Chapter Twenty-Six
The Edge of Everything
Dean
The song’s ending and I can’t let go.
Won’t let go.
Poppy’s pressed against me, face buried in my shoulder, and I’m trying to memorize everything. The vanilla scent of her hair. The way her hand fits in mine. The small sigh she makes when I pull her closer.
“Dean.” Her voice is muffled against my jacket.
“Not yet.”
The band’s packing up. Guests are filtering out. Mason’s carrying Ivy’s shoes while she laughs at something our cousin said.
Normal wedding shit.
Except nothing about this week has been normal.
“People are leaving,” she says.
“So?”
“So I should—”
“You should come with me.”
She pulls back. Looks up at me with those eyes that have been destroying my sanity since she showed up with a goat and an attitude. “Where?”
Anywhere. My bed. Italy. The fucking moon.
“Just… somewhere quiet.” My voice sounds shockingly in control.
I can see her wrestling with it. The smart part of her brain versus whatever this thing is between us.
“Dean—”
“Five minutes.” My hand finds her face. Thumb tracing her jaw. “Give me five minutes.”
She leans into my touch. “That’s all?”
“That’s all I’m asking for.”
Lie. I want hours. Days. A lifetime to figure out how she crawled under my skin so quickly.
“Okay,” she whispers.
I take her hand. Lead her away from the tent, the lights, the noise. Around the side of the house where it’s just moonlight and the sound of her heels on gravel.
“Where are we—”
I spin her against the wall. Stone at her back, me crowding her space, and lower my face to hers.
“Hi,” she breathes.
“Hi.”
“This is very—”
I kiss her.
Not soft. Not careful. This is a kiss that’s been building for days. Weeks. Months. Years. My hand is in her hair, tilting her head back, swallowing the sound she makes when I press closer.
She tastes like champagne and bad decisions.
Perfect.
There’s been no one in so long that I should be out of practice. I’m not. Because this is Poppy and it’s perfect.
Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me down, and hell. The little noise she makes when I bite her bottom lip. The way her body arches into mine.
“Fuck,” I mutter against her mouth.
“Yeah.”
I kiss her again. Harder. Tongue sliding against hers, and she gives as good as she gets. Nips at my lip. Nails dragging down my chest through the shirt.
My hips pin hers to the wall and she gasps. Can she feel how hard I am through the suit pants? She has to. Nothing I can do about that.
“Dean—” she gasps.
“I know.” I trail kisses down her throat. Find that spot behind her ear that makes her shiver. “I know.”
“We can’t—”
“We’re not.” Another kiss. “Just this.”
Her leg hooks around mine. Dress riding up. My hand finds her hip, squeezes.
“This is insane,” she pants.
“Yep.”
“We barely know each other.”
This isn’t part of the plan. But maybe—just maybe—I’m tired of plans.
Maybe I want reckless. Messy. Her.
“Maybe.” I pull back. Look at her. Hair wrecked, lips swollen, eyes wild.
She laughs. Low and breathless.
I press closer. Let her feel exactly what she does to me. “You really have to go tomorrow?”
A warm breath punches out of her and something flickers across her face. “That’s the plan.”
Right. The plan. Italy. Her real life that doesn’t include me.
“When’s your flight?”
“Two.”
I check my watch. Fourteen hours.
Not enough.
She kisses me. Soft this time. Sweet. Which is somehow worse.
“We’re adults,” she says against my mouth.
“So?”
“So we both know what this is.”
“Do we?”
She pulls back. “Chemistry. Bad timing.”
“That’s all?” My heart thuds in my chest.
“What else could it be?”
Ask her to stay. The thought hits like lightning. Insane. Impossible. Who asks someone to change their entire life after little more than a week?
“Right.” I step back. Give her space. Give myself space before I say something stupid. “You’re right.”
She fixes her dress. Smooths her hair. Puts herself back together while I fall apart.
“Poppy.”
She stops, hand still in her hair.
“Yeah?”
“Come on.” I tug her hand, leading toward the house.
