Ruin Me (29 page)

“Piper, wait,” I say. I pick up my pace and stop her before she gets into the car. “Please, stop.”

“Coming back to this house was a
huge
mistake,” she says.

“No, it wasn’t,” I say. “They’ll come around, Piper.”

“No, they won’t,” she says, shaking her head. “Kai, I told you it was too late for me and my father, but I did what you wanted me to do.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Honesty might be the best for us, but not for him. He’ll probably never even look at me again now… and
honestly
, I don’t want to look at
you
right now either.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means…” she pauses. “Maybe we should sleep on this.”

I lurch as the black hole of dread inside of me takes over my senses. “Piper, this isn’t over,” I say.

She pulls away. “I hope you’re right, Kai.”

A spike of anger hits me as she steps closer to the car. “Well, surprise, surprise!” I shout, throwing my hands into the air. “Piper Lynch is
bailing
on something she supposedly cares about!”

She spins around and strides back towards me. “You bailed on me first, Kai,” she says with a pointed finger.

“How?” I ask. “By agreeing with him that you running off was selfish and stupid? I already made my feelings about that perfectly clear to you and I haven’t changed my mind one bit.”

“How can you just
sit there
and not acknowledge that I had no other choice?” she asks.

“There’s always another choice, Pipes.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “We are never going to agree on this, are we?”

I pause. She’s holding back tears, making the moonlight tremble as it shines back at me from them. “No,” I answer. “But I still love you.”

“Do you wish you didn’t?” she asks.

“Every damn day.” I shake my head. “You know, Piper, maybe you should leave again.”

A tear falls down her cheek. I fight the urge to wipe it away. “If that’s what you want,” she says. “Fine.” She turns around and reaches for the car door.

I growl with frustration. I fucking miss her already. “Dammit… Piper, wait!” I say. I push my fingers back through my hair. “I didn’t mean that…”

She pauses and takes a deep, impatient breath before taking a single step towards me. “Kai, how about you let me know when you make up your mind?” She pulls the door open. “I’m either yours or I’m not. I can’t be both.”

“I know,” I sigh.

“You can get my number from Mandy,” she says before lowering herself into the car.

I watch them drive off down the driveway. I can’t bring myself to look away, even after they’ve completely disappeared. Sounds of bugs and the wind fill my ears, dominating the silence I’d much rather be hearing instead.

The front door opens and my mother looks out at me from the doorway. “Kai?” she asks the dark driveway.

“Yeah,” I mutter.

“Come back inside, honey.”

I don’t budge. There’s something warm and comforting about the idea of going home again, but I know the second I walk through that door I’ll feel nothing but a blistering cold front. I don’t even want to imagine what I’ll have to say to Philip.

“I think I’m going to head back to school, actually.”

My mother says nothing. I walk over to the car — the beautiful, red corvette that used to be mine before all of this bullshit happened — and open the door.

Piper
fucking
Lynch. Stupid, but smart. Stubborn, but endlessly beautiful. Wrong, but also very, very right. I thought this game was over between us; The torturous tug of war that constantly yanks on our heart strings. The closer we get to one another, the more it hurts the instant we suddenly get tugged apart again.

I curse all the gods and goddesses sitting around their game table upstairs.

They roll the dice and we pay the price.

Chapter 28

Piper

“Piper?”

Stupid Kai Casablancas.

I told him there was no way to get through to my father, but did he listen? Of course not. Kai never listens. He’s an eternal optimist. I fucking hate optimism. No, I’d rather just expect the worst and be thankful when — or, more accurately,
if
— things don’t go to shit.

What the hell was I thinking? I knew better than to get suckered into all of this. It’s all him. I can’t think straight when I’m around him. I look into his gorgeous brown eyes and I catch sight of his perfect fucking body and I turn into one of those fucking idiots you see in teenage television dramas. The ones that are just so in love with their boyfriends that they can’t see three feet in front of their fucking faces.
‘Oh— silly me! I’m such a fucking klutz!’

I am Piper fucking Lynch, for fuck’s sake.

“Piper?”

I snap my head up and notice my mother staring expectantly at me from the driver’s seat of our rental car. “What?” I ask.

“Are you in there?” she laughs.

“Yeah,” I say. I sit up a little taller in the seat. “Why?”

“Because we’ve been parked outside our hotel for five minutes and you haven’t budged an inch.”

I look out the window. “Oh…” My eyes wander into the dark parking lot. “I’m sorry.” I pull my seatbelt free.

“Hang on…” She lays a hand on my arm. “What happened in there before I arrived?”

I sigh. “Oh, it went about how you would expect.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going there tonight? I would have gone with you,” she says.

I shake my head. “I didn’t want to put you through that.” She pushes my hair back behind my ear. I glance at her outfit. “Sorry, I interrupted your date,” I tell her.

She smiles. “It wasn’t a date. Just drinks with an old friend.”

