Thick as Thieves (Aster Valley 4)

And the idea that he was starting to believe in us made my heart soar.

Once they’d left the cabin, I headed back to the bedroom to pull some clothes on, wondering if it was too late to apologize to the repair guy. Probably better that I didn’t wind up with a reputation as the local pervert the minute I decided to relocate to Aster Valley.

Before I had a chance to go out and talk to the man, though, my phone rang with a call from Erin, and my stomach somersaulted as I felt the real world begin to intrude on my happy Julian bubble.

Had she heard about me and Julian already? If she had, she was going to have questions, and she might not accept the answers as easily as Tiller and Sam and the others had.

Plus, if Erin knew, did that mean Rod and Lorraine did, too? Rod had been my coach and mentor for so long, he and Lorraine felt more like parents to me, and I cared what they thought. How would they feel when they learned that I’d been in love with Julian, not Erin, all along? What would they think about my plan to quit my job at the store and leave Vail for Aster Valley? Was I ready to risk their rejection?

In my head, I heard Julian calling me his boyfriend, and that gave me the boost of courage I needed. All that mattered was Julian, and if he could be brave, then I could, too.

So I hit Accept, ready to tell my ex-girlfriend about how much everything had changed…

But it turned out some things hadn’t changed at all.

18

JULIAN

I showed the repair guy where the ladder was and tried to apologize for Parker’s behavior, but it was hard to sound sorry when I couldn’t stop smiling.

If you’d asked me two weeks ago whether I was doing okay, I would have told you I was. I had good friends, a great family, the excitement of a new job with Tiller and Mikey. I’d told myself I was reconciled to Parker marrying Erin even though it would change our relationship forever, and I had purchased a wallowing hole where I’d naively thought I’d get over the brunt of my sadness within the span of a week.

It hadn’t been until this morning, when I’d leaped out of bed to hear my naked boyfriend yelling at the man he’d thought was another Grindr hookup, that I’d realized how close I’d come to utter disaster.

A life that didn’t have Parker Ellis in it every morning and night, making me smile, driving me crazy, grounding me in the constancy of his presence so that I could draw a deep breath… that was no kind of life at all.

Not for me.

I looked back at the house, no longer bothering to restrain my grin, while Tiny got the ladder in place. I made a mental note to ask Parker what he thought about adding a deck area off the kitchen where we could entertain in the summer. Or maybe he’d rather move to a new place entirely. The wallowing hole really wasn’t built to entertain friends and family, and I knew Parker would—

My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my sweatshirt pocket to see my sister’s face on the screen.

“Hazel?” This early on a Thursday morning, she was usually busy with important meetings at work, so I assumed a legal issue had come up she needed my help with. “What’s up?”

Hazel didn’t bother to greet me. “Has Parker heard from Erin?”

“Uh.” It took me a second to mentally shift gears. “No… at least, I don’t think so. Why?”

She hesitated. “Look, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on because her texts are all disjointed, like she’s consumed every ounce of tequila in Mexico, but from what I’ve managed to piece together, Nolan realized yesterday that fate was, like, totally calling him to go surf in Costa Rica, brah. Without Erin.”

I winced. “Oof. That sounds like Nolan, yeah. I’m pretty sure the months he spent in Colorado were the longest he’s ever stayed anywhere. Did Erin get attached?”

I loved Erin, but given what she’d done to Parker less than a week ago, I was feeling more than a little cold-blooded about her getting dumped.

“Maybe? I think it’s always been easier for Erin to do the leaving than to be the one who gets left. But she made some new friends at the resort—you know how she can talk to literally anyone, right?—and they were partying and having fun… until the resort manager came up and asked her how she’d like to pay for the tab Nolan had rung up before he left.”

“He left her with his bar tab?” I shook my head. “Classy.”

“Not just a bar tab,” Hazel corrected. “He also hadn’t had any warm-weather gear with him at the wedding, so they’d bought him a whole wardrobe when they got down there and charged it to the room. Then there was the fee for the private catamaran they rented—”