Thick as Thieves (Aster Valley 4)

I got it. I didn’t particularly want kids myself. Maybe I was selfish, but I wanted time with friends and the ability to throw myself into a career or a project. I liked knowing I could stay out late or go off on a weekend away with friends at the drop of a hat.

Considering how much Erin liked to travel and meet new people, I was surprised at her desire to settle down so soon.

But Parker was born to settle down, and if he really loved Erin, that explained his easy agreement. I’d do just about anything to make the love of my life happy.

Which was why I was sitting here in the first place instead of hiding under the covers of my hotel bed right now.

“You’ll be fine,” I said, because that’s what you said to the groom the night before his wedding. “It’s just cold feet, I’m sure. You hate being the center of attention, but that’ll all be over tomorrow night.”

“I worry about whether I’ll be enough for Erin,” Parker whispered. “You know? Fun enough. Exciting enough. What if I can’t be what she needs?”

“Parker Ellis, you’re the best man I know. You remember the winter we learned to ice-skate, and I was so in my head over it that I couldn’t figure out how to push off? Who spent a whole Saturday, just the two of us, making up ridiculous dance moves to help me? Who texts me pictures of fun billboards and mating squirrels twenty times a day? Who is always ready to celebrate someone’s birthday, or half-birthday, or quarter-birthday, anytime they need cheering up? You make every single day fun, Parker. You make regular life an adventure, and I…” Wow, I really needed to stop talking. “I think that’s enough for anyone,” I finished lamely.

“I kind of wish I was marrying you instead. Is that weird?” he asked with a nervous laugh.

I blinked up at him, batting down the hopeful idiotic butterflies that just took off en masse in my gut. “Yes. Yes, that’s weird.”

“I don’t mean like that. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I said with a sigh. And that was the problem. “Look, do you love Erin?”

“Of course I love her. I’ve always loved her.”

Right. A fact I needed to remember.

“Then I think you two will figure things out.” I picked at the label on my beer bottle. “I don’t ever mind listening. But, you know, maybe you need to talk to her about this, not me. She’s your life partner now. And she adores you. She would never want you to second-guess yourself around her.”

Parker got that affectionate look on his face that he sometimes got when thinking about Erin. “You’re right. She’s an incredible person. She wouldn’t want me to be nervous or scared. Besides, who wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their lives with one of the best women on the planet?”

I dug my fingernails into my thigh through the suit pants. “Exactly.”

“But even though Erin and I are getting married, you’ll always be my best friend. My other half. When we’re old and gray, it’s still gonna be you and me, Jules. Always. That’ll never change.”

Except it would.

He started talking about the Mexican resort they were traveling to, how he wanted to do some stand-up paddleboarding and maybe try kitesurfing. I listened with half an ear. If I let myself pay too much attention to his descriptions of a sunny paradise in which he would be golden-skinned and half-naked, I would start my ugly cry exactly twenty-four hours too soon.

“We should probably head back,” I said after the nachos were done and the server was bumping up her flirt factor a notch too high for my comfort. Not that she was flirting with me.

“Yep. You’re skiing with us in the morning, right?”

I shrugged. “I always feel like a little fat potato next to you on moguls. I just bump along and hope for the best,” I said without thinking. You would have thought I’d just kicked his puppy. Parker’s face dropped.

“What? You’re a beautiful skier. Are you kidding?”

“No, you’re a beautiful skier. I’m the guy who chucks himself at the first mogul and hopes for the best. And ever since the accident, I tend to pull to the right no matter what I do.”

It was a joke, but I should have known better. Parker still had a hang-up about the serious car accident I’d been in years ago.

“Not true. You have complete range of motion, and we both know it.”

If I did, it was thanks to him and his dogged insistence on hauling my sorry ass to physical therapy for months.

We argued about it most of the walk back to the hotel until I finally agreed to meet him at stupid early o’clock for the run. My dad never passed up a chance to ski with Parker and Rod Rokas so he could brag to all his buddies that he still had the legs to keep up with champion skiers. Even though Parker didn’t race anymore, he was still well-known on the slopes around here as one of the best, and my dad secretly preened when Parker gave Dad all the credit for introducing him to the sport.