Nineteen
P oppy walked quietly next to Ali as they headed back to her place. It felt more like a home than the apartment he rented on the outskirts of town. That place was as homey as his first-year room at boarding school. But Birch Lake was starting to feel like home, and he had Poppy and the tavern.
Small talk was needed, but his mind was blank, until he remembered Sera and Liberty showing up, and then Wes.
“What was going on with Sera and Wes?” he asked.
“Just couple stuff. You know how something small can feel huge,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at the sky. It was cooler in the evening than it had been during the day, and Poppy rubbed her hand over her arm.
“Yeah,” he said.
Right now, he wasn’t sure she wasn’t trying to give him some hints about talking about the past. Did she think it wasn’t a big deal? She’d change her mind in a moment, when she heard what he had to say.
“Want to talk in the park?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Just in case you don’t want me at your place after,” he said.
Stopping, she pulled him to her. “If you tell me that Lancaster-Spencer is a toxic workplace, and you had to ghost, I’ll get it.”
“It is toxic. Not for most workers, but for me,” he said.
“I get that. With your parents both working there and George in that office down the hall. I felt stifled there too. It was hard to get up and go into work,” she said.
“I’m sorry I never saw that,” he said.
She linked their fingers together. “We can talk wherever, but truly, unless you’ve done something that involves me and my family, I think I’ll be good with it.”
He could almost believe her. Until he remember the fear and revulsion on his own mother’s face when she saw the hole he’d punched in the wall.
They got to her house a few minutes later, then fed Pickle, who wouldn’t leave Ali alone until he scooped her up and cuddled her. He ended up seated at the end of the couch with the tiny dog sitting on his lap. Poppy curled her legs under her as she sat at the other end.
Watching him and waiting.
“After our divorce was finalized, something inside me sort of snapped,” he said. “I think I told you that, right?”
“Yes. Snapped in what way?”
“I just... Ah, Poppy, I was a bigger dick than you can imagine. I was angry and blamed everyone for the fact that our marriage failed.”
“Including me?”
“You, the company, George, my parents. The fact that some of the people who worked under me were underperforming.”
“Oh, so everyone but you?”
“Exactly. One day I’m at work, and you posted about WiCKed Sisters and how good the shop was doing, and I saw red. I was sitting at my desk looking out over the Thames reading profitability numbers on our new tea ranges, and they weren’t great.”
“Were you jealous?”
Jealousy would have been preferable. Or maybe it was part of the mixture of things that drove him down the hall to the manager of product development after the CFO had sent an email outlining that the departments under Ali were underperforming.
He’d yanked that man out from behind his desk, put hands on an employee and let his rage fly. Screamed into the man’s face about how incompetent he was.
George had to pull me off of him.
Poppy’s gasp made him realize he’d been talking out loud.
“I was gone. I mean, not even thinking rationally. I apparently yelled at George, punched a massive hole in the wall and walked out of the office, giving everyone the finger as I left.”
“Alistair.”
Just his name. He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he stared down at Pickle on his lap, calmly petting the tiny dog, who snuggled closer to his stomach.
“I know. Obviously, there was no letting me go back to work. I was put on a permanent leave. I’ve apologized to Stephen, and George compensated him. He accepted my apology and, through his lawyer, suggested I start anger management.”
He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the couch, turning to look at her. Trying to see the effect his story had on her.
She watched him, waiting to hear the rest of it.
“I didn’t go to therapy until six months after the incident. I got really drunk or stoned every night, partying and getting into fights until I got arrested. Mum came and got me and took me to a rehab center.”
Her face fell even further.
He shut down for a moment, going to the place in his mind where he could block his feelings. He didn’t blame Poppy for her reaction. He’d already guessed that she would be disgusted by his actions. He was.
“I started seeing a therapist in rehab and have been in therapy ever since. Stephen and I had a dinner right before I reached out to you on the Tea Society. I finally realized how much of my own failings and flaws I was always taking out on everyone else.”
“Oh, Ali,” Poppy said, scooting over to sit next to him on the couch. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “I’m both sad and happy that you went through all of that. I wish you’d found your way to therapy without that incident.”
“Me too. But I don’t think I could have. It took a total meltdown. Stephen’s forgiveness was the first step to pushing me forward in my therapy. At first, I was doing it to get back to work, but the more sessions I went to, the more I realized that going back to Lancaster-Spencer wasn’t the answer.”
