You Were Never Mine

Good girls & Bad guys - Chapter 04

Elle

Parker and I exited his car, the salt air breeze tangling through my hair. I wasn't really sure of why I asked him to drive here with me, but something in my heart knew it was the right call. Shutting the passenger door, I walked around to the hood of his car with him. The two of us stood there, staring at each other for a brief moment. I turned and looked out at the water, crossing my arms over my chest. 

"This is your favorite place to be, isn't it?" Parker questioned, earning a glance from me. 

I shrug my shoulders and look back over at him, "yeah, it's kind of my oasis. My little getaway from reality, ya know? Do you have a getaway?" 

Parker's hands are buried in his front pockets as he rocks on his heels, blowing out a puff of air. "Yeah, I do, I guess. A lot of the time I drown my thoughts in alcohol or marijuana, but I do have an oasis, I think." He looks over at me, locking eyes. 

I clear my throat and rub over my arms with my hands, shivering from the breeze. Parker notices and walks back to his car, opening the back door and grabbing a hoodie from the seat. He walks back over and hands it to me. 

"Thanks," I mutter, shoving my head and arms through the opening and pulling it down on me. The hoodie was quite big on me, almost covering the end of the dress I was wearing. I let out a small laugh as I looked down, noticing that it looked like I was only wearing the hoodie. 

"Want to go for a walk?" Parker asks, his voice coming out soft. 

I nod my head and slide the heels off of my feet, leaving them next to the front of his car. The two of us make our way over to the stairs and walk down to the beach together. Parker slides his sneakers off once we get to the bottom of the steps and leaves them there with his socks. I walk into the sand and let it gather between my toes. It was quite dark out at the time and the only lights over the beach were from the pier. 

"Tell me about yourself," I look at Parker as he joins me in the sand. "Where are you from?" 

"Toronto, Canada. I was born and raised there, but we moved here once I was 13. What about you?" 

I licked my lips and walked next to him along the water. "I'm from Arizona. We moved out here when I was eight, just my dad and I. I don't have any siblings, unless my mom has had other kids with her boyfriend in Texas, but as far as I'm aware, I'm an only child." Both my parents moved from Arizona after the split. I was just lucky enough to go to California with my dad and not Texas with my mom and her boyfriend, Vinny. 

Parker looks down at me then straight ahead again, "I have a sister, Lea, but she lives over in Boston. We don't see each other much or really talk either. My parents kinda drilled it in her head at a young age that I was the bad guy of the family. So, we stopped being close after she turned fifteen. Now she lives in Boston with her fiancé, Aaron. They met in high school and dated from sixteen to now. She's twenty-two, we're three years apart." 

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You parents must be...awful?" I look at him, scrunching my face together, a bit confused of the situation. "Anyway, I didn't know you were twenty-five, but I also don't know a lot about you, so there's that." 

He lets out a soft laugh and shrugs his shoulders, "it's alright. How old are you?" 

"Twenty-three," I smile over at him, "nobody likes you when you're twenty-three." 

"If you wouldn't have said that, I would've had to unfriend you right here on this beach." 

We looked at one another and shared a laugh over the comment Parker made. I continued walking along the water as the tide rolled back into the ocean then came crashing just inches away from my feet.