“Where are we—” She’s following but confused, looking back at the reception still going strong.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
She blinks at me like I just asked her to solve calculus. “I… what?”
“Food, Poppy. Actual food. Not champagne and whatever crumbs you stole from the catering trays.”
“I ate.” But her voice lacks conviction.
“When?” I push through the back door, pulling her with me into the quiet of the kitchen. The music fades to a distant thrum.
“Earlier.” She’s not meeting my eyes now.
“Try again.”
She’s quiet. Too quiet. Which means I’m right. I can see her trying to calculate when she last sat down, came up empty.
“Thought so.” I pull her through the back door into my kitchen. “Sit.”
“Dean, I’m fine—” She’s still standing, stubborn.
“Sit.” I point at the chair, using my closing argument voice.
She sits. Probably because her feet are killing her in those heels. I can see her trying not to wince every time she shifts, the micro-grimace she thinks she’s hiding.
“Shoes off,” I order, already raiding the fridge.
“Bossy.” But there’s no heat in it.
“You like it.” I glance back in time to see her cheeks flush.
“I absolutely do not.” The protest is immediate, automatic.
But she’s kicking off the heels, sighing when her feet hit the cool floor. The sound goes straight through me—relief mixed with exhaustion mixed with something that makes my chest tight.
Focus. Food. Not the way she’s stretching her legs under my kitchen table, rolling her ankles.
“Grilled cheese?” I ask, pulling out butter, bread, cheese.
“Seriously?” She’s watching me with this expression I can’t quite read.
“What’s wrong with grilled cheese?” I set the pan on the stove, butter sizzling as it hits the heat.
“Nothing. Just… you’re making me a sandwich? Now?” Her voice is softer, uncertain. Like she can’t quite believe this is happening.
“You need to eat. I need to do something with my hands that isn’t—” I stop. Turn back to the stove.
“Isn’t what?”
Touching you. Undressing you. Finding out what other sounds you make.
“Cooking,” I finish.
She laughs. Soft. Knowing. “Right. Cooking.”
I focus on the simple task. Butter. Bread. Cheese. The familiar rhythm of something I can control while everything else spins out.
“I can’t believe you got the caterers here,” she says quietly.
My hands still. “How did you—”
“Tom told me. During cleanup. About their totaled van. You saved the entire reception.”
“He wasn’t supposed to—”
“Tell me that you drove forty minutes to rescue salmon? That you took control? That you specifically told him not to worry me?”
I flip the sandwich. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Dean.”
I turn. She’s sitting at my table, bare feet tucked under her, still in that burgundy dress that’s been murdering me all night. Hair starting to fall from whatever complicated thing she did to it. Looking at me like I’m something more than a workaholic robot.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You already thanked me. For the guitar.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t have to. Because I never would’ve known. Because you just… fixed it.”
I plate the sandwich. Slide it across to her. “Eat.”
She takes a bite. Her eyes close. “Oh my gosh.”
“It’s just grilled cheese.”
“It’s perfect.” Another bite. “How is it perfect?”
“Garlic butter. Touch of rosemary.”
“You put rosemary in grilled cheese?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“No. It’s just very… you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She grins around another bite. “Overachieving. Even with sandwiches.”
I lean against the counter, watching her demolish the food. It’s strangely satisfying. “When’s the last time someone took care of you?”
She pauses mid-chew. “I take care of myself.”
I give her a stern look.
She looks at me. Really looks. “That’s part of the reason for my vacation to Italy.”
The words hang between us. Too honest for whatever we’re pretending this is.
“Couch?” I ask once she finishes the sandwich.
“Couch.”
We migrate to the living room. She curls into one corner; I take the other. Careful distance. Like that’ll help.
“Tell me about Emily,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because I’m leaving tomorrow and we’re being honest tonight.”
Fair.
“We met when I was still in law school.” The words come easier than expected. “She was… everything. Smart. Driven. Understood the hours, the pressure. We made sense on paper.”
“But not in reality?”