“What was the answer?”
“I still don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in. I’m getting closer to it, but there is a part of me that wonders if I’ll ever really figure it out,” he admitted.
She put her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me.”
When he was raw and open with her, she couldn’t resist him. This was all she’d wanted from Ali from the beginning. To feel like he could be her soulmate. She hadn’t wanted to spend her life with a roommate she had sex with.
His honesty just now was almost painful.
She saw the torment on his face when he told her about his anger. The way he’d calmly kept petting Pickle assured her that the anger that had exploded out of him with Stephen was no longer an issue. Even Merle had witnessed Ali’s new sense of control at WiCKed Sisters, that first day he came back into her life.
This wasn’t like when they first met, when everything felt like a fairy tale. But it felt right.
Pickle hopped off his lap and headed to her bed in the corner next to the fireplace.
“So...?” Ali asked.
She shifted around until she straddled his lap. They were face-to-face, and she could see him more clearly this way. His hands were on her hips to steady her, but there was nothing overtly sexual about him in this moment.
This was the most vulnerable he’d ever been with her. It made her heart beat faster; her entire being was drawn to him. Similar to the almost-solstice at the Tor, when she’d felt the moon’s energy wrapping around both of them.
Truth had a power that was stronger than either of them.
“You’re brave,” she said.
“I think I just proved I’m not.”
She put her fingers over his lips. “That took a lot of courage. Showing me your worst moment. That is something you wouldn’t have done before.” Resting her forehead against his, she stared into his gold-flecked brown eyes, ringed with those sinfully long eyelashes. Her heartbeat sped up as she turned her head to angle her mouth and kiss him.
But he evaded her kiss. “Are you sure you heard it all?”
She shifted back, looking down at him as he slouched on the couch. “Yes. Do you think you’re the only one who doesn’t know who they are or what they are becoming?”
He flushed. “Ah, when you put it that way...”
She almost laughed and would have if she wasn’t caught in this painful longing for Ali to be the man she needed in her life. Not the one she was expecting. Not the one she wanted him to be. But the one she needed. That secret craving that even she couldn’t define for herself but that her spirit would know when he was in her arms.
Perhaps that was why she was trying so hard to uncover every change in him since they’d split up. Trying to ascertain that this time, when she took that leap into him, she wouldn’t crash to the ground.
Looking for a guarantee in love was honestly the dumbest sort of ask. But there it was.
She wanted to know that if she let her heart go where it was heading that it wasn’t going to be shattered. She didn’t want to start over again and wasn’t sure that she would ever let herself if Ali wasn’t what she wanted him to be.
No, needed .
Still, want was always a part of it.
“What do you feel broken about?” he asked.
“Telling me about your leave of absence wasn’t a trade,” she pointed out.
“I’m very aware of that, moon fairy. I’m looking at you, as I have been all night, trying to figure out how you could feel broken. You seem to have this magic that holds everything together.”
“I wish,” she said.
“But you do, it flows around you, and sometimes, if I’m close to it, I can feel that spell wrapping around me, keeping me safe.”
Hearing Ali talking about being safe broke her heart a little bit, but in a different way. She understood how scary it was to be lost inside yourself.
“When I walked out of our flat...I am surprised my legs carried me. I was shattering a little more with every step. Everything I had ever believed about the woman I was had turned into a lie. I had told myself I wouldn’t be one of those women who blindly gave up her own agency to be with a man...yet I had.”
“I never meant for that to happen.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t something you could control. I lost all sense of who I was and had been. Hiding my witchy practices and playing down my tea blending to make something more commercial instead of taking risks. Being safe turned out to be the most detrimental thing to my own health.”
“God. How are you even here with me? Don’t you hate me?” he asked.
Hate him? Of course, she’d said that a million times or more when he dug his heels in about the divorce or wouldn’t answer her emails, but the distance had helped. “No. I mean I did, but that was more hating myself. I hated that I allowed you that much power over me. Once I realized that—and it took a hella long time—everything started to get better. Where do you think your anger comes from?”
“Dad.”
That made sense. “I noticed you weren’t as much of a kiss-ass as you used to be.”
“Kiss-ass, really?”
“Yeah. I mean, you used to be like, ‘Of course, Dad, we’ll do whatever you want.’”
“Ha. I mean you’re not wrong, but pleasing him...it was such an old behavior. Took me a long time to break that down,” Ali said. “I’m sorry I hurt you. You were right to hate me.”
