The Night We Met

Chapter 4

James's POV:

"Please stay!" Piper practically begs riley as she sat on my bed on her knees after putting her laptop to the side. It had just turned ten o'clock in the evening and she was staying at mine for the night on the condition that I get her to school on time tomorrow morning, but right now she was focused on asking 'my girlfriend' to sleep the night as well.

"Piper," Riley sighs, laughing a little. "As much as I would love to stay and hang out with you more, I need to get going back to campus. My uni is literally a twenty minute bus ride from here so I really need to get going," she says.

"I can drive you," I tell her. Riley shakes her head in an instant.

"You don't have to do that. Honestly, you've done enough for me lately. I can go back myself," she says. Piper whines in the background like a little kid, as if she was the one begging to stay for a sleepover, instead of it being the other way around.

"Please!" she emphasizes. "I'll do anything! I'll even sleep on the floor if you'd rather sleep with James. Just stay with us, please! James can drop you off at university tomorrow morning." Even though I wouldn't admit it, I was happy Piper was asking her this. I wanted Riley to stay as well. I try not to let it show too-much, though.

"I can't let him do that," Ri answers. "My first lecture is at seven-thirty. There's no way I'm getting James to wake up at six a.m. just to drive me off there when I can get there myself."

"But-" Piper begins to say.

"It's fine, babe," I speak up, cutting my sister off. Ri looks at me, almost surprised at the nickname I'd just called her. But after calling her it earlier, saying it for the second time almost felt natural. Nowhere near awkward. "I can drop you off in the morning. It's no problem if you want to stay." She looks at me, like she was contemplating it, before sighing.

"I don't even have any of my things with me. Plus, I'm not letting Piper sleep on the floor."

"Why not?" Piper pouts in response. "I have cushions, blankets, pillows-"

"I'm sorry, honey. It's better off if I just go back. Maybe next week," Riley says. But taking one glance at the expression on Piper's face, she quickly adds the words, "I promise. On Saturday, we can even have a fun girls' night out at the mall-"

"And, what about me?" I question, putting my hand up. Riley smirks.

"If you really want to, then you can come to. But for now, I need you to drive me back, okay. Please?" she asks. I finally give in and sigh, nodding.

"Okay. Let's go then." I stand up and walk over to my desk table where I take the car and door keys out of the second drawer. "Piper, I'll be back in about twenty minutes, alright? Call me if you need anything," I tell her.

"Yeah, whatever," she says before sitting against the sofa and hugging her knees to her chest, her laptop on top of her as she puts her headphones on. I smile at Riley softly when I look at her.

"Ready to go?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says.

When we get into the car, we sat in silence - a comfortable silence - with the music on the radio playing softly in the background. Riley rests her hand under her chin and gazes out of the window but I steal quick glances at her every now and again. My hand was placed in the small compartment that separated us, but each time I saw she wasn't looking, I inched my fingers closer in her direction, keeping an eye on the road simultaneously. That's until she suddenly turns and smirks as I suddenly move my hand, slamming it down on the steering wheel.

"So you were looking at me," she says teasingly.

"Huh?"

"Don't play dumb, James. I could feel your eyes on me. Were you trying to hold my hand?" she asks, noticing how my hand looked shaky and had turned a brief shade of pink. I keep my eyes on the road as I say,

"Would it be bad if I said yes?" She doesn't say anything to that, just scrunches her lips. The silence was so deafening that I had to look at her to make sure I hadn't obliviously said or done something to offend her. "I, um, I didn't mean to jump into anything by-" I begin to say, not sure of what her reaction was. But she shakes her head and holds my hand, much to my surprise.

"It's fine," she tells me. "It's nice." I smile to myself as I felt her hand connected with mine for the second time today, but this time the feeling was stronger. No one was around us as an excuse for us to be touching. But we were. And she said it was nice. I must be doing something right.

I pull up outside the entrance of her university, unsure of which side of the dorms I was supposed to drive up to, so she just tells me that I could stop here. She unbuckles her seat belt and then lets go of my hand, turning around in her seat to face me.

"Um, thank you, for the drive. And for last night. It means a lot," she tells me.

"No problem." We both look at each other for a couple of moments and I try and train my eyes to not lower down and look at her lips but I can't help it. I begin to lean forward and close my eyes, getting so close that I could practically still see the glint from her lip-balm, but then she pulls back altogether.

"I-I can't," she says quickly. I move away, feeling rather embarrassed that I had just tried to kiss her.

"Riley, I-" I try to apologise but she shakes her head.

"Listen, I had a good night and I would love to spend more time with you, but I should really get going," she says quickly. She opens her side of the door and steps out.

"Riley," I call after her. But she closes the door shut on my mouth and I sigh, watching her walk in a particularly fast-pace into the building. I fling my head back against the seats and exhale aggressively.

I am such an idiot.