Page 39 of When You Became Mine

I groaned. I remembered those embarrassing six months all too well. “Nope.”

She laughed and pushed off the doorframe, making her way into my office. She wandered over to where I was sitting and took in the panel of monitors mounted to the wall over my desk. The screens were all tuned in to various security cameras at the office. My desk held several computer monitors and keyboards.

She propped a hip on the edge of my desk and I swiveled in my chair to face her.

“You practiced on those drums every minute that summer. God, I thought we would all go crazy listening to you hit the cymbal over and over. It was so freaking loud.” She pulled her lip in between her teeth. “You were trying to impress a girl. What was her name?”

Her name was Piper.

“I don’t remember.”

She nodded. “Yes, you do. God, what was her name? I remember, she was like, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.”

Definitely not the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.

“Oh, Shannon! That was it.” She snapped her fingers. “You remember now?”

I shook my head. “The only thing I remember is getting humiliated at the school talent show.”

Piper’s eyes lit up as she laughed. “God, you had no clue what you were doing up there. Shannon was not impressed.”

I chuckled. “Nobody was impressed with that garbage.”

Piper shook her head and I asked, “How the hell do you remember that? You were like, eight.”

She rolled her eyes and pushed off the edge of the desk. “I was ten.” She lifted her shoulder and shrugged, then patted me on my own shoulder as she passed me. “I remember a lot of things about our childhood together.”

She stopped at the doorway and turned. “I’ll turn the music down while you’re working.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

As she slipped through the door, she quipped, “But you were the one who bought the speaker. You asked for it.”

I shouted after her, “Don’t be surprised if that thing goes missing!”

Her laughter echoed down the hall straight into my chest. In the entire time she’d been living here, I don’t think I’d made her laugh once. It felt pretty fucking good actually.

I pushed out of my chair to close the door, but before shutting it, watched as she disappeared into the living room. The music came back on, blaring for a second before she turned the volume down.

Despite the song being quiet, Piper began belting out the lyrics, correctly this time, but still way off tune. I stood there for a moment and listened to her, trying to convince myself that the feelings that kept clawing their way back to the surface were just a by-product of having a woman living in my house and not because that woman just happened to be the one I’d always had feelings for.

“So, what exactly is that you do in there anyway?” Piper asked, pulling a beer from the fridge and offering it to me.

I raised a brow at her and twisted the cap off the bottle. “You really want to know?”

She opened her own beer and nodded, tossing the cap in the trash and then shuffling to the living room.

I followed and settled into the opposite end of the couch. She curled her legs under her and snagged a throw blanket from the arm, tossing it over her lap. Yet another “improvement” to my house that I’d protested. My refusal had fallen on deaf ears, though. She’d left the blue and green blanket in the exact spot she’d placed it. Along with the green pillows she’d tossed on the couch and the decorative vase on the coffee table.

I hated to admit it, and had refused to do so aloud, but the shit did look good. Even the god-awful rug didn’t look so bad with the colorful accents she’d added to the living room.

I set my beer on the table.

“Oh! Wait,” Piper exclaimed, jumping up from her spot, and darted down the hall to her bedroom. She returned a moment later with a bag from Bed Bath and Beyond in her hands.

I groaned, “You went shopping again.”

She nodded enthusiastically and pulled out a box. “Coasters! So we don’t mess up the table.”

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