I mean I'm just saying that in all my high school experience:
If Ben said him and Steph are super cool homies and hang out all the time but that he thought her bff Linda was a cunt, and that promptly got followed up with her and all her friends removing Ben from social media and avoiding him entirely, nobody ever thought they were super secret homies behind the scenes. And most people would find him persuing it afterwards awkward at best.
Pippa dropped it. If he actually gave a shit about her he would have dropped it too. It's not like I'm active in this thing, I'm also just watching the shit fling while I type whatever dumb shit here.