When Life Happened by Jewel E. Ann

Chapter Eleven

Breathing became impossible with every step Parker took toward the Westmans’ house on her way back from a long walk with Rags—her final duty as Sabrina’s B-team assistant. Of course, Sabrina would fire her, but would she hate her?

“Here we go,” Parker whispered to Rags as they turned the corner to the drive.

They went in through the back door. As she reached for Rags’s leash to release him, she heard voices upstairs. She knew it was none of her business, but curiosity won over so she gave Rags a few treats and locked him in the mudroom so he wouldn’t run upstairs and make his—and Parker’s—presence known quite yet.

Tiptoeing toward the stairs, she stopped at the bottom and listened.

“You knew my job involved traveling,” Sabrina said.

“I’m not complaining about your job or the traveling involved. I’m just saying we need to get away if this is going to work.”

She laughed mockingly. “Work? What is that supposed to mean, August? Are you giving me an ultimatum? I took over the company less than nine months ago. I’m still earning everyone’s respect. If I take off for leisure time with my husband, I’ll look weak and unfocused. It’s not fair of you to ask me to do this right now.”

“So what? Our marriage is on hold until you earn the respect at work you think you deserve?”

“Jesus, August! Stop making it sound like my success is bad for our marriage. You hated it when I harped on you about going out with the guys every weekend. When’s the last time I did that? You have freedom galore. I’ve hired a maid to clean up after you and an assistant to grocery shop and take care of everything else. All you have to do is wake up and go to work. That’s it! Short of hiring someone to suck your dick, I’ve taken care of everything.”

“Nice, Sabrina. You make me sound like a child. You treat our marriage like a business arrangement. You treat our sex life like a chore—”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true!”

Parker jumped as Gus’s voice roared through the house.

“The last time we had sex you told me not to go down on you because you didn’t want to have an orgasm because you needed to stay focused on your presentation for the following day. You said … and I quote, ‘But you do your thing, August, don’t worry about me.’ What the fuck kind of marriage is that?”

“You’re right, August! I’m a terrible person for meeting my husband’s needs. You’re so fucking selfish. Do you have any idea how many women in my shoes would simply tell you they didn’t have time for sex and would send you off to stroke your own cock? Can’t you show me a little bit of gratitude for at least meeting you halfway?”

“I can’t do this.” Gus’s voice broke in defeat.

“One more year, August. Give me one more year and I promise we’ll take that trip, and have sex on the beach, and do all the things you think we’re missing out on right now. This is my life, and I’ve worked too hard to get here to just give it up because my husband feels lonely.”

“I’m not lonely.”

“Well, you sure are acting needy.”

“Fuck you.”

Before Parker could make a run for it, Gus was jogging down the stairs. She tried to hide around the corner, but before she could get there, his eyes landed on her.

She bit her lower lip and grimaced. “Sorry … I was—”

He cut her off with a firm shake of his head, jaw clenched, and murder or something even more intense than that in his eyes. Parker retreated backward toward the mudroom door as Gus’s long strides gained on her.

“I have her primed and ready for your confession, Parker.” Anger bled through his words.

She tried to swallow past the massive lump in her throat as he raged by her to the garage, leaving the mudroom door open. Before she could stop him, Rags bolted toward the stairs.

“But, Parker?”

As she turned toward his voice, he grabbed her arm, yanked her into the garage, and pinned her against the wall.

“If you’re going to tell Sabrina about our kiss, it sure as fuck isn’t going to be the lame, drunken kiss at the bar.”

“Wha—”

He silenced her by smashing his mouth into hers, delivering a kiss that obliterated every thought in her head. When his tongue probed into her mouth, sliding against hers, she tried to push him away. He cradled her face to deepen the kiss even more and when he moaned, she did the unthinkable—the unforgivable: she laced her fingers through his hair and kissed him back.

Gray. A terrible color. The murky water where sinners thrived. Parker Cruse was a hypocrite. A cheater. And in need of another change of underwear.

Just as quickly and violently as he pulled her into his lips, he pushed her away. Mussed hair. Swollen lips. And breathless. “Now you have something to tell her.”

Parker ghosted the pads of her fingers over her lips, legs shaky, heart ready to explode as Gus jumped into his van and screeched out of the driveway.

*

“Thou shalt not judge.”

Parker hid in the garage for fifteen minutes, rubbing her lips together, savoring the taste of Gus, fixing her hair, and waiting for her heart to snap out of cardiac arrest. How would she explain that kiss?

“August?” Sabrina called.

Parker froze.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, making one last check of her hair in the side mirror of Sabrina’s BMW.

