“Travis asked you what?”
“To the date party,” I explained, a bit frustrated.
Parker’s face flushed, and he shifted his weight. “You’re going to the date party with Travis? He doesn’t go to those things. And you’re just friends. It doesn’t make sense for you to go with him.”
“America wouldn’t go with Shep unless I went.”
He relaxed. “Then you can go with me,” he smiled, intertwining his fingers in mine.
I grimaced at his solution. “I can’t cancel with Travis and then go with you.”
“I don’t see the problem,” he shrugged. “You can be there for America, and Travis will get out of having to go. He is a staunch advocate for doing away with date parties. He thinks it’s a platform for our girlfriends to force us to declare a relationship.”
“It was me that didn’t want to go. He talked me into it.”
“Now you have an excuse,” he shrugged. He was maddeningly confident that I was going to change my mind.
“I didn’t want to go at all.”
Parker’s patience had run out. “I just want to be clear; you don’t want to go to the date party. Travis wants to go, he asked you, and you won’t cancel with him to go with me, even though you didn’t want to go in the first place?”
I had a hard time meeting his glare. “I can’t do that to him, Parker, I’m sorry.”
“Do you understand what a date party is? It’s something you go to with your boyfriend.”
His patronizing tone made any empathy I’d felt for him disappear. “Well, I don’t have a boyfriend, so technically I shouldn’t go at all.”
“I thought we were going to try again. I thought we had something.”
“I am trying.”
“What do you expect me to do? Sit at home alone while you’re at my fraternity’s date party with someone else? Should I ask another girl?”
“You can do what you want,” I said, irritated with his threat.
He looked up and shook his head. “I don’t want to ask another girl.”
“I don’t
expect you not to go to your own party. I’ll see you there.”
“You want me to ask someone else? And you’re going with Travis. Do you not see how completely absurd that is?”
I crossed my arms, ready for a fight. “I told him I would go before you and I ever went out, Parker. I can’t cancel on him.”
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”
“Same difference. I’m sorry that you don’t understand.” I pulled the door open to Morgan, and Parker put his hand on mine.
“All right,” he sighed in resignation. “This is obviously an issue I’m going to have to work through. Travis is one of your best friends; I do understand that. I don’t want it to affect our relationship. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
He opened the door and gestured me to walk through, kissing my cheek before I walked inside. “See you Wednesday at six?”
“Six,” I said, waving as I walked up the stairs.
America was walking out of the shower room when I turned the corner, and her eyes brightened when she recognized me. “Hey, chickie! How’d it go?”