64

Piper

What A Loser

It was my first time prepping for an event without Adam. Which was weird. No one was there to tease me about my Top 40 playlist or grab the flyers away from me to staple downstairs. I had to do all the work myself.

I staggered up the stairs with two chairs from the lounge below and pushed against the door. When was the last time I even touched one of those chairs? Ugh. And to think, it would be totally different next year.

Next year.

After the first of May, I wouldn't have the linebacker as part of my schedule. Maybe. I didn't know. Everything was so up in the air and the semester was barreling by faster than I would've thought possible. And once the semester ended, maybe there went my weird thing with Adam Russell. I'd be saying goodbye to the boy who could kiss like nothing else I'd ever dreamed of.

My heart squeezed in my chest. Painfully.

"Piper!" a voice called down from the top and June stuck her head through the stairwell up top.

I grinned and picked up the pace. "June!"

Every day, she looked better and better. Less of the girl who'd been devastated from the breakup and more herself. Not quite to the residential leader and homecoming committee and busy, busy, busy popular queen bee but it was good just to see her better. She propped open the door for me.

"I'm here to make this a little less painful." June smiled and grabbed one of the chairs. "But I'm only here for twenty minutes. I am so tired of meetings."

"Oh…?" I raised an eyebrow.

" Housing meetings," she said. "I'm still AWOL with everybody. Because somehow Xavier's part of everything I ever signed for—but I still want to keep my house—so here we are."

I shuffled into my room. "Aw, June—"

"Did you know your phone's been going off? Like, off -off."

The moment she mentioned it, I could hear it. My phone buzzing again, stuck in the cushions of my couch. I fished for it and saw all the thousands of notifications, zooming across the top of my phone—oh, god. What did Adam do now? And then—of course—the phone call. I stared at the phone and my lips curled.

THOMAS SULLENDER

MOBILE

"What a loser," slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

Oh my god. Did I just say that?

I froze, staring down at my phone. It'd been such a slip of the tongue. I didn't even mean to say it and it felt like I'd just spoken a fact instead of an annoying observation. And those were…Adam's words.

"Who's the loser?" June asked, bringing in another chair.

"I—I think…I think I just called my ex a loser?" I said incredulously. "Wow. I just did that. Me. I said that!"

"Way to go, babe."

I flew back on the couch and pumped my fist in the air. "Because he is a loser!"

"He's a rat-faced motherfucker," June agreed.

"That too! Just like Xavier!"

I winced before the words flew out of my mouth . Oh my god. Couldn't I keep it cool for five seconds? When I'd broken up with Thomas, I didn't even want to hear his name. But the amused smile on June's face told me otherwise.

"Oh, you're fine." She waved away the concern. "I can't get mad at you. Especially after what you two did to the Clemenza."

I went slack-jawed while June lined chairs together.

She glanced back at me. "What?"

"The—the Clemenza?"

"Yeah?"

" You know about the Clemenza?" I whispered.

"Of course. Didn't Adam tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

June took a long look between me and the door like this was a joke, but I legitimately had no idea what she was talking about. Adam and I smashed the Clemenza, but after the conversation with Coach Lawson and a confirmation that they had no descriptions for the suspects, we never heard about it again. Nobody even talked about it beyond the RA meetings when they warned us about taking valuables on trips.

"Uh…Adam basically had this big speech for Zariah and me," June said slowly. "He wanted us to tell everybody that you were with us the whole night and that we saw him with a blonde girl we didn't know." She raised her eyebrows. "Zariah and I put two and two together pretty fast."

My mouth fell open, and I snapped it shut.

"We just told everybody all four of us had a movie night. And there were no cameras, so…" June trailed off.

" No cameras?"

"Piper, they didn't have working doors."

No wonder the Clemenza issue never got back to me. Adam made sure I had a rock-solid alibi and he…never mentioned it. Never brought it up. Never ushered it into the conversation.

It was time to play that horrible game from Adam's high school coach.

What does he have to gain?

I took in a slow breath, mind whirling. What did Adam have to gain? He protected me. And he did it without expectations, without asking anything for it. My heart pounded, like it was threatening to jump out.

My phone buzzed in my hand and I blinked down at the messages.

lineback that ass up : everything in the fridge is yours for the shift

lineback that ass up : cabinets above the storage got everything too

lineback that ass up: surprise from illustrator in chief in fridge

"It's not your ex again, is it?"

"What?" I glanced up at June's question and went back to the text messages. "Um…no. It's Adam."

"Is it something dumb?" June peered over my shoulder and snickered. "Back that…linebacker jokes. Corny. What's he mean by the fridge?"

"I don't know," I said slowly and the two of us headed down to the lockbox for his room key. Upstairs, I slipped it into the lock and opened Adam's dorm, a little apprehensive. I thought I could stop thinking about him like that . It was hard not to.

"Hey, hey, hey." June wiggled her eyebrows and held up a familiar-looking letter from the back of his side table. The pregnancy test prank that June, Zariah, and I had put together. "He hasn't found it yet."

Oh no .

"I was thinking about tossing it in the garbage," I admitted, walking to his kitchen.

June drew in a shocked breath. "Why? He loves pranks."

I pressed my lips together. Because pulling a prank—that's what friends do. And Adam did it constantly. It was okay. But it wasn't, because if Adam panicked over the card, I wasn't sure if I could stomach that. Which was weird.

I sighed, shaking my head.

Too much thinking about Adam .

Like I could listen to that advice the moment I opened the doors to the fridge.

My mouth fell open. Fruit trays, cold cut trays, veggie trays, every dip you could possibly imagine, cases of drinks, charcuterie boards as long as my arm stacked on top of each other, an adorable line of blue Marrs cupcakes, and so much more. The cabinets above the stove were the exact same thing. Huge, bulk bags of chips and cookies lined the inside of the shelves, and the more I pulled down on to the countertops, the more seemed to be stuffed in the back.

"Holy shit. " June stacked things in her arms. "He knows this is for one day, right?"

"Maybe he thinks I'm going into a bunker for a week?"

"A month, easy." June laughed.

In the very back of the fridge, was a cute case of bright pink peach lemonade drinks with Kassie written on them. I looped my fingers through the plastic handle and placed the case on the counter top.

"Isn't Illustrator-in-Chief, Kassie?" I asked, taking a look at the drinks.

"Yep, that's what Adam calls her."

"Huh. I guess she left some drinks."

And peach lemonade too .

"Oh my god, King told me about these." June took a long look at them. "He said Kassie brought them for their Christmas trip and they were a huge hit."

I did need some sugar for my jittery nerves. To start my overnight shift, I had a big presentation on the best study tips. I'd been hounding my residents to come, and the turnout looked pretty good from the signup sheets.

I cracked one of the drinks open and took a sip. It was really bubbly and super sweet.

I have to ask where Kassie got these.