Embarrassed, I climbed into the passenger seat, and he slammed the door. I sat and waited, watching him talk to the guy Tank sought out after the race. The entire time, I was trying to come up with a plan to fix things—to make things better.
And sadly, I came up with nothing.
But one thing I knew: I couldn’t let Ollie fix this problem.
Jason had already brought down too many people with this destructiveness.
He wasn’t going to do that to Ollie, too. Not if I had anything to do with it.
I just needed some time to think. There was a way around this. I was certain of it.
Chapter Eight
Ollie
Piper and I didn’t speak at all the entire drive to her house. Not a single syllable was shared. I didn’t want to speak. My mind was spiraling out of control. The severity of the night had come crashing down on my shoulders as soon as I got on the freeway. My gaze stayed transfixed on the blurring yellow lines on the road, trying to focus on those instead of Piper, but I wanted to look at her. I wanted to place my heavy gaze on her until she broke and spilled everything.
She sat in the passenger seat, twiddling her fingers together in a nervous habit. There was usually a hefty amount of tension between the two of us, even more so when we were alone, but tonight it was off the charts. Although, it didn’t feel like her tension was directed entirely at me. There was something bigger weighing on her mind, and I was going to find out what it was.
When we pulled up to her house, all the lights were on, just like Hayley had described, and her car was parked off near the mailbox. I held my phone in my hand and scanned my earlier texts, shooting Eric and Christian the same one, telling them I was on my way to the cabin. I had to cover my tracks—or else there’d be an even bigger mess on my hands.
Parkway Drive was streaming through my speakers when I placed my phone back down in the cup holder. I watched the thought cross Piper’s face as her hand shot out to the door handle.
“Don’t even fucking think about it, Piper.”
She rolled her eyes and dropped her hand to her lap, not daring to look at me.
“Who’s Jason?”
“Ollie…” Her red tendrils of hair swayed as she shook her head. “You are not getting involved in this. Don’t worry about who Jason is. I have this handled.”
Why won’t she tell me who Jason is?
That familiar feeling of jealousy was sliding up my back and resting on my shoulders. “Who the fuck is Jason?” Shit, calm down. I cleared my throat and leveled my breathing. “Whoever he is, he must mean something big to you for you to get mixed in with that type of trouble.”
My mind drifted back to that night so long ago that we shared in secret—so much a secret that
she wouldn’t even admit it aloud. “I did something bad tonight.” Yes, she fucking did. Goody-Two-Shoes Piper turned into a desperate minx that night. She was an oxymoron. An angelic sin. A good girl turned bad. And it was so hot that I had a hard time seeing her as anything but.
“I’m not the good girl everyone thinks I am, Ollie.”
I scoffed, leaning back in my seat a little more. “Oh, trust me. I know.”
Piper eyed me out of the corner of her eye, knowing very well what I was referring to, but again, she wouldn’t admit it.
Silence encased the car, the pair of us sitting in the dark with only the glowing interior lights of my dash as our guidance. “Who is Jason?”
Piper finally looked my way for a brief second, just long enough to say, “Stop. Please,” before looking out the window. “I will handle this. Don’t worry about racing on Saturday. I’ll get the money.”
“From where? Do you have twenty thousand just laying around? I know our families are wealthy and all, and we’re pretty fucking privileged, but even I don’t have that much in my bank account. Do you?”
Her mouth opened then closed. She wrapped her arms around her torso, and for a moment, my chest ached. Why won’t she let me help her? I knew there was an unhealthy bout of anger and tension around us. There were times I tormented her, flirted incessantly with her, and then turned around and flirted with another girl. I’d get under her skin on purpose because I loved it. I loved watching her react. I’d always kept Piper close but not close enough to where I could have her. We shared something together. She knew something about me that no one else did—of course I had to keep her close. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. From the moment I watched her enter English Prep our junior year, we’d been like this. At each other’s throats. The recognition and shock in her eyes when her gaze transfixed on me that day told me that she recognized me, too.
Piper’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “No, my parents watch my spending closely. Even if I did have that much in my bank account, they’d freak if I spent that much money.”
A puff of air left my mouth. “So, then what’s your plan? Because from where I’m sitting, you have no other options except to let me race on your behalf.”
“Ollie.” She shot me a glare. Her pouty lips flattened in a frown. “Let it go.” Her hand was on the door handle again, and my heart jumped.