The Wrong Exit Strategy (Apparently It’s Love #2)

One

Ten years ago

Piper

I’m drunk.

I shouldn’t be. I don’t drink. That is a pillar of Piper. It’s a fact so established that when I said yes to a drink tonight, Sadie looked at me like I’d just announced I was joining the circus. She gave me the “Are you sure?” voice.

I was sure.

Now, I’m mostly sure the floor is rotating at a thirty-degree angle, and my dignity is currently MIA.

I can’t go home. Not yet. The house is suffocating. Mom is having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. It’s the kind where her eyes go to that hollow place we can’t follow. Dad is hovering, trying to hold her together with nothing but a stare.

Madison is in full crisis mode, which is her natural habitat. She’s organizing and quietly absorbing the trauma of the entire house without blinking. She’s been doing it since she was fourteen, and she’ll probably be doing it at her own funeral.

Rowan fainted in the kitchen yesterday. Dad said she was “looking for attention.” I think she’s fifteen and drowning, and attention is just the life jacket nobody is throwing to her.

And then there’s Noah. Noah carries Mom. I used to think it’s because he’s the oldest, but he can read her signs. He’s the emotional translator for a family that’s lost the script. He’s twenty-four and carries it like a job, which means nobody ever thinks to carry him.

So I ran.

I’m eighteen, and I snuck out of my house.

I’ve never done that before. I’m the “good girl.” My family depends on me to stay that way. I don’t cause problems. Ever.

I ended up at some house party because the walls were closing in and I needed to breathe. For an hour, I was fine. Then someone handed me a red Solo cup, and I thought: Fine. Just one.

One became several. Now the room is doing that blurry, laggy thing where sounds arrive three seconds after they’re sent. I’m sitting on a couch that smells weird.

“Hey,” comes from the guy sitting next to me. He’s a fully grown man. He’s the kind of older sober Piper would have clocked, categorized as predatory, and exited stage left. Sober Piper is a professional at exits.

Unfortunately, sober Piper is currently unavailable. She’s been replaced by a version of me that thinks his hand on my knee is just a thing that’s happening.

The hand moves higher.

“Come on,” he says, but his voice feels like grease.

“I think—” I slur, trying to find the words, but the alcohol is a thick fog. “No, I don’t—”

“Don’t be a tease,” he murmurs.

The fog clears in a sudden, cold snap. It’s the specific brand of clarity that only comes when you realize you’re in trouble. My body tries to sober up on the spot, but it’s not fast enough. The room is too loud, the hand is too high, and I’m—

“Hey!”

A hand that isn’t greasy lands on the man’s shoulder and peels him back with a force that rocks the couch.

“Did you not fucking hear her?”

Griffin. Griffin Hayes. My brother’s best friend. The guy who has been a constant presence in my life since I was five. He’s twenty-four, and right now he looks like he’s about to commit a felony.

He’s wearing a white T-shirt that highlights the black ink snaking down his forearms. He looks like he should be leaning against a motorcycle, which is deeply unfair considering I know he spent three hours last week arguing about the factual accuracy of a sci-fi movie.

Griffin has that bad boy look, even though he’s a total nerd. Unfortunately for me, that mix led to me having a huge crush on him for one summer when I was sixteen.

Being that smart while being hot feels like it’s against some rules.

“She said no,” Griffin says. “Get the fuck out.”

The man looks at Griffin, does the math, and realizes he’s about to lose. Then he’s gone.

Griffin turns to me, looks at the cup in my hand, then at my face.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks.

And just like that, the fear transforms into a white-hot burst of fury. Because it’s him. Because it’s always him, appearing exactly when I don’t want to be seen.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snap back.

Griffin has been in my life for thirteen years. He came home with Noah when he was eleven, a kid with dead parents and a grandmother who loved him with more pragmatism than hugs. He stayed for a sleepover and just never left. He’s the second son. He’s the brother Noah chose.

But he has this self-appointed protector setting that he only uses on me. He’ll be perfectly normal with Madison or Rowan, then he’ll look at me, catch a micro-expression, and say “Piper” in that tone. The “I know what you’re thinking” tone. I hate that tone.

He plucks the drink from my hand. “You’re drunk.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Noah’s worried.”

“Then why isn’t he here?”

Griffin sighs. “Because he’s home taking care of your mother.”

The guilt hits harder than the vodka. I hate that he’s right. I hate that I ran away from a suffocating house only to end up here, still unable to breathe, with Griffin acting as my conscience.

“So you’ve got me,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Go home, Griffin.” I stand up and find my legs are surprisingly cooperative. I take two steps before his hand is on my arm.

“Piper.”

Ugh, there’s that tone.

“I’m eighteen. I’m allowed to be at a party. I’m not a child.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

My eyes sting.

“I’m not being cruel,” he says, his voice softening. “But you’re going home.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “No.”

“So help me God, Piper, if you don’t start walking, I am carrying you out of here in front of everyone.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He looks exactly like a man who has already decided how this ends. “Try me.”

“Griffin, I swear to—”

He doesn’t wait. He crouches, hooks an arm behind my knees, and flings me over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” I yell at his lower back.

“No.”

“I will never forgive you for this.”

“You’ll forgive me by Thursday,” he says, walking toward the exit with total composure. “You always do.”