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“Always a pleasure, Rio.” Piper gave him a pithy smirk.
Rio winked at her, but there was no humour about him. I knew what he thought about her. He thought she was bad for me. Fuck that for a joke. If anyone was bad for anyone, I was bad for her. She was doing nothing more than living her best life the way we’d both agreed.
Rio whacked me. “Best see what she wants, mate. You can catch us up.”
The boys dropped onto their boards and left us. I was pretty close to going with them. I held my board against the ground and was about to put my foot on it.
“Lombardi!” she said harshly.
“What?” I spat.
“Well, aren’t you pleasant today?”
“How’s your girls’ day going?”
“Fine. We never actually got to the shopping part, but that’s fine by me.”
“Carter one of the girls now? You going to braid each other’s hair and tell each other secrets.”
“Have I ever braided your hair?”
What? “What?”
“You’re the only person I’ve told any secrets to lately. Have I been braiding your hair? What makes you think I’d possibly be into braiding while I’m baring my soul?”
When she said it like that… But it still didn’t make me feel any better. I suspected it was mainly because Rio was right. I had to let her go or keep her. And there was no way I could keep her.
“I’ve got to go. You should get back to Carter.”
“Roman.”
“Piper?”
I watched her carefully. I hadn’t acted like such a dick around her for a long time. I told myself it was self-preservation. It wasn’t. I was just pissed off that I couldn’t have the one thing I wanted.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?”
“This funk.”
“Just a funk. Nothing to talk about.”
“Are you sure? Can I do anything?”
“Nah. I’ll be peachy.”
I only used words like peachy at the worst of times. What in the ever-loving fuck was wrong with me?
I shrugged and continued, “It’s just a funk. We get funky. Carter’s waiting on you.”
“Well, he can wait. I’m waiting on you to talk to me. You were fine this morning. Did something happen?”
A lot of things had happened. Had I been bothered to stay there longer than necessary, I’d have asked her to be more specific. As it was, I just piled on the nonchalant, cocky arsehole everyone knew I was.
“You know me, Barlow. Like clockwork. Haven’t had a good brood in a while. Probably shouldn’t go ruining my image and whatnot.”
“Uh huh,” she huffed. “Okay. Well, when you’ve decided you don’t want to be an arsehole anymore, we can not talk about it if you want?”
“I said I’m fucking fine, Barlow! Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I breathed out deeply and told myself to get a fucking grip. I was gonna need it. Because I would be at the car waiting for her the next morning. It might kill me, but I’d be there.