“Hello?” Parker said with as much confidence as she could muster given the adulterous circumstances.

“Parker? I’m upstairs. Come up here, please.”

On a deep breath, she climbed her way to the executioner.

Sabrina walked out of the bathroom in a white robe and towel around her head. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re still here.”

“You are?”

A floral mix of rose and lavender wafted from the bathroom.

She stepped into the closet and dropped her robe. Gus had a beautiful wife. Her body wasn’t better than Parker’s, just different. Parker had longer legs with more defined muscles and scars from playing sports over the years. In contrast, flawless, milky white skin covered every inch of Sabrina’s petite frame. She looked like a life-sized doll: subtle but perfect curves, perfect nose, perfect lips, perfect eyebrows.

“I don’t know where August went, he can be such a child, but I’m meeting some friends for drinks, and I need some help to get organized before work early in the morning.” After slipping into a short, tight, black dress and heels, she gave Parker a smile that bordered on a grimace. “No rest for the weary.”

“I guess not.” Parker’s words lost their momentum. She needed to tell Sabrina everything, but thoughts of the Westmans’ fight, the kiss, and the way Sabrina hustled to go out with friends when she needed to work on her failing marriage left Parker a little dumbfounded.

It took Sabrina less than five minutes to dry her hair enough to pull it back into a tight bun and apply a bit of makeup. Parker envied how easily Sabrina looked amazing.

“I know you’re probably ready to be done for the day, but could I beg you to unpack my suitcase and sort out my clothes? Most of them will need to go to the dry cleaners, but I have some undergarments that need to be hand washed.”

“I need to discuss something with you.”

“Is it life or death?” Sabrina shoved the contents of one purse into another one. She had a lot of purses. She had a lot of everything.

“I wouldn’t say life or death, but—”

“Then it will have to wait. I already gave August more of my time than I had to give.” Sabrina used her clutch purse to wave as she hurried toward the stairs. “Thank you, Parker. You’re the best.”

“I kissed your husband,” Parker whispered, knowing there was no way Sabrina heard her.

The back door slammed shut, leaving behind Parker, Rags, and a million unspoken words.

“I’m going to hell.” Parker continued her solo conversation. “Not because I kissed your husband…” she knelt on the floor by Sabrina’s suitcase “…because I liked it.”

It came as no surprise that the dirty contents of Sabrina’s suitcase were packed as neatly as they surely had been the day she left. That’s why she hired Parker. They both thrived on organization. The surprise came when Parker sorted the clothing.

“Whoa …”

When Sabrina said she had “undergarments” to be hand washed, Parker never imagined lacy lingerie, the impractical kind women wore for only one reason.

A wet nose tickled Parker’s neck. “Hey, buddy.”

Rags sniffed the pastel pink teddy as Parker held it from the edge as if she dared not touch it for many reasons. She tossed it onto the pile with the rest of the hand washables.

“Rags, no!”

He dropped to the floor and rolled in the pile of expensive silk and lace, desperate to either impart his scent onto her stuff or Sabrina’s scent onto him.

“Rags, stop!” Parker tried to pull him away, but his random rolling and contortion of his body in every direction made it impossible to control him. Instead, she grabbed as many pieces of the lingerie as she could without ripping them out from underneath him.

“Drop it. Drop it! DROP IT!”

He had at least one teddy and two thongs hanging from his mouth as he sprinted down the stairs toward his doggy door. Were her clothes laced with crack? What was his deal?

A sliver of light that lingered in the western horizon allowed her to see the naughty canine running around the yard.

“Rags, come! Now!” She walked toward him with calculated steps as he crouched into down dog, ass in the air, tail wagging. “Please, drop … it.” On the last step, she lunged for his collar, but he dodged her attempt and bolted to the left as she face planted into the grass. “Dammit, Rags!”

When she lifted her head all she could see was the outline of Rags using his paw to hold the garments to the ground while he shredded them with his teeth. Accepting defeat, she rolled over and sat up, stopping all movement the moment she felt something soft and squishy beneath her ass.

“Please don’t tell me …” She leaned to the side and strained her neck around to look at her ass. “Shit.” Closing her eyes, Parker shook her head, cursing the day that stupid dog and his owners came into her life.

“Canine hell is a real place, Rags. You’ve been warned.” Easing to her feet, she looked in front of her for any more piles of poop. One pile of it plastered to her ass was enough for the night.

Gus and Sabrina were probably out drinking. Lucky them. Parker still had to deal with Sabrina’s clothes—what was left of them—clean up the scraps of lingerie in the yard and change her pants.

“Playtime is over, demon dog.”

