Page 15 of Twisted Needs

My mouth pulls into a grin. “Victim came willingly.”

Parker laughs under his breath and disappears into the kitchen for a moment.

He returns a moment later, roughing my hair as he brushes past me. I join him on the couch, immediately reaching for his fresh, cold beer before he can stop me.

“You little gremlin,” he mutters flatly. “That’s mine.”

“Can you go get me my own then?” I smirk, bringing the bottle to my lips and taking a few sips.

“No…” He scrunches his nose. “Just keep it.”

He slips off into the kitchen and returns a few moments later with two more beers.

“Both for you?” I ask.

He gives me a look, biting back a grin. “I miss when you were little enough to be my beer mule. Getting up to get my own is just too much effort.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe if you paid me more than a dollar…”

“Paying a six year old a dollar per beer is a very generous wage.”

“Only a true millionaire would say that,” I laugh.

We then fall into a heated discussion on why my brother’s new haircut looks like shit. Parker argues it’s because he goes to Great Clips, while I maintain my strong belief that it’s because he’s balding.

I realize I’ve stopped keeping track of anything except the fact that I keep wanting him to stay exactly where he is. Situated close, but still barely out of reach. At some point that becomes its own problem.

I don’t fully register it when he’s saying “come on.” I follow him outside without protest because I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so animated.

The cold hits immediately, my face both stinging and numbing at the exact same time. The snow is coming down hard enough now that it absorbs most of the sound, making the world feel a little more silent than it usually is.

I think that’s what I like most about blizzards. The world actually shuts up for a day.

Parker leans against the railing like he’s used to this. The quiet, the cold, the snow…

“It’s insane out here,” I say. “Haven’t seen snow this much in D.C. since that blizzard in 2009.”

“It used to snow like this back home all the time.”

I turn my head to look at him just as he speaks. “In Russia?”

“Yeah.” My breath clouds in front of me as I exhale.

“My papa used to take us outside every hour to measure how deep the snow had gotten,” he tells me. “He always said that if the world was going to stop, you should at least be there to see it while it happens.”

I smile without meaning to.

His attention stays on the snow like he’s still caught in the memory.

“There was one winter,” Parker continues, “we got snowed in for over a week. Everything just shut down. No school. No work. Nothing.” There’s a faint shift in his voice that’s so subtle I almost don’t catch it. “He was happy,” Parker kept recounting, swallowing hard. “I think that was the last time I remember him being…just glad to be there with us.”

Something in my chest tightens in a way I don’t immediately understand. He sounds far away now, even though he’s standing right next to me.

“That was the last snow we had before he passed,” he reveals. “It was a stroke. Then pneumonia. Then he just…gave up. His body was too weak to keep fighting.” The way he says it feels like he’s at peace with it, but something still feels different. There’s a kind of vulnerability in him right now that feels unintentional.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmur.

He purses his lips and gives me a soft look.