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There was the space of too many heartbeats in which we just looked at each other. I wore my trademark smirk, the one that had most girls falling over themselves in order to take up my offer. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know how she’d react. I needed to know how she’d react. I couldn’t touch, but my pride needed to know what would happen if I could.
Piper Barlow didn’t fall over herself. She affected an air of disinterest and merely said, “I don’t look at you like anything.” But we both knew she was lying.
Because I’d seen her looking at me just as often as she’d seen me looking at her. I intrigued her. She couldn’t keep her eyes off me once she knew I was in a room. Like our eyes gravitated to each other despite both of us knowing better.
“Sure you don’t,” I told her.
“I don’t.”
“Barlow, you don’t need to be embarrassed that you like the way I look.”
“I might be if I did.”
The sass that the dark of night brought out in her made sitting there with a throbbing rod in my jeans, with no means of release, all the more worth it. I’d almost forgotten why I’d jumped in my ute and headed down there in the first place.
“Why are you here anyway?” she asked. “Don’t you have other people to do on a Saturday night than come down to the lake by your lonesome?”
Almost.
I skimmed another stone as I fought the urge to get up and find less healthy and more comfortable, satisfying ways of dealing with my stress. Even Piper’s newfound sass might not be enough. Something kept my arse on that lakeshore, though.
“I suddenly found myself in need of some peace and quiet. My house is very loud all of a sudden. And you know, sometimes a meaningless fuck just doesn’t do it for you.”
She blinked and delivered, “No. I wouldn’t know,” with all the pure virginal innocence of the fucking Virgin Mary.
This time, I was less humoured by the reminder she and I were very different. “‘Course you wouldn’t.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked and I knew she’d taken that badly.
I hadn’t mean it completely complimentarily. But I also hadn’t meant to outright insult her.
“Only that I imagine you have far better taste than to fuck just whatever comes along,” I said as I leant back on my hands.
“You know, Lombardi… Coming from you, I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
I appreciated her honesty.
I ran a hand through my hair. “No, me either.”
She burst out laughing and I couldn’t help but feel a little better just looking at her. Her face was just so open and honest and pure fucking happiness. Even if it was for a split second. It tugged on something in me, and I stomped it down.
“What do you mean your house is loud?” she asked after we’d been just sitting and staring at each other for too long.
That urge to run had dissipated. Replace by the urge to stay. Like gravity knew where I was supposed to be, and it was dead set on keeping me there. All I could do was sigh and lie down on her blanket.
“You remember my sister?” was what I led with for whatever reason.
She nodded, paused, then finally lay down beside me. “Yeah, she was nice as far as I recall.”
My laugh was anything but humoured. “Yeah, about as nice as syphilis.”
“Well, you’d know,” Piper said and fuck damn it. She might just be the death of me.
“Right, either way. So you remember she was pregnant before she left?”
“Maybe?” I felt her shrug.
I didn’t blame her not remembering. It had been almost six years ago, and Little Miss Popular had better things to do in her life than keep track of the older sister of the resident underachiever.
