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“Fuck this,” I muttered, raking a hand through my hair in annoyance.
“All right,” she said. “You want to be a dick, fine. If you need me when you’re done, I’ll be around.”
Something dark came over me and I’m not proud of it.
I pressed her into the shelf behind her. “And, if I need you now?”
This woman who knew me, she just smirked. “We’re at school, Lombardi…”
“I’m aware of that, Barlow. What’s your point?”
“We both know us being seen together hurts you more than it hurts me.”
I was willing to bet my father’s sizable bank account that wasn’t at all true.
“How is that?” I asked.
“People will think Roman Lombardi’s capable of dating.”
But not her. She’d never think me capable of dating. Because I was Roman Lombardi. “Of course, because innocent little Piper Barlow couldn’t possibly be capable of not.”
Last term, I was like everyone else. I laughed at any suggestion of Little Miss Perfect doing anything less than serious dating. But the Piper in front of me was still perfect and she clearly did casual, and I liked how it looked on her. I liked how casual withmelooked on her. That she knew whatever we were doing had to be casual was a good thing.
And yeah, I’d just been pissed because she’d been acting like we were causal, but no one said I’d ever had a good handle on my emotions. The more emotional I got, the less sense I made. I spent so much of my life avoiding emotions that I could barely tell the good ones from the bad ones anymore; they brought out the same immediate reaction. It didn’t help that all the good ones she made me feel caused all the bad ones because there was no way this wasn’t ending at some point, and I’d be left knowing how good felt and never being able to have it again.
Being back at school I couldn’t even pretend to forget that there was competition for her heart. Not that it was a competition, because he had to win. He could give her everything she deserved. Everything I couldn’t give her. No matter how much I wanted to. The knowledge only made the reality more sour.
And there I was, wanting things I couldn’t have. Again. Piper was making that a disturbingly recurrent issue.
“People want to see good in you, they don’t want to see bad in me,” she said, pulling me from the dark direction my thoughts were going. “It’s just how it is.”
“People?” I asked, thinking she hadn’t meant just any people.
“Girls,” she amended. “Girls want to see the good in you.”
“And don’t want to see the bad in you?” I teased, trying to find my way back to whatever my normal was now. “I didn’t think they cared so much.”
She bit her lip and fuck did I want to be that lip. “Well, some of them. But most just won’t like me being competition, I’m sure.”
“For me or Mason?” I hadn’t meant it to come out that way, but that’s the way it came out.
She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Has he asked you out yet? Or did he not find his sack in Europe?”
“What is up your arse today?”
I opened my mouth, but she stopped me.
“If you say ‘nothing’, I will hit you. We don’t lie to each other, Lombardi. That was the deal. We don’t have to talk about it, we don’t apologise for it, but we don’t lie. Remember?”
How could she win me over with so very little effort?
I sighed. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.” I leant my forehead to hers.
And I didn’t really know. There was no reason for me to be this antsy. All we could be was casual at best and she was fine with that. She was walking around like she was living her best life. I didn’t know why it was getting to me so much.
“I’ve got to get back to class,” she said softly. “I’ll see you later?”
