by James, Marie
Dillon looks from her to me and back, but he doesn’t seem annoyed with the realization that she and I have been talking, and that doesn’t make sense either. Another thing that confuses me is the fact that I’m still breathing. Surely, she tells her soul mate about the way she’s treated at school. Why hasn’t this fucker kicked my ass? Why isn’t he ramming my head into the cinder block walls of the diner? I honestly deserve nothing less. Instead of doing any of that, he’s got a little smile on his face.
Her eyes widen with my question, but she nods. “I think that’s the day you started hating me.”
Her voice is soft, and for a split second, I can forget that she’s sitting beside a man who had his arm on her shoulder earlier and his hands cupping her ass when she ran into his arms. He no longer exists. It’s only her and me in this moment.
“That can’t be it,” I mutter, the whole time locking my eyes with hers. “And if it is, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For bringing strawberries to school?” Dillon huffs a laugh. “How would you even know?”
I don’t answer him, and Piper keeps her eyes on mine.
“If I could take it all back.” I swallow around the lump forming in my throat. “I wou—”
“Crap,” Dillon says as he stands abruptly from the table after looking at his watch. “I’m going to be late.”
Piper looks nervous suddenly.
“I don’t mind being late,” Dillon offers, still holding his hand out for her to take. “I’ll make sure you get home.”
“I’ll take her home,” I offer because I’m a nice guy, of course. I have no ulterior motives.
Piper stands, taking Dillon’s hand before looking between the two of us.
“It’s up to you… baby.”
Piper’s lip twitches oddly at his delayed sentiment. She nods, and I’m actually surprised that she’s agreeing to ride in the car with me considering what happened the last time we rode together. But it’s daylight, and we’re only a few miles from our neighborhood, so I guess those things factor in her decision as well.
They share the most awkward kiss I’ve ever witnessed before she wraps her arms around his neck. She says something that’s muffled in his ear, and he holds her even tighter. This reaction is real, and I hate that they share that kind of connection with each other.
I watch, standing to the side as Dillon cups her cheek and promises to see her again soon.
Piper nods, blinking away tears as he walks away. She loves him, that’s evident, but I have a sneaking feeling that she doesn’t love him that way.
Even though we both just watched her boyfriend drive off in his loud car, she doesn’t shrug me off when I press my palm to her back and guide her to the passenger side of my mom’s car.
Chapter 22
Piper
This was a mistake. This was a mistake. This was a mistake.
The sentence is on repeat in my head, echoing over and over as Dalton makes his way around the front of the car. I’ve decided to call my mom to come pick me up by the time he climbs inside. There’s no way I need to spend another moment alone with this man. I did that last night and look where it got me.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I grumble when he cranks the car.
“Home is only a few miles away,” he says as he latches his seat belt across his chest.
If only he’d worn it that night.
But even as I think it, I can’t regret what happened. Even as horrible as it is and as much as I want to think differently, I know Dalton has changed. He hasn’t shown one hint of being the same guy he was before his car went off the ravine. Knowing this is my main cause for concern because as much as I can admit to tolerating, maybe even liking this new guy, it won’t last. The second he finds out I was driving the car or when his memories come back, it’s only going to make things worse.
“Did you follow me?”
Why else would he happen to show up during the single hour I had to spend with Dillon before he was due at the funeral home for his granddad’s viewing? The coincidence is just too much.
“Oh, shit,” he snaps, putting the car back in park before we even rolled back an inch. “Mom’s pie. Be right back.”
Like a kid hopped up on candy, he throws the door open and runs back into the diner. Instead of texting Mom, who’s at the funeral home anyway, I gawk at the door he just disappeared through. Am I so wrapped up in myself that I thought I was the only reason he’d show up here? What a joke.
He emerges a few minutes later with two pie boxes stacked on top of each other. He climbs back inside after placing them in the back seat.
“I can’t remember if she said apple and blueberry if they didn’t have it or the other way around.” He grins over at me. “So, I got one of each.”
“Is that…” I snap my jaw shut before finishing. I shouldn’t ask him things about the accident, but I’m dying to know if he has short-term memory loss as well.
“Is that, what?” he says as he pulls on his seat belt again.
“I shouldn’t ask you things about the accident. It’s rude, and I know I hate it when people ask me about it.” Mainly, because I don’t want to slip up and confess my role in it.
“What’s rude,” he begins, turning back in my direction with a pointed stare rather than making a move to reverse out of the parking spot, “is kissing me when you have a boyfriend.”
“You stole that kiss,” I remind him.
“You whimpered like you enjoyed it.”
Just the reminder makes my thigh muscles clench. My palms grow sweaty, and my lips tingle with the need for it to happen again.
“I was appalled. You stole my first kiss.”
My mouth snaps shut again, and I know I’ve given too much away. There’s no way he’ll believe that I’m dating a tattooed-covered hottie like Dillon and never kissed him.
