Blended Ch 35

Riley’s bedroom light is off, but it’s not terribly late. Piper heads inside, hearing the instantly recognizable notes of the opening theme from Bob’s Burgers. Riley’s in the TV room with her feet up and a pint of ice cream.

She frowns at Piper’s T-shirt and no bra status. “No way.”

“Special occasion.”

“You were at RaceHaus?”

“Me and Kayla, making out and winning contests.”

Riley guffaws. “For real?”

“I left the trophy behind. Maybe Bella grabbed it.”

“Bella was there?”

“All of CCL was. You missed it. Good thing you don’t care about boobs.”

“Oh, my god.” Riley puts her face in her hand.

Piper joins her on the couch. Riley sighs and goes back to watching. Her spoon is in her mouth, but she doesn’t seem interested in the show or in ice cream.

Piper waits.

Riley finally stabs her ice cream several times, then looks over. “Is this pity sitting? Is that what you’re doing?”

“Remind me why we’re doing pity.”

Riley goes back to gazing glumly at the screen. “You know Trenton Daniels?”

“I remember Trenton.” They haven’t seen him since high school. He’d been popular back then, but well-known to tomcat ruthlessly.

“Meghan is a Trenton.”

Piper knows exactly what Riley means. “Not a Flynn?”

“Not a Flynn,” Riley confirms.

Flynn sleeps around with no intention of getting serious because he enjoys it. Trenton did it because he seemed compelled to add every girl he met to his “collection.”

“I think you’d better tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

Piper continues to wait. Riley takes a deep breath and bites her spoon.

“Nothing,” she mumbles around it.

“She didn’t invite you to RaceHaus?” Piper asks.

Riley grimaces. “She did.”

“You didn’t know we would be there. Why not go?”

“I told you. She’s a Trenton.”

“You mean that you were so anxious and wound up that you couldn’t help but think about a thousand things that could go wrong, so you made up some bullshit to get out of it.”

Riley’s expression turns even more sour. “Yeah.”

Piper opens her mouth and then shuts it. She can’t tell Riley to call Meghan now; there’s a decent chance that Meghan is with Sasha at this very moment. And this isn’t the right time to try to explain to Riley how she’s holding herself back. She’s right to be wary of women like Meghan, but wariness is meant to protect people. If wariness is preventing her from living her life, it’s a problem. Ines is a Trenton. Some people would look at Piper as a Trenton. That doesn’t mean they’re incapable of caring. And even if they are, there’s still something to be said for things like having fun, blowing off steam, and gaining experience—all things that Riley needs desperately.

But she’s beating herself up right now. Talking about it will just make her feel pressured and patronized, and she’s too upset to retain the information.

Piper sighs and reaches over to rub Riley’s back. It’s not all on Riley; Meghan must have misread her and tried to move too fast. People automatically assume that hot girls must be confident, but that’s a bad assumption. Riley’s the most annoying kind of hot girl: one who doesn’t know she’s hot. She needs to be eased into things.