Chapter 9 #2
“And again, I’d like to remind you that you chose the sticker, and maybe what you chose is your truth. Maybe you were guided by the universe or Solstice Springs’s resident ghosts … but embrace the unexpected. Have fun!”
There was another roar of approval—and that made sense. It was, after all, a room full of fans of the paranormal. Who else but ghost-curious people (and the people Luna bullied) would attend a singles event at midnight called The Witching Hour Social?
“I have no words,” Thom muttered.
“You’ve got to admit that it’s a good idea,” Hayes said. He glanced down at his chest. “But how will the descriptions be revealed? Will someone wave a wand?”
Poppy snorted at his facetious question, just as the room was plunged into darkness. Poppy’s first instinct was to bolt. Then she felt Thom’s reassuring hand on her back and sucked in a deep breath. He was here. It was okay.
Before she could examine that thought—and she really didn’t want to!
—black lights flickered on, and the lobby of The Merriweather Theater tilted on its axis.
What had been a pleasant blur of awkward flirting and polite smiles sharpened into something uncomfortably intimate.
Stickers bloomed everywhere—on wrists, collars, handbags—soft neon words, glowing in the strange light.
Poppy, because this was H-Town, took her time to look down at her sticker. When she did, she sucked in an astonished breath.
Wanting to be seen.
Her stomach dropped, a small swoop, as if she’d missed a step. Of all the phrases in existence, of all the possible combinations of words, how had she ended up with that one? She rubbed the sticker, wanting to make the words smudge or disappear. Nothing happened.
It took everything she had not to rip it off, because if she did, she’d show everyone how much the words disturbed her, how close to the bone they sliced. She lifted her eyes and looked at Thom, her eyes dropping to his chest and his sticker, glowing in bright blue.
Emotionally guarded.
Again, it was simple but quietly, devastatingly accurate. Thom stood as he always did—shoulders set, feet wide apart, expression neutral, seemingly unfazed. But the panic she saw in his eyes suggested otherwise.
Her chest tightened, and she looked at Wren’s sticker, then at Dane’s. How—in the name of all that was holy—had they ended up with the same word, Wren’s in pink, Dane’s in neon green?
Settled.
Rattled, she moved her eyes to Hayes’s.
It’s not just about me.
Again, incredibly truthful.
Around her, Poppy heard laughter, choruses of “That’s not me,” or “That’s so right,” dimly aware that nobody but her was taking the stickers seriously.
Poppy released a soft, startled breath that was half a laugh, half a snort.
They were random choices. That’s what they’d been told.
Grab a sticker. No meaning. No design. So how was it that every single sticker on hers and her friends’ chests felt like it was tailor-made for them?
How had Wren and Dane ended up with the same sticker?
Ruby
Across the room, watching the friend group, Lila and Naomi exchanged satisfied glances before looking at Ruby. “Guiding them to choose their right stickers, that is what we call a nudge,” Lila said, with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Effective,” Ruby conceded, but very, very reluctantly. It was obvious that she’d have to up her ghost game. But how?
Poppy
Around her, the lobby hummed with nervous laughter and movement as people looked for their matches, but Poppy barely heard the commotion.
She stood there, her pulse racing, wondering if this ridiculous, haunted town had fallen into the habit of telling the truth, whether its occupants—residents or tourists—asked for it or not.
Sometimes truths didn’t need to be faced.
Poppy lifted her fingers to her forehead; the room was closing in on her.
She wanted quiet, she wanted air, she wanted out.
Fumbling to put her beer bottle on one of the high, bar tables, she missed the table, and Thom’s hand curled around hers, stopping the bottle from slipping from her grasp.
“Slowly, Pops.” Without letting go of her hand, he placed the bottle on the table.
She lifted her eyes to meet his, and beneath his concern, she caught a flicker of heat, possibly desire. But this had been a crazy night, and there was an excellent chance she was reading him wrong.
Looking around, she judged the distance to the door and freedom, and was about to step forward when someone banged into her from behind, hard.
Thom, somehow, managed to grab the band of her Levi’s and pull her upright.
When she was steady on her feet, his hand moved from her waist to her lower back, where it remained—steady, strong, supportive.
She froze, her eyes on the gold and blue patterned carpet beneath her low boots, conscious of the warmth of his hand burning through her thin cotton shirt.
