Chapter Seventeen
Amusingly—and confusingly—there was a Pathfinder parked in the driveway when Poppy made it home, the driver absent.
After Rosaline had rightly pointed out that his security system was lacking, Cash had upgraded the whole thing, installing
a state-of-the-art smart lock with a motorized dead bolt that had received stellar scores across the board, proving itself
capable of withstanding kick-ins, drilling, and lock picking. Cash—and Poppy—could lock and unlock the door remotely and they
could check the lock status remotely too. Between the new locks and improved security system, Poppy had never felt so safe,
the house a fortress. Still, Poppy approached the front door with a small amount of trepidation.
“Hello?”
No one answered and Poppy, still hesitant, slipped out of her boots, leaving them by the front door.
She was halfway up the stairs when the muffled Christmas music reached her ears, drifting down the hall from the last door
on the left. Her bedroom. Of course.
Poppy peeked inside the room and pressed a hand to her racing heart. “Jesus.” She let out a shaky laugh and slumped against
the doorframe.
Rosaline was sprawled across Poppy’s bed, a damn sight to see lying on her stomach with her chin resting on the palm of her hand and her feet kicked up in the air, wearing a pair of the tightest dark blue jeans Poppy had ever seen, and a chunky, cream-colored cable-knit sweater.
“What are you doing here?” Poppy asked.
“It’s been a month since we saw each other.” Rosaline’s bottom lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout. Her socks were black
and covered in turkeys wearing sunglasses. “You could at least pretend to be excited to see me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were a murderer.” She padded her way over to the bed, slipping the strap of her purse over her
head. “Excuse me for thinking for a second that I was about to get slaughtered while Michael Bublé told me to have myself
a merry little Christmas.” She tossed her bag on the bed. “How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“I texted Curran. He was kind enough to unlock the door for me.” Rosaline rose onto her knees and reached out, reeling Poppy
in by the belt tied at her waist. “Now, hush for a second and let me greet you properly.”
Poppy grinned and settled her hands on Rosaline’s jean-clad hips, tucking the tips of her fingers into Rosaline’s back pockets.
“Properly, huh?”
“Mhmm.” Rosaline’s nose bumped hers. “Now shut up.”
Her lips pressed against Poppy’s, swallowing her laugh.
“Hi,” Poppy breathed when their lips parted.
“Hi yourself.” Rosaline’s cheeks were pink and her eyes fever bright. A slow grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “I wasn’t
expecting you to be back so soon.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to be here at all.”
“Clearly, considering you thought I was a murderer,” she teased, reaching up and tucking Poppy’s hair behind her ear.
Poppy poked her in the side. She laughed and squirmed away. Wasn’t that something. Rosaline was ticklish. Poppy tucked that fact away for later.
“Hey, I saw a mysterious car in the driveway. I was exercising caution.”
“Exercising caution by calling out hello?” Rosaline draped her arms around Poppy’s waist, palms pressed to the small of her back. “That is such a horror movie cliché.”
“I know! Trust me, I was fully prepared to be the big-boobed, dumb blonde at the beginning of the movie who goes up the stairs
to investigate and dies a horrible, gruesome death and no one watching even feels sorry that she died because it was such
a stereotypically stupid move. Darwin Award–worthy.”
Rosaline tutted and shook her head, lips twitching. “The car’s hardly mysterious. It’s a rental. Did you not see the license
plate frame? It has Enterprise Rent-A-Car written all over it.”
“Uh huh, and knife-wielding murderers only rent from Budget.” Poppy sighed. “No, I didn’t even look at the license plate.
It’s been . . . a day.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw spots. “You never said what you were
doing here.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Rosaline frowned. “You stopped texting me. I was worried.”
Poppy’s heart squeezed sweetly inside her chest. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I—hold on. You were at your own family dinner,
and you left? Jesus, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“I absolutely should have,” Rosaline said firmly. “No offense, but you look like hell.”
She couldn’t even find it in her to be offended when she knew Rosaline was right. “I’m still sorry I dragged you away from
your family.”
“I’m not.” Rosaline shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, dinner was fine, but it was almost over. I probably would’ve begged off as soon as the dishes were washed anyway. As much as I love my family, they’re best in small doses.”
She joined Rosaline on the bed, crawling up the mattress and flopping down against the pillows. “My family is more like . . .
you know that poison in puffer fish?”
Rosaline propped herself up on her elbow and stared down at Poppy. “Sure. Tetro something.”
