Walking Disaster

walked with Parker, and he held the door open for her. A wide smile spread across her face in appreciation.
    Of course. When he did it, she noticed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cold Bitch
    R IDING HOME ALONE IN THE BACKSEAT OF SHEPLEY ’ S Charger was less than thrilling. America
kicked off her heels and giggled as she poked Shepley’s cheek with her big toe. He must have been crazy in love with her, because he just smiled, amused by her infectious laughter.
    My phone rang. It was Adam. “I got a rookie lined up in an hour. Bottom of Hellerton.”
    “Yeah, uh . . . I can’t.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me. I said I can’t.”
    “Are you sick?” Adam asked, the anger rising in his voice.
    “No. I gotta make sure Pidge gets home okay.”
    “I went to a lot of trouble to set this up, Maddox.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. Gotta go.”
    When Shepley pulled into his parking spot in front of the apartment and Parker’s Porsche was nowhere to be found, I sighed.
    “You coming, cuz?” Shepley asked, turning around in his seat.
    “Yeah,” I said, looking down at my hands. “Yeah, I guess.”
    Shepley pulled his seat forward to let me out, and I stopped just short of America’s tiny frame.
    “You have nothing to worry about, Trav. Trust me.”
    I nodded once, and then followed them up the stairs. They went straight into Shepley’s bedroom and shut the door. I fell into the recliner, listening to America’s incessant giggling,
and trying not to imagine Parker putting his hand on Abby’s knee—or thigh.
    Less than ten minutes later, a car engine purred outside, and I made my way to the door, holding the knob. I could hear two pairs of feet walking up the stairs. One set was heels. A wave of
relief washed over me. Abby was home.
    Only their murmuring filtered through the door. When it got quiet and the knob turned, I twisted it the rest of the way and opened it quickly.
    Abby fell through the threshold, and I grabbed her arm. “Easy there, Grace.”
    She immediately turned to see the expression on Parker’s face. It was strained, like he didn’t know what to think, but he recovered quickly, pretending to look past me into the
apartment.
    “Any humiliated, stranded girls in there I need to give a ride?”
    I glared at him. He had some damn nerve. “Don’t start with me.”
    Parker smiled and winked at Abby. “I’m always giving him a hard time. I don’t get to quite as often since he’s realized it’s easier if he can get them to drive
their own cars.”
    “I guess that does simplify things,” Abby said, turning to me with an amused smile.
    “Not funny, Pidge.”
    “
Pidge
?” Parker asked.
    Abby shifted nervously. “It’s uh . . . short for Pigeon. It’s just a nickname, I don’t even know where he came up with it.”
    “You’re going to have to fill me in when you find out. Sounds like a good story.” Parker smiled. “Night, Abby.”
    “Don’t you mean good morning?” she asked.
    “That, too,” he called back with a smile that made me want to puke.
    Abby was busy swooning, so to snap her back to reality, I slammed the door without warning. She jerked back.
    “What?”
she snapped.
    I stomped down the hall to the bedroom, with Abby on my tail. She stopped just inside the door, hopping on one foot, trying to take off her heel. “He’s nice, Trav.”
    I watched her struggle to balance on one leg, and then finally decided to help before she fell over. “You’re gonna hurt yourself,” I said, hooking my arm around her waist with
one hand, and pulling off her heels with the other. I pulled off my shirt and threw it into the corner.
    To my surprise, Abby reached behind her back to unzip her dress, slipped it down, and then yanked a T-shirt over her head. She did some sort of magic bra trick to get it off and out of her
shirt. All women seemed to know the same maneuver.
    “I’m sure there’s nothing I have that you haven’t seen before,” she said, rolling her eyes. She sat on the mattress, and then pushed her legs between the cover and
the sheets. I watched her snuggle into her pillow, and then took off my jeans, kicking them to the corner, too.
    She was curled in a ball, waiting for me to come to bed. It irritated me that she’d just rode home with Parker and then undressed in front of me like it was nothing, but at the same time,
that was just the kind of fucked-up platonic situation we were in, and it was all my doing.
    So many things were building up inside of me. I