But it’s the truth. That kiss last night with Dalton was my very first. My second came moments ago when Dillon pressed his lips to mine in the diner. That one was awkward beyond belief for me, and I’ll get back at my friend for putting me on the spot like that, but I have bigger things to worry about right now—namely, the handsome bully sitting in the car with me.
“It was my first kiss, too,” he whispers, instead of making fun of me for not having any experience.
“What?” My head snaps in his direction. “Dalton, you’ve kissed most of the girls in Westover and half the girls in Wise County from what I’ve heard.”
“And yet, all I can remember is your kiss. Your lips. The sound of that little moan that escaped when my tongue touched yours for the first time. It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Are charisma and charm innate gifts? Because this boy is oozing with both.
“We sh-shouldn’t talk about that kiss.”
I focus on my hands in my lap because I know by the tone of his voice that if I turn in his direction, he’s going to press his mouth against mine just like he did last night, and I’d be unable to resist him.
“That kiss is all I want to talk about. Or we could kiss again and talk about that instead.”
“No more kissing,” I tell him with as much bravado as I can manage.
“Why?” he asks, genuinely sounding confused. “Because I thought it was a great kiss.”
I can agree with him on that, but since I have nothing to compare it to, I keep my mouth sealed shut. Plus, continuing to talk about what happened last night will only lead to me wanting to do it more, and that’s the worst idea in the history of ideas.
“Is it because you have a boyfriend?”
That would be a great reason if it were true, but I have a feeling Dalton knows that I don’t have a boyfriend. The situation in the diner was awkward at best, and the boy sitting next to me is many things, but an idiot isn’t one of them.
“Can we please change the subject? No more kissing talk.”
“Why didn’t you go to the funeral home with Dillion?”
This conversation isn’t any better, but I’ll take the reprieve from talk of his mouth on mine.
“My grandfather died when I was eleven.”
“I’m sorry.”
He seems sincere, but he hasn’t heard what happened next, so I don’t allow myself empathy for him.
“And going there would remind you about your own loss?”
I huff. “No. You convinced me that my grandfather was going to become a zombie and come back from the grave to kill my entire family.”
He laughs until he sees the serious look on my face.
“Really?” He frowns, but I can see the corner of his lip twitch like he’s still fighting back a laugh. “Zombies aren’t real.”
“I know that now. I didn’t back then. It took months before I could sleep in my own bed again. My parents were so annoyed with me every night when I crawled into their bed with them.”
“Probably the reason you’re an only child, too.” He winks at me, but it only agitates me. He doesn’t see how much this affected me.
I can look back now and realize how ridiculous it was, but back then, I was traumatized.
“And that would be another thing you ruined for me,” I mutter, turning my attention out the passenger side window, ready to be home and far away from him.
“Fuck,” he mumbles.
“If you could not cuss so much around me, I’d appreciate that, too.”
“Sorry,” he grumbles. “And I’m sorry for the zombie stuff, too. Was I ever decent to you?”
“Only when you were trying to convince me that you weren’t as bad as you actually were, and all of those times, you only pretended to be nice, so when you were mean to me, it hurt me more.”
“Will there ever come a time when we can do things together or make plans when it doesn’t come back to this?”
“Why do you even ask?” I’ll never forget the past. Doing so will only lead to more pain, and I’ve had my fair share of that in my life already.
“Because I’m tired of reliving a past I can’t remember, a past I can’t change. Eventually, we’re going to have to move into the future, Piper. It’s not healthy spending every moment we have together discussing things we can’t change.”
“We shouldn’t be spending time together at all,” I remind him. “I think it’s best that we go back to avoiding each other.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve given you space, and it’s not the same thing.” He leans closer but stays far enough away that he isn’t touching my skin. “And I’m tired of the distance between us. That kiss last night set me on fire.”
“You should see a doctor about that.”
He chuckles, and as much as I hate to admit it even to myself, I love the sound of it.
“You’re funny, too. I love that about you.”
“Just take me home, Dalton.”
He grumbles as he puts the car in reverse, but he doesn’t say a word on the way home. I thank him for the ride but head straight home when I get out of the car. I don’t bother to turn around or respond to him as he calls after me. I’ve had enough of Dalton Payne this week to last a lifetime.
Thankfully, tomorrow is Sunday, which means I have no tutoring and no Preston duties. The next twenty-four Dalton-free hours will be blissful.
Chapter 23
Dalton
“You’re up early,” my dad says as he pours coffee into a travel mug. “How was the party?”
“My old friends are ass… jerks,” I correct. “They won’t be coming back over again.”
“What did they do?” Mom asks as she walks into the kitchen, but she doesn’t seem genuinely interested.
“They just seem immature. I don’t need that around me.”
There’s no point in telling them the truth. One, it will make them realize how big of an asshole I was, and two, I don’t think they really care.
