Page 29 of Mr. Principal

“Smart guy,” I joked even though part of me was irrationally upset that he could just, well, leave after what we’d just done… several times… on Piper’s couch.

Speaking of which. “I’ll pay to have your couch cleaned.”

Piper made a face. “Are you kidding me? I’m getting rid of it. There’s no way I can look at it now without thinking of your butts on it.”

“I’m sorry,” I squeaked. “Really, really, sorry.”

She sat down heavily across from me and gave me a disapproving look. “You should be. I really liked that couch. You two could have at least played hide the sausage on my bed. That way I could just change my sheets.”

I turned bright red and said, “Hide the sausage?”

She giggled and then so did I. Our fits of giggles turned into full-on laughter.

“Oh my god, you should have seen your face when I walked in,” she said, gasping out the words between giggles. “You were holding your eye and he was holding his crotch. If I hadn’t been so startled, I would have laughed. What the hell kind of sex were you guys having? When I have sex I never end up with a penis in my eye. I hate to say it, but I think you guys are doing it all wrong. You might need to take sex ed again.”

I almost fell off the chair laughing. When I could finally breathe, I said, “We were trying to hide, but we got tangled in our rush and I ended up kneeing his nether regions and he ended up elbowing me in my eye.”

Piper looked unconvinced. “Likely story.”

I laughed again and then my mood grew serious. “I guess I should explain what was going on…”

“Explain what? You two had sex. That’s pretty obvious.”

I blushed again, “No… I mean… well, yeah, but…”

Piper looked at me confused. “Umm… it was bound to happen sometime.”

“What?”

She looked at me again, this time her expression dubious. “Carter always had a thing for you. I always thought you guys would eventually end up together. Sometimes I felt like a third wheel with you two. You guys were just always so close.”

“What?” I said again, shaking my head as if to clear it. “You always thought we would end up together? But we were just friends back then,” I said, and then I instantly felt bad. Piper didn’t know what had happened all those years ago and I felt bad keeping her out of the loop, but I didn’t want her to know the type of person I could be. I didn’t want her to know that her friend was capable of infidelity.

“Come on, Dana. You had to notice. He adored you. And he was pissed when you started dating Tom. And even more pissed when you married him.”

“But he came to my wedding—”

“To save face. It would have looked bad if he hadn’t shown up.”

“And he brought a date—”

“Of course he did. If the love of your life was your best friend and he was marrying someone else, wouldn’t you want someone with you to soften the blow?”

I put up my hand. “Wait a minute. Love of his life? You’re way overthinking this, Piper.”

“No. I’m not exaggerating. Carter’s always loved you. Do you really think it’s a coincidence that he came back into town after your divorce?”

I nodded. “Well, yeah.”

She looked at me as if I were the stupidest person in the world. “I can assure you that Carter would have happily spent the rest of his life saving orphans in far off places of the world, or whatever he was doing, if he hadn’t heard you had gotten divorced.”

“You’re giving me way too much credit. Carter loves me like you love a friend. You know?”

“Really?” Piper said giving me a look. “So are you saying that what you and he did on my couch earlier was just the work of two friends?”

She had a point. I wasn’t going to tell her that. It was time to avoid the subject.

“What are you doing home so early? Carter said you weren’t expected back until later this weekend.”