by Cassie James
It’s clear to me now that while Dr. Charles is presenting this project as optional, it actually isn’t. At least, not in his mind. Because what student barely scraping by in his course would bypass the chance to raise their grade? I grit my teeth, nod, and thank him. But as soon as that’s done, I push past Brennan and dart out the classroom door.
“Piper, wait up!” Brennan calls, and I double my efforts to leave him in my wake, not quite jogging but getting pretty goddamn close as I head toward the library. “C’mon, Piper!”
Nope, can’t handle this right now. Because how am I supposed to face him after what he did? And after whatever I did that led him to do it? I’m not ready to face what happened. Not when Brennan is the one person I would have said would never, ever betray me.
9
Tyler
I’m standing on the sidelines with the team, paying half attention to Coach as my eyes drift toward the stands. My jaw clenches, teeth grinding uncomfortably, when I catch sight of Brennan taking the stairs two at a time to get to Piper’s row about halfway up. There’s half a second where they greet each other awkwardly before settling back into their seats, half facing each other as Brennan pulls out a book and Piper digs in her bag for her laptop.
My gut burns. Goddamn Dr. Charles. When Piper told me the crazy fuck assigned her an extra credit project with Brennen, I thought for sure she would just forgo doing it. Considering, you know, how Brennan humiliated her. And while she complained as expected for a couple days, apparently her grade in the worthless class meant more to her than it ever would have to the old Piper, and she settled into working with Brennan even though he doesn’t even remotely deserve her forgiveness.
It’s a small consolation that they’re only working together on practice days, Brennan joining her in the stands to work while I practice with the team. I should be focusing on my senior season, and instead here I am obsessing over what she’s doing.
It burns me the fuck up because I know it’s only a matter of time before she forgives him. I can see it in her, the parts of 2.0 that made her sweeter to The Thorns than any of us deserved. Every day, I see more and more of our girl in her—and less of the original Piper. It should be a relief, it is what we all said we wanted, but something is still off and I know all of us can feel it.
She’s been spending a lot of time with us, but she hasn’t let her guard down. We’ve tried to fall into some semblance of normalcy, but it’s nearly impossible when we’re all still struggling with feelings we have no right having. Not that we’re talking about it. It’s just impossible not to notice.
Like Jude. He keeps looking for excuses to touch her. Dropping an arm around her shoulder casually as if it’s natural for him. She shrugs him off every time, which does a lot to help ease some of the jealousy burning through my gut near constantly now. But even after she rebukes him, I catch his expression going soft as he looks at her when he thinks none of us are paying attention.
I cross my arms over my chest, a sneer pulling over my lips as I watch Brennan lean close to Piper and say something that makes her laugh. Like, honest-to-God, throwing her head back, the sound echoing over the field, laughing. My gaze isn’t the only focused on them in the moment, and I glower at the way some of the guys start elbowing each other and pointing in her direction. Coach warns us that we only have ten minutes before we start scrimmaging, trying and failing to command our waning attention before wandering toward the assistant coach as he shakes his head.
I know I should turn back to the field and address my teammates, to remind them that we have a hell of a game coming up at the end of the week, but Piper wraps her hand around Brennan’s arm as she laughs. She’s choosing to touch him, and it takes everything I have not to yell at Brennan to get the hell away from my girl. I grind my teeth, forcing myself to remember that I don’t own her. That acting like an asshole right now will only drive us further apart.
“Hamilton, you’ve got to stop letting her come to practice.”
My head whips around, and Justice Matthews, the junior midfielder poised to take over as captain next year, is staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Hmm?” I wish I could just tell him to get the fuck out of my business, but that’s still mostly the jealousy talking.
“She’s distracting you. And, uh, she’s starting to distract the rest of us, too.” He glances away as if he can’t stand to look in my blazing eyes. These guys need to keep their eyes to their fucking selves. “We barely scraped out that pre-season win against Trinity. And we’ve got Exeter and Illyria next week. We can’t afford to be distracted.”
I know he means well, but I’m still struggling to get past his insinuation that the team might be as interested in Piper’s presence here as I am. I do a quick sweep of the field, taking note of which guys have their head in the right place and which ones are daring to sneak glances at my girl. There’s a whole lot more of the fuckers than I expected. People aren’t treating Piper the way they used to, and even though I should be relieved, I’m not into this renewed interest in her. She’s mine.
Matthews isn’t wrong. Piper is distracting. Even more so now that I know I’m not the only one noticing her over there on the sidelines, watching the way her face lights up when she laughs. But what’s the alternative? I risk letting her ride home alone with Jude or Brennan? No way in hell am I offering up that unsupervised time with her. At least here, I can keep an eye on things and make sure Brennan’s not pushing his goddamn luck.
“She’s not going to stop coming around. But she’s off-limits. Make sure all the guys know that.” I turn away from him now, turn my back fully on Piper and Brennan together in the stands, and start toward the middle of the field, where Coach is standing staring at his watch. He’s irritated enough as it is—I might as well be a good example for the guys and get my ass over there before he tears us all apart.
Matthews falls into step beside me. “So, it’s true? You’re really fucking her? How is she?”
