Chapter 15 #3
His eyes flashed with resentment, fury, and devastation. Like he was finally seeing Benji in all his horrible glory, and that everything between them, their brotherhood, their history, their memories, were scattered, shattered pieces at his feet.
“No apology, Benji? No ‘hey, I know I messed up, but…’” Thom rubbed his hands over his face. Then he looked past Benji to the lake. “What am I even thinking? Of course, you won’t apologize, because nobody, including me, has ever made you face the consequences of your actions.”
Benji simply stared at him and shrugged. “Does that mean you are coming back or not?”
Thom gripped the bridge of his nose. “Get in your car and leave, Benjamin. Just fuck off.”
Benji started to say something, met Thom’s eyes, and something within them, something about Thom’s expression, his stance, his tightly fisted hands, clearly told him not to push his luck.
Poppy could see him trying to smile, but couldn’t manage to make his mouth curve.
“Think about it and let me know. So … I’m going to go. ”
“Best decision ever.”
Poppy watched Benji get into his car, and as he roared away, she knew she would never see him again. And that she didn’t mind one little bit.
Poppy frowned when Thom bent down, and gently lifted her using her upper arm. Catching her wrist in his hand, his grip gentle, he led her down the steps and onto the driveway.
“What are we doing now?” she asked, as she stepped onto the grass.
Thom took her down to the lake, and they stopped at the flat rock, the place where they spent so much time as children.
Below the rock, the lake, a bright, cheerful blue—it was probably also happy to see the last of Benji—bumped up against the rocks.
Thom dropped her wrist and placed his hands on his hips, his head bent, and his eyes closed. “So, I guess seeing Benji wasn’t on your bingo card for this morning, right?” she asked.
He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at her. Oh, crap, he was still pissed. Properly, irrefutably pissed. Or was he hurt? Why couldn’t you easily tell with men? And yes, maybe she’d been a bit flippant. Dammit.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
About Benji arriving? “I was about to come inside and call you—”
“Not that,” he chopped the air with a furious hand. “Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t know he was cheating on you until long after the wedding?”
“It wasn’t that long,” Poppy protested.
“Poppy!”
Her name was a super-fast bullet coming out of the mouth of a man who was two seconds away from losing his patience.
Shit. She was out of time and chances. They were going to have this conversation, right here and right now.
She scratched her head, trying to find a way to explain.
“I didn’t want to tell you, or Wren, the real reason I ran from the wedding.
Telling either of you would make me seem so stupid. ”
Thom’s expression softened, and his eyes lightened, just a fraction but enough for her to breathe a little easier.
“Why would you feel stupid with us?” he asked, with a lot less heat. “Have we made you feel like that before?”
“No, but…” She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “You are both so put together, so confident in who you are and where you belong in the world.”
Thom dug his fingertips into his hips, still frustrated, but trying to make sense of what she was saying. He’d always been good at listening to her. “I don’t understand, and I need to. Maybe explain why you ran from the wedding first.”
Right, they were doing this. A part of Poppy was glad that it was here, she was sick of wondering how he (and Wren) would react. Soon she’d know.
“You overheard some of it, two ghosts appeared in the bathroom mirror…” His face tightened, his expression darkened and …
right. He really didn’t want to hear about the role the ghosts played.
She’d stick to what she thought and felt.
“I might’ve subconsciously suspected Benji of cheating, but I didn’t much care if he was or not.
I wasn’t marrying Benji because I was in love with him. ”
When Thom didn’t say anything, she hauled in a deep breath. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the disgust on his face when she admitted what she’d done, so she looked out to the lake. Far in the distance, a lone kayaker made his way across the lake. Poppy wished she could trade places.
“I was only marrying Benji because my parents thoroughly approved of it—of us, of the whole idea. For the first time, definitely since my grandparents died, maybe in my whole life, I was a part of the family, welcomed and accepted. And that only happened because I was marrying a Sheffield, working at a job I hated but that everyone approved of, going to parties and schmoozing the right people. As long as I kept doing that, my approval ratings remained high.”
