My Borrowed Son

Crush(ed)

Chapter Twenty | Crush(ed)

"No! It's because you're a nerd and know way too much about space," teased Selina. Both she and Parker were howling with laughter after an in-depth conversation about space and the different elements of it.

Space. Stars. Comets. Black holes. Meteors and meteorites.

Everything Selina had a question about, Parker had an answer for, which naturally led to her teasing him. They had spent the past few hours going back and forth in discussion, playfully talking and teasing one another the entire time.

And this wasn't the first time they'd spent most of a Saturday morning talking well into the afternoon and sometimes evening. For the past few months, the two of them could be found talking to one another either on discord or through messaging apps.

For Parker, it was a good distraction from the past few weeks during his relative obsession with the mysterious drill bit and the odd shadow he thought he saw when his eyes were playing tricks on him. Just last week, he even dared to venture into the walls and explore that mysterious space between the drywall and the supporting beams that made up his home.

He didn't find anything, not that he thought he would, but there was still some odd sensation lingering in his chest that there was something that he was missing.

"I mean, seriously!" grinned Selina as she leaned forward toward her webcam. Parker snapped back to the conversation and kept his mind from wandering any further into the unknown. "Why do you know that there are almost ten thousand satellites orbiting Earth right now?"

"Nine thousand, four hundred, ninety-four active satellites. Let's be precise," grinned Parker.

"Oh what-ev-er!" Selina giggled. "What I want to know is how you managed to steer the conversation into space when we were talking about our upcoming Mario Kart tournament."

Parker, grinning from ear to ear, felt his cheeks pinken as he looked up into the camera, imagining looking into Selina's eyes instead of the cold lens that was in front of him.

"Well, you know there are a lot of different themes and arenas to choose from when playing Mario Kart and we were trying to decide which one would be the best. I think that the space themed one would be best," pointed out Parker.

Somehow, the room was feeling a tad warm, and Parker was feeling nervous and giddy. It was like butterflies were swirling around in his chest. What was this feeling?

"I know, but there are a dozen other designs we could go with. There's the original and the rainbow road. I love the rainbow road!" moaned Selina playfully. Parker chuckled and shook his head.

"We always do rainbow road. We need to mix things up a bit. Come on! We need to make a decision to send out in the group text today," said Parker. He reached up and ruffled his hair, noticing that the length was starting to get a tad long and that his mom was probably going to notice any day now.

"Oh, don't be a spoil sport," Selina teased. "Why don't you come on! We need to celebrate! We just finished finals. You, as usual, were in the top three – ya' nerd – but I wouldn't expect anything less from you."

Parker's cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. It was true. The finals went off without a hitch and Parker found his scores near the top of his peers, which was significant considering he was in the advanced classes with kids who were a little bit older than himself. The scores, for Parker, were a tad bittersweet.

On one hand, being part of the top meant that Parker was on a lot of honors emails and celebrations and shout-outs. It looked really good for his transcripts, especially since he was already considering specialized high schools and college programs that accepted students who were much younger than the average student.