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I slowed down, and saw the person start waving their lit-up phone at me, trying to get my attention. “Hey.” I pulled the car over. “Are you…” I froze.
I knew this person. It was Billie.
“Billie?” Holy shit, what was she doing walking on the side of the road in nothing but a flimsy dress? “Are you okay?”
Billie looked at me in shock for a moment, and then to my surprise, I saw a couple of tears slide down her face.
I had never seen Billie cry. Not once, in all my years of knowing her. I knew that she did cry, of course, all human beings cried, and a couple times I heard from Morgan about how Billie had come to him about something—some drama among friends or worries about grades—crying and how he had helped her. Morgan and Billie were close, so it didn’t surprise me that they were united in not wanting me in her life.
But Billie was tough. She was a spitfire. She had no problem telling anyone what she thought about them, or to fuck off if they were bothering her. To see her cry like this… shit. It must’ve been bad.
“Pike.” She sounded shocked, but also sort of like she was just accepting that the universe was fucking with her. I could sympathize. “What are you doing?”
“I should ask you the same thing, why are you out here like this? Do you need a ride?” I put the car into park and got out, opening the passenger door for her.
Billie stood there for a moment, then nodded, crying harder and wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not even sure why I’m crying. It’s not a big deal.”
“If you’re crying then it’s a big deal. You must be freezing, here.” I took off my jacket and passed it to her, half-expecting her to reject it, but to my surprise she took it, putting it on.
Heat slid down my spine, seeing Billie in my jacket like that. It was too big for her, clearly a man’s jacket, and seeing her in it, knowing it was mine, a way that I was almost but not quite holding her… It was a lot. I wanted to see her like that all the time, wearing my clothes.
“Thanks.” Billie was still being quiet, and it wasn’t like her at all.
“What happened?” I asked, guiding her into the car.
Billie sat down, and I got back in on my side, leaving the car on to help her get warm but not pulling back onto the road just yet. “I went out with Carter.”
“Carter? Carter Mitchell?”
Billie nodded. “I know, I know. I can’t believe that I actually did that. But I was trying to… I was trying to distract myself and he’s been flirting with me for years, and I thought, hey, he seems like an all right guy, and he’s Michelle’s brother and Michelle is wonderful, she’s my best friend. So I thought why wouldn’t it be worth it to give it a try, right? No harm no foul. But—but the whole time it was just—he was trying to finger fuck me in the damn restaurant, everyone knew it, the waiter knew it, she felt so sorry for me—”
“He tried to what!?” I snapped. It was a good thing I wasn’t driving or I would’ve jerked the wheel instinctively. Anger coursed through me like a volcano exploding in my stomach. What the fuck? What kind of disrespectful asshole…
Billie nodded. “I told him to take me home, and instead he brought us here. Tried to make out with me, I told him off, got out of the car, he drove off, and now… here we are.” She shrugged.
“I’ll take you home.” I put the car back into drive and pulled out onto the road. “I’m sorry, that was—you shouldn’t have had to deal with that. Fuck, I knew Carter was kind of a sleaze but I didn’t think he’d—we’re making a fucking pit stop before we go to your house, I’m stopping by his place and I’m giving him a black eye.”
Billie cracked a small smile. “It’s not worth it, really. I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. It’s my fault, anyway. I shouldn’t have gone out with him in the first place. I was just—my motivations were the wrong ones. I wasn’t really interested in him like that, I was just trying to fill a hole in my life, I guess.”
She wiped at her eyes again. Shit. “Hey, do you want me to take you back to my place first? I don’t think you’d want your folks to see you like—and you look like you could use a drink.”
Billie laughed. “I sure could use a drink all right. A stiff one. Sure, why not?”
“Don’t blame yourself for going out with him,” I added as I drove to the garage. “Whatever your reasons were, they were fine. We all make mistakes, it doesn’t excuse his behavior. You go out with someone to figure out if whatever attraction you feel can go somewhere, that’s all. There’s nothing more or less to it. He’s the one who should feel like shit, not you.”
