Chapter Thirty-Five – An Unexpected Visitor

I HAD TO SAY HE WAS ONE PERSISTENT GUY. 'This is ridiculous, people are going to start noticing!" I hissed, getting out of the car in front of my work. It'd been a week and for the last few days he'd begun dropping me off at home or at work after school as well.

"Do I look like I care?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I do!!" I exclaimed. "Ok bye," I said, shutting the door.

I could already see Ben smirking from behind the till. "Prince Charming is dropping you off again today?" He teased.

"Oh can it," I snapped. "He insists on doing this to restore our friendship."

"Friends...sure," he scoffed.

I rounded the counter and went behind to put on my apron. "Friends do this kind of stuff all the time," I replied defensively.

"Yeah, but he's a guy."

"Just because you wouldn't give your friends a lift doesn't mean other people wouldn't."

"Does he even live anywhere near here?"

"Kind of."

"My point exactly." While we'd been bickering, we hadn't noticed the customer sitting in one of the booths near the front with their back to us. "Off you go," Ben said, drying the cups.

I grabbed an order pad and made my way to the booth. I nearly dropped the pen and pad when I saw Parker sitting there with a grin on his face. "Is this amusing for you?" I asked, pocketing the pen and pad.

"Can a customer not come here to have some refreshments?" He asked, feigning offence.

"Fine," I replied. "What do you want?"

"Rude. Can I please get a chocolate milkshake with marshmallows on top?" He paused. "Oh, and can I please have some chocolate syrup drizzled on top in the shape of a smiley face?"

"I'm going to spit in your drink," I smiled.

"Fantastic," he replied. "Make it snappy."

Ben was leaning against the back of the counter looking very pleased with himself. "What did I say?" He whispered. I rolled my eyes and went out back to make the drink. When it came to the chocolate syrup, I turned the smile upside down. Now I was pleased with myself.

"Um, this is not what I ordered," Parker said when I put the drink in front of him.

"I'm sorry, my colleague must have gotten the request confused."

"Oh, what time do you finish today?" He asked.

"Seven. So go home," I said. He pat the pile of textbooks beside him on the table. "I think I'll be good for the next few hours actually."

Despite the steady stream of customers, in every free moment, Ben would annoy me about Parker. I glanced over at Parker, who was still happily occupied with his homework. "So, enough about me. How are you and Denise hey?" I wiggled my eyebrows.

"We'll be going on our third date this weekend," Ben grinned proudly.

"Cute! I'm glad you finally manned up and asked her out," I remarked.

"Actually...she asked me out," he said sheepishly, wrapping a hand around the back his neck.

"Good riddance. I like her already. If we were waiting for you to ask, I'd be graduating without anything even happening."

The end of my shift came around. Parker was leaning against the booth as he waited for me. "Let's go," he grinned.

We were close to my house when I finally brought it up. "You seriously don't need to drive me around anymore."

"It's fine. I want to," he said, looking over at me before he rounded the corner. "See, I believe if I've made a mistake, I need to make up for it."

"Who knew you'd be so sentimental!" I exclaimed, trying to ease the tension. "You know, people definitely don't know about this you."

"I know," he shrugged. "It's just something that's happened over my life."

"They think you're boring, super serious and pretty much emotionless," I said, instantly regretting the words as they came out of my mouth. My stupid mouth was word vomiting in panic again. "Sorry," I said quickly.

"Are you saying you don't think I'm all of these things Sorenson?" He smirked. I crossed my arms and looked away.

His headlights hit my driveway and that's when we both saw the black Bentley in my driveway. "We do not drive one of those," I said. Then we saw a man standing on my doorstep talking to my mum.

I ducked down in my seat. "Drive! Drive!" I said instinctively. Parker pulled up alongside the curb in the park. My heart was racing and my hands were trembling. My mum had been coming home late and leaving early lately. Was this the reason? I might've only caught a glimpse of the man, but I was fairly sure that was Courtney's dad.

"Daisy," Parker's voice broke the swarm of thoughts in my head.

"That was Courtney's dad wasn't it?"

"I was driving..." he began, his voice trailing off. I looked him in the eye. "I only saw briefly, but I think so, yeah."

"Courtney's been going through a lot. Her dad's been screwing a secretary again. Thank you for helping her." Clarissa's voice from the night of her party echoed in my mind. My mum wasn't a secretary, but everyone in offices dressed the same anyway.

My mum wouldn't do that...she wouldn't date a married man. Would she?

"Ok, come on," he said, getting out of the car. "We're going to go for a walk."

We paced around the park silently. Each thud of my feet was separated by what felt like a hundred heartbeats. "What am I going to do?" I pondered aloud.

"Right now...we're going to walk around this park until you feel calm enough, then I'm going to drive you home. Then you can sleep on it," Parker responded.

"I don't think I can calm down enough to get to sleep. It could take until morning."

"And that's fine. I have time," he shrugged. "I can stay with you till morning."

"We have school tomorrow you idiot."

"Abusing me already? I sense some calm coming back," he grinned. I smiled at him and quickly looked away. "Besides, who knows what was happening? Your mum might be working with his firm for something right now. We've only ever seen them together once. There are hundreds of explanations that don't involve an affair."

"Ok," I nodded.

My mum had texted me around nine. I told her I was studying at a friend's. We gave up our walk around twelve and Parker dropped me off.

"Thank you, Parker," I said.

"Yeah, no worries, I know someone who likes to take long walks in the middle of the night to clear her head." I smiled. "Although, if we keep going on these long walks, I'm going to have to start charging you Sorenson."

I rolled my eyes and shut the car door. 

--

a REGULAR update say what!?

this is exam study procrastination to the max omfg 

anyway OML i cannot believe that this is currently at #11 in romance!? Thank you so much for your support everyone!! 

I hope you enjoyed this chapter - let me know what you think!!