicious memories.

Parker being back in Summer’s Grove is a problem because now that she’s here, I never want to let her go.

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