My shoulders go tight. I hate that fucking tone he’s got, as if he’s picturing what it would be like to have a go at her himself. I’ll fucking murder this kid.
“I didn’t realize you were that interested in my dick and where it’s been, Matthews.” My voice is hard, the voice of a captain, and it’s my way of telling him to cut the shit. No one asks any of the other guys what it’s like when they fuck their girls. He has no right to ask me, either.
Matthews sputters for a moment before he coughs out, “Sorry, Hamilton.”
“Now, if you’re so goddamned worried about beating Exeter and Illyria, get your ass out on the field and show me that.” I glare at him and then jerk my chin to gesture toward the stands. “And watch yourself. I’ll be the one making a recommendation for next year’s captain at the end of the season.”
He nods, eyes wide, and turns to head over to where the guys are still in the middle of practice. I can see Coach eyeing me from the sidelines, but he doesn’t say anything. Probably thinks the two of us were chatting about soccer—he’d have us sprinting suicides for days if he knew we were actually chit-chatting about a girl.
I chance one last look at the bleachers, reminding myself that Matthews is right and I need to focus. Just because I’ve signed my letter of intent for UCLA doesn’t mean I get to slack off now. These guys are counting on me to help bring Rosewood one last championship season before I go. I’m happy to see that there’s no more physical contact going on over there. Piper and Brennan seem to be all business now, both of them with their noses in a textbook. I take a deep breath and clear my head of everything but soccer for the next hour.
Sort of.
Mostly.
God, I can’t stop thinking about her.
When I walk out of the locker rooms after a shower, I’m relieved to find Piper sitting alone in the stands. There’s nothing I hate more than having to fucking watch Brennan and her awkwardly try to figure out how to say goodbye to one another. My stomach jumps when I call up t
o her, and a smile blooms over her face.
“Brennan had to leave early,” she shares with me as she bounds down the bleacher steps toward me. I’ll never get tired of seeing her coming towards me like this. I try to push the thought away. Now’s not the time to start getting sappy.
As we start towards my car together, she keeps going on about Brennan. As much as I hate it, I try to just enjoy the sound of her voice. And I remind myself that she might be talking about him, but she’s here with me. “Apparently Izzy got into some trouble at school today that is somehow getting pinned on Brennan? I don’t know—I didn’t really understand what was happening. All I know is I could hear Ms. Diaz through the phone, and she sounded pissed. She’s surprisingly scary when she’s mad.”
I can’t help but laugh at the thought of just what exactly Izzy might’ve done. Kids aren’t my jam, and I do everything I can to avoid the shit out of them. But Brennan’s sister is a spitfire, and I’ve always held a begrudging amount of respect for the amount of chaos she’s able to cause at the drop of the hat. And if it got me more uninterrupted time with Piper, without having to watch her awkwardly give him a half-hug as she sets up their next study session like they’re going to divorce proceedings? Well, let chaos reign.
“That kid’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard stories,” she says with a laugh. I very nearly point out to her that she’s met Izzy before, as 2.0, but then I keep that to myself. If Brennan hasn’t bothered revealing anything about his time with Piper’s replacement, well, I’m not going to do him any favors.
Piper slides easily into the passenger seat of my car, taking the place that I now think of as hers. I watch through the back window for a second as she drops her bag to the floorboard and pulls the visor down to straighten her wind-swept hair in the mirror. She’s so fucking beautiful. It’s all too easy to get caught up in her. There’s no getting her out of my system, I realize as I slide into the car next to her.
“Hey, Pipe?” The old, familiar nickname falls off my lips before I can stop it. But as soon as the name is out, I realize I don’t want to take it back. It doesn’t feel like a nickname for a dead girl anymore. It feels like a nickname for the girl sitting next to me, the one I care about far more than I should. The only thing I’ve ever cared this much about is soccer—and even that seems to come second to Piper these days.
“Yeah?” she answers, looking thoroughly unbothered by the nickname.
“Are you going to the party this weekend?”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” she admits, but her face scrunches as if she’s realizing how impossible that is. I’m sure she’s realized by now that parties are a non-negotiable with Jackie. She didn’t let her replacement daughter out of them before, and I can guarantee she’s not going to let her out of them now.
“Go with me?” I ask, offering her an easy smile when her eyes widen just a bit. When she doesn’t immediately answer, I flounder. “Chelsey will shit her pants if you show up, and it will drive Tori crazy. Serves them right, yeah?”
Piper’s eyes soften, and my chest feels like it’s cracking open when a smile breaks out over her face. “Yeah, okay.” I don’t know if she’s only agreeing because of Chelsey and Tori, or if she genuinely wants to go with me, but I’m not about to question it. Because the way my stomach tightens and my palms sweat at the idea of going to a party together, as an us instead of as two people that just so happened to be going to the same place, lets me know that I’m in deeper than I realized. And I’m not all that mad about it.
10
Brennan
I’m barely paying attention to the girls chattering away in front of me. I’m leaning against the wall in the living room at Chelsey’s house, music playing just loud enough to make the girls in front of me have to practically shout over it, and I can feel a headache forming. Aspen Ross passes by—I’m not sure how the hell she even got invited—and I don’t miss the way her face falls when she glances around and realizes Jude is nowhere to be found.
