I fidgeted with my hair once again for the third time just in the last minute. That was a bad sign. I shifted in my seat again for the fifth time. "Are you okay?" Parker asked me. He thanked the waiter that put down our meals in front of us. He had ordered a steak, and I had ordered chicken. I looked at the perfectly good delicious roasted chicken, and I still couldn't bring myself to really eat.
Not only was guilt filling my stomach. Tension had been crammed into there, too, after seeing Aiden's face when he left my room earlier.
"More or less." I answered him before picking up my fork.
Parker looked at me, studying my face. "It sounds like less." He pointed out my lame tone. "Do you mind telling me what you are thinking about?" He asked as he started to cut into his steak.
I sigh as I cut the first piece of chicken off and place it into my mouth. It was basically stalling while I thought of an answer. Though, the chicken itself was splendid with seasoning and whatnot. "Well, I'm thinking about whether or not Alani and Harry get along exceptionally well for only friends." I told him. I had thought about that in a passing thought a while ago, but that wasn't what I was really thinking about at this movie.
Parker nodded as he chewed. When he swallowed, he replied to me. "They do." He smirked. I thought I had successfully changed the subject, but I should have stopped assuming things a long time ago. "But, that's not what you were thinking about." He raised an eyebrow at me.
He saw through my lie. "Observant." I complimented him while I stuffed another piece of chicken in my mouth.
"Now, I'm more curious what you were thinking about."
I sipped my drink and pursed my lips at him. "I'm thinking that you don't really want to know what I'm thinking about." I told him.
"Try me."
"It's a long story."
"I don't care."
"There are a lot of things that you don't want to hear."
"Stop stalling."
I huffed. I leaned on the table. It was nice. White cloth. Two glasses of wine with the bottle left behind. The lighting in the restaurant was low. Candlelight. Close enough to be romantic. "I'm serious, Parker. You really don't want to know. It involves so many things and hurting your feelings."
"So I'm involved in it?" He says as he picks up his glass of wine.
"Yes." I gave him that much.
"Well you can start there." Parker folded. I tilted my head and pressed my lips together into a hard line. Parker sighed and leaned over the table to touch my hand. "It seems to really be bothering you." He explained. "I'm a grown man, so you can tell me even if I'm gonna end up hating you for it. You look like you need to get it out."
I hated it. He was so nice. Then, there was Alani making me feel guilty in my head. When I looked at Parker, I knew that I didn't reciprocate any of those feelings that he probably wanted me to. "Are you sure you want to hear it?"
Parker shifted in his chair. "Jordyn, a girl only tells you a few things that you really don't wanna hear. Judging by the way you're being so on guard about this, then it has to be part of those few things. Teen pregnancy or break up. Since I don't think you're a teenage girl that's pregnant..." Parker said to me with a sad smile.
"Yeah..." I replied with an apologetic tone. Way to sound like a bitch, Jordyn.
"Then, it's all right. At least you gave me this date." He told me with a shrug. From his look, I thought that I didn't break his heart or anything. Maybe, at most, I had bruised his ego. Then, he chuckled. "Alani had told me to be careful after I had asked you out."
"Alani says a lot of stuff." I told him.
"And I get a feeling that there's more to the story than you just not liking me." He told me. Of all the guys, he had to be a perceptive one unless Alani just told the two everything, but I trusted Alani not to be too much of a gossip. "You're still pouting." He said. "If you weren't still pouting and maybe had a smile of relief, then I wouldn't think so."
So my face was my betrayer. That was great to hear.
"Well, since you just technically dumped me, I think the least you could do is be honest and just tell me what's on your mind. I'm curious, and we're supposed to be friends now." Parker said.
"Long story." I waved my hand dismissively as I sat back in my chair.
"Stop stalling." Parker smiled as he sipped from his drink again.
I rolled my eyes at the re-used line. "It's dangerous territory." I told him with a warning tone.
"Stop stalling."
"Fine." I gave up, perhaps too easily. More or less everything was still heavy on my chest, making my stomach feel squeezed and smashed. I would have done anything to get that feeling to go away. "What do you know anything about Kendra and Aiden's relationship?" That started the saga that basically took up the rest of our date. I told Parker all of it because the blue eyes had just pulled it all out of me. He was easy to talk to and asked to know everything. He didn't stop me even through he should have.