It was so broad, strong, spanning her back.
She darted a look at him and took in how still he was, like he was focusing really hard on something. On not doing something.
What? Touching her? Her breath caught in her throat, and her limbs refused to move. Molten steel, rich and dark, his eyes moved from her lips to her eyes and back again. This man wanted her…
She should look away, she knew that would be the clever, sensible thing to do, but she couldn’t … not tonight. If he wanted this sexually charged standoff to end, then he would have to be the one to do it.
They were so close that their breath mingled. Thom dipped his head to speak in her ear, his breath ruffling her hair. “Do you want to go inside the theatre itself? You haven’t seen it since it was renovated, and it’s a lot quieter in there.”
She could say no, she should say no—being alone with Thom was dangerous for so many reasons—but Poppy nodded before she could talk or think her way out of it.
Thom lightly gripped her wrist and led her toward the open doors of the theater itself.
In front of them, rows and rows of velvet-covered seats stretched out toward the wooden stage, glowing in the light spilling in from the lobby.
It was a lot quieter in here, and darker.
Thom closed the double doors behind them and, instead of heading for the stage—impressive with its super high, deep green, velvet curtains—he veered left and led her down the back row of the theater.
When they reached the end of the row, a door slammed from somewhere deep inside the theater, the noise coming from behind the stage.
The lights within the sconces, high above their heads, flickered.
“Ghosts?” she asked, because it had been that type of night.
Thom’s lips curved. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he told her. “But if there are any around, then they can all just fuck off.”
Poppy released a shaky laugh.
“There are only two people who matter right now, and that’s you and me,” Thom added.
His words resonated because being here was a choice. They were here together because it mattered; they mattered. Whatever was bubbling between them mattered. They hadn’t been forced in here, or manipulated. She was here by her own free will.
And she was staying.
Thom moved closer to her, and she felt the wall behind her back, grateful for its coolness as Thom radiated heat. He lifted his hand, and Poppy wondered where he’d touch her, but his hand hovered above her sticker, not touching the fabric of her shirt.
She grimaced, and Thom, being Thom, instantly noticed. “Does it bother you?”
She could brush it off and tell him that she was fine, that it was a gimmick but, because she needed a moment to find the courage to admit out loud that the sticker was a thorn in her emotional flesh, she hesitated before answering him. “Mmm, it does.”
Thom nodded, and she inhaled his delicious scent, something woody but with a hint of the sea. The urge to put her nose to his neck and nuzzle him was so strong that she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply.
“Open your eyes for me, sweetheart.”
Poppy’s breath caught at the expression on his face. It was similar to the way he used to look at her when they were kids, empathy and understanding, the smallest hint of exasperation. But underpinned now with delicious heat. “Can I?”
What was he asking? Could he kiss her? Rush her home and take her to bed? Before she could ask, and before she made a fool of herself, he tapped the sticker with his index finger. “Can I take it off?”
Oh…
She nodded, disappointed, though her mind was elsewhere. Thoughts of his big, muscled body pressed against hers, of his lips tracing her skin, sliding lower … sliding into her, completing her—had eclipsed the damn sticker entirely. All she wanted now was to be seen.
But naked. By him. And she didn’t care that she was newly single, only recently out of a relationship. She wanted this man.
She’d wanted him from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him again.
Thom tapped the sticker again, and she sighed, a little pissed off, a lot frustrated. Thom carefully peeled the sticker from her shirt, his movements unrushed, his fingers brushing the fabric.
“Same old Poppy, so impatient,” he murmured as he pulled aside her shirt to touch her bare skin.
“But so very lovely.” He stroked her skin, igniting baby fireworks.
Not wanting to be left behind, Poppy lifted her hand to remove his sticker, allowed it to flutter to the floor, and echoed his movements, moving aside his shirt to stroke her thumb over the V of bare skin.
Thom’s breath hitched as their hands bumped, and he covered hers with his, squeezing gently.
“I see you, Poppy,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble. “I always did.”
She nodded. “I know. But wanting to be seen is dangerous.”
“Not by me. But if it helps, being emotionally guarded doesn’t always keep you safe; it keeps you alone.” Thom swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Instinctively, Poppy stood on her tiptoes and kissed that masculine bump.