My eyes scan the crowd above the girls’ heads, but even though he stands a full head above most of the people thrumming drunkenly through the living room, I don’t spot him. A scowl settles over my face, realizing that he’d left me alone to the sharks the first fucking chance he got. I’d never even planned on coming to Chelsey’s party, not willing to give her the satisfaction of having any of The Thorns show up after the shit she’d pulled with Piper over the past few months. My teeth grind. Chelsey didn’t deserve the attention or the social bump that would result from us showing up. But I’ll be damned if all three of us aren’t here.
The only reason I’m here, though, is because Jude dangled Piper over my head like a goddamn dog toy. He neglected to mention she was coming with Tyler. Not just riding with Tyler, either, but actually showing up as… his date, I guess. It’s such fucking bullshit.
I’ve never been more thankful than when Dr. Charles and Mom both approached me about working on a project with Piper. Mom thought it would be a chance for me to make amends for that email bullshit I pulled—which she still hasn’t forgiven me for. I’m sure she had no idea that I’d be so quick to jump at the chance. Getting uninterrupted time with Piper, away from The Thorns and the pressures of other people? I couldn’t have agreed any faster. The chance to be alone with her, to explain what happened and to apologize my ass off was too good to pass up. But then she’d been cold, saying that we could meet to work on the project while she waited out Tyler’s soccer practices in the stands.
Sure, she’s warmed considerably toward me over the past two weeks, but she hasn’t given me the chance to talk at all about how I majorly fucked things up between us. Anytime I start to steer the conversation in that direction, she quickly turns the conversation to something else. How can I get back what we lost if she won’t fucking let me try?
I perk up a little when I catch sight of Piper from across the room, but my mood darkens again when I watch her start for the stairs, Tyler trailing behind her. Where the fuck do they think they’re going?
“Bren, why aren’t you paying attention to us?” a pouty voice asks, and I don’t bother hiding my sigh as I look down at the girls standing in front of me. They’re brunette. A little younger. Perky with thick lips and matching smiles. Any other red-blooded high schooler might be falling all over himself for the attention of the Hernandez twins, but I can’t look past the fact that they’re not Piper.
My eyes seek her out again, and my heart thuds as I watch her take Tyler by the shoulders and turn him away from her on the stairs. He looks over his shoulder to say something to her, but she shakes her head and points up the stairs as she answers. Tyler’s shoulders slump, but he takes the stairs two at a time until he’s back at the bottom, turning left into the kitchen where the liquor is. Piper shakes her head one last time before finishing her trek up the stairs, the skirt of her dress riding up around her legs just enough to expose an expanse of her bare thigh to my hungry eyes.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, ignoring the twins’ protest as I cross the room, eager to make it up the stairs before Tyler comes wandering out from the kitchen and sees me. Just because he asked her to come to the party with him doesn’t mean he gets to monopolize her time.
Emboldened by the thought, and the fact that Jude’s still nowhere to be seen, I make it across the room and up the stairs in no time at all. I’m not even halfway down the hallway before I spot her leaning against the wall at the end, scrolling through her phone as she waits outside of the bathroom door. It’s early enough in the party that the upstairs is pretty empty. No one’s sneaking off yet, not at the risk of missing anything juicy happening downstairs.
“Hey, Piper,” I greet softly, but she still jerks at the sound of my voice. Her hand comes to rest over her heart, but she offers me a tight smile as I drift in her direction. As I move slowly down the hall, I let my eyes travel her body. Her dress is burgundy lace, fitted to her upper body like a second skin. Her delicate skin peeks through the lon
g sleeves. When I glance down, still picturing how her thighs looked when her dress rode up on the stairs, I feel my tongue turn to a lead weight in my mouth.
“Hey,” she returns.
She frowns when I say, “You look nice.” Not exactly the reaction I was going for. Her fingers catch the hem of her dress, tugging it down a little more as if she can suddenly read my mind.
I rub my hand over the back of my neck. “I think there’s another bathroom off of her parents room if you needed it,” she offers when I all but lose the ability to speak. The stretchy material of the dress pulls tight against her body as she raises her arm to point in the general direction of the Donovans’ bedroom, and if I could pat myself on the back for not staring at her tits, I would. Because goddamn she looks so fucking good.
But I’m not here to stare at her like a fucking creep, and I need to remember that. So I force my eyes back to hers and offer a sheepish smile as I run a hand through my hair. “I actually came up here to talk to you.”
“Oh?” She tilts her head, a motion meant to make her look curious, but I see past that. I see the way she winces slightly in the corners of her eyes, a sign of nervousness that she doesn’t want me to see. I’m gutted seeing her so nervous with me, knowing I earned it by trying to break her.
“I just want to explain, Piper. Please give me a chance to do that.” I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans as I drop my gaze to the ground.
“Bren.” My heart practically shatters at her tone. She’s going to blow me off again, I already know it. “I’d really rather not talk about it. Not yet.”