Seemingly content with his mess, Rags allowed Parker to drag him to the garage by his collar. She attached his leash and tied it to the leg of Gus’s workbench in the garage.

“Stay put while I clean up your mess.”

After using a piece of cardboard from their recycling bin to scrape as much dog poop off her ass as possible, she went upstairs to quickly tidy up the suitcase mess, praying that the odor from her pants didn’t linger. Then she grabbed a plastic shopping bag from under the sink and headed out to pick up the scraps of silk and lace in the yard. And because she was the unluckiest person on the face of the earth, as she picked up the last of the mess, the headlights to a white van blinded her as they rounded the corner of the drive to pull into the garage.

“I hate my life.” She took the bag to the garbage bin on the side of the garage.

“Do I need to pack up my shit and get out?” Gus asked.

Parker let the lid to the garbage bin slam shut, and then she turned to him. “I don’t know, Mr. Westman.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. He’d kissed her. She’d kissed him back. But everything that happened after that overshadowed all awkwardness that she should have felt at that moment. “I didn’t get a chance to tell Mrs. Westman about her despicable husband and her equally despicable B-team assistant because she didn’t have time for me. And then your savage dog ran off with your wife’s fancy undergarments, ripping them to shreds.

“Which by the way … I know you like the ignorance-is-bliss life, but…” Parker cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes “…don’t you find it suspicious that your wife packs sexy lingerie for a business trip that she takes without you?”

Gus shrugged and walked toward the back door. “She doesn’t own anything that’s not sexy. Refuses to buy cotton. What the—” He freed Rags from the leg of the workbench. “Did you tie him to this?”

“Uh …” Parker grimaced for a second then pulled back her shoulders. “Yes. I did. After chasing him around the yard, I had to keep him out of trouble while I finished unpacking Sabrina’s suitcase.”

Gus shook his head and whistled. “Don’t tell her you tied her baby to my workbench.” He went into the house, and she followed him.

“Oh, for crying out loud. It was only for like … twenty minutes, and he had at least three feet of slack. That hardly qualifies as animal cruelty. Besides his ‘mommy’ barely gave her ‘baby’ a second glance before she marched out the door in her slutty dress and fuck-me heels.”

Gus cracked open a beer while giving Parker a hard look, jaw set. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

She laughed. “I don’t think you can stick your tongue down my throat and press your erection to my belly then an hour later defend your wife’s honor.”

Gus swallowed back some strange emotion as his eyes averted to the side for a few seconds. “I love her,” he whispered.

Caleb had once loved Parker too. Even after she caught him in bed with Piper, he swore he still loved her more than Piper. Thinking back, underneath all the anger and betrayal, there was a part of her that truly believed him.

“Then fight for her.”

Caleb didn’t fight for Parker. It probably would not have changed the outcome of their lives, but that’s what people in love did. They fought for each other.

Gus grunted a painful chuckle. “How do you fight for something that’s already yours?”

“People aren’t property, Gus. You can’t possess her. You can fight for her attention and maybe even her heart, and that’s enough to live out your ’til-death-do-us-part.”

“I kissed you.”

Biting her lips together, she nodded. “Total prick. I can give you womanly advice, but I can’t make you less despicable.”

He set his beer on the counter then stepped closer to her. “You kissed me back.”

She no longer berated herself for the way his nearness sent chills along her spine and heat to other places that seemed to crave his touch. “You said it yourself. Desire is not love. We’ve known each other less than two weeks. I’m young and incredibly hot.” Parker smirked. “You’re old and my standards are clearly a bit too low, so we’re physically attracted to each other. It’s just biology. ‘Carnal.’ Nothing more.”

“Old? You still think I’m—” He took a step closer and frowned as he sniffed several times. “Did you step in dog shit?”

Her confident grin waned. “Oh … um …” She retreated backward. “Not exactly.”

Gus continued toward her.

“Good night!” She turned to make a quick exit.

“Parker? Did you shit your pants?”

She groaned, shaking her head, eyes closed. “No, I didn’t shit my pants. Rags did.”

Gus barked out a laugh. “Pray tell, how does a dog shit your pants?”

Whipping around, she folded her arms over her chest. “Ha ha. He didn’t shit my pants. I sat in a pile of his poop.”

“How did you not see—”

“Just …” She held a flat hand up to him. “Shhh. Good night, Mr. Westman.”

“For the record, Parker, I don’t find you all that ‘incredibly hot’ at the moment.”

“Screw you, Gus, you hairy, gray-balled bastard.” She stepped over Rags sprawled out on the mudroom floor and didn’t look back.