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Ah. I took a deep breath and laced my hands behind my head, aware of and ignoring that I was settling in even more comfortably. “Fuck, I don’t know. She’s adorable – all dark curls and bright blue eyes. But, she’s a handful. She’s barely five and she’s smarter than the lot of us. Swear to God, she’s just full of questions. It’s ‘Uncie Roman’ this and ‘Uncie Roman’ that. Drives me up the fucking wall.”
For a moment, I felt nothing overly negative about opening up so much to Little Miss Popular. Then she fucking laughed.
“What?” I asked her, utterly incredulous.
Piper shook her head and covered her face with her hand. “She calls you ‘Uncie Roman’?”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she laughed. “Nothing at all. Just kind of ruins your image a little, don’t you think?”
I frowned deeper. “You know what, Barlow? I’m starting to regret telling you anything.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. All kinds of serious now…” she said softly, like she just wanted to please.
Fuck, if only.
No. Bad Roman.
“Really?” I asked sceptically.
Her snort didn’t fill me with confidence, but I liked how free she was in that moment. “No, but I’ll do my best. Tell me more about her,” she said.
I couldn’t help but huff a rough a laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Not just the situation, but my lack of incentive or motivation to put a stop to it. “Fine. Look, I don’t know, okay? It feels fucking too much like having my own kid for comfort, you know?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“I thought you were going to be helpful?”
“I don’t think that was part of the deal, Lombardi.”
Jesus. She was just so… Little Miss Perfect, indeed. “Fair point.”
“How’s your mum handling it?”
How was she handling it? As well as a woman who’d had to raise me could handle it.
“Not well. She pretty much leaves it to me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Eh, there’s only so much she can do while she’s working to support the three of us. Maddy’s all right really. I just need a break sometimes, you know?”
She didn’t say anything, but I didn’t feel any judgment from her.
It was surreal that the two of us, who’d barely exchanged a word in all the years we’d gone to school together, were sitting on the lakeshore in the middle of the night and doing what could best be described as a deep and meaningful. I hadn’t even got this serious in conversation with Rio.
This time, it was me who broke the silence.
“Barlow?”
“Lombardi?”
“What are you doing out here?”
She let out a heavy breath and I thought, for a moment, that she wasn’t going to answer. “Like you said, peace and quiet.”
The next words out of my mouth surprised me. “You okay?”
