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Piper McLean wasn’t exactly an exemplar child. Sure, she had turned out better than most of children of family actors (not Jason Grace, though, how her father liked to point out repeatedly). Sure, exaggerating here or there, or trashing one house or the other in a party, it was just teenage things that she wasn’t proud, but couldn’t be ashamed of it.
Instead, she liked to make a list of all the good things she would do, and try to balance with the bad things she was currently doing.
“Okay, so if I’m driving drunk-“ she began
“Slightly drunk” the other corrected
“Precisely. Slightly drunk” they both exploded in laughter as if had been the best joke in the entire night “what do I have to do to atone my sins?”
“Pray, my child” Reyna said in a heavy and forced low voice, as if to sound superior and wiser. “And you shall be cleansed”
Piper looked ahead, and saw the path tremble, and was sure that this wasn’t supposed to happen. The mountain on her right looked brighter under the moonlight and it was all horribly wrong, but whenever she looked to her side and saw Reyna laughing, her moral code blurred and she could do anything that would please her.
After a rather dangerous turn, in which they almost flew mountain down, Reyna grabbed her arm on the steering wheel.
“Maybe we should stop here and finish it up walking,” she suggested, with eyes wide and terrified.
They found a parking spot a few turns ahead. As soon as they left the car, both of them realized that walking any further would be impossible and stupidity and considering that it had a nice view of the city, right there where they stood.
Piper sat on the hood of the car, and waited until Reyna joined her. Sure, her father wouldn’t be pleased to find her driving his car up a hill, in the middle of the night and drunk. But she didn’t plan on telling him that. Right at that moment she worried if she had scratched the car in any way, because that wouldn’t have a nice end.
Those worries too went away when she felt Reyna’s hand over hers.
“So, you bring all of your dates up here?” Reyna joked, leaning down on the car. “It’s quite a view”
“Usually we go even further up” Piper said, “when they are really special, you know” she joked, and felt a punch on her arm, “no, ok ok, I’m sorry,” she laughed. “You’re the first person I bring up here. Well, not the first, I’ve been here with Jason before”
It was actually a lie. She had been there with Jason, yes, but also with countless other girls, she wanted to impress. And all of them seemed mesmerized, just like Reyna was. It wasn’t a big of a lie if she told them all the same, right? No favorites.
“What’s the deal with you and Jason?” Reyna asked, partially curious, partially jealous. “He mentions you a lot.” Whom she was jealous of, not even she knew.
“We have been buddies since we were little kids, I don’t know.” She tried to remind since when they knew each other, but her head was spinning and the night too dark to bring out those memories back. “Our parents worked together a lot too” she shrugged. “It’s one of those stories where your parents are friends so you keep meeting each other over and over until you actually become friends”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know it” she said, looking away, and Piper had a thousand of ideas on how to complete that line of thought but waited. As she didn’t said anything Piper thought it would be too rude to ask what she meant. Instead, she laid too, putting their arms together.
“What do you do?” Piper asking, turning to look at the girl and realizing that they were merely inches apart, their noses almost touching, and their eyes aligned. “Besides being a spectacular bartender and wooing girls into midnight dangerous drives” she laughed a little.
“I work,” she said, wetting her lips before continuing, “in a clothing store at the mall. It’s awful and I have to cake up my entire face with makeup. At the end of the day I’m sweaty and disgusting” she closed her eyes. “I study too. I have some night classes at the University, but it’s tough, because I’m always tired.”
Piper moved her hand to touch Reyna’s jawline, slowly and gently. “Don’t stop talking. I like the sound of your voice. Your accent”
“It’s barely audible now” she smiled, as if remembering something important. “You should listen to my sister’s.”
“Oh, so you have a sister”
“Yes. Just one. Hylla. She’s older than I am. She is a taxi driver. It’s just the two of us since I can remember. She takes care of me, I take care of her”
There is was again, that silence that Piper wanted to fill. Now she had a good idea, but would never say anything. She imagined all she could about Reyna’s family to fill in the blanks.
“And what about you?” Reyna asked, finally opening her eyes. “What do you do?”
