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I frowned. “Huh. I didn’t know that.”
The elevator doors opened to the rooftop, but the place was empty. Completely empty. No football players or Kassie’s art nerd friends. Only the screen was set up with the lines of chairs. Beyond that, nothing. It was quiet and cold up top, the evening just beginning. I took slow steps out of the elevator while Kassie walked to one of the two empty tables.
“Kassie?” I said, taking a wide sweep around the rooftop. “You said you wanted me to set up.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s nothing up here.” I frowned. “Everything’s already good.”
A chair hit the ground by the screen and both of us glanced towards it. Ryan had to be hovering close by. The football player didn’t leave Kassie alone for nothing.
But my heart pounded in my chest when I saw her.
Piper was wrapped up in a Marrs hoodie, with her blonde hair pulled in a ponytail. In her hand, she held a white box. But nothing could take my attention away from that forlorn look on her face.
Piper.
I only realized how long I’d been staring at her when Kassie’s phone rang.
"Got to take this. It’s Ryan." Kassie strolled towards the elevator doors, swinging her lanyard between her fingers. I could hear her answer the phone behind me. "What? Uh-huh. Yeah. Those chips don’t exist? Hold on, are you still at the store? I’m heading downstairs."
What the hell?
My heart thudded in my chest. Piper was finally right in front of me.
I cleared my throat. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Uh…” I set the sodas on the table. “What else do we have to set—?”
“Can we talk?”
With three words, Piper knocked me down, and I gazed at her, silent. Talk about what? How I blew up in her face and stormed out? How I told her she wasn’t my friend? Both possibilities were terrible. But I needed to apologize.
It was even more quiet on the rooftop while I trailed behind her. She didn’t take a seat at one of the forty or fifty chairs in front of the screen. Piper walked alongside the rooftop and walked out to the ledge.
"Piper!" burst out of me and I jogged over, grabbing her by the hoodie. "What the hell are you doing?!"
She grasped some kind of rail and glanced up at me with those doe-like gray eyes. For a moment, it was just me holding on to her, so close to the edge of the rooftop. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let her fall. But Piper stepped off to the side ledge, tightly gripping the rail.
“It’s fine,” she said. “You just have to hold on to the bar.”
“That’s dangerous. Come back.”
Piper shook her head. “Kassie and Ryan come up here all the time. And…people are going to be coming soon.”
“I don’t like it,” I said but I might as well have told her about the weather. Piper shifted over to the ledge, sitting down, while I helped her, making sure I had my hand on her back the whole time. It was easier for me. I was longer and I could just step on to it.
Never would I have admitted that it was a good idea to sit out there but I couldn’t deny what brought people there.
The view was insane. It looked out over the campus, all lit up and alive after the commuter rush. I could pick out the football stadium, the training center, our dorm, and Gianna’s—probably busy as shit. And then…the skyscrapers of Houston, just beginning to come alive in the evening. In the distance, the sun was just beginning to set, casting everything in a warm glow.
Something pushed me from the side and I glanced down to see the white box.
"I’m sorry," Piper whispered.
I stared at her. "What?"
