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“Whatever you want to do. Just let me know what you’re up to.”
“Grandma!” Maddy yelled impatiently from inside and Carmen smiled.
“Good to see you, Piper. Say hi to your parents for me.”
“You too, Carmen! Will do,” I called as she went inside.
“You know, she’s going to think we’re dating now,” Roman said.
I scoffed against that sudden weird feeling in my chest. “Yeah, because Roman Lombardi dates.”
“I could date.”
“Eh, could you though?”
“Okay. What counts as a date? I’ll meet you down here at, what? Nine? We’ll go down to the lake and I’ll teach you how to skip stones if you really want?” he asked quickly.
I laughed. “I’ll meet you at nine and you can even teach me to skip stones, but the word date will in no way be attached to any time we spend together. Ever. Okay?”
He looked through his hair at me with humour dancing in his eyes. “Thank fuck.” And, I laughed again.
“Wow, took a load of convincing.”
“I’ll see you here at nine.”
“Sure, Lombardi.”
I watched him run inside and made my way back to my room to find a bunch of text messages from Hadley and Celeste and an email from Mason to deal with.
I jogged down the stairs a little before nine, dressed in my jeans and a warm jacket.
“Hiya sweetie,” Dad said and Mum looked up at me.
“I’m just popping out for a bit, wandering down to the lake.”
Mum and Dad looked at me like I was keeping a secret. I sort of felt like I was.
“By yourself?” Mum asked.
I opened my mouth. “Um… No…?”
“Are you sure?” Dad chuckled.
“I’m just hanging out, nothing special.”
They both nodded like they thought whatever it was must be terribly important because of how not important I was trying to tell them it was.
“All right. Have a good time and keep warm.”
I nodded. “Yep, will do.”
I replied to a text from Hadley as I walked out of the house and shoved my keys in my pocket. Hadley had been on my case about Mason even more in the few days she’d been away than she had like the whole time leading up to it. Of course, there were plenty mentions as well of how I should give Roman a go over the holidays before Mason got back. In Hadley’s mind; since she couldn’t, one of us should and that left me. I hadn’t mentioned I’d been hanging out with him, let alone anything that could lead her to think that there would be any hooking up with him.
“I’m about to run out of things to be gentlemanly about here, Barlow.”
I looked up and saw Roman smirking at me as he looked me up and down. He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under his heel.
“And just what does that mean?”
