Forty-One

“Blew. It!” Piper’s frown fought to reach her jaw. “I was hoping for a romantic sleepover with Cicely but instead of kissing her, I was hugging porcelain.” Lying on the loveseat cocooned in an un-Piper-like tank and sweatpants combo, she scratched her messy nest of hair. “Oh…” She tugged her phone from her waistband and hit the voice memo app. “Buy toothbrush to keep at Cice’s.” She stopped recording and let out a groan.

Riley rustled a large trash bag, tossing plastic cups into it.

“Urghhh! Room, puh-lease stop torturing me?! I think the subway ride gave me vertigo.”

You don’t have vertigo! “You should’ve stayed at Cicely’s. I was going to—”

“Invite Ben over for round two?”

I’m not in the mood for this. Pretending not to hear, Riley crawled across the floor, tossing Funyuns and popcorn into the bag trailing behind her.

“So, did Ben like his present?”

“He loved the record. He says they tour sometimes and we should go—”

“No, no, NO. That’s not what I meant!” She propped herself up and froze, her smirk slipping. “Oh, fuck. You didn’t…on my bed, did you?”

“No!”

Piper leaned forward, desperate for information. “So…?”

“He kissed me on the cheek and left. It was…” Riley yawned, scratching her jaw. “Almost 4 A.M.” She resumed picking up junk food from the floor.

“Annnnd you didn’t give him a hand-job? Or let him put his hand up your dress? What is this, Downton Abbey? I’d raise my eyebrows but they hurt!” Piper winced. “I swore you guys were gonna fuck last night. His little speech? My God—he has it bad! And he wouldn’t leave you alone at the club. When you weren’t spinning around like lunatics, you couldn’t fit a piece of paper between the two of you—”

“Yeah, it was packed.” Riley scooped up a Funyun. “Barely room to breathe.”

“Seriously. I stay at Cice’s to give you privacy and you waste it.”

“Pip—”

“Don’t say it!” Squinting, Piper rubbed her forehead. “You’re ‘friends’!”

“We are! I don’t know why you have such a problem with that!”

Piper blew out her cheeks. “I don’t, but I don’t dance with friends like that.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Riley kneeled, dusting crumbs off her hands. “Even if we weren’t friends, I’m not the type of girl Ben dates—if you can call what he does dating.”

“Hey, I went on a date with him.”

“You know what I mean.” Walking on her knees, Riley dragged the trash bag to the milk crate. “Hey, have you looked at Mom’s crowdfunding page? Erika shared it with Scott’s teammates and it’s up to two thousand dollars—”

“Don’t change the subject! I think you’re exactly Ben’s type! Cicely said he wouldn’t shut up about you.”

“Yeah, I threw him a party—”

“Nope, it’s more than that. He’s crazy about you. We all see it—even Erika, and you know how badly she wants you and Josh back together.”

“Ben’s a flirt.” Riley eyed his half-eaten bag of mini pretzels. “He’s like that with everyone.”

“But you’re not. C’mon, I’ve known you long enough that—”

“Yeah, so you should know when you’re crossing the line, Pip.”

“If I can’t cross it, who can? Rye, be honest—how would you feel if he started seeing someone, like seriously…as a girlfriend?”

“He’s not into relationships—”

“But if he was…how would you feel?”

A heaviness squeezed Riley’s chest. A familiar echo—How would you feel? She had banished that question to the cobwebs of her mind, dreading the day it demanded an answer. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Ben would tire of pick-up lines in bars and one-night stands. He wouldn’t be on the market long; he’d meet a smart, pretty girl who loved books, new adventures, and eighties music, and she would do what everyone else had failed to—make Benjamin Fagan her own. He was too gorgeous, too fun, too beautiful inside to walk through life unattached. It was inevitable. One day, Ben would start seeing someone who wasn’t just a friend, someone who wasn’t…her, a sometimes-depressed girl with a sick mother and mounting debts. Definitely not Ben’s type.

“C’mon—how would you feel?”

A sour taste rose in Riley’s throat. So jealous I would scream.

“So?!” Piper stared, her annoyance at being kept waiting making her eyelid twitch.

So…now I feel even more stupid for thinking he liked me that way. Riley stared back. “I’d be happy for him, just like I am for you. That’s what friends do.” She grabbed the bag of pretzels and chucked it in the trash.