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“Jesus, you’re moody today!”
“I thought that was allowed.”
She was beside me and her hand was on my cheek. “You can be as cranky as you like, but it’s going to make me worry about you. You want to talk about it, or you just want to be in a super foul mood?”
I breathed out a plume of smoke over her head, as much to avoid looking at her. “I just want to be in a super foul mood.”
She didn’t say anything. As had become our new normal, she didn’t judge me, and she didn’t try to change me. She reached up and kissed my cheek. I did nothing until she started pulling away and my arm wrapped around her tightly to pull her close. In it, I said all the things I could never say, all the things we’d agreed not to say when we’d promised no apologies.
I knew, after only two weeks with her, she understood. I was starting to think she knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. We didn’t need words, and yet it was crazy how much we could communicate.
I kissed her head and helped her into the car before going to the driver’s door. I crushed my butt before I climbed in, feeling like this was simultaneously the stupidest and best idea I’d ever had.
She burned next to me as we drove to school in silence. You could cut the tension with a fucking knife. The last time I felt this kind of tension between us, we’d ended up hate fucking in the rain. While I’d never say no to hate fucking her in the rain, I didn’t think that’s where this time was heading.
It wasn’t all about sexual tension. There was something that felt not very pleasant about it at all. Something that made me feel very anxious. For a moment, I stopped and wondered how Piper was feeling. Was she feeling it, too? That there was something…weird here.
We were on our way to school. Together. Just nottogether.
Why had I thought this was a good idea? It was definitely going down as one of my stupider ideas. People were going to see. People were going to have opinions. And people were not going to hide those opinions. I couldn’t give a fuck what people thought about me – so long as it didn’t give them the idea they could talk to me – but I cared what they thought about her.
“You ready for this?” I asked, staring out the windshield as I put the car in park.
“For what?” she asked.
“People are going to notice we drove to school together.”
She laughed and I felt some of my tension melt away. “Just thought of that, did you?”
I scoffed but did feel a little better if she didn’t care. “I suppose you did think of it and decided it was irrelevant?”
She nodded. “Yeah, well. It makes sense. We live next door to each other, getting the bus is a bitch, and it’s winter.”
Yeah, I guessed that made sense. I didn’t know if I was more or less annoyed by the amount of sense it made.
I did know I was getting emotional, and shit never went well when I got emotional. She deserved more than that. It was made all the worse because I knew she wanted to help with my funk. I could feel her wanting to help, but neither of us could help me now.
Instead of being a bastard, I shook myself out and gave her my best smirk. “Let’s do this, Barlow. Ready to cause a commotion?”
She smiled and her eyes fucking lit up. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Lombardi.”
“All you’re missing is the sunnies, Barlow.”
“I do like to be unaccommodating,” she chuckled, and damn was I hard.
Pity then we had to get to class.
I must have been fucking out of my mind that I actuallywantedto get to class. Of all the things I’d run away from in my life, I never thought something would be enough to make me want to go to class.
But that was how deep I was in this fuckery.
We went our separate ways and I headed off to find the boys. They’d soon set me right and wagging class would stop feeling like the wrong idea again.
“The whole school’s talking about it,” Steve said with a smirk.
I shrugged as Rio passed me the lighter back. “About what?”
“Little Miss Popular getting out of your car this morning.”