“Right.” Poppy laced her fingers together, hands resting atop her stomach. “Well, they’re like that. Toxic in even the smallest
amounts, probably safe if you exercise extreme caution, but best avoided altogether because there’s always the risk of sudden death.” She let
her head loll to the side. “It’s a metaphor, obviously.”
“I hoped.” Rosaline smoothed Poppy’s brow with a finger. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Not really. She wished she could forget the whole ugly affair. But Rosaline had left her own Thanksgiving early and raced
across town to check on her, so she supposed she owed her an explanation. “Mom laid into me almost as soon as I walked through
the door.”
“Laid into you for what?”
Her laugh came out drier than her mother’s turkey. “For tackling that streaker on the red carpet.”
Rosaline’s face went slack. “That was weeks ago.”
“We don’t really talk outside of holidays and phone calls on birthdays.” They’d forgotten to call her this year. Or maybe
the silence had been by design. She didn’t know and she really didn’t want to spend any more time pondering it. “This was
the first chance she’d had to bring it up.”
“And she was upset, why exactly?”
“I made a scene.” Poppy rubbed her eyes. “On national television, no less. My parents were and still are mortified, my father apparently can’t show his face at the club, and—”
“I’m sorry.” Rosaline screwed up her face. “The club?”
“Golf club. Always gotta keep up with those Joneses.” Winston-Mayfields. Whatever. “Basically, what I did was immature and
reckless and I’m a disappointment of the first order and when I tried to stand up for myself, I was called dramatic and told
I make mountains out of molehills.”
Rosaline’s eyes were sharp, but her voice was gentle, velvet-wrapped steel. “You’re not a disappointment, Poppy.”
She scoffed. “Tell that to my mother.”
“I’ll call her right now if you want. You think I’m kidding?” Rosaline held out her hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll do
it.”
She didn’t doubt Rosaline would do it, call up Poppy’s mother and give her a thorough dressing down. A petty part of Poppy
would kill to see it. “Thanks, but I think having you rush to my defense would do more harm than good.”
When Rosaline frowned, Poppy pitched her voice, doing her best impression of her mother: “Penelope knows better than to do something as stupid and frivolous as mix her work and her personal life.” She rolled her eyes. “I left, like, ten minutes after that.”
“No offense,” Rosaline said, “but your mother sounds like a total shrew.”
“She certainly has a way of getting under my skin.” A wet laugh caught in her throat. “It’s mutual, I’m sure. Not that I try,
but . . . you know how some parents want their children to be seen and not heard? My parents would rather I not exist at all.”
“Poppy.” Rosaline’s voice was soft and sad, Poppy’s name nothing more than a whispered rasp. Poppy had to bite her bottom
lip so it wouldn’t wobble. “You don’t—you don’t know that.”
“They’ve never tried to hide the fact that my being born threw a wrench in their plans, that Dad had to put off his retirement, that I put a massive dent in their savings and a damper on their plans to travel once Jessica was out of the house.
I feel like—like I was born at a disadvantage, and all I’ve done is spend my whole life trying to make up for it, trying to make up for the fact that—that I was born in the first place. ”
“Have you thought about—” Rosaline paused, nibbling on her lip.
Poppy reached out and gently pried Rosaline’s lip free from her teeth, brushing her thumb across her mouth. “Thought about
what?”
Rosaline grabbed Poppy’s hand and hugged it to her chest. “If they make you feel that way, have you ever thought about just . . .
not going home for the holidays?”
Poppy frowned. “That’s the only time I see them.”
Rosaline stared at her.
“Oh.” Her stomach twisted unpleasantly. “You mean, like, going no contact?”
Rosaline shrugged. “I don’t know your parents, but everything you’ve described to me sounds . . . dysfunctional. At best.”
Poppy shifted uneasily. “At worst?”
Rosaline looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Neglectful? Emotionally abusive? Parents aren’t supposed to leave a six-year-old
home alone to fend for herself.”
Hearing Rosaline put it so plainly made Poppy’s breath catch. “That was—that was almost twenty years ago.”
“There’s not a statute of limitations on pain, Poppy. Especially when someone doesn’t even apologize for the harm they caused,
the harm they continue to cause. When they continue to exhibit a lack of care. A lack of basic respect.”
Her sinuses stung. “I don’t know. It feels like—like, I don’t know. Giving up. Quitting.”
She’d be lying if she said the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. If even today, when she’d parked in her parents’ driveway,
she hadn’t sat in her car for a second, stomach in knots, and thought about how nice it would be to just turn around and go