I pulled out all the stops. I told him about how the girls and I had plotted against Kendra since the very beginning. I had told him about what Alani had said about Aiden's feelings in high school. I had told him about the complication between Aiden, Kendra, the dress, and me. I had told him about Kendra and her nature. I had told him about the chaos. I even told him about Aiden and my feelings.
"He's still getting married to her? After all that?" He asked me as he finished off his cup of wine. I poured the rest of the bottle into mine as I hummed affirmatively. "Then Kendra's holding something over him, just like she's holding something over you." Parker said. "I know the bloke. He can be thick, but he's not stupid."
I leaned on my palm tiredly. "You think so?"
Parker nodded. "No question about it. He won't tell anyone, though, because he's worried about Kendra now. Just like you are." He continued. "If that something didn't exist, my bets are that he would dump Kendra, then you tell him how you feel about him, and then both of you would hop to your happily ever after." Parker said.
"How romantic comedy of you." I commented as I finished off my glass of wine. "I doubt that it would just be so easy to hop to a happily ever after."
"Maybe not hop." He corrected himself with a smile. "He likes you. I'm not sure how much, but he was... happy when Kendra had called him at work about you agreeing to come to the wedding. He's overly tense when he sees you with me. It's something."
"I think you're just making stuff up now, Thomas." I called him by his last name as I spun my empty glass along the white cloth.
Parker chuckled. "Sure, I am." He said sarcastically. "Anyway, if you want my advice-"
"Didn't ask for it and don't know if it will really work." I raised an eyebrow at him.
Parker got amused with me very often. It showed a lot when he smiled at me while I told parts of the story. He was amused with me right now. "Anyway, if you want my advice," he started over, "then somehow get the video that she has on you, destroy it, tell Aiden how you feel, and then your life goal will be complete. You would have ruined this wedding." He summarized for me.
I didn't think it was so simple. "If you want me to follow your advice, how do you suppose that I get the video away from Kendra? Where would it be? It could be on the cloud for God's sake. Plus, I'd be the last one she'd let into her room." I sat up as I faced Parker.
He stood up after taking his card out from black book. I told him I could pay because, let's be honest, I had basically dumped him while we were on our first date. That was cruel, so paying was the least I could do to make it up to him. He didn't let me. "Ginger could do that for you. I'm sure she'd be happy to oblige. Also, if you really don't want the thing to haunt you for life, then find the guy and delete it yourself."
"I do trust Ginger, but this is still something that I don't want literally anyone else finding out about." I said as I stood up from my own seat. "But, you make a good point about Nick. I'll go see him tomorrow." That was decided. I didn't care about what Kendra had me doing tomorrow, I would skip it and raise hell for Nick.
It was nice that Parker seemed to be okay with me. He wasn't angry, but like I said, the most that I got off of him was that I had bruised his ego a bit. I wanted to really know how he felt, though, because I felt a hell lot of guilt about this. Alani had been right, and I shouldn't have dragged him into my mess.
It was nice that he listened to me, too. It made me feel worse.
"Good morning." Parker said to me when we all gathered in the ballroom. Cake tasting. It should be the least painful of all the wedding planning. Aiden had talked Kendra into letting everyone come. So, we all stood at table with plates of small pieces of cakes. "All" meant the wedding party that included Aiden, Kendra, Alani, Lauren, Ginger, Christian, Harry, Parker, and me. Plus, there was Kendra's mom.
"Morning." I smiled at him as I took a spot between him and Kendra. Aiden was on the other side of Kendra, and when I looked at him, I offered him a smile, and he smiled back but quickly looked away. "See?" I mumbled to Parker. "I don't think that he's very... keen towards me right now."
Parker sighed. "That's because he thinks there's a thing between you and me, which you shut down almost immediately." He said with a sassy smile on his lips. I pouted him. "Not angry about it." He put his hands up in defense.
Harry leaned over. "He's just very sad on the inside." This earned him a shove from Parker.
I frowned and looked at Parker. I didn't want him feeling bad. "Really?" I looked at Parker with big eyes. Then, it occurred to me. "Wait, you know?" I asked Harry.