“You were prepared to marry Benji to feel accepted by your family?”
“Accepted and loved, Thom.” She whirled around to face him.
“I had coffee dates with my sisters, lunch with my mom.
We went away as a family; they took me on shopping trips, to the theater; they asked me to join them on family vacations.
I got to play with my nephews and nieces, got invited to their dinner parties.
I was introduced as their younger sister. I was accepted.
“And the only reason I was accepted was because I was marrying into an influential family, I was doing what they wanted me to do! I thought I could pay the price.”
He rubbed his face with both hands. “Jesus, I can’t believe what I am hearing,” he quietly muttered.
Of course, he couldn’t, because he’d never doubted who he was, where he fit into the world, the way she did.
“And you realized an hour before your wedding that the price was too high to pay?”
She met his eyes and handed him a defiant look. He knew this much; he might as well hear it all. “Yes, as I said, a couple of ghosts helped me see the light.”
“Of course they did.”
Thom
Ghosts helped her leave.
Actually, he couldn’t go there now. He couldn’t consider ghost crap on top of everything else. Right now, he needed to make complete sense of what she was telling him.
He looked at Poppy, taking in the misery in her eyes, embarrassment, and pride fighting for dominance. Look, he knew that her family dynamic was dysfunctional, and that she’d been emotionally neglected and dismissed, treated like a dim lightbulb in a string of brightly-colored LED lights.
But he never thought she’d put up with his cheating shit of a brother, just to have her family invite her to fucking dinner and trips away, go for coffee dates. Where did this come from? How had this happened?
He hadn’t been around to keep it from happening. The thought smacked him sideways. Guilt, like an acid-tipped spear, shot through him. “I know you never had an easy time with them, but I never realized they made you feel so worthless.”
Her small shoulders lifted, and she looked so damn young.
“I guess things started to change and get worse, when my grandma died. She was my rock, my sounding board, the person I told everything first. Her death flattened me. I felt adrift in the weeks and months after she died, like I’d lost a piece of myself. Wren was busy, and I felt so alone.
“But I still had Grandpa M. When he died my world dropped out from under me. A couple of weeks before his death, I’d just started to, casually, see Benji.
Then my mom, seeing our relationship, started inviting us around for dinner, to cocktail parties.
I didn’t correlate my sudden popularity with dating Benji, I just thought it was nice to reconnect with my family, to do things with them. Being with them helped dampen my grief.
“It snowballed from there,” she admitted. “I think a part of me always knew I was only accepted because I’d finally done something right to enhance the family name.”
“Do they have any idea what a shit he is?” Thom demanded, frustrated beyond belief. Not with her, but because he couldn’t go back in time and kick ass. How could they treat Poppy so badly?
She shrugged. “He’s ambitious, wants to go into politics, and he will be successful.
He’s handsome, smooth, verbally adept, and has absolutely no morals; he’s perfect for the job.
Glenda McMaster is—was—very keen to have a politician son-in-law.
” Poppy lifted her hands. “Anyway, that’s why I didn’t tell you. Are we good now?”
No, they most definitely were not good. Nowhere near it. Because at the end of the day, Poppy hadn’t trusted him with her worst moment, with her insecurities, and with her humiliation.
“What did you think I would do if you told me, Poppy?” he asked, keeping his voice low. “Did you think I would’ve laughed at you? Mocked you?”
She shrugged, and he fought the urge to scream. “What’s the point of rehashing this? It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
Every muscle in his body contracted, and he felt a little dizzy, unable to believe that the woman he adored—probably loved—thought that bad behavior was excusable, and that it could be swept away and forgiven. Why was he the only one who didn’t find that easy to do?
Was his stomach swooping in a non-fun way because of her or because this conversation reminded him of everything that happened before? These emotions felt so familiar, like an old, bad friend who rocked up out of the blue, intent on fucking with him again.
Poppy moved closer to him and placed a hand on his arm. “I can see that you are upset, Thom,” she said. “But when I heard Benji was cheating, it barely registered. It wasn’t a big thing and I’m not even angry about it.”