One-Eighty (Westover Prep 1)

“How nice, Piper?” he prods.

“He hasn’t said a horrible thing to me since the accident. He told his friends off when they were picking on me yesterday. He kissed me last night.”

I wouldn’t confess that last part to Frankie because she’d skin me alive, but I need to tell someone. Since Dillon will be heading back to Oregon in a few days, I figure he’s my best bet. I can get advice, and he’s less likely to blow his top as my other best friend would.

“Kissed, huh?” His lips turn up in a huge smile, and it kills me how handsome he is. “Was it a good kiss?”

“A great kiss.”

“This is just like a romantic comedy.”

“My life is more like Carrie than Hope Floats,” I murmur, forking my pie across my plate.

His grin never falters.

“I was going to ask you what I should do, but you have those little hearts in your eyes, so I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Oh, my answer is simple. Make him fall in love with you and then break his heart into a million pieces.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Not what I was expecting you to say.”

“Well,” he taps his inked finger against his chin, “if a fine piece of ass like Dalton Payne fell in love with me, I’d marry his sweet little ass and never let him leave the house. He’s the one who made me realize I was gay, remember?”

I do remember. Before Dillon left town, the crap Dalton and his friends pulled were child’s play. Back then, there were several kids who got pranked, and their focus wasn’t entirely on me. I think it had a lot to do with Dillon being around. He’s a year older and looked out for me in school. He was also a typical boy and saw the hilarity of spiders in my locker and a dead snake in my backpack.

Things changed after he left, but that Halloween night, when I questioned how he knew he was gay, he confessed his utter attraction to Dalton. Even as much of a crush as I had on Dillon, I’d always caught myself watching my next-door neighbor. I couldn’t deny that the boy was the cutest in my class. It was his spitefulness that has always kept me from admitting his good looks. It never stops Frankie of course, but I’ve never confessed my attraction out loud.

“I remember,” I huff. “Yes, Dalton is attractive.”

There I said it.

“Attractive?” Dillon laughs. “The man is sex on a stick covered in chocolate sauce. He’s way beyond sexy. You should do exactly what I said, and if you fall in love with him, too, then that’s a wonderful outcome as well.”

“I don’t think so,” I object. “Even if he is nicer, there’s no chance in hell I’ll let myself have feelings for that boy.”

“You mean more than you already have?”

“What?” I shake my head violently. “I don’t care about him at all.”

“And if he showed up here looking like my teenage wet dreams, you wouldn’t bat an eyelash?”

“Not a dang chance.”

A wide grin spreads his face, but then I notice movement across the diner, and I’ll be damned if the man in question isn’t walking in this direction.

“Put your arm around me,” I snap.

“What?”

“Pretend to be my boyfriend,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

Dillon sighs, but his arm slings around me like expected. He goes all out and nuzzles his nose up and down my neck. It’s all for show, but that doesn’t keep the cold chills from racing down my neck.

“Piper,” Dalton says as soon as he steps up to our table. “Crazy, seeing you here.”

“Best place in town for pie,” I remind him with my shaky fingers pointing at my half-eaten slice.

Dillon chuckles into my neck before nipping at the skin.

I yelp, and it only serves to make Dalton clench his fists at his sides. If I’m not careful, he’s going to end up attacking my oldest friend, and I can’t help but worry about his unhealed wrist, especially since he took the cast off before he was supposed to.

Of course, worrying about my lifelong tormentor makes me angry at myself.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Dillon chooses this time to pull his mouth from my throat. It takes everything I have not to wipe away the spit I feel drying there, and if I ever wondered if I still had those kinds of feelings for Dillon, those questions are now answered.

“Oh, hey, man. I’m Dillon.” He offers his hand, and although it takes an endless span of time to accept, Dalton finally takes it in his.

They spend an eternity, eyes locked, hands clenching tighter and tighter in a show of machismo that Dalton doesn’t realize is only one-sided.

Dillon is the first to let go, and I see victory flash in Dalton’s eyes.