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My early demise at the hand of her brother—my best friend—was what I was worried about.
A harsh laugh escaped my mouth. “You shouldn’t be here, Poppy. This is a very, very bad idea.”
With a too-innocent tilt to her head, she glanced up at me. “Why? We’re friends, aren’t we? Of a sort. And if we’re friends, why is it a very, very bad idea for me to be here?”
Why the fuck did she smell so good? She was so small. If she stood in front of me, I’d be able to notch her right under my chin. I thought that once before, too. A long time ago. I hated that I was thinking it again.
“No, we’re not,” I answered curtly. “You’re Cameron’s little sister, and that is it.”
“Does this mean you won’t answer my questions?” she asked.
Slowly, I turned, hitching my hip against the counter while I stared down at her.
Okay, so we were doing this. After years of knowing she was watching me. Years of very muchnotwatching her, we were going to nip this shit in the bud. Unease curdled in my belly, mixing dangerously with the whiskey.
“So you like lists, huh?”
Her cheeks flushed pink, but she didn’t look away. “Yes.Th-they help me think more clearly. Sometimes I can’t…” Her fingers wiggled by the side of her head. “I can’t calm my thoughts long enough to make sense of what I need to do.”
“Sounds logical,” I told her. “Maybe I should try it sometime.”
Her brows furrowed.
“Like now, maybe,” I said smoothly. “I’ll give you a list of why this is a bad idea.” I started ticking off points on my fingers, voice calm and steady. At first. “You’re too young for me. I don’t want a girlfriend. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want a family. And you are too fucking young for me,” I finished on a yell. “You know all those things, yet you’re still here.”
By the time I finished, I was breathing hard, well aware that I was answering questions that she hadn’t yet asked. Every fucking time I was around Poppy, for years, the questions were stamped all over her face, buried deep in her eyes.
Why not me?
She’d been on the sidelines at bars when I found someone to go home with, the same kind of women I’d indulged in throughout the years. The kind who weren’t looking for anything serious, the kind I’d likely never see again. It was a Band-Aid, of sorts, to staunch the flow of blood temporarily. To drown out whatever creeping sense of loneliness hit me in the middle of the night, the kind that snuck up on me in my sleep and had me rolling over in bed, searching for someone warm and sweet, only to find a cold fucking bed.
Why not me?
God, I’d seen in it in her face for years. As soon as she turned twenty, really. Five years later, and her questions still lingered. I could see them linger right in front of me now, in the painfully small confines of my house.
It didn’t matter that she’d never said them out loud. Sometimes it felt like she was screaming them for howpainfully the weight of those questions fell on my shoulders. We both damn well knew why she was out here, and part of me wished I could yank open the door and send her out in the rain without caring what happened to her.
I did, though.
No matter how stupid it was, no matter how long the list grew for all the reasons I was terrible for her, because every damn thing I said to her was true, no matter how much I locked it up in the back of my head and tried to ignore it, I cared far too much.
As my list of reasons hung in the air between us, Poppy’s pink cheeks flushed deeper, a sign of embarrassment maybe. But there was no argument, not like I’d expected.
I thought maybe she’d point out that the ten years between us wasn’t such a big deal, not now that she was in her mid-twenties. She wasn’t a teenager. She was a woman—a beautiful one, maybe even more beautiful than she even realized. But I felt each one of those years like a blow to my chest because mine were steeped in building a quiet life by myself, a staunch refusal to budge even a single inch to allow someone space.
Even someone like her.
It was so much easier that way.
Eventually, the silence stretched into something uncomfortable the longer we stood there. Never the one to fill silences with pointless words, I simply stared down at her and kept my face even. The graceful arch of her brows dipped into a thoughtful V, and I found myself fighting the urge to fidget under the astute gaze of Poppy Wilder.
Before tonight, I could always feel the weight of her eyes on me, but this was different. There was no hiding from her, no distraction to tug between us. It was simply me and her and an endless stretch of hours while we waited for the storm to pass.
Who was I kidding? Poppy was the storm I needed to waitout. Eventually, she’d figure out that I wasn’t the guy for her. That she needed someone good and kind just like herself.
The clouds would clear, and she’d go back home and realize what a mistake this was. What a mistake I was.
Everyone regretted me, eventually. Except Henry. There was only one other woman in my life before Poppy, the one who taught me exactly what I didn’t want out of life, and she thought I was a mistake too. Something to move on from in search of a better, easier life.
