P A R K E R

23 |insight and likes

"I want to throw a party," Clement says, breaking through the silence of the room.

I hold in a groan as Nova shuffles around on the bed, her leg barely missing me as she turns so she can look at Clement where she's sat on the ground. "Why, when and where?"

Clement refused to stay on the bed because she complains that just looking at my comfortable bed makes her want to sleep, so she opted on sitting on floor. I hear her chuckle, "you don't need a reason to party, Blondie."

Oh good God.

"My name's Nova, not Blondie."

"Nova, Blondie what's the difference?" Clement asks clearly looking for Nova's trouble.

"One's my name, the other isn't." I can already imagine Nova glaring at Clement. Her face getting all redder.

"People answer things related to them, like Blondie for example, no biggie about it."

"If everyone should answer things related to them, the world be a confused mess."

"Well, there's no everyone here." Clement argued back, "it's just you. Blondie, no confusion there."

"My name's Nova, just Nova. You should call me by my name or don't bother calling me at all." Nova states and I finally groan out loud, getting up and slowly peeling the face mask off my face.

"It sometimes hard to remember names and nicknames are a thing, you just like making a fuss out of everything." Clement accuses, shaking her head as if I disbelief.

"I don't make a fuss out of everything, you just like attacking and looking for trouble, Clementina." Nova backfires back and if not for my headache, I'd have found all this entertaining.

"That's not my name," Clement says in a low voice.

"Well, that's more your name than Blondie is mine."

"Can you guys stop fighting? You came here for me, remember?" I say and they both turn to glare at me. I raise my hand up in surrender. "Fine, kill yourself. Take off your shirts and hash it out, right here, right now."

"Why do we need to take off our shirts?" Nova asks, scrunching her face up in disgust as she raised her brow at me.

I shrug, getting off the bed. "I don't know, to leave deeper marks?"

"I don't want to fight her, she'd die if I lay a finger on her." Clement says, smirking slightly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nova asks and I'm really tempted to bang my head on the wall.

"That you're—"

"Clement, stop." I rush out, putting my hand out like a stop sign.

"No, speak. I want to hear what she has to say." Nova says glaring.

"No, you don't Nova." I grumble. "Can you guys stop, I'm sick here."

"Fine, let's make peace." Clement says and Nova rolls her eyes.

"I don't even know why I called you here."

"You called me because I'm the light that brightens up your boring world." Clement says, smirking.

"You wish. I made a mistake is all."

Clement sighs, "so you don't want to be called Barbie or Blondie?"

"No b anything."

"Including babe?"

"Especially that."

"Great," I clapped my hand loudly, messing with my own head but getting their attention. "Now we can get back to the reason we're here."

"Yes," Nova says, rolling around on the bed. "Which is, your desperate need of girl advice to help your confused and complicated love life."

"There isn't any love life," I say walking into the bathroom and ignoring the little voice in my head that whispers, 'yet'.

"You know it isn't that complicated, right?" I hear Clement say just as I turn on the tap. "It's just a boy likes girl and girl likes boy situation."

"Except in this case, there's the whole ingredient of cousin relationship sprinkled all over it." Nova says and I wash my face up, walking out if the bathroom with it damp.

"You mean, dead cousin relationship." Clement corrects, then turns to me. "No offense."

"None taken." It doesn't hurt as much anymore to hear that. I already know it, maybe I need to hear it more.

"So what's the non complicated situation?" Nova asked like she didn't know but she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were silently challenging Clement to be the hero of today.

Clement rolls her eyes and stand up from the ground, "you both kissed at the dance, went ahead to ignore each other for two fucking whole weeks. A special case of smash and dash, if you ask me."

I blushed red, "there was no smashing."

"So what— smack and... duck?" Nova asks, causing Clem to chuckle.

"Whatever, back to the story here. So after ignoring each other for two weeks, you both had a confrontation where you cowardly filed everything under the file of mistake, all on your own. Causing Sean to snap, confess his ever present and obvious feelings to you, then bolt." She finishs, looking smugly at Nova.

I shake my head, "he didn't exactly confess."

"He so did," Clement says just as Nova says, "yes, he did."

My slowly chew on the bottom of my lip, "so what do I do now?"

"The question should be, what do you want now?" Clement asks, twirling her hair around a finger.

"What do I want?" I repeat to myself, "I don't want to fight with Sean."

"And?" Nova pressed.

"I like him." I barely whisper out.

"You what now?" Clement asked even though she heard me. Nova was already smiling.

I sigh, "I like him so much."

"That's my girl!" Clem shouts and we all burst out laughing.

"Yeah, don't ever come to conclusion on your own about something that two people were involved in." Nova warns and I nod.

"Yes ma'am." I felt so free and light headed. Like I've been waiting my whole life to confess out that I liked Sean.

"And on that note, we return back to my party." Clem said, bringing the conversation back to the beginning.

"Yes, so 'why' has been settled, now where and when?" Nova asks while I search for my phone. I need to text Sean.

"When— as soon as the venue is settled. Where— I was hoping, here?"

My head poked up at that, "what?"

"I can't throw it the party at my place and I can't at the bar either, last time that happened, things didn't go well at all. Can I throw it here? It'll be small and quiet." Clement begged, clasping her hands together.

"No way Clem, you can throw a party here."

"But I have nowhere else."

"Then don't throw a party." I say, not planning on changing my mind.

"Please? It could serve as a distraction to things and a celebration for you and Sean and I haven't thrown a party in a long time. You'd help too, it'll be fun."

I shake my head, "my mum might not allow it."

"Might," Clement stresses, "if she doesn't, I promise to leave it."

