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“What is up with you today?”
What was up? My whole world had turned upside down and I was pretty sure hers was just as perfect as always. How could she not see that?
“Nothing. What’s up with you?”
Get it the fuck together, you idiot, I told myself. Seriously. She was fine with the way things were. Why was I not? It was what we wanted. What we needed. All that we could ever be. And if I wanted her in my life–
She grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me towards her. “What is going on?”
“What?” I asked. “Nothing?”
“Come on, Lombardi. Even for you, you’re acting weird.”
“I’m not acting weird. You are.”
Fucking hell. And now I was acting like Maddy.
She was clearly not falling for it, and I didn’t know if it made me love her or hate her.
“Sure,” she said as she pushed past me.
FUCK!
What was I doing? Why was I doing it?
We’d spent two weeks talking to each other. Why not just fucking talk to her now?
“How is Piper Barlow so okay with this?” I asked as I followed her.
“Okay with what?” she asked, doing a good job of pretending she wasn’t all that bothered. I didn’t blame her.
“With this. With us?”
“I wasn’t aware there was an us.”
Fucking ouch. Good, but fuck… Ouch. “You know what I mean.”
“What can I say? You’ve changed me,” she said breezily.
What was wrong with me? Because I did not like that. Not one bit. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t like her being so…cavalier about it. If anyone was changed, it felt like it was me. Fine. It was me. Nowhere near enough to be the right guy, but enough that I kept forgetting who I really was around her.
But her changing? I didn’t know if I was more scared she’d become someone I didn’t like, or someone I liked even more. I felt like I was suddenly the only one affected by the time we spent together, for better or worse. I was railroaded by the terrifying feeling that she’d be able to just walk away from whatever this was and never think about it again.
“I don’t know that I like that,” I told her honestly.
“Well, tough luck,” she answered, sounding somewhat exasperated. “What do you want here, Roman? I can either fawn all over you at school and make a fool of myself, or I can act like normal? Which I am. So…what do you want me to do?”
So, that made sense. When she put it like that. What else were we meant to do? We weren’t about to go steady or date or whatever the cool kids were calling it these days. So, of course, normal was the best course of action. And normal was this cavalier, nonchalant attitude she was sporting. I guessed.
“Normal. Normal is good.” But I couldn’t lie and say fawning didn’t sound appealing. Wrong but appealing.
She sighed and turned back to me. “Roman?”
“Piper?”
“What happened to honesty, huh?”
Honesty fucking kicked me in the nuts and wrecked me, that’s what.
