Thick as Thieves (Aster Valley 4)

When we were eighteen, Colorado State wanted him on the ski team despite the fact he’d only been skiing for a few years with hand-me-down equipment from my dad’s castoffs. It didn’t matter, because they loved him. Everyone loved him.

Including me.

I glanced across the top of my beer bottle at his beautiful fucking face. He was seriously model pretty. Even though his parents had been complete and total losers unworthy of even a scrap of his attention, they’d gifted him with a square jaw, a cleft chin, and thick strawberry blond hair that never looked out of place. Despite starting off small, he was now several inches over six feet. He was also covered head to toe in freckles.

Freckles I’d spent an embarrassing amount of my life counting and daydreaming about licking.

“Are you even listening?” Parker asked.

“Mm-hm.”

I wasn’t. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself. I loved Erin, but she was getting everything I’d ever wanted tomorrow, and I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it together before ugly crying, especially since Parker had just run off the one guaranteed distraction I’d had for the evening.

All I needed to do was hold out until I could get to the cabin on Sunday. It was the perfect place to spend a week mourning what I was never going to have so that by the time Parker and Erin got back from their honeymoon, I’d be ready to pack up all my unrequited love and foolish pining once and for all. Parker and Erin were a forever unit now. I was extraneous. So for my own sanity, I had to stop making my best friend the sun around which my entire life orbited.

But first, I was going to wallow. I’d already arranged for grocery delivery, kick-ass Wi-Fi for movie marathons, and even a nice dinner at Tiller and Mikey’s lodge as soon as I’d finished crying.

“Why do you think Erin was talking to Nolan about our vacation?” Parker asked, reaching for a nacho from the giant tower on the plate between us. If he’d asked for a gourmet lemon peel cupcake, our waitress probably would have gone out of her way to make one for him. “Do you really think she wanted to make a big group thing out of it?”

Typical.

“I think she was making conversation with a guest at her rehearsal dinner. You know Erin. She loves meeting new people and finding out every single thing about them. I’m sure that’s all it was.” I reached out and took a small piece off the edge of the stack and popped it in my mouth.

Parker’s eyebrows met in the middle. “She’s been acting weird lately.”

“So have you,” I said without thinking. I could tell right away from the surprised look on his face Parker was going to turn this into a whole thing by asking me to elaborate. I tried to stop him by holding my hand up. “Don’t.”

“You can’t just say that and not explain what you mean.” He was stupidly cute when he pouted.

I shrugged and picked off another piece of chip. “I don’t know. You just seem… squirrelly. Are you nervous or something? That’s not like you. You’re the steadiest person I know.” That and his firm heterosexuality, of course.

He looked down at his beer bottle. “Maybe? I mean… I love Erin. Obviously. She’s great.”

I made a mental note to only accept marriage proposals from men who thought a little more of me than “great.”

“But?”

“I dunno. Nothing really. The wedding came up really fast, didn’t it?” His pleading eyes met mine, but for once, I wasn’t sure what he needed from me.

It was true. Even though they’d had an on-again, off-again thing since the infamous “just friends” homecoming date, I’d never really expected them to end up together. Every time Erin broke up with a long-term boyfriend, she came crawling back to Parker like the relationship version of a security blanket. He usually went along with it, but I’d always figured it was because he loved feeling needed. I hadn’t realized he was truly in love with her. But that all changed six months ago when Erin had suddenly suggested they get married and Parker had readily agreed.

She’d made an impassioned plea about wanting to settle down and start a family, have a big fun wedding like all her sorority sisters had already experienced. I’d worried about Parker agreeing so quickly when he’d never really expressed any interest in settling down with her forever and starting an actual family. He was amazing with the kids he taught in ski school, and I thought he’d make an incredible father, but after having shitty parents, he’d made it clear to me on several occasions that he didn’t think he wanted all of the emotional baggage and pressure involved in raising his own children someday.