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“I’m pretty sure she knows.” Sam cringed.
“You know I’m right.” Piper turned on Leo. “I never get in trouble. The only times I’ve ever been reprimanded by a teacher or tossed out of a bar, you were there. You make me livid.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Leo grumbled back with a resigned shake of his head. “Let’s just steer clear of each other so we don’t end up burning down the entire campus. I’ll sit as far away from you as possible in Hornbill’s class.”
“Sounds good to me.” Piper shivered as a gust of wind blew over her arms and was surprised when Leo, out of everyone, yanked off his hoodie and handed it to her. “I don’t need that.”
“Uh, Piper…” Thea’s wary voice said.
“You’re cold,” Leo stated. And then, his eyes briefly dropped lower, and she followed his gaze down to her chest, where her nipples were standing on end, poking through the fabric of her dress. Any misconstrued notion that Leo was being nice for once was thrown out the window. She ripped the hoodie out of his hands and threw it on over her head as even more humiliation seeped into her veins.
“Jerk,” Piper muttered under her breath as she turned on her heel to leave, shoving a giggling Thea along with her.
“You can give that back to me in class on Monday,” Leo called after her. It took every ounce of self-control in Piper’s body not to hit him with a scalding remark, but she managed to keep her head forward by focusing on one thought:
He can rot in hell before I ever give this hoodie back.
Seven
LEO
Somehow, Leo managed to refrain from telling Sam “I told you so” a thousand times on the way back to their apartment. He was still sticky from the small amount of liquid in the bottom of Piper’s drink, and he smelled like he had bathed in a child’s fruit cup. His hair was matted and clumped together in a disgusting medley of mocktail and regret. He probably shouldn’t have stolen her cherry, but Piper’s reaction was exactly why she would never be the right choice for Sarah Brown. A good girl she might be, but she had a temper up her sleeve that, when unleashed, would make most people cower in fear. For some reason, it just egged him on.
Once Leo slammed the door shut, Sam rolled his eyes and flopped onto their shitty couch in the middle of the living room. The foam cushions audibly compressed and let out air on impact. Every piece of furniture in the living room had a chipping surface, and their TV had to be smacked around occasionally to get a good visual, but the couch, even with its ugly burnt orange color, was more comfortable than either of their beds. All the pieces they had acquired over the last three years were functional. There was no need for aesthetics when the end table they had picked up for free on a street corner was holding up just fine.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it,” Leo said. He made his way to the fridge and opened it to find a hell of a lot of nothing before closing it and leaning one hip against the counter.
“She would have been perfect. You ruined it.” Sam shoved his face into the knitted throw pillow Leo’s grandmother had made and groaned theatrically. “Now we’re back at square one.”
“Did you miss the part where she dumped her drink on my head? I have to take a shower, and I already took one this morning.”
“You poor, pathetic thing.” Sam sat up from his sulking. “Between checking her out, purposely antagonizing her, and taking what wasn’t yours, you did a bang-up job. She’s practically a walking, talking, singing Sarah Brown!”
“I was not checking her out!” Leo rebutted. “She was going to poke my eye out with her nipples if I didn’t give her my hoodie.”
Sam raised a finger. “My eyes seem to be fine, and I didn’t stare at her ass when she walked away.”
“You’re gay!” Leo snapped. At the smirk on Sam’s face, he realized his error immediately. “No, no, don’t be weird. This is not a thing. Fine, I checked her out. She’s objectively hot. I still despise her.”
“You have been bitching about Piper for years. And don’t think I didn’t see you help her down the stairs.”
“I’d help little old ladies down the stairs, too, and you don’t try to set me up with them,” Leo pointed out.
“Are you into older women?”
“¿Qué?” Leo cringed. “No.”
“Then my point stands.”
“That makes literally no sense. You don’t get it,” Leo ran a hand through his hair. “She’s—there’s something about her that drives me up a wall.”
“That’s called sexual tension, my friend.” Sam grinned.
“No, it’s because she’s a fraud. I can notice when someone is attractive and also hate every single thing about their personality. She acts all sweet with other people, but she treats me like I’m scum on the bottom of her shoe. She dates every asshole she can get her hands on. She lets people walk all over her in the name of perfection.”
“Hmm, seems like you think she’s putting on a show. Acting, even.” Sam looked entirely too pleased with his deductive reasoning.
“No.” Leo raised a finger in warning but had no better argument. “Just no.”
