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“Shall I, as Hadley suggests, go and serve it somewhere else?” I asked her, my tone begging her to tell me it wasn’t so.
Piper looked stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was as good a description of Hadley and I as you could get. I just wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was the hard place. Piper looked between us like she really didn’t want to have to be making choices.
“I…don’t mind. You do whatever you want, Lombardi.” Dismissing me, she turned to Hadley. “I need to get to the bus before it leaves, or I have the pleasure of a half hour wait. I’ll see you tonight.”
The girls hugged and Piper was frowning when she pulled away. Hadley was ginning at her widely, but she turned another disapproving frown on me as Piper walked off towards the bus. I threw Hadley a wink for good measure, then hurried to catch up with Piper.
“Oi, Barlow! Wait up!” I called.
“Because she wants the likes of you chasing her!” Hadley called after me.
I turned to face her with a winning half-grin. “Everyone wants the likes of me chasing them, Miss Reynolds,” I told her, and I saw her roll her eyes at me before I hurried to catch up with Piper.
I hurried onto the bus and scanned it for her. I slid into the seat in front of her and tucked my skateboard behind my head as I leant against the window so I could keep my eyes on her.
She looked at me from the corner of her eye, but I was watching her so I definitely saw it. I wondered what she was thinking. What did she think of me following her around like this? I certainly didn’t know what to think of it.
In question, I raised my eyebrow, feeling a smile tugging at my lips.
She just rolled her eyes and slouched down in her seat.
“I assume Hadley’s looking for a ride tonight?” I asked her, because Piper Barlow wasn’t the kind to talk first.
“I’m driving,” was all she said.
I leant over the back of the seat toward her. “Are you now?”
“Yes.”
“And, do you plan on driving all holidays? Or, just tonight? Perhaps hoping some nice boy will offer tonight and you’ll be set up for the next two weeks?”
She looked up at me through her eyelashes and fuck but it did something to me. I was one hundred percent sure that she had no idea how beautiful she was. And not in that stupid cliché bullshit way where she doesn’t know she’s beautiful until the popular jock wanker finally notices her and tells her. I mean, she was beautiful.
Those grey eyes. The way she chewed her lip as she weighed me up. The look of scrutiny, but also something else, in her eyes as she took me in. She held herself like she was hiding, but she was judging me with a definite sassy snark behind that sweet façade. I was desperate to know more. It got me hard, thinking about the girl that hid behind those sugary smiles and nice words. I wanted to know her.
“Everyone else lives on the other side of town. I’m quite capable of driving,” she said, wriggling nervously.
“I don’t live on the other side of town. Anymore.”
“I’m sure you’ll have your own schedule to stick to. And, I wouldn’t dream of getting in your way.”
The fact she thought she could ever be in my way was hilarious.
“My way?” I asked.
She looked up at me again like something scathing was on the tip of her tongue. I was just waiting for her to say what she really felt, what she really meant. She took a deep, steadying breath before she looked down again, shifted in her seat, and didn’t say any of it.
“I’ll be fine. Thanks,” was all she finally said.
I wondered how far I had to push to get her to say what she really wanted to say. I had no qualms about pushing each and everyone of her buttons and seeing what happened. I’d stroke them all just to find out exactly what each one did.
“Ah, you have someone else in mind.”
Her eyes flew to me, but she still said nothing.
“Carter will be devastated,” I sighed dramatically, trying to pretend I was disappointed in her lack of loyalty, but I couldn’t bring myself to not be amused by teasing her.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m driving myself.”
