Page 11 of Only One I Ever Wanted

Parker Olsen, one of my best friends in high school, was on my doorstep with a bottle of wine in her hand and a familiar Chinese food bag in the other. She’d been adorable in school, but now she was downright stunning. She wore stovepipe black pants with a pink sweater and killer black heeled boots. Her curly blond hair was tied up in a high ponytail leaving her face unframed. Sea green eyes were sparkling with humor.

“Because I didn’t have a seat for anyone until today.” I backed up to let her in. “You look amazing.”

She kicked up a foot and gave me a wide smile. “Okay, forgiven.” Then she sauntered in smelling of gardenias while I’d forgotten to shower.

“My dining table didn’t come yet,” I said as I followed her in.

“All good.” She glanced around. “Cute, in a 90s way.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have many options with rentals.” The kitchen was a far cry from the chrome, steel, and white of my old condo. Personally, I liked the tiny rosebud wallpaper and cream countertops.

Kind of. Well, enough to deal with now. The only thing I missed from my place with Booker was the disgustingly expensive Ilve stove.God, I loved that thing, even if he did give it to me for our fourth anniversary. I should have known then we were in trouble.

I led her into the living room. “The table is...not awesome.”

She laughed at the crooked table. “Well, lucky for you, I am an expert at building furniture.” She set the bag down and handed me the wine. “Get us some glasses.”

“That I can handle.” I disappeared back into the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you were back too,” I called from the kitchen as I grabbed two glasses from the drainer.

“Yeah, my little brother got married,” she yelled back.

I dug for my corkscrew in the mess of my junk drawer. I hadn’t gotten to organizing the lot of it yet. Leaving LA with little more than my clothes and jewelry had seemed like a good idea at the time. Starting over was not as easy as I’d pictured.

I returned to the living room to find Parker’s boots off and her sitting cross-legged in front of the coffee table, already pulling out my hard-won screws from the little locking things. I held out her glass.

“Thanks.” She took a long drink and set it next to her on the floor. “You just put the foot in the wrong place. Easy fix.”

“I would have figured it out. Probably.” I dropped on the couch.

“All good. Think this is the same one I had in my first place.” She rolled on to her knees and flipped the table back upright. “Voilà.”

“You rock.”

Parker crawled over to the food and brought it back, setting it on the coffee table.

“Your brother getting married made you want to come back? I thought you were in Chicago. Or was it Kansas City?” I had lost track of a lot of my friends living on the opposite coast of most of them. Add in Booker’s crazy schedule as well as my own company, and I’d barely known where I was scheduled to be most days, never mind anyone else.

“Kansas City. Matty is having a kid and I kinda wanted to be around to play Aunt Parker.” She pulled out white boxes and plastic containers full of dumplings as well as two huge wonton soup containers. She tossed me a pair of chopsticks. “I wasn’t crazy about where I was working and had a shitty breakup—a fresh start sounded good.”

I slid off the couch to sit across from her. “You too?”

She flipped the cover off the dumplings and sauce. “Yeah. Todd was a lawyer.” She cupped her hand under the dumpling as she took a bite with a sigh. “Worst and best Chinese food ever.”

I laughed and did the same. “I mean, his name was Todd.”

Parker snickered. “There’s that too. And man, did he live up to the name in the end. I was blinded by the BMW and his good hair.” She tapped her lips with her chopsticks, then she picked out one of the white boxes, popping the folded top.

The familiar scent of low mein made my stomach rumble. I took the other white box to find pork lo mein inside and groaned. “God, I haven’t had this since...foreverit seems like.” I dug in with my chopsticks. “Booker was obsessed with sushi and keeping his carbs down.”

Parker finished chewing and took a sip from her wine. “You and Booker broke things off, huh? Damn, you guys were goals.”

“Yeah.” I picked through for a mini corn. “I thought so too.”

Perfect couple.

Perfect engagement.

Perfect marriage.

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