“They probably already think so,” I tease, taking deep whiffs of her lemon-scented hair. “Let’s just skip the rest of class and go home.”
“No, Quill. No! We can’t!” She sounds like she’s arguing withherself rather than with me. “I can’t just start slacking off in senior year. I’ve workedsohard, I want to get into a good college, and… and… do you know where Cass is?”
“Huh?”
I blink in confusion at the abrupt change of topic. Piper takes advantage of my arm slackening just a bit to turn around and face me.
“It’ssoweird,” she says. “I was waiting for you to get back to tell you. But then, well, this happened and… yeah. Cass hasn’t been here since Wednesday. And neither has Finn. You know Finn, right? And anyway—hey! Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”
I blink lazily as I watch her get all excited. I’m not sure if it’s because of the way she’s wiggling around, clearly agitated about whatever she’s trying to tell me, or if it’s her voice that has oddly gone from grating to sounding like a relaxing little chirp. I don’t know which is to blame for my distraction. Either way, I have no idea what she’s saying.
“Hmm?”
“Cass Henley,” she repeats slowly, as if I’m the village idiot. “Cass is absent.”
“Good,” I say, dragging Piper back into my lap. “Take off your shirt.”
“Quill!” she giggles, as I slip a hand under it and tweak her nipples. She doesn’t remove her top, though, instead holding it down firmly. But she moans as I continue to cup and knead her breasts. “Seriously, though,” she insists. “It’s really weird.”
“Uh huh.”
I turn her so she’s straddling me, then lift her shirt up and find her nipple again, this time with my mouth.
“Cass isn’t in school, neither is Finn, and… oooh, Quill, keep doing that…”
I roll her nipple between my teeth, licking the sensitive budwhile my fingers twist her other nipple.
“And… uh… uhm… I was saying… Finn… oh my gosh, Quill… Finn… he grabbed me at the cafe and…”
“Hegrabbedyou?”
I let go of her nipple, causing her to whine loudly, and stare at her. “What do you mean, Piper, hegrabbedyou?”
“I mean, uh…” The expression on my face must make her regret what she’s just said. “Can you, uhm, go back to doing that thing you were doing with my breasts?”
“Hegrabbedyou?” I insist.
“It’s nothing. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that—”
“Do people often grab you? Or punch you? Or—”
I’m already mentally adding Finn to my list, right after Ray and next to whatever other pieces of shit have hurt, insulted, or even just breathed too hard in Piper’s general vicinity.
“No, Quill,” says Piper, her voice shaky. “They don’t. It’s not my fault. I swear it’s not like that at all. I’m sorry.”
I grit my teeth, wishing I hadn’t reacted so harshly. “Of course it’s not your fault,” I murmur, squeezing Piper to me again. “Please don’t apologize.”
She buries her face in my chest, and I stroke her hair, forming circles with my fingers to soothe us both. “Tell me what happened,” I breathe against her.
“It wasn’t like… like hegrabbedme,” she says hastily. “It was more like he was threatening Cass, you know? I saw him at the cafe, and he looked all grey in the face. And I remembered that he’d been with you and Cass at Devil Tower. And it’s not like I was snooping, but—”
“But you were snooping,” I tease.
“We-e-ll… yes, I guess so. But anyway, he was completely out of it. Said he’d been drugged against his will. Then he grabbed my shirt, but it was very much a totally normal,notweird grab…”
“Uh huh.”
“... and he was like, ‘Tell Cass that she destroyed my life. If I see her again, she’s dead.’ Or something like that. Like he was threatening her. Can you believe it?”