Piper looked over her reflection in the mirror one more time, still completely unsatisfied with the way that one section of her hair was laying, as the clock ticked behind her. It was an obnoxious reminder of the fact that the time when she was supposed to meet Cam was rapidly approaching, and with each tick of the clock, she could feel the knots in her stomach tightening. There had never really been a point in time that Piper had felt like this before. All through high school she had been shuttled from foster home to foster home so quickly that it was hard to develop any kind of a relationship with anybody, and even if she was in one place long enough, she purposefully didn’t let people in. If she let them in, they could leave her, and if they could leave her, they could hurt her again. She had gone through so much of her life getting hurt by other people that she was content to live the rest of it interacting with her brothers and only her brothers.

And yet, here she was. Getting ready for a date.

The clock ticked on rhythmically, and Piper looked over her shoulder at it one more time before making her way towards, closing it securely and already second guessing what she had chosen to wear, which was silly since it was really nothing more than jeans and a button down shirt. Nothing about her wardrobe was ever name brand, none of it really ever fit right before, so having something on that accentuated the few curves that she did have was weird. Not to mention, she actually… kind of cared what she looked like. Not because she wanted to impress him, she just… wanted to impress him? The whole situation was weird, and she didn’t know how to feel about it or what to do with the knowledge, but since this was a date—which he had clearly established when they had set this whole thing up—she wasn’t going to bother worrying about it right this very second. She didn’t know what she felt for Cam, but there was something there, and if she took the time to dissect it then she would never get down the stairs on time. And she actually wanted to be on time.

“Hey,” Piper smiled at him the second that she saw him, feeling the knots in her stomach tighten even as she made her way down the stairs to where he was standing. He looked good, and she definitely wasn’t thinking about the swooping feeling that started just behind her stomach when he smiled at her. Nope. Not even a little. At his next comment however, she laughed. “Please, you think I’m getting a salad at a Cajun place? Not a fucking chance. I’d jump off a bridge before that was ever a thing.” She settled into the routine that she somehow had with him, even though she had only really talked with him once before this whole date thing. Still, it felt familiar. It felt comfortable. It felt routine to the point of safety. She didn’t know what that said about her and her tendencies, but she wasn’t really about to ask anybody’s opinion on the matter.

“So far, yeah.” Piper shrugged, thinking about the day that she’d had up to this point. “Got a good spot this morning, managed to get a lot of foot traffic while I was playing. I even had a little girl request a song from me which was kind of adorable.” Even though she didn’t need to play violin on the street to get by anymore, it was something that she’d continued because she loved doing it. She looked up at him as he talked about his day, her eyes darting quickly to see who else was anywhere in her field of vision. While she didn’t really care what most people thought, the idea that this could get back to her brother was enough to make her want to run and hide.

After all, how do you tell your brother that you’re going on a date with his roommate?

“They definitely should. If you’re going to own a piece of machinery like that, you should at least know something about it.” Which was the exact reason that she didn’t have a car. That, and that she had never been given the option to take driver’s education classes, because they cost a lot of money and she wasn’t about to ask any foster parent that she had for about five hundred dollars when they didn’t even want to buy her new clothes. “Of course America’s not going for it. You do stupid things, someone else profits. Isn’t that the American Way?” She arched her eyebrows at him, smiling even as she felt the knot in her stomach continuing to tighten. “So… have you ever been to this place before?” Not that she wanted to second guess him or anything, but she was curious about what type of restaurant she was about to be led to.

Piper did want people to think that she was soulless. In her admittedly limited experience, that was far easier than actually letting people in, just to be made too vulnerable and too trusting for someone who was ultimately up to something that could actually hurt her. There were a few exceptions to the general rule of course. She never wanted her brothers to think of her as soulless, though she was sure that they had all been through enough together that they would never think that, or at the very least that they would never admit it if they did. Now, there was another person standing by her side, and she… honestly wasn’t sure what she wanted him to think of her. In the beginning, she had stuck with her default: bitchy with a side of snarky. The tough as nails impression meant that very few people messed with her, and honestly that was exactly the way that she wanted it. However. The more time that she had spent with Cam, sipping Dr. Pepper while he cleaned up the mess that he had made because he had—stupidly—tried to move furniture without any help, the more that she had wondered if she could let her guard down a little. Not that it worked that way, but she honestly wasn’t sure what she wanted when it came to him.

One thing was for sure, she was excited to go get dinner with him. Not that she was about to tell anybody that, but still.

She caught the grin on Cam’s face out of the corner of her eye as she talked about playing in the quarter, and her cheeks flushed slightly as she momentarily felt weightless. The feeling itself was new, almost foreign, but then again almost everything was when it came to Cam. She hadn’t been on a date in ages, always too worried about her brothers or too traumatised at the thought of actually going somewhere alone with a boy that she didn’t know. Now she was somewhere that she could actually breathe. Her brothers were safe. Cam, as far as she could tell considering her brother’s friendship with him, was a good guy. She would be fine. Not that telling herself that stopped her palms from sweating any. Still, a smile pulled at the corner of her lips at the thought of him watching her play, and she paused where the sidewalk crossed the road, looking to her left. “Well, I play every other day,” she explained, glancing from his face to the street behind him, lit up with a vibrant light from the setting sun, “Right over there, if I get there early enough. If not, a little further down.”

Piper loved the sound of his laugh, though she wasn’t about to tell him so. And yet, she had a feeling he might have known, considering how often her smile widened when she heard it. This time, however, the laugh was contagious and she found herself chuckling along with him. He rambled on about cars, and she bit down slightly on the inside of her cheek, perfectly aware that she didn’t have the slightest clue about how to work a car. “I’m gonna be completely honest, I have no idea what any of that means short of being mostly sure that diesel doesn’t go in a Scion.” Piper didn’t know shit about cars, which was part of the reason that she didn’t have one. That, and the whole… money issue.

“Puns and bad jokes? Sounds like your kinda place,” she smirked at him, before the real smile took over her lips again. “Hey, be glad you’re a guy. Do you know how much it sucks to have this much hair during hot weather? It blows.” She laughed, pointing at her wild curls that were barely contained on a good day. On a bad one? Well, let’s just say that the Louisiana heat and humidity made it look like she had a legitimate afro more often than it didn’t. However, at his little snarky question, she stopped dead in her tracks, looking at him with her eyebrows raised. “First of all, I come up past your shoulder. Second of all, that’s rich, coming from someone who is basically a nerdy Jack Skellington.” Piper reached out, teasingly poking him in the ribcage.