“Let’s just say my eyes are fully open.”

“What does that even mea—”

“Can you go grab a pie from the diner?” Mom asks as she walks into Peyton’s room. She’s smiling, so she must not have overheard our conversation. “The diner is closed tomorrow, and we need it for the wake.”

“Can’t Peyton go?”

My sister huffs, and my mom stares at me like I’ve grown an extra head.

“She’s not old enough to drive,” Mom reminds me.

“You trust me to take your car?”

“Do you not want to drive?” she counters.

“I’m sure I remember how,” I mutter. “I’m not afraid.”

I don’t remember shit from the accident, so reliving the trauma isn’t a thing for me.

“I’ll go,” I agree.

“Money is downstairs by the front door. Get blueberry if they have it, apple if they don’t.”

I nod my head in agreement, trying to catch Peyton’s eyes one last time before leaving the room, but she refuses to look at me.

Piper kissed me back last night. Yeah, she shoved me away before we could kiss a second time, but her lips were all about mine during the first one. I get the feeling that whatever my sister is upset about is something that Piper is less concerned over, but with the attitude she’s flinging my way, I’ll never get that information out of her.

Ignoring it seems like the manly thing to do, hoping that Peyton’s irritation fades over time, but that’ll be near impossible to do. Neither one of us go anywhere, so avoidance is difficult. Asking Piper about it would be the next best thing, but if my sister is more worried about it than Piper, bringing it back up may be the wrong way to go.

Why are women so damn confusing?

I growl in frustration as I climb into my mom’s car. I have bigger things to worry about than my sister disliking me. I need to find out who the hell this Dillon guy is and what he is to Piper. My sister can stew in her anger until I have time to address it.Chapter 20Piper“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back to town sooner,” Dillon says after swallowing a bite of pecan pie.

“How was the tattoo convention in Vegas?”

“Amazing.” His eyes light up at the mention. “There were so many people there. It was nuts but exhilarating as well.”

“I bet. I can only imagine the number of scantily clad women walking around.”

“You know it was the guys walking around shirtless that caught my eye,” he waggles his eyebrows, “but there was more skin showing than I thought there would be. They had wet t-shirt contests daily and ink competitions.”

“Did any of your work make it on the stage?”

His nose scrunches. “I haven’t been doing tats long enough to enter anything, but maybe next year I’ll have something to showcase.”

“You’ve definitely spent the last six months since your birthday covering yourself up.”

I appraise the bright colors on his arms. Dillon has always been an artist, but it wasn’t until two years ago that he wanted to take his designs from paper to skin. I’ve seen some of his work in the pictures he texts, and he’s already well on his way to being amazing.

“The guys at the shop love a blank canvas, so they did a lot of work on me. The pictures I sent you are mostly on them. Tattoo artists aren’t afraid to get a little amateur ink.”

“Didn’t seem too amateurish from the pictures you sent me.”

“I have a long way to go,” he says before taking another huge bite of pie.

He’s acting like everything is fine, but I know he’s heartbroken about his grandfather. Mr. Clark was loved by everyone in the community, and his passing is hard on many of the people that knew him. But this is just how Dillon has always been. He hides his pain, just like he hid who he really was for a long time.

“Tell me about the Prince of Payne,” he says after he swallows.

I nearly choke on my hot tea, sputtering it back into my cup. I forgot that’s what we’ve called him for years, especially since his asshole tendencies fully matured.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw how your eyes darted toward his house before we left to come here.”

“I’m tutoring Peyton,” I explain with a shrug. “There’s nothing going on with Dalton.”

“You’ve always been a horrible liar. Now, spill.”

“He’s been… nice.” I keep my focus on the table, knowing that if I look up at him, he’ll know there’s more to the story.

“Nice?” He chuckles. “Just how nice has he been to you, sweet Piper?”

“Don’t call me that.” I swat at his arm with the back of my hand.

He’s sitting on my side of the booth, and I love that we’ve always sat like this. When we were younger, it killed me to sit beside him with the huge crush I had on him, but he came out to me before he left for Oregon. Since then, I have managed to tamp down my crush, and we’ve morphed into an amazing friendship. Although I never told Dillon I liked him, he guessed when I tried to kiss him on Halloween many years ago. That’s when he told me that he loved me, but he liked guys that way. He softened the blow by telling me I’d be his ideal girl if he weren’t gay.

Tags: Marie James Westover Prep Romance
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