"Why did you send Eliot after me?" Parker asks out of nowhere. It had been two weeks and one job since her dip into Boston Harbor. Her random question comes in the middle of a forced shopping spree. On the last job there was an incident with a chain link fence and a vintage Yves St. Laurent dress that Parker had borrowed from Sophie. When the grifter saw her with Eliot's jacket draped over her shoulders she almost cried (It really was a beautiful dress). Sophie held it together but decided that the thief would not be scrounging from her wardrobe again anytime soon. "Parker, you need to be prepared. You're not always going to be the cater waiter," Sophie had insisted. So, here they were.
"Hmmm?" she mumbles without looking up from the rack.
"That day, after I got out of the hospital," Parker elaborates. "Why did you send Eliot to check in on me?" Her arms hang at her sides with two shopping bags in each hand. She had long since given up the fight and accepted whatever garment that Sophie shoved at her.
"I was worried about you," she explains obviously. "You seemed really upset, I thought you might run."
"Oh." She cranes her neck to look down at the cocktail dress Sophie is holding up to her body. "I thought about it."
"You ran, alright," Sophie remarks, discarding the dress and putting it back on the rack. "Just not away."
"Huh?"
"Oh, come on, Parker! Eliot told me where he found you," she abandons the rack and turns her full attention to her companion. "And, the state of dress you were in…"
"It was the morning. I was still in my pajamas," Parker says, not understanding Sophie's innuendo.
"Matching pajamas?"
"Hardison doesn't like sleeping with ninjas," she retorts matter-of-factly. "What is this? Did I do something wrong?" she asks, clearly uncomfortable under Sophie's scrutiny.
"No, darling. It's perfectly alright with me."
"Then why are you interrogating me?"
"This is what girls do," Sophie explains. "We go shopping and gossip about our boyfriends."
"Hardison's not my boyfriend!" She isn't entirely sure what he is.
"Fine. We'll gossip about the men we're sleeping with," she concedes.
"Who are you sleeping with?" Parker asks innocently.
"Nobody! Uh-We're talking about you."
"So, what am I supposed to say?" She's apparently unfamiliar with the idea of girl talk.
"You know…how is he?" Sophie nudges. "In bed," she adds at Parker's perplexed look.
"Oh! Well,…normal, I guess."
"Oh." She frowns in disappointment.
"He doesn't snore," Parker supplies. "But, sometimes he talks in his sleep."
It takes Sophie a minute to realize that they are talking about two different things.
"Parker, when you say 'sleeping with Hardison,' you really do mean-"
"I've been sleeping with Hardison! Why does everyone get so hung up on that?" The volume of her voice mixed with the subject matter earn the pair half a dozen curious looks. Sophie can't help but laugh.
"So, there's nothing going on between you two?" She already knows the answer to that.
"No…Not really…"
"Not really?"
"Well, we've kissed," Parker admits.
"I'd say that's something."
"It was just to thank him for saving my life," she defends and Sophie nods in approval. "And, to thank him for the pajamas…and when he made me dinner…and when he lent me his jacket…"
"Parker!"
"I didn't steal it! We were walking along and I was cold. He just gave it to me, I didn't even ask. It was weird."
"How much time have you been spending with Hardison?" Sophie asks, finding it sad that chivalry is such a foreign concept to the girl.
"Most nights." Every night. "Then the mornings too, obviously."
"Obviously."
"A day off, here and there…"
"And, how many times have you kissed him?" Sophie wonders how Hardison is dealing with the odd course of their relationship.
"I don't know. I wasn't keeping track."
"So, you're telling me that after all that, you've never slept together?" she asks in disbelief.
"We sleep together all the time."
"I mean sex, Parker!"
"Why didn't you just say that then?" she demands in exasperation. "No, we've never had sex."
"That boy is a saint," Sophie mutters. "Parker," she says, stopping their progress through the department store, "You can't just keep grabbing him and kissing him."
"Yes, I can. He doesn't mind, he told me so."
"No. What I mean is, I think this relationship has a lot of potential beyond just random kissing."
"Hmmm…" The girl's brows furrow in concentrated thought.
"Parker," Sophie says kindly. "Why did you go to Hardison's apartment that very first night?" She's asking for her friend's benefit more than her own.
"I couldn't sleep."
"But, why go to Hardison? Not me or Eliot or Nate." Parker might not fully understand what love is but, Sophie would be willing to bet that she's in it. Or, at least, on her way.
"I don't know," she shrugs. "He was the first person I saw when I woke up in the hospital. He was holding my hand and he seemed so happy to see me. It was…nice."
Sophie knows that Parker is a highly instinctual person. She isn't surprised by this somewhat diluted explanation. The girl is acting on her feelings for Hardison without even knowing it.
"Why do you keep going back?"
"Well… when I'm at his place, when I'm with him, I feel- I don't know. I can't explain it."
"Try, Parker." She's pushing, not out of curiosity, but so Parker can sort out her emotions.
"I feel safe," she says simply. "And, welcome. Not out of place or in the way. You know, like I belong there." She's speaking slowly, as if realizing these things for the first time.
"At home?" Sophie offers.
"Yeah!" Parkers exclaims, glad to finally find the right way to put it. "And, Hardison always smiles when he sees me, like he's glad I'm there. Even though he's usually yelling at me for breaking in."
"There's a word for that. The way you feel around Hardison," Sophie informs and Parker waits expectantly. "Loved." The younger woman's face twists in confusion. "That's what it feels like when a man loves you." Parker's eyes widen and she starts breathing heavily. Sophie links her arm and pulls her dazed friend along. "Alright! On to the shoe department. Isn't girl talk fun?"