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slip of paper. The hat sat prominently on my family room table, mocking me every time I walked past it. I couldn’t find it in myself to move that hat.
    I often wondered—obsessively, really—what he was doing, whether he was thinking about me. If he was shoving his dick down some girl’s throat.
    It was his first time on the road. I couldn’t expect him to save himself for me. It was stupid to think he would even consider that. He had a life to live, and I had made the choice not to use the number on the slip of paper he’d left for me.
    Maybe if I had, things would be different.
    Maybe I’d feel better about where I stood with him.
    There was nothing between us except one shared moment in the middle of my store, those seconds when our eyes connected and I felt something I’d never experienced before. He had to have felt it, too.
    He had to have.
    No matter what I tried, he wouldn’t get out of my head. So eventually I stopped trying. I stopped ignoring what I felt. Maybe it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, because over the six weeks that had passed, he’d become larger than life in my mind.
    The darkness in his eyes was somehow darker. The light that burned around him was somehow brighter. I’d even dreamed about what he looked like beneath the black shirt and black pants and black shoes. I imagined a hard body littered with tattoos, veins filled with life surging above his skin, comfort in his solid chest, the smoothness of his skin under my fingers.
    It was easy to imagine after I’d Googled him and seen his perfect body without a shirt.
    The one image that stuck out to me most was his chest. Comfort.
    That was different.
    That was something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
    And in the few warm seconds Parker had held me in his arms, that was exactly what I’d felt. Comfort.
    I didn’t deserve it, and I hadn’t been looking for it, yet there it was.
    Enveloping me like a blanket. Soft, sturdy, heated.
    While part of me assumed he’d just forget about me and I’d eventually forget about him, a deeper part of my conscience knew that he would show up at Vintage as soon as the tour was over.
    So when he walked into my store after his six weeks away, I wasn’t surprised.
    I felt his warmth behind me before I saw him.
    It was mid-afternoon, the quiet lull forcing me into the mundane checklist of my daily tasks. My list started with the bookcases and straightened each book, checking for alphabetical order. Then I moved onto t-shirts, folding them and stacking them into equal piles. Then I moved over to the music, where I first alphabetized records and then moved onto the compact discs. 
    I was in the middle of t-shirts when he walked in.
    Instinctively I knew he was there, because somehow we shared this unreal connection that I’d never shared with another human being. Ever.
    “You never called.”
    His voice was loud and clear in the quiet of the store. He stood behind me, but I knew exactly who he was. His voice was burned into my memory. I was pretty sure it would be for the rest of my life. There was no escaping the warmth that wrapped around me when I heard it.
    Tim was in my line of vision, and I saw his face whip up when he heard Parker’s voice, too. He knew exactly who it was talking to me, and from the sour look on his face, he didn’t like it.
    But I couldn’t find it in myself to care what Tim thought. He represented the indifference that had clouded over me for far too long. Parker was emotion. Bright, light, white emotion. It was too strong to ignore.
    “How was your tour?” I asked, refusing to meet his eyes as I continued folding shirts.
    I knew if I met his eyes, I’d be lost again. He’d take me into his soul, and a part of me would be lost forever to him.
    “Would’ve been better if I knew you were here waiting for me.”
    “Who says I wasn’t?”
    “You. By refusing to call me. Look at me.”
    The potency in his voice forced my eyes toward him.
    My memory