AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You fuck off.”
Suddenly, Hadley was shouting my name. “Hey, Roman!”
“Yeah?” I called back.
“Ask Piper out!”
Well, fuck me.
I turned way too fast and without my board, so both it and me slid down the bowl and took out Jake and his board on the way down. Rio fell over in a fit of laughter and Steve either just decided to stack on me and Jake, or his shitty aim wasn’t getting any better.
I stood up far too quickly to claim a smooth recovery, but that wasn’t really the most important thing right now. Hadley had said what? Had she actually told me to ask Piper out? She totally had. I didn’t think I’d misheard her. The thing that was actually confusing me was the fact that I was too scared to look at how I felt about that.
It had to be a trick.
There was no godforsaken reason why Hadley would be telling me to ask Piper out.
The idea that it was because Piper had told Hadley that’s what she wanted floated through my head, and I squashed that flat. If I let myself think that for a second more…
Fuck.
I tried covering, but I wasn’t sure how well I did. “You want me to what, Miss Reynolds?”
“You scared, Roman?” Hadley taunted.
“Scared? No, sweetheart. More confused. What makes you think I want to go out with Barlow, there?” I picked up my board and climbed back out, the pain in my hip making me limp slightly. That second fall hadn’t helped it.
I looked at Piper for a second, and knew she thought it was her fault. I may have got it to make her smile, but it was all my fault. She was not allowed to apologise for it.
“Humour me, skater boy,” Hadley said, leaning back on the table she was sitting on and crossing her legs. “Ask Piper out.”
Rio was, no doubt, having a field day at her pose. She was clearly putting on a show. I just had to wonder to whose benefit. Was this for me? For Piper? Or for Mason…?
My eyes slid to Mason, and I could see the fear in his eyes. He was legitimately worried that I’d ask her out and she’d say yes, and he’d have missed his chance. I remembered what she’d said about someone who only wanted her because someone else was interested, but I knew sometimes you just needed a fire lit under your arse. You fear losing something, you made a move. Sometimes, it wasn’t for lack of wanting to.
So, I looked at Piper and was prepared to face whatever feeling her rejection was going to do to me. For her. This wasn’t a hypothetical conversation about how we’d ask each other out, this was for all intents and purposes the real thing. At least, the closest to the real thing she and I were ever going to get. So yeah, for my only chance, I piled it on.
“I didn’t want to have to do this in front of everyone, Barlow,” I told her, walking closer to her so I wouldn’t have to yell at her in front of every person in the park. “But I guess there’s very little choice now.” I shrugged, adding a self-conscious rub of the back of my head. “Do you want to go on a date with me some time?”
My eyes slid around the park.
Hadley wore a grin like she’d just damned an arch angel’s soul to hell.
Mason, meanwhile, was shitting bricks. Honest to God, shitting bricks.
By the time my eyes were back on Piper, she was smiling at me like fucking butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
This was going to fucking hurt.
“Not if you were the last human being on the planet, Lombardi,” she said.
Yeah. It hurt.
“Ouch. That’s pretty definitive, man,” Rio said his eyes unforgiving as they looked her over. The fucker could give Sherlock a run for his money and no mistake.
I shook off the sting and flashed her as much humour as I could. I fished out a new smoke and tucked it in the corner of my mouth. Rio was going to hit me for my next stunt.
“Thank, fuck,” I said. “Now that’s over with… Miss Hadley Reynolds!”
