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I scoffed. “You wish you’d never insulted me? Well, if that’s not an insult to end all insults, I don’t know what is.”
“Fuck you, Roman!” she snapped. It shouldn’t have been a turn on, but it was. “You’re the one who invaded my space, who insisted on making me laugh when I felt shit, who took it upon himself to worm his way into every facet of my holidays. I didn’t ask to hang out with you. I was quite happy sitting at the lake by myself having some damned peace and quiet!”
“You were happier with me.” I’d expected to yell it. I didn’t.
She actually growled at me. “Exactly, I was happier with you. You saw a convenient lay. I’m surprised you bothered after it took me so long to get with the program!”
What in the ever-loving fuck?
I was so beyond lost, I wasn’t even convinced I was standing on the face of the planet anymore.
I shook my head before I said something wrong. “Hang on. What the fuck is this actually about? Because, as I recall, sex takes two and you were just as willing as me.”
“Of course, I was. I never said I wasn’t. But I was under the misguided assumption that we were friends!” she actually screamed at me, and I was glad all our family had left already.
“What?”
“You heard me. Perhaps it’s a ridiculous notion for someone like you, but here stupid little Piper Barlow was thinking we were friends! Well, she’s not so stupid anymore. Thank God Mason asked me out when he did and now you don’t have to bother about me anymore! So, congratulations, Roman. You are free to roam greener, less boring, more open pastures!”
Jesus-fucking-Christ.
She thought what? This whole thing was purely because she thought we weren’t friends? She thought I thought we weren’t friends? For fuck’s sake…
“You’re fucking mental, you know that?” I sighed heavily. I took a step towards her, and she stepped back. I wasn’t having that. “Come here,” I said roughly as I pulled her to me gently.
I wrapped my arms around her tightly and was perfectly happy to never let go.
The tension left her body as it leant into mine, but she didn’t hug me back. Yet. She waved her arms around like she was going to protest, then finally slid them around me. I kissed her head and lay my cheek on her head. She breathed deeply and evenly, and I felt my own body returning to a less hectic state.
“Okay,” I said. “Now, do you want to talk about whatever the fuck this is actually about? Or are you going to let me drive you to school and we’ll deal with it later?”
She didn’t say anything. She just leant against me like I was the only thing keeping her tethered. And I’d know, because she was the only thing that kept me tethered most days.
Except it wasn’t just her and me in our bubble anymore. Others were trying to poke their way in, and I knew that was affecting her as much as it was me.
“Piper,” I said softly. “Come on, babe. If it’s about that arsehole, Carter. He’ll get to it, okay? I see the way he looks at you and I know he wants you. I shouldn’t have kissed you, not when he’d asked you out. That wasn’t fair of me. And I know we don’t apologise, but I will apologise for that. Because I was putting me first – not you – and there’s no excuse for that.”
She buried her face in my jumper. “You can’t say things like that,” she muttered as she held onto my blazer lapels.
“Like what?” I asked. How was I constantly fucking this up? Just when I thought I’d got it right by her.
“Like putting me first.”
“Why not? Isn’t that what friends do, Barlow?”
She took a deep breath but didn’t say anything, so I pushed her to arm’s length and leant down to look her dead in the eyes. She actually looked into mine and it crushed me. She looked so small and uncertain. And it was my fault. I wasn’t sure how, but it was.
“Barlow?” I pressed.
“So, we are friends then?” she asked.
I wasn’t all that keen on putting labels on this. Labels made a thing real. And real was… We couldn’t do real. But she looked like she needed it, and I wasn’t going to lie to her because I couldn’t deal with my emotions.
“Why would you think we weren’t?”
She turned away from me, and I let her this time, knowing she was going to answer me. “Oh, I don’t know. How about the whole fact that I’d assumed we’d had sex because we had…an emotional connection? And I’m not talking love or romance, or whatever other bullshit excuse you might pull out here. I’m talking about actual, proper friendship that just happened to lead to sex. Two people who were there for each other emotionally were there for each other physically. But what am I supposed to think, knowing you gave us an expiry date? An expiry date, Roman!”
“What? I never… Where are you getting this?”
