Parker doesn’t say a word as she stands here on the porch staring at me. Maybe she feels guilty. I was her friend first. I went to fucking war with her and I helped Garrett get his head out of his ass where she was concerned and she took her side over mine.

The silence on the porch is interrupted by a loud crack of thunder off in the distance and we all turn and look at the sky in shock. Summertime storms are an anomaly in California, so the streak of lighting I see makes the hair on my arms stand up. There’s something ominous about watching the electricity light up the dark sky. I guess it makes sense that the night my world goes to shit, something out of the ordinary happens to punctuate it.

I see Garrett run his palms over his face out of the corner of my eye before he shakes his head in wonder.

“What in the motherfuck is going on right now?” he whispers.

I don’t know if he’s talking about the weather or about everything I just said and I don’t give a fuck. I came here to get drunk and tell them to fuck off.

Mission accomplished.

I move around Parker to go down the steps but she grabs into my arm. “Nope, you’re not going anywhere on your own. Get in the fucking car. We’re going for a drive.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I’m still questioning my decision to get in the car with Parker. She instructed Garrett to go find Olivia after a few calls to her cell phone went unanswered. I want to be pissed that they both care so much about Olivia’s well-being after what she did, but I’ve decided not to give a fuck. Not caring is much better than wanting to kill everyone I come in contact with.

That whole ‘not caring’ thing becomes more difficult when I glance out the front window of Parker’s SUV and see that she’s pulling into the driveway of our home.

Not our home, HER home. This was never my home and I was a fool to think otherwise.

Parker shuts off the vehicle and opens the door. I cross my arms in front of me like a child and refuse to get out. Olivia’s car isn’t here, so I know I won’t have to deal with looking at her lying face again, but there’s no fucking way I’m going in that house. What the fuck is the point? Does Parker think I’m going to wait here for her to come home? Does she want to play mediator or some shit?

“Get your ass out of the car, Cole,” Parker speaks quietly.

“Fuck you, Parker,” I fire back.

“I wouldn’t fuck you with my husband’s dick. You’re being a fucking asshole. Now, get the hell out of the car before I drag your big, drunk ass out and make a huge scene in front of the neighbors.”

She gets out of the car and slams the door behind her. I watch through the windshield as she makes her way up to the front porch. A few drops of rain splatter against the window and I lean forward to look up at the sky, watching the lightning streak across it.

Shit! Motherfucking SHIT!

If I don’t get out now, Parker will make good on her threat and haul my ass out of here, by which time it will be pouring.

With a few more curses and a smack to the dashboard with my open palm, I angrily shove open the door and get out, dodging raindrops as I head up to the porch where Parker is waiting for me, cursing myself for being so damn stubborn and not having my crutches with me.

She doesn’t say a word as she uses a key on her ring to unlock the door. The door that’s no longer bright, sunshiny yellow. The door she painted over because it hurt too much for her to have that last memory of me every time she came home.

The look in her eyes when she told me she’d been pregnant flashes through my mind. How broken and distraught she was when she stood in the living room wrapped in a towel, apologizing to me over and over. Was she apologizing for what she did or was it more than that? Did she apologize because she felt guilty or because she truly was sorry and regretted the abortion?

Jesus, just thinking that word makes me want to lean over the porch railing and puke into the bushes. It’s so cold and clinical and it’s nothing like Olivia. I still have a hard time reconciling the woman I loved with the one who was capable of killing my child. I thought she was stronger than my mother and above any type of threats or bribes that would come her way.

I follow behind Parker blindly, through the living room and down the hall, stopping at a door right across from Olivia’s bedroom. I refuse to turn around and look through that open doorway and see the unmade bed, knowing her smell lingers on those sheets, remembering the way her body felt pressed against mine beneath those covers just days ago. All those nights of lying together in the dark, talking about the past and the future… all those times when she could have been honest with me and she chose, instead, to lie.

“I’m going to guess that you haven’t been in this room since you’ve been back,” Parker speaks quietly, staring at the closed door in front of her.

“Uh, no. It’s a spare bedroom. Olivia kept extra clothes and shit in there.”

“She always keeps this door closed. As far as I know, she hasn’t been in here in months. I told her I’d help her empty it out, but she wouldn’t let me,” Parker murmurs.

I roll my eyes, wishing she’d get on with it already so we can get the fuck out of here and I can go back to drinking myself into a coma.

Parker steps away from the door and gestures to it with her hand. “Go ahead. Open it.”

I look at her in confusion for a minute, irritated that she won’t just fucking tell me why the hell she dragged me here. This cloak and dagger bullshit is pissing me off.