She wasn’t sure that hate was ever the answer. It was time to make peace with the past. She kissed his nose. “Did you hate me?”
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he said. “I told everyone about the bitch I married when I was out drinking, but when I got home, out of my mind, I would reach for my phone and look at your picture, still wanting you back.”
“Is this—” she gestured between them “—about you wanting me back because it means you haven’t failed? Or was it to make a real change for yourself?”
“It had to be for me, because there was no situation I could foresee that you’d ever be with me again. Until Amber Rapp.”
Poppy let out a humorless laugh. “Amber Rapp continues to change my life.”
Poppy nestled on his lap wasn’t something that his body was going to ignore for long. This conversation that he dreaded having was actually something that he needed.
“Amber Rapp, huh? Her songs are okay, but I never thought she’d have this much influence over me.”
“Not your usual listen?”
“You know I’m all death metal.”
“Ha. You’re a pop man. Amber seems like your kind of listen.”
“She would be if her lyrics didn’t cut so close to home. Hearing myself in Rhapsody for an Ex sort of soured me on her music. Then George calls out of the blue to tell me you’re famous.”
“You weren’t stalking my socials?” she asked with a fake pout that made him lean forward and take the kiss she’d tried to give him earlier.
Poppy shifted up onto her knees, her hands on either side of his face as she sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth. Her sundress was thin enough that he could feel her body heat through it.
He pulled the fabric up, bunching it until his hand was on her back. Lowering his hand to her butt, he massaged her cheeks as he held her.
There wasn’t a moment he didn’t remind himself how lucky he was to be back in her arms. To be in her house and see her every day. It was a gift he never thought he’d have.
She lifted her head. “We’re wearing too many clothes.”
“Agreed,” he said, flipping her onto her back on the couch.
She shimmied out of her panties as he fumbled for the condom he’d put in his pocket earlier in the day, before he knew they were having this talk.
“Thank you for being here with me after everything,” he said. His emotions felt too big to keep inside. He was seconds from spilling it all when she took the condom from him.
The moment her hand wrapped around his dick, he almost forgot about the gratitude and love—there was no denying that he loved her—and his need to express that to her. He would show her instead.
The condom on him, she shifted, pushing his erection down until he was at the entrance to her body. “Fuck me.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. I have been since the moment you were honest with me. That was the biggest turn-on,” she said, pulling his head down to hers. She whispered into his ear, “Nothing is sexier than you when you are unfiltered.”
He could deliver that. He leaned over, rubbing his chest over her body. The fabric of her dress in the way, he shoved it up and toward her neck. She hadn’t worn a bra, so he felt the press of her hard nipples against his chest. He groaned.
God, she felt so right. There wasn’t another woman who had ever been able to erase the memory of how Poppy felt in his arms. There never would be.
He knew that.
Entering her in one long thrust, he held himself there. The emotions he thought he’d caged for the moment were back. It took all of his willpower to keep them bottled inside instead of letting them spill out while he fucked her.
She felt so good and tight around him. She clawed at his hips, urging him deeper and faster until he was caught up in a haze of need and demand, driving himself into her frantically. His orgasm was right there, but he wasn’t even sure if she was close.
Reaching between their bodies, he rubbed her clit the way he knew she liked it, and she arched her back, screaming his name as her pussy throbbed around his cock, and he came.
Thrusting until he was empty, he let himself lean forward, resting his head next to hers on the couch.
She turned her head to look at him. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said.
He loved her. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he kept them back. This moment wasn’t perfect, but it was as close to it as he imagined it could be.
For years, he’d been searching for his place and his purpose. He’d tried a few different things and finally found true happiness and contentment in brewing, but that was just something to keep him busy while he waited.
He hadn’t even realized what he’d been waiting for until now. Poppy.
She was what had been missing. Not the Poppy who married him at eighteen, but the woman she was now.
This woman.
He kissed her, then rolled to his side, tucking her against his chest so that he wouldn’t be tempted to blurt out the truth of his feelings. There was still so much she had to sort out for herself.
Which was only part of it. The other part was that this felt so new and scary, and what if he was wrong? What did he know of love? Maybe this feeling in his stomach and soul was just him trying to keep something good for himself.
He couldn’t manipulate her again for his own means. She needed to figure out how she felt about him before he would ever admit that sometime between the Tor and tonight, she’d become his entire world.