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“Dude! You totally had that! What happened?” his mate, Steve, called.
“Dunno, man. Accident.” He looked at me and I could picture the humour in his eyes even though he was a little too far away for me to see it properly.
I looked down to hide my laugh.
“Oh. My. God! He’s following you,” Hadley hissed and Celeste leant in to join in on the conversation.
“He’s not following me,” I sighed.
“He is!” Hadley smacked my leg like I wasn’t already giving her my full attention. I waited expectantly for her to stop and continue. “That’s why you’re so paranoid about Mason!” She might have continued but she also kept hitting me.
I blinked as I grabbed her hand. “I’m what now?”
Hadley grinned like she’d discovered my big secret. And, for a second, I thought maybe she had. But, then she looked between Mason and Roman. I followed her gaze and I don’t think I’d ever actually made such an obvious comparison between the two of them.
I wasn’t sure what conclusion I drew.
“You’re worried Mason won’t ask you out before Roman does. Then you’ll have to decide between them. If Mason gets his act together, you’ll have extra ammunition to say no to Roman.”
I frowned at my best friend. “Firstly, there isnocompetition between the two of them. Secondly, I am perfectly capable of saying no to Roman Lombardi without going out with someone else.”
Hadley waved away my ‘excuses’. “Hey, Roman!”
“Yeah?” he replied as he lazily skated around. I’m sure it wasn’t actually as easy as he made it look, though.
“Ask Piper out!”
Well, because that didn’t cause a chain reaction of hilarious events.
Over at the skate park, Roman spun too quickly and legitimately fell off his board. Which meant he and it both slid down the ramp thing and wiped out Jake, dropping them both in a heap of confusion. That, in turn, set off Steve and Rio. One of whom fell down all on his own in a fit of laughter and the other joined the pileup.
On the grass, meanwhile, Mason looked at Hadley which meant he ran into Simon, and Marty crashed into the back of them both. The ball flew to the right where Craig and Henry raced to mark it, running into each other as they did so. And, Tucker just plain fell over in the middle of a clear zone, by himself, for good measure like the good sport he was.
“You see what you did there?” I asked with a sigh.
“I doubt any one woman has ever had such power…” Celeste gasped.
Roman and Mason both shot up from their respective piles almost comically. I was sure Roman thought there was some other game afoot; suspicion rippled over him. Mason, bless him, was just white.
“You want me to what, Miss Reynolds?” Roman asked, the slight panic on his face was novel.
“You scared, Roman?”
“Scared? No, sweetheart. More confused. What makes you think I want to go out with Barlow, there?” he asked. He managed to get back some composure as he picked up his board and climbed out of the bowl thing.
I had to force myself not to move when I saw he was limping. I think I was the only one who surreptitiously noticed the look he threw my way and I hoped my look of apology was only seen by him. I practically read his mind saying ‘no apologies’ before he turned back to Hadley.
“Humour me, skater boy,” she replied, leaning back on the table we were sitting on and crossing her legs. “Ask Piper out.”
He crooked an eyebrow at me, then looked behind him to Mason. When he turned back to me, I didn’t like the shining look of resolve in his eyes. After our conversation of a couple of weeks ago –God, no it was only last Friday– I didn’t want to know how thick Roman was going to layer it on.
“I didn’t want to have to do this in front of everyone, Barlow. But, I guess there’s very little choice now.” Roman shrugged and, even I had to admit, he looked very sincere. The self-conscious rub of the back of his head helped and I forced my face and heart to stay neutral. He shrugged awkwardly and I thought this was almost better than the words he’d used the week before. “Do you want to go on a date with me some time?”
I made sure not to look at Mason to see his reaction – Hadley would have that covered, anyway – because that was a dick move. Mind you, the whole thing Hadley had orchestrated here was a dick move.
I smiled as sickly sweet at Roman as I could manage. “Not if you were the last human being on the planet, Lombardi.”
“Ouch. That’s pretty definitive, man,” Rio said with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
