“Well, it’s not going to be me,” Mari says firmly. “I have the review for my chemistry final on Monday.”
“I just missed a day at work a couple weeks ago,” Scott says, and they all turn to Desiree.
“No, come on, you guys. These are my last couple weeks as a high school senior.”
The looks this excuse elicits from her family members tells me it falls somewhere between dismal and pathetic, possibly even risible.
“Fine,” she says, drawing the word out into two syllables. “But the little punks will have to entertain themselves.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, uninvited, butting into their business before I can stop myself.
Scott groans. “There’s a teacher conference on Monday and someone has to watch the girls.”
“Oh,” I say, smiling. “Monday’s my day off, I could do it.”
“Yes,” Desiree says with triumph, switching to English. “Ellie can do it. I knew I liked her.”
“What?” Scott says, annoyed with his sister. “No. She’s not doing it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t mind, Scotty.”
They all turn to take in my eagerness. “I don’t mind at all. We’d have so much fun.” I can tell everyone except Desiree is dubious, and with a nauseating flash I realize that I’ve overstepped. “But it was just an idea,” I backpedal, worried that I’ve put Scott in an uncomfortable situation. Maybe he doesn’t want me looking after his kids.
But he counters with a tentative, “Are you sure? I won’t make a habit of it or anything.”
My head tilts. “Make a habit of what?”
“Asking you to watch the girls. I know they’re my responsibility.”
Okay, so if I’m reading the situation right, we both think we’re stepping on the other’s toes. “If you’re okay with it, I’d love to help out.”
The grin pulling at his lips eases the last of my trepidation. “They can be a handful, you know that right?”
“I have no doubt.”
Scott is forced to spend the short ride from his place to mine listening to me happily go on about how excited the girls and I are to be spending the day together on Monday. By the time he’s parallel parking his truck on the street near my building, I only half-jokingly ask him if he’s going to drop me off and run.
Once he turns the engine off, he crooks his finger at me, wanting me closer. “Opal?”
I lean in, all playful innocence in the light from the street lamps. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Oh yeah?”
He wraps a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me closer. “Yeah.” The word touches my lips before he actually kisses me sweetly. “Come on. Let’s go inside.” The suggestion woven into that statement only serves to boost my soaring mood higher.
Meeting me around the front of the truck, he takes hold of my hand. “Everything went so well today,” I say, enthusiasm dripping from every syllable. “Except maybe it was touch and go there for a minute with your sister.”
He grins at me, his spirits as bright as my own. “Desi’s always like that. I wasn’t too worried though. I’m pretty sure if push came to shove, you could take her.”
“Pretty sure?” I choke out. “Shouldn’t you have given me a heads up?”
“Nah. I’ve discovered no one on the planet is immune to your charm, not even my crazy-ass sister.”
Scott unlocks the front door of the building with the key I gave him last week and stands back to let me pass.
“I have a confession to make,” I say, giving him a bit of a grimace over my shoulder. “Ever since you took me out for that first dinner and a movie, I’ve been so nervous about meeting your family.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s always been obvious how much your family means to you. I was worried that I’d mess it up somehow.”
Pausing in the hall outside my apartment door, he turns me to face him. “You were never going to mess anything up.”
When I make to object, he places a finger over my mouth. “Are we done talking about my family?” He reaches around me and inserts the key in the lock. “Because I think there are better ways we could be spending our time together.”
Walking backwards into my apartment, I pull him along, my giggles spilling out into the dark entryway. It takes a second to register that something is wrong, but a sudden, horrible feeling assaults me from both sides. First from Scott, whose gaze snaps up over my shoulder, and then from behind me, where I hear the rustling of movement. I don’t get the chance to scream, I don’t even get a chance to breathe before Scott has me behind him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Scott grits out harshly, his fury-filled voice cutting the air like the sharpest of blades. With my heart in my throat, I scramble to hit the light switch and catch sight of a man getting to his feet from where he’s been sitting on the sofa.
“Gunnar! Are you insane?!”
The fact that I know the man standing in my living room doesn’t appease Scott. From beside me, I feel raw violence pouring off of him. “What the hell are you doing here?” I demand of my ex-boyfriend with my hands pressed over my racing heart.
“Pipes, we need to talk.”
Is he serious? “Then you call me like a normal person, Gunnar.”
“You know you’ve blocked my number,” he says pleasantly, casually, as if being in my apartment, waiting for me, is the most normal thing in the world. “And you’ve cancelled all your social media.”
“So you break into my place?” I ask, adrenaline giving way to anger as I take in his lean, dark-haired and very familiar figure.
“Like I said, we need to talk.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We don’t.” I step forward but Scott catches my arm, keeping me next to him.
“Get. Out,” Scott orders in a low, very steady, very threatening tone.
Gunnar flashes Scott a look of skeptical disdain before dismissing him completely. “This, Piper,” Gunnar says, gesturing vaguely at Scott. “I don’t like it. I’ve given you more than enough time to work out your problems, a year to the day to be exact. It’s time you were back where you belong.”
My surprise that he knows the exact date that I broke things off with him barely registers in the face of his sheer gall. “Where I belong?” I echo. “Is this a joke? How many times do I have to tell you that we’re not getting back together? Not now, not ever.”
“Enough!”
I jump at the volume of Gunnar’s voice.
“Last warning,” Scott says coldly. “Either get out or I put you out.”
Gunnar flattens his lips into a thin line, clearly not appreciating Scott’s presence. I’ve always known he was arrogant, but here, standing in my living room in his designer jeans and Gucci jacquard blazer, I see him for what he really is. Entitled. He never loved Piper, but he feels entitled to her. “You think this guy is going to buy you Louboutins?” he asks. “Or take you to Prague for the weekend?”