“I’m in high school” Piper said, mechanically, with that bored voice that young people have mastered.
“Oh my God, you’re a teenager!” Reyna laughed, “I can’t believe I’m here with a teenager”
“You could go to jail because of me,” Piper laughed.
Reyna didn’t said anything. Instead, she just kissed Piper. Hands going over necks, and tights pressing one another, and it was hard to see, under the moonlight, what belonged to who. And they didn’t had any rush on splitting their tangled mess.
“I brought you here to look up at the stars” Piper said, moving back a little, “but now we’re too busy doing something else”
“I don’t mind” Reyna said, closing her eyes again and kissing her jawline “this is much better than any Harley comet. And we don’t have any scheduled for tonight. So it’s harder to top this.”
Piper laughed and moved her hand through Reyna’s hair.
The night was already cold (as cold as summer nights gets) when they finally decided to leave. Now the alcohol had worn off, at least that’s how Piper felt; she was feeling much safer behind the steering wheel.
It took five minutes into the road that led them back to the city to find a cop. Usually, they liked the roads at night, because that’s when people were reckless and didn’t care about anything. This way, they had just to wait someone fuck up and their work would be done.
That precise night, it was Piper.
“You were way over the speed limit, are you aware of that?” he asked, stopping by her side, as soon as she pulled over.
“I am, your officer” she tried to sound as precise as possible, but judging the expression on the man’s face, she knew that she was slightly fucked.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked, almost smiling. Maybe it was her slurring of the words or the smell in her clothes or breathe, she couldn’t know. Now it was too late to hide.
“I... uh” she hesitated, wondering if he was the type to be bribed or dumb enough for her to fool him over.
“Because if you were, there is an easy way to solve that,” he said, tongue wetting his lips, in a disgusting way that meant to be a sexy invitation.
“She’s not interested,” Reyna said, from the passenger’s seat, making the man jump, surprised, because he hadn’t noticed that there was someone else in the car. Now he had seen it was another girl, his almost smile grew into a big one. “Fuck off”
“What did you said?” he backed off, presumably picking up handcuffs, or so though Piper.
“She means nothing” Piper put a hand over Reyna’s chest, as if to avoid her to leave and pick a fight. “I’ll settle this. Stay here” she whispered to the girl. “What do you want? You want my license? I have it.”
“I’m going to need you to leave the car, ma’am.” He said, stepping back.
Piper gave a warning look to Reyna before leaving out of the car. As soon as she stepped out, she could feel the eyes of the officer on her ass, but was strong enough avoid the urge to punch him the face.
“Please put your hands in the car,” he said, and she had no other choice but to turn his back to her while his hands searched through her body.
It was also around that time that Reyna came out of the car and took him down with a single clean punch.
As soon as the cop closed the cell, Reyna moved back, the bright light hurting her eyes. Piper threw her arms out, her forehead leaning forward, avoiding looking at the other girl, whose heavy breathing she could clearly hear. She felt guilty about how it had turned out, and was afraid of going to Reyna’s NO list.
“Well, I am in jail” Reyna sat down “And it is kind of because of you”
“What an interesting night” she said, without turning back, while finding something more useful to say. “I’m sorry” she could start with that; it was as good as anything else was.
“Don’t worry,” Reyna laid, but soon remembered where she was and decided to sit up again “We both fucked up.”
“Yeah, but I was the one driving”
“It’s not because of the driving and you know”
“But that’s what got us pulled over and everything” Piper turned around to look at her.
“It’s his fault, that’s the only person who is getting blamed in here,” Reyna said in a final tone.
None of them said anything, Piper too caught up on what had happened, still thinking if it was possible to not end in this way. Probably not.
“Well, I can say I’ve never had a first date like that” Reyna laughs and Piper joins her.
“I’m all about new and exciting experiences” she winked.
“This set the bar high for the next one”
“I don’t want to spoil anything, but it includes hiding a dead body” Piper confided in a mocking tone.
“I could say that this is the type of talk that gets people in jail, but…,” she laughed again.
