Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Thom
Thom stretched his arm over Poppy’s shoulder to push open the door to The Merriweather Theater, allowing Poppy to enter the lobby before him.
They paused just inside the doors, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light emitted by the art-deco wall sconces.
Underneath the clashing perfumes and colognes of the people present, he could just pick out old wood, dust, and something sweeter—polish, maybe, or nostalgia. It wasn’t dissimilar to Solstice Deep.
He looked around at the lobby, thinking that one-hundred and thirty years of small-town hopes clung to the walls.
Beyond the doors that led into the theater itself, the restored velvet seats glowed a deep red, their brass fittings dulled by time.
Above him, the plasterwork curled and flourished, some of it painstakingly repaired.
Like other buildings in town, like Solstice Deep, this place had survived change, recessions, silent films and talkies, town beauty pageants, terrible pantomimes, and nativity plays.
Its walls held history and pride. Thom felt it had been loved back to life, something he very much wanted to achieve at Solstice Deep.
“Welcome to the Witching Hour Singles Social!”
Thom winced and caught Poppy’s small eyeroll, and the volunteer behind the table asked for their tickets.
Thom reached inside his jacket pocket and handed them over with supreme reluctance.
The last thing he wanted to do was to stand around in a crowded room filled with people sporting either forced “happy to be here” smiles or “I’m a catch” smirks.
He looked down at Poppy’s reluctant expression and knew it had to be a hundred times worse for her.
She’d just come out of a relationship, had been thinking about marriage two weeks ago.
Despite her being the one to break it off, she wasn’t heartless. This had to be difficult for her.
“I could’ve just taken you home and come back,” he told her.
“I have to be here if I want to design a new map for the town,” Poppy reminded him. “Luna’s blackmail, remember?”
He did. It hadn’t been the mayor’s finest moment.
Thom managed to muster a smile for another volunteer he recognized as the part-timer who worked at Cobwebs & Curiosities, the bookstore on Main Street. Valerie? Valentine?
“Choose a sticker,” Val-something said, handing him a sheet of blank, white, round stickers. She pushed another sheet into Poppy’s hand.
“Why choose?” he asked, not in the mood for games. This was a massive waste of time, because the only woman he was interested in was already by his side. “The stickers are blank and look identical.”
She smiled and shook the paper. “You’ll see,” she said. “Choose.”
Thom picked the first sticker in the top row, and Poppy chose one in the center of her sheet. Val-something told them to stick them on their chest, and he obeyed, as did Poppy. “All will be revealed at midnight,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “But the sticker also entitles you to a free drink.”
Excellent. Good news at last.
Thom steered Poppy into the crowd, immediately clocking the interest in her from a variety of men in the lobby.
He understood them taking a second look: Poppy was simply dressed in a white button-down, and faded, ripped-at-the-knee jeans that hugged her curvy body.
But it was the combination of her blonde hair, clear skin, and blue eyes that stopped men in their tracks.
Poppy’s elbow connected with his ribs. “Brunette at nine o’clock, and a redhead at four o’clock, both gearing up to come talk to you. And at least another five women are eyeing your butt.”
Good grief. “I’m just here to observe,” he told her, then pushed his way through the crowd to the pop-up bar. After their kiss, how could she think he was interested in anyone but her?
Leaving Poppy by a high table, he joined the crowd at the bar.
Using his height to catch the eye of a bartender, a dog-walker he occasionally hired to walk Felony, he raised his fingers to indicate two beers and smiled when she acknowledged his order.
She reached for two bottles, snapped off the tops, and jerked her head for him to step forward, to the annoyance of the people waiting.
“Thanks, Edie,” he said, taking the bottles.
“If you want to skip the formalities of meeting someone new, you could always invite me out for a beer,” she said, half leaning across the bar to be heard.
“I’m not interested in dating—I’m only here because Luna strong-armed me,” he explained. She nodded. As a local, she instantly understood the power Luna held over the town.
“Well, keep it in mind,” she cheerfully told him.
“Will do.”
Returning to Poppy, he saw that Wren, Dane, and Hayes had found her, and he apologized for not getting them a drink.
Hayes shrugged, made his way to the bar, and Wren leaned into Dane.
Dane responded by wrapping both arms around her waist—a signal to every man present that Wren was his woman.
