Chapter 19
Nineteen
Storm
“I hate you,” Poppy mutters.
I grin and help her back up to her feet. “Falling is part of the process, remember?”
Not that I’ve been letting her hit the ice hard. I’ve been keeping close—or as close as she’ll let me. Luckily, Holly is off and running…or skating. She’s found a friend and they’re having a great time. Falling and getting up. Long strides, short strides, changes in direction.
Lots of good practice.
Meanwhile…Poppy has made it a quarter of the way around the rink, her sweats are soaked through, and her mood is deteriorating.
She scowls at me. “You think you’re funny.”
“Now that you’ve done it your way,” I say. “Will you let me help you properly?”
“Does that mean I won’t have to learn by falling anymore?” she mutters, pushing up to her feet and rubbing her ass.
I’d offer to take over except…
“Yeah, baby,” I murmur.
Her scowl deepens. “Table that baby.”
“What?”
“You’re already sexy enough in your skates. And with—” She waves a hand. “All of that.”
I lift my brows. “All of what?”
Another wave of her hand. “That. The cocky confidence. The grace and athleticism and balance.”
Now my eyebrows fly up further.
Did I somehow miss her hitting her head?
“Don’t be coy,” she grumbles. “You know you’re gorgeous.”
Something’s growing inside me.
And it’s not my cocky confidence.
Okay, it is.
Or maybe it’s just my cock.
But also…
“You think I’m gorgeous?”
She teeters around to glare at me. “You know you are—” But she cuts herself off with a frown. “Ugh. Never mind. What am I supposed to do again?”
“Coy?” I press.
Her eyes narrow. “Never mind. I’ll figure it—ack!”
I move in a rush, catching her against me when her angry stride sends her toppling.
Heaven.
And hell.
My arms tighten and I inhale, taking the scent of her into my lungs. Committing it to memory.
Or no…it shakes one loose.
Poppy laughing with her friends as she walked by me on Gold Creek Beach wearing that tiny red bikini I loved so much. She’d tossed her hair, sending the scent of her up into the air.
“Vanilla,” I murmur.
She freezes against me, stops trying to do her best to take us both down to the ice.
“What?”
“You were wearing vanilla that day too.”
“Wh-what?”
“At the beach,” I murmur. “You were wearing a truly tiny red bikini and you walked by me and—” I inhale again. “You smelled like vanilla.”
She relaxes slightly. “That was the first day you noticed me.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Her head tilts back, ponytail teasing my chin, strands catching on the stubble on my jaw. “It wasn’t?”