Right before they locked them up, Piper used her one phone call. Calling her father wasn’t a possibility, and even though he was underage, calling Jason was probably the best idea. She just hoped he had a fake ID and was brave enough to use it on the police.
Still, it would take a long while until he came to her, because he lived far and It was past 3 am, and good old Jason Grace would never leave the house even partly disheveled. The only possible thing they could do was wait. Piper sat on the floor, trying not to think of the amount of germs piling up on her legs, and turned to Reyna.
“Funny how you worked on my dad’s party and now we are here” Piper started, contemplating what had brought them to that specific situation. “I mean, what are the odds of us meeting if it wasn’t that?”
“Not that bad actually.” Reyna shrugged. “Jason. Maybe he would introduce us…given time”
“I am really glad you were there. I was a nice presence.” She said, looking up at Reyna sat at the bench.
“I was glad to be there too. The tips were good and I had a great time”
“Oh we did have fun,” she remembered of the previous night. ‘And we drank so much, I’m embarrassed. I don’t even know how I didn’t made a fool of myself”
“Percy doesn’t remember me,” she laughs, with humor. “I mean, I bet he was absolutely shitfaced because he didn’t even remembered who I am. And we like, hung out together.”
“You did?”
“I’m actually pretty good friends with Jason. We go way back In fact; he was the one who got me the job”
“He never mentioned you”
“Well, he never mentions any of his friends. We are just several groups who never meet. Well, most of us. We met Percy. We watched a movie and played boarding games. However, he had no clue who I was the other night. I thought it was actually hilarious”
“And now you got to meet me” Piper smiled “Which is great at the very least, or we could go up to ‘even better’”
“I’d say better,” Reyna agreed.
They fell into silence again. It wasn’t long until someone came to them. The officer with a bored look on his face said that someone had brought the money and they were free to go. She saw Jason sitting by the door, dressed in a perfectly ironed white shirt.
Piper jumped when she saw him. “Who even comes to bail out a friend in a white shirt at almost 4 am? Don’t you own sweatpants and t-shirts?”
“An underage teenager with a fake ID who is too good to friends that don’t deserve” he whispered, hoping that no one around them would listen.
“It’s one hell of a falsification, then” Reyna said, maybe too loud, because there were a few heads turning around to them.
“It cost more than a car, so it should be” Jason stood up. “You were speeding?” he asked, worried
“Yes…And maybe a bit drunk” Piper said, hesitating, and it was clear that she still was.
“And you?” Jason turned to Reyna, like a parent who has been called to the principal’s office.
“I… tried to fight the cop,” she said, looking away from his eyes.
Jason shook his head and Piper could even already listen to the I’m not angry, just disappointed speech coming anytime soon.
“You should be glad it was me and not your father,” he said and Piper agreed. He would not only make a scene, but also probably ground her for a century. If there was one thing that Tristan McLean cared it was Piper’s education. She being in jail wasn’t exactly what he had planned for her.
“Thank you” she said, as they crossed out the doors of the police station. “I panicked and didn’t know who to call.”
“I can imagine” Jason agreed, running out the stairs and turning back to look at them. “Are you really okay, though? Nothing happened?”
They looked at each other and decided that the details of their night should remain only between them. “Nothing happened” Reyna agreed, nodding. “The only problem is that I’m really hungry, right now”
“Oh I have a great idea for that,” Jason smiled, “Because, you know, I bailed you out of the jail, so you are in debt with me”
“Fine Jason,” Piper threw her arm around his neck “I’ll pay you a fancy dinner”
“Oh no, I have a better idea” he grinned and went to his car.
They followed him, in silence. Piper took a deep breath and held Reyna’s hand.
“Isn’t it weird how much we talked about Jason tonight, and it ends up with him picking us up?” Piper said, only realizing then. “I mean, we barely talked about us. We just said over and over again the circumstances that we met.”
“Oh there is still time. Besides, we were jail-mates. There is very little less to know about each other now” she laughed.
Piper felt the other’s fingers intertwine with hers, and her heart beat a little faster. Yeah, this wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.