Thom’s lips quirked. A heat-seeking missile would be more subtle.
“It’s quite a turnout,” Wren said, eyeing the crowd. “I’d say that ninety-five percent of the attendees are tourists.”
And nearly everyone looked a little uncomfortable, apart from the few people who’d managed to instigate conversation with someone from the opposite sex. Or the same sex.
Why were they even there? Thom sighed, a little envious of Luna’s power to get people to do what she wanted.
He knew that Hayes was equally unenthusiastic, and turned his head to look at his friend, who was now sandwiched between a blonde and a brunette, both wearing skirts no bigger than a bandage.
They had to be twenty-one—anyone younger couldn’t attend—but not by much.
“Go help Hayes,” Wren told him.
“Hayes is perfectly capable of fending for himself,” Thom said. In fact, Hayes could be brutally direct and would have no problem shedding the barnacles. He gave him a minute to shrug them off.
He felt the tap of feminine fingers on his shoulder, sighed, just managed to stop his eyeroll, and reluctantly turned to see a too-young face.
“Hey, I’m Carey. What’s your name, handsome? And can I have your number?”
Jesus. And really, could her dress be any shorter or any tighter?
Poppy
Poppy eyed the woman talking to Thom—was this number six or seven?
—irritated by her playing with her hair and lifting her boobs.
She turned her back on the stomach-churning spectacle.
The last thing she wanted to do was flirt, closely followed by watching Thom flirt.
She raised her beer bottle to her lips, took a sip, and clinked her bottle against Wren’s.
Dane, being the observant surgeon he was, picked up her thumb and examined the scar encircling the knuckle of her thumb. How he saw anything in the dim light, she had no idea. But then, Dane was used to crappy conditions from working at natural-disaster sites.
“That’s an old but nasty cut,” he commented. “What happened?”
Wren and Poppy exchanged smiles. “We were seven, maybe eight, and decided that a blood oath was the way to go. I think we got the idea from Hayes and Thom.”
Dane rolled his eyes. “Naturally.”
“Anyway, the knife slipped, and that was the result.”
“Stitches?” Dane asked.
“Quite a few. We ran to Thom, and he put me behind him on his bike and took me to Dr. Morris. Wren ran alongside the bike, and she cried longer and harder than I did,” Poppy explained, smiling at the memory. “It bled. A lot.”
“And you milked it dry,” Wren wryly added. “You had us all, Thom and me especially, running around you for weeks afterward. Me, because I was the reason you got cut, Thom because … well, you always had Thom wrapped around your over-developed baby finger.”
She had, but that had ended thirteen years ago. Now they were two people sharing a house, who barely spoke but who’d indulged in a scorching kiss.
A microphone screeched, and Poppy winced, putting a hand over one ear. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s two minutes to midnight, and the time has come,” Luna announced. Of course she was here. Luna loved being the center of attention.
It was time to go home. She was done. She knew Wren was done. Thom and Hayes looked fed up as well. None of them wanted to be here, but Luna was a bully, and none of them had a spine. Once the talking ended, Poppy would lead them out—and she wasn’t letting Luna push her around again.
Well, she tried not to be bullied. But Luna was a force difficult to resist.
Luna cleared her throat. “It’s so nice to welcome you to the historic Merriweather Theater.
” She placed her hands together in prayer, the microphone between them, and bowed her head.
“And we ask the goddess, and all deities concerned with love, to bless you tonight. May you all find what you are looking for.”
A touch dramatic, Luna…
“Or what they think you need.”
Yeah, yeah. Poppy usually had a high tolerance for woo-woo, but tonight, she was emotionally and physically whipped and not in the mood for it.
Luna cleared her throat. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed the white stickers on your lapels, and I’m here to explain.
Each of you picked a circle completely at random, and on it is a description—maybe it says you’re here to hook up, seek commitment, or you’re interested in a friends-with-benefits arrangement.
You might not agree with what’s on your sticker but remember—you chose it. ”
Poppy looked down at her still blank sticker and frowned. What nonsense was this?
“But here’s the fun part: when your description is revealed, you need to find the people in the room with the same description! Whether or not you agree with what’s written is your conversation starter, and a great way to meet someone new.”
The room cheered, and a low hum of approval emanated from the crowd. Poppy’s eyebrows lifted. It was, she supposed, a novel way to connect people and get them talking.