Page 58 of Wild About You
My gaze drops to her lips and holds. Adrenaline and want courses through me. She’s right here, the only woman I’ve ever felt this way about, and I can’t have her.
I lean onto the armrest on the opposite side to put some space between us and continue to shoot daggers at River.
When the movie is over, Everly walks out with River, leaving me alone with Piper.
“This was fun,” she says.
“Yeah.” I kill the projector and hit the lights. Fun, torturous—same thing.
“I should get to bed.” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder and then turn to go before I keep staring at her or do something incredibly stupid like ask her to dump her boyfriend and go out with me.
“Wait.” She jogs to catch up with me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.” I slow down.
She looks at where Everly and River are hugging in the doorway. His hands are dangerously close to her ass. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“Yeah, all right.” I raise my voice. “Ev, time to wrap it up and get to bed.”
I’m pretty sure Piper laughs at me, but I barely hear it over Everly’s annoyed grunt.
“Night,” I say in a nicer tone, then follow Piper upstairs and into her room.
“It’s actually about your sister,” she says, shutting us inside and then going to sit on the edge of her bed.
There is absolutely no way I can get on that bed with her, so I cross my arms at my chest and lean against the wall. “Is something wrong? Is she giving you a hard time?”
“No,” she says quickly. “I adore Everly. Truly.”
I relax a fraction.
Piper lowers her voice. “She confided in me this morning that she was considering going to college this fall.”
“Really?” I drop my arms and push off the wall. “That’s great.”
“Yeah, it is, except…” She bobs her head side to side. “I might have screwed it up.”
“Doubt it.” I move closer to the bed.
“She was worried about not having extracurriculars, so I got her on stage crew with the theater group. It’s after school until five, and I’d pick her up and everything. I probably should have asked first, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t see a problem with that.”
“The problem is the kids were giving her a hard time when I picked her up today. I don’t know why or what was said, but she said she didn’t want to go back.” She looks so apologetic and guilty.
“High schoolers are assholes. We both know that. I’ll talk to her.”
She picks up a piece of paper I hadn’t noticed on the comforter next to her. “This is a list of all the colleges within a three-hour radius that are still accepting admissions, as well as the last date she can apply.”
I step forward and take it from her. It’s a long list and my head spins with the names and dates, some as soon as the end of the month.
“I included a few near your mom, too, at the bottom.” Piper shrugs. “I wasn’t sure what the situation was there.”
“Thank you for doing this, and for looking out for my sister so well.”
“That is what I signed up for,” she says with a playful laugh. “At this point I owe you for all the car repairs.”
“If you’d let me pay you, then I wouldn’t have to find other ways to show my thanks.”
