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“If I ditched everyone who thought my emotions were a burden, I’d have no one.” Piper’s voice cracked, and she looked off in the distance. Whether it was to search for cars or just to break eye contact with him, he didn’t know.
Leo’s heartstrings pulled taut. Piper was even more jaded than he had originally thought. “I don’t believe that. I think that’s what you tell yourself to make it hurt less when you don’t want to feel.”
“Please, feel free to grade my participation in life.” Piper ground her teeth. “Would you like to grade my outfit, too?” She spun around with an exaggerated twirl. She was wearing a Johns Hopkins University hoodie and tight biker shorts that had caught his attention more than once on the drive over. “This okay for you? The sweater was a gift from my brother. Would you rather I dress in all black and line my eyes with thick eyeliner? You want me to play the part of the sad little broken girl?”
“If that’s what you want to do, then yes.” He didn’t mention that if she did change her outfits to be more punk, he’d miss the sundresses. He’d miss the way she looked now: comfortable.
“What I want is none of your business.”
“You’re right. It isn’t. Stop searching for validation in other people. That’s my entire fucking point.” Leo let out a long sigh as a truck driver passed, the first they’d seen in a while. The truck didn’t slow down, so he gently shoved Piper a little farther away from the road. “We are never going to agree on this. I take what I want. I refuse to apologize for being… what was it that you called me earlier? A perpetual storm cloud? I will never soften myself just to appease people. I’d rather piss people off and learn their true colors. I’d rather my happiness mean something when it’s real.”
“My happiness, even when it’s forced, means something. It means I’m kind. It means I’m empathetic. I choose to smile because the alternative is being cold and bitter like—” Piper closed her mouth, cutting herself off.
“Like me,” Leo finished her sentence with a scoff. Piper just stared back at him, and the fact that she wasn’t denying it made him even more annoyed. Being real didn’t mean he was a stick in the mud. “You don’t know me very well, then. Happiness doesn’t have to look one way.”
“Neither does grief.”
A dry swallow did nothing to alleviate the tightness overtaking Leo’s throat and chest. The sickening feeling that wrenched at his stomach told him that she was right. He had never disagreed with someone so vehemently on so many levels, and yet, maybe everything wasn’t black and white. Faking joy wasn’t necessarily wrong. Shoving your personality down people’s throats wasn’t necessarily right. Everything was gray, just like the storm cloud that apparently followed him around.
“Okay.” Leo gave a slow nod of his head. “Nothing is cut and dry. There isn’t one way to do anything. I would never do what you do. You would never do what I do.” When Piper nodded back, seeming to come to the same conclusion, Leo took it as an opportunity to move on. “Let’s call a tow truck. I can maybe get my dad or one of my brothers to come out to get us.”
“I have to stay with my car here.” Piper looked around. “Wherever the hell that is. I’ll just get a hotel.” She drew her phone from her pocket, and the screen lit up, illuminating her tear-stained cheeks.
“By yourself?” Leo blinked.
“Yes, well,” Piper shrugged, “I can’t very well leave my car here, even though I know my uncle or Colin would come to pick me up.”
“Can’t you have one of them come down to stay with you in the meantime?” He was sure he was practically begging her with his eyes, but they were in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. It felt like the only lodging she would find would resemble the Bates Motel. Hell, they were parked right next to a wooded area where he was sure the Blair Witch lived. Piper wasn’t as naive as he originally had her pegged, but leaving her alone to fend for herself when they had gone on this road trip together felt wrong.
“I don’t want to bug them. It’s really late. I’ll just stay the night and leave in the morning when my car is fixed.” Her statement made his jaw tick. It would be so easy to offer to stay if he could afford to. The wheels turned in his head as he tried to figure out a way his bank account could magically acquire more zeros. The only way he could cut it was if he made a call to borrow the funds.
“I’ll stay. I don’t know if you noticed, but it feels like we’re in the Twilight Zone.” Leo gestured to their surroundings. Everything was washed in a dark, creepy hue—a filter he’d use if he ever directed a horror film. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be here on your own.”
“If you want to stay, I won’t stop you,” Piper said. It looked like she was trying to put on a brave face, and given that she had already confirmed that she often put up a front, he ignored the stubborn tilt of her chin. He couldn’t leave her stranded.
“I want to. I don’t want to burden my family to come to get me, either.” It was a lie, considering it would be much more of a burden to borrow money from someone in his family than to ask Antonio to come and get him, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Leo pulled out his phone and nervously ran his fingers through his hair, mulling over his options as he started to pace. The endless questions started up. Who was the most financially stable person in his family? Who would even be awake at this hour to answer him in time? Who would be the least disappointed in him that he had to borrow money? Who would be the easiest to pay back? His parents came to mind first because his dad was a night owl, and if he knew why Leo needed to stay, to make sure Piper wasn’t alone, he wouldn’t hesitate.
“What are you doing?” Piper asked.
Leo stopped kicking the gravel around as he silently panicked about having to call his dad for money—one of the many things he promised himself he’d never do when he went out on his own. “I—uh, I’m calculating my finances. I pretty much always have a running tally in my head.”
“You’re trying to figure out how to afford a hotel room?” she guessed correctly.
“Yeah.” Leo nodded. “I think I’m gonna have to call someone. There’s a reason I wasn’t going to come down for Thanksgiving. My rent is due soon, and… shit, I don’t know if—”
“Leo, stop.” Piper cut him off. “You don’t have to do that. I can pay for us both.”
“I can’t let you do that. That’s so much money.” He knew logically that in the grand scheme of things, a hotel room probably wasn’t going to put a dent in her pockets, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of feeling like he owed her something.
“Then just stay with me.”
Leo blinked and looked at her. “With you? In your hotel room?”
“Yes. We can get a room with a pull-out couch or something. It usually doesn’t cost more. Does that work for your moral compass?” The glow of Piper’s phone illuminated her face, making her look like a supervillain as she tapped on the screen. She might as well have been one with the way the idea of sharing a hotel room with her was making all sorts of indecent thoughts swirl around in his head.
“That’s—” He paused, trying to think of any other reason he could decline other than the glaringly obvious one: sleeping in the same room as the girl who starred in way too many of his carnal dreams was a terrible idea. And yet, he couldn’t very well bring that up without sounding sex-crazed and presumptuous. “Yeah, I guess that will work.”
Twenty-Two
