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I managed to tame my smile. Just. “Oh, you’re woman enough all right.”
“So? You wouldn’t want to hang out with all our friends on a date, would you?” she pressed, and I knew she wasn’t going to give it up.
I sighed hard. “Are we being serious now?”
She paused, then said, “Yes.”
“Okay then.”
I could do this. I was a modern independent guy who could talk about hypothetical relationships in a mature and healthy…
Oh, who the fuck was I trying to kid?
I wriggled in my seat, feeling like I was far too young for shit like this, gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and cleared my throat.
“Aside from the serious fact that our friends seriously don’t get along and I suspect not even a serious apocalypse would change that, seriously no.” I had to be at least a little bit sarcastic, or I might have thrown myself from the moving vehicle.
She paused again, then said, “No, what?”
Was I going to have to fucking spell it out for her?
“No, I wouldn’t want to hang out with our friends on a date.”
“What would you want to do?”
“What?”
“Say you were taking me out on this proverbial date, what would we do?”
“Again, not asking you out, Barlow,” I huffed a laugh. If I didn’t treat this with some humour, then I was in danger of forgetting that her and me and dating was never going to mix.
She batted me playfully. “I know. But… Pretend I’d asked you out! What would we do?”
What would we do? I was more interested in how she’d ask me out. At least then she’d have to come up with answers for now and I’d have time to think about mine.
“You asked me out? How would that go, then?” I sassed her.
“Oh, I don’t know. I expect I’d say something like, ‘Roman?’ and you’d say, ‘yes, Piper?’”
Her voice dropped humorously low as though it was meant to be an imitation of me.
“Was that supposed to be me?” I asked, checking the mirror to make sure my bark of surprised laughter hadn’t woken Maddy.
She nodded. “Yes. Shush, I’m getting in the zone.”
Heaven forbid I ruin her zone. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Not allowed. Now, shush. So, you’d say, ‘yes, Piper?’ and I’d probably blush bright red and look at my shoes and say, ‘I know I said I’d never be one of those girls, but I broke my promise. We said no lies, so no lies, Roman. I think I’m falling in love with you, and I want you to be that guy. I want to date you.’ Right, so then–”
She paused and I realised she was looking at me.
I could guess what my face looked like.
“What?” she asked.
What? Just fucking… Everything. For a moment, I’d actually forgotten she wasn’t saying it for real. I was horribly disgusted with myself that I hadn’t been scrambling for excuses to put her off. My head had gone blank. My head was blank, and my heart raced and my stomach did that fluttering thing it was known to do around her.
“You…” I shook my head and rearranged awkwardly in my seat. “Never mind. So, then what do I say?”