They spent the entire day in the den yesterday preparing for the trial that starts this morning. I don’t think there would’ve been dinner if I hadn’t ordered pizza for us. I tried to ask Peyton if they were always like this, but she literally hissed at me when I opened my mouth and then locked herself in her room. I did something, or Piper told her something that makes her hate me, but after the stuff I’ve been told I did, I’m not surprised. I can’t even be mad at either of them for it, but I was being honest when I told Piper yesterday that I’m tired of everyone living in the past. Right now is all I know, and I just want to move on from the shit I pulled before.
After a twenty-minute petty argument about a lack of exculpatory evidence on their case, my parents leave for the courthouse with parting information that they may be late getting home this evening.
Now I just wait.
Right on time, Piper arrives, but instead of just walking in like she has been all week, she knocks on the door.
She doesn’t look a bit impressed when it opens, and she sees me standing there.
“Where’s Peyton?” she asks from the front stoop, making no move to come inside.
“Shower.” At least I could hear her shower going when I came down earlier.
“And Preston?”
“Either asleep or already playing video games.”
“I’ll wait for your sister in the kitchen,” she says as she steps past me.
“We can’t have a relationship based on lies,” I tell her back as she walks away.
Piper freezes in her tracks, a long-suffered sigh escaping her lips.
“You’re delusional.”
“I’m delusional?” I ask as I walk around, so she has to look at me. “I’m not the one with the fake boyfriend.”
“I love him.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. Their connection would be evident to a blind man. “But I think he loves something you can’t give him.”
She swallows, the apples of her cheeks turning the bright red that I love so much.
“Like what?” she asks weakly.
“Dick,” I answer simply, pulling my phone from my pocket.
I turn it around when I open the pictures I screenshotted after hours of research yesterday. After going through old yearbooks, something I kicked myself for not thinking of sooner, I found his real last name. After entering that into the social media platforms, I was rewarded with a plethora of evidence that Piper lied to me yesterday.
“So?” she says, barely glancing at the picture of the two guys snuggling. “He’s affectionate with his friends.”
I swipe the image, bringing up the one I found of him in a heated lip-lock with another guy.
“Crap,” Piper mutters. “You’re stalking Dillon now, too? His family knows he’s out, so you can’t use him as ammunition against me.”
“What?” My brows crease. “I wasn’t planning on blackmailing you into keeping his secret.”
She doesn’t look like she believes me.
“I’m not that guy, Piper.”
Frustrated, I shove my phone back in my pocket and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I keep telling you that, but you seem to have a hearing problem.”
“I hear you just fine,” she argues.
“Let me prove to you I’m not that guy.”
We had this same conversation two days ago before we got in the pool, and I ruined everything by putting my lips on hers. Now I regret doing that. I mean, I don’t regret the kiss, but the timing was shitty. If I had waited until I had more control of the situation, she wouldn’t be pulling away from me right now.
“So, just friends?”
My eyes snap to hers. I was prepared to beg and barter to get her to agree to what we’d already settled on, so I’m a little surprised right now.
“No labels,” I clarify.
Her head immediately shakes, and she takes a step back even though I’ve maintained a couple feet of distance between us already.
“I can’t. We can be cordial, but I won’t ever trust you.” Tears well on her lower lashes, b
ut she takes another step back when I reach up to swipe them away. “When you get your memories back, it’ll only make things ten times worse.”
“I don’t want my memories back. I don’t want to be that guy. I can’t be the guy who avoids his family, keeps crappy friends, and is mean to pretty girls. My memories won’t matter because I’ll never forget how I feel when I’m close to you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she grumbles before turning back toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
She doesn’t stop her stride. “Home.”
“You have to keep an eye on Preston.”
“You’re more than capable of watching after your brother and making him a sandwich,” she says as she pulls open the front door. “Tell Peyton I’ll call her and let your parents know I couldn’t make it today.”
“You want me to lie to them?” I’m grasping at straws. I already spent all day yesterday without seeing her or hearing her voice, two days in a row is bullshit.
She spins around. “You can tell them the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That you keep pushing yourself on me when I repeatedly turn you down.”
“That’s not exactly the full truth, though, is it?”
She gives me a wicked smile I’ve never seen cross her lips before, and just the sight of it makes my heartrate ramp up. She’s going to be mean back to me, and for some reason that turns me on more than it should. I deserve it more than anyone else, and I’ve been waiting for her wrath, knowing she couldn’t keep it bottled up forever.
“I think I’ll make a list for you, detailing all the hateful things you’ve done, all the mean things you’ve said over the years. I have them all written in my journals, as you know, so I’d never risk forgetting what you’re really like. You can read them off to your parents. If you want to rat me out for going home today rather than suffering through another round of ‘please forgive me,’ I’d like them to be fully informed of why I made that decision.”