Harry smirked at me and wriggled his eyebrows. "I know everything, Jordyn." He told me in exaggerated seriousness. I raised my eyebrow at him. He nodded. "Seriously. Alani talks a lot when I get her drunk."
"Alani!" I exclaimed.
She turned from her spot in between Lauren and Harry. "What?" She asked. Then, I looked at her, and she just knew exactly what I was talking about. She glanced up at Harry. "Not totally everything."
I rolled my eyes, and she went back to her conversation with Lauren. Harry decided to start minding his own business and started a conversation with Christian even though the girls stood in between them. "So what do you suppose I do about that?" I said to Parker.
He glanced over. "What? About Aiden?" He asked, and I nodded. "Well, there's directly telling him the truth," He suggested, and I gave him a look, "but I don't think you're up for that." He finished. He sighed and shifted his weight as he looked at me. "There's also waiting until Aiden stops being a dunce and realizes. That's relying on chance, though. Then, there's making him insanely jealous, which women usually think is a good idea, but it takes a lot of effort and drama, and at times more riskier than it's worth." He implied that that wasn't the route that we should take.
"That's all for stealing a man." I said and waved my hand dismissively. "I'm not going to do that and be the center of this town's gossip." I said it to Parker as if that was the worst suggestion he could ever make. "I just want to be on good terms with him, and then I leave town and never look back."
Parker rolled his eyes and leaned on the table. "You're always going to be looking back, Jordyn, and thinking about what you should've done." He advised me. "It's a sorry way to live life."
Before I could respond, a, I guess she was the official planner or baker, woman clapped her hands together. She looked very expensive in her black skirt and jacket suit combo and her pinned up blonde hair. She had subtle wrinkles under her dark, menacing eyes, giving me the idea that she was around Kendra's mom's age. "Let's begin."
I looked down at our nice porcelain plates that had six little cube slices of cakes and their colorful frostings. The woman told us which one was which and that the pads of paper next to us were for us to write down which ones we liked. It all kind of went over my head, and I knew that I would be writing things like "the red one with white frosting" or something like that.
"So are you going to that guy's house today?" Parker asked me as he picked up the first piece. It tasted like vanilla. The lady was saying stuff to Kendra and Aiden, but I wasn't paying attention. I thought the reason we were all here was just for the free cake.
I shrugged. "I don't really know if he still lives in town, much less his address. Though, when we were in high school, he did give off a going nowhere vibe." I told him as I stuffed half of the slice into my mouth.
"Thought Kendra said that she talked to him?"
"Maybe over the phone or something, and he sent it to her over the Internet, which makes me feel so much better about it being out there." I sighed.
Parker ate the rest of the first slice. "What did you say it was again?"
I smirked at him. "I didn't say it was anything." I told him, knowing that he was curious what I was so worried about getting out into the known world.
He tilted his head. "Can't blame a guy for trying." He said. "It makes you so on edge, and that makes me so curious."
"Wrap it around your pretty little blonde head now. You'll never find out what it is as long as I'm alive." I told him as I stepped closer to him with my pointer finger on his chest. Parker chuckled as he pushed my hand away from him.
Alani heard this part of the conversation. She leaned over. "Parker, if she won't tell me, she won't tell you. I have a higher clearance level." She teased.
Parker shrugged. "I don't know about that, Alani. I have a pretty high clearance level. Clearance level ten." He smirked at her, making up some shit to one up her. He turned to me, and he lowered his voice. "Maybe Alani knows where he lives. Alani is pretty connected as far as I can tell."
"Yeah, but I don't want her getting ideas. I trust her, but not for this." I explained to him. Then, as a thought entered my brain, I got an idea. "I do know just the person that might know." I told him, but I didn't want him asking any more questions about it. "Conversation over."
Parker said he picked up a piece of the second slice of cake with his bare thumb and forefinger. It was chocolate, or I thought it was chocolate. "Well, if the conversation is over, then you have to try this one." Parker smiled. I very easily could've taken a bite out of the one on my plate, but Parker thought it was best that he physically feed me the piece.
I started laughing as he stuck the piece into my mouth. It got messy with brown crumbs falling and everything. Maybe I laughed too loudly, getting the attention from some other people.