AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“People are going to notice we drove to school together.”
I laughed to try and break some of the tension. “Just thought of that, did you?”
He scoffed, an almost-smile breaking on his face. “I suppose youdidthink of it and decided it was irrelevant?”
I nodded. “Yeah, well. It makes sense. We live next door to each other, getting the bus is a bitch and it’s winter.”
He nodded almost subconsciously. He seemed to have changed in the last two weeks. There was still the lazy charmer in him, but between the laughter he was more brooding, sadder. I had a feeling this was the real Roman Lombardi and I didn’t know how I could help. But, I wanted to.
As if he could read my mind, he shook himself and gave me his patented cheeky smirk. “Let’s do this, Barlow. Ready to cause a commotion?”
I grinned, for now shoving aside any concern I might have had for him. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Lombardi.”
“All you’re missing is the sunnies, Barlow.”
“I do like to be unaccommodating,” I chuckled.
We gave each other one more smile, then dropped out of the car and went our separate ways. Of course, by the time I got to my locker, the whole school was talking about how little Piper Barlow had driven to school with sex-god Roman Lombardi.
“So, got any news?” Hadley appeared at my shoulder.
“Missed you, too,” I said sarcastically, as though I hadn’t only seen her on Friday.
“Yeah, yeah. I missed you. Pleasantries over. What’s the goss?”
I rolled my eyes and closed my locker. “I was complaining about walking in the rain last term and Roman offered to drive us to school. There is nothing more to it than that.”
I’d never lied to Hadley, not on purpose and not outright – I’d spent the last week skating over the truth and dangerously close to lying without ever actually lying. But, it came far too easily for my liking.
“Really? And he remembered two weeks later?”
I shrugged. “Guess he’s not as stupid as he looks.”
“S’pose not, then. I wonder how many girls he slept with over the holidays?” she mused wistfully – and I so knew what was on her mind – as we wandered to class.
“Who knows?” I didn’t even want to begin to wonder.
“Well, him presumably.”
I smiled and ducked my head as I caught Roman’s eye in the hallway. “Presumably.”
Roman and I awkwardly interacted for most of the day.
Well, I felt awkward.
He seemed to be going about his usual day in that nonchalant way I’d almost forgotten he had; eyeing off girls left, right and centre, skating down the corridors, smoking on the oval, avoiding class like the plague. We caught each other’s eye now and then and I avoided the humour only noticeable in his eyes each time.
“I see Everest really didn’t give in to any climbers while I was away,” Hadley commented, harking back to our conversation the previous term, with a friendly elbow to the ribs.
And I shit you not, I jumped like the guiltiest person on the planet. But thank God, she didn’t seem to notice.
“No, that I didn’t. I told you last week I didn’t.”
“He’s still after you something shocking. Fuck, I could only dream he was after me that badly.”
I snuck a look at Roman as we walked into class and shook my head at him once. I wished I could believe her; but, Roman had had me. He didn’t need to be after me. So, why then did Hadley think he still was? Had his behaviour not changed at all? Surely he wasn’t such a great actor, it had to be that maybe I wasn’t just another of his nail and bails? Not quite to the degree of the others anyway. I was surely still a novelty, but he’d get bored soon enough.
Not that it actually mattered to me.