"Us throwing a party would be great, Parker." Nova speaks, surprising me. "It'll be small and we'll clean up after. Could be bonding time for you and Sean."

I shake my head again, this time amused and unable to keep the smile off my face. A party might be nice. "Fine, I'll try."

Their squeals ran loud in the room and before I knew it, they were both on top of me attacking me with thank you kisses. "Don't thank me yet," I force out, in the middle of giggling. "I need my mum's agreement."

"She'd let you, last borns get what they want." Clement says and I scoff.

"You'd be surprised."

0_o

"Sean?" I call running out the door just in time to see him before he enters his house.

He stops with his hand on the door knob and slowly turns to me. I freeze as my eyes does a visual confirmation that he's alright and I take the moment to look him over like he's doing me. He's still dressed in yesterday's clothes but I'm definitely sure he looks better than I do. I'm dressed in my shorts and just a tee with my hair all over the place. My cheeks colour a bit, as my eyes meet his again. I didn't know what to say, I'd called but that's where the plan stopped. In fact there wasn't any plan, I just saw him through my window and I ran down like a mad woman.

"Um... Hi." Sean finally says and I try not to die of embarrassment. I've still missed his deep rich voice. What the fuck is wrong with me?!

"Hi," I say back, chewing on my lip again and brushing my socks clad toes on the hardwood floor. Jesus.

When I dared look at him, I noticed he was trying not to smile. He took steps away from the door, towards the edge of the porch, closer to me. "Parker, you called me."

Yes, I did.

I nod, "I know," my hand moves to tuck my hair behind my ear, "uh, did you see my text?"

He frowns, then searches for his phone around in his pocket. "No, I didn't. My phone's dead."

"Oh."

"What did it say?"

I look at him, then spoke what I'd texted an hour or so ago. "We need to talk."

"About the text or?"

"No, that was the text." I confirm, "and what I'm saying now."

"Hmm," Sean nods, still looking at me. "When?"

"Right now, if possible."

He smiles, "I'll take my bath and I'll meet you as soon as."

"Good," I answer, my head up. "I'll see you then."

"It's a date," I hear him say and I do a salute, then spin around on my heel walking inside.

As soon as I shut the door, a wide smile takes over my face and I do a little victory dance of relief and excitement. What are we going to talk about? Everything. I immediately run into the kitchen, he's coming for a date here after his bath. I don't have much time. I start fixing up popcorn for us and checking for other snacks we could both munch on. Then I run upstairs to fix myself up, so I don't look like I just woke up from a nap. Which I did, by the way.

I didn't want him to think I put in too much for just a date on the sofa and yet I didn't want it to be like I didn't care about it too. I have no clue what I'm doing. I finally settle on washed dark jeans and a cleaner tee. I tied my hair up in a scrunchie... And then I removed it and let it fall down over my shoulders. Then I braided the tip and undid it again...

"Parker?" I hear Sean's voice shout from downstairs and I gasped in shock, having not expected that. "I'm here!"

"I'm coming!" I yell back and look at my reflection on the mirror. With a sigh, I run my fingers through my hair and decide to leave it like that. I apply a little lip gloss and run down the stairs.

I see Sean walking out from the kitchen with two soda cans on each hands. He stops when he sees me and we look each other over again, I really don't mind this turning to a habit. My skin is flushed as I take in his appearance of jeans and a tight shirt that hugged his muscles and left a little bit of his tattoo peaking out. When I look back at him, he has a smirk on. He motions to the sofa and we go the sit on it, the popcorn was already there on the coffee table.

"You look nice," he finally says, handing me a can.

"You too." I open the can, cringing at the annoying sound it made before picking up the remote and turning on the television. "What do you want to watch?"

"Anything, would do."

"Anything huh?" I scrol through, stopping at the Vampire Diaries, but on second thoughts, I keep moving. I don't want him thinking I'm only capable of watching that and I don't want to force him into watching something he'd rather not.

I hear his low chuckle, "you know you can put your vampire obsession, right?"

"It's not an obsession," I deny, although it clearly is. What do I put now? The originals? "And I want to put something we both like, its a date after all."

"So you're agreeing it's a date?"

I do a one shoulder shrug, "you called it that, I'm just going with the flow here."

"Well, I like whatever you like." He says and I swallow, going on with my search until I feel his warm hand on mine. I watch as he takes the remote away from me, placing it back on the coffee table. I turn to him, raising a brow.

"You wanted to talk, Parker."

I nod, looking away and then I look back at him. "I'm sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have just into conclusions on my own."

He turns until his body is angled to me, "it's okay."

I make sure, we maintain eye contact. "So, Friday, you didn't kiss me because you were drunk or high? It wasn't a mistake?"

He shakes his head, "it wasn't a mistake Parker, I wasn't drunk and I'd only smoked a little." I don't know if he thought I didn't believe him because he sighed, moving closer to me. "I haven't drank a single bit of alcohol since and I haven't smoked anything, I'm completely clean and in my right senses and I'd kiss you again right now, in a heartbeat."

I gulped, looked away for a second, then back at him. "Me too."

He moved closer and I did too. His hand cupped my face and mine held his bulging arms, our eyes remained on each other until our lips touched and they fluttered shut. Sean kissed me and I kissed him back like I've never kissed anyone. Our lips moved with a passionate rhythm, his tongue gaining entrance into my mouth and causing me to produce a foreign sound as I inched closer to him, my hands moving and feeling his warm hard body. At that moment, our heartbeats, breaths and soul became one.

I could do this forever.

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I wrote this chapter twice😤, although, it's my fault the first one disappeared, I'm still pissed and tired. I don't know how this chapter is or which version was better, but this is all I have...

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