“I thought we did. Six years. Had an apartment together. Planned a future.” I stare at the ceiling. “Two weeks before the wedding, I came home early. Found her in our bed with someone else.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” I laugh, but it’s sharp. “Best part? She’d been seeing him for months. Using my money to fund their dates. Maxed out our cards buying him things.”
“Dean…”
“She said I was too much. Too intense. Too focused on work.” I look at Poppy. “Too Dean.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” She shifts closer.
My chest does something complicated. “Poppy—”
“I know. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong everything.” She laughs, but it’s watery. “Story of my life.”
“Tell me.”
“What?”
“Your story. The real one. Why you’re really running to Italy.”
She pulls her knees up. Makes herself smaller. “I got fired,” she says suddenly.
“What?”
“The day I arrived. My boss called. Fired me over the phone on my drive here.” She’s not looking at me now. “This wedding was supposed to be my comeback. My proof that I could do this on my own.”
“And you did.”
“Did I? Or did I just get lucky with a guitar-playing lawyer and his chaos-loving brother?”
She moves closer. Close enough I can smell her shampoo. See the faint freckles across her nose. Count the ways this is going to hurt tomorrow.
“Hey.” I catch her chin. Make her look at me. “You pulled off a perfect wedding with no team, no backup, and a possessed goat working against you.”
She laughs and the sound hits me square in the chest. “George isn’t possessed.”
“Debatable.” I trace my thumb along her jaw. “You’re incredible. You know that, right?”
“I’m a mess.”
“You’re my mess.”
The words hang there. Too much. Too real.
“For tonight,” I add.
“Right. Tonight.”
She kisses me. Softly. Slowly. Like we have time we don’t actually have.
I pull her closer, onto my lap. Her hands tangle in my hair, my arms wrap around her waist, and fuck being careful.
“Dean,” she breathes against my mouth, my name a prayer and a question.
“I know.” The words rumble between us, acknowledging everything we’re not saying.
“We should stop.” But even as she says it, her fingers tighten in my hair, holding me to her.
“Probably.” I don’t sound convinced. I’m not convinced.
But she’s kissing my neck now, and my brain shorts out. Her teeth graze my pulse point, and—
“Poppy,” I groan, the sound wrecked and desperate.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, lips swollen, breathing hard. “Too much?”
“Not enough.” My hands slide up her back, pressing her closer. “Never enough.”
She pulls back further, looking at me with eyes gone dark, pupils wide. Her chest heaves, her dress askew. “We can’t.”
“I know.” But my hands remain on her waist, thumbs stroking slow circles that contradict my words.
“I’m leaving.” Her voice cracks on the word, and something in my chest breaks with it.
“I know.” The reminder sits between us like a third person, unwelcome and undeniable.
We stare at each other. The weight of everything we’re not saying crushing the air from the room.
Then she yawns.
She’s exhausted. Been running on fumes for days, and here I am keeping her up because I can’t let go.
“You need sleep,” I say.
“I need to pack.”
“Pack tomorrow.”
“My flight—”
“Is at two. You can pack in the morning.”
She should argue. Should go back to the guest house. Should put distance between us while she can.
Instead, she curls into my side. Rests her head on my shoulder. “Five minutes.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. Just five minutes then I’ll go.”
“Okay.”
Her breathing evens out in three.
I sit there, her weight against me, staring at the clock. 12:47 a.m.
Thirteen hours.
She shifts in her sleep. Burrows closer. Her hand finds mine, fingers threading together like they belong there.
I should wake her. Send her to bed. Protect us both from whatever this is becoming.
Instead, I hold her tighter.
Because in thirteen hours she’ll be gone.
And I’ll go back to being the guy who doesn’t feel things.
Except now I know that guy was bullshit.
Now I know what it’s like to have Poppy Monroe asleep in my arms.
And tomorrow, I have to let her go.
I close my eyes. Not to sleep. Just to memorize this.
The weight of her.
The sound of her breathing.
The way she fits against me like she was always supposed to be here.
Thirteen hours.