“Anyone I know?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer and stares at me with a raised brow. “So, you and Kai officially made up?”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

“And your dad
caught you…
?”

“Yes.”

The ends of her lips twitch. “Let’s go inside,” she says. “Then we’ll order a bunch of bad room service food and you can describe
every single detail
of his face when that happened.”

I chuckle. “I don’t know if I’m ready to re-live it so fast, Mom.”

“Piper…” She squeezes my wrist. “I need this.”

“Okay,” I sigh.

***

Even though my relationship with my mother has always been one of close friendship, I still find it difficult to talk with her about all of this. This is why I have someone like Mandy in my life — someone on the outside I’m comfortable talking to about sex. Penny is still my mother and that won’t change no matter how cool and liberal she is.

To her credit, she doesn’t bat an eye as I admit the events of the last two days.

She lies back on her hotel bed in sweats and a tank top. An empty paper plate sits next to her feet on the bedspread and she takes sips from her soda can as I tell the tale. Her lips curl with a devious smile as I describe my father’s face, dyed red with rage.

“Oh, that is
wonderful
…” she laughs. “Don’t believe a word of what he says, by the way. You two have nothing to be ashamed about.”

I stare back at her from the second bed with a pillow clutched against my chest. “Yeah, well…” I shrug. “I tried to ignore my feelings for him, but…”

“We can’t help who we’re attracted to,” she says. “I still don’t understand how I managed to be so attracted to Philip Lynch for so many years. Obviously, I got over it.”

“I should get over Kai,” I say, “but I’m not sure if I can.”

“Why should you?”

“The very existence of our relationship hurts other people,” I say. “I can’t live with that on my conscience.”

She chuckles, shaking her head. “The existence of boy bands hurts your father, kiddo,” she jokes. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s on the wrong side of logic on this one — as he usually is. You and Kai were attracted to each other
long
before he and Ava had an affair.”

“No, we weren’t,” I claim.

Her lips curl and she stares at me through narrow eyes. “Oh, yes, Piper,” she says. “You were. You may not have been aware of it, but I saw the way you look at him shift when you were around twelve years old. And Kai? He’s always been in puppy love with you, following you around, trying desperately to get your attention. Especially when you were little kids.”

I slouch against the pillow in my arms. I don’t remember it being like that, but she has the benefit of a mother’s knowing eye. “You really were just waiting for the day when we’d notice each other, weren’t you?” I ask.

She nods. “And you know what? Ava did, too.”

“You talked about it?”

“A joke here and there,” she admits. “Believe me when I tell you — she may be freaking out about it right now, but Ava will cool off eventually. She’d never risk ruffling your father’s feathers, though, so don’t expect her to speak up about it in your defense — at least until he starts to come around, too.”

I swallow hard to wet my throat. “Everything was so much simpler in Europe,” I mutter.

“Why do you think I left here in the first place?” she jokes. “You know… you never really told me the exact details of what happened between you two…”

“Mom…” I hesitate.

“I don’t need diagrams or anything,” she says. “But the gist would be nice. Might as well get it over with
now
, while you’re still in a sharing mood.”

I nod and take a moment to find my words. “Kai followed me to the train station in Paris,” I say slowly. “We spent that last week together alone… in various hotel rooms and other places.”

She smiles. “Well, I figured that out already.”

“You did?”

“Yes,” she says. “Kai came back to the apartment.”

“What?” I ask. “When?”

“Just after you left to make your train to London. He had his suitcase with him and was obviously in a great rush,” she says. “I told him where to find you.”

A smile hits my lips. “Wow…” I breathe. “So, this was all
your
fault then.”

“Guilty,” she sings. “I knew then that this boy standing in front of me was truly — and
finally
— head-over-heels in love with my daughter and he’d do anything for her — even if that meant stopping a train to catch up with her.”

I laugh. “Well, luckily, he didn’t need to stop it. He made it to the train before I did.”

“Good boy. You only had a few minutes head start on him. When you came back to Paris a week later and didn’t mention a word about him, I assumed he missed you, but…” She pauses. “After a while, it was pretty clear to me that something had happened and that it didn’t end well.”

“It didn’t end well
,” I quote. “That should probably go on my tombstone.” She smiles at me. “He wanted to stay in Europe with us, but I couldn’t let him do that. It was too huge. He wasn’t ready for it. So, I called it off. I said some really horrible things to him, too.”

“You probably made the right call, kiddo,” she says.

I scoff. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“It rarely does.” She grins. “Piper, you two may not see eye-to-eye right now, but I think the two of you will always find a way back to each other.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“It just feels so difficult right now. And impossible.”

“Nothing worth having comes easy,” she says. “If you’re not willing to put in the effort, then you never wanted it in the first place.”

“Mandy said the same thing.”

“Of course,” she gloats and places a palm against her chest. “She learned from the best.”

“He said you two have kept in touch,” I say.

She nods slowly. “…Yes.”

“You didn’t tell me.”