Scandalous Love

14. | James

"Where have you been?" Piper asks me the moment I enter the house in the evening after parking the bike outside the building.

It had been another day of Cotillion but nothing extremely interesting happened. It was just the same as it was when I was introduced to it for the first time yesterday.

I take a look at the bowl she held in her hands which was full of crisps and I reach my hand into it to take a bite for myself. "Out, clearly," I huff before throwing myself down on the sofa.

She raises an eyebrow, looking over me before biting her lip. "Where's your leather jacket? I thought you took it with you?"

I roll my eyes as I look over myself, noticing I didn't have it with me. Riley still had it, I just didn't realise until now.

Something tells me I won't be getting it back for a while either. It looked better on her than it did on me anyway.

"Where's Mum?" I ask, trying to divert the conversation away from being based on me to lower the suspicion.

Luckily enough, that one question alone was enough to distract her as she sighs, facing forwards towards the glitching tv where one of her teenage movies were playing at a ridiculously poor quality.

"Sleeping," she mumbles, gesturing towards the other room across the hall from us where Mum must have been asleep on the bed.

It wasn't extremely late. It was only eight o'clock but I couldn't blame her for being as exhausted as she was. Being a parent on this side of town was tiring - it wasn't easy.

"There's some leftover bolognese in the pot on the stove," she tells me, changing topics again so we didn't have to talk about Mum's situation at the moment. I think it was something that would only make a Piper worry and with how bad her anxiety can get sometimes, I'd rather not increase the risk of stressing my sister out.

"How much?" I ask her whilst lifting an eyebrow.

She shrugs her shoulders, crunching on her crisps as she faced the tv, watching the two main characters on the screen who were about to kiss. "Enough," she mutters, meaning it was just about enough for her.

I roll my eyes and shake my head before snatching the bowl of crisps from out of her hands to munch on myself.

"James, that's mine-" she gasps before I cut her off.

"I brought some food home this morning. Should be in the cupboards somewhere if you're still hungry," I tell her.

She gets up in an instant to go and scan the conjoint kitchen for food while I remained sat in my seat, knowing for a fact I was telling the truth.

Before rushing back in time to get to Cotillion, Riley and I both stopped here first with all the food she had given me yesterday. It was just about enough to keep Mum, Piper and I going for the next week or so.

As she continued to dig through everything I had loaded into the kitchen earlier this morning to raid it all, I stood up to make my way to my room on the other side of the flat.

I'd been out all day and all I felt like doing right now was laying down, if not sleeping. Riley was still expecting me to show up at hers for the next five days to go and I wasn't about to let or bring her down.

Entering the room, I shut the door behind me and was about to pull the ripped fabrics which made up the curtains shut but just as I peer out through the glass, I notice two familiar frames as an essence of their chatter filled my ears.

Without hesitation, I clamber through the escape route at the back of my room to make my way outside, entering the cold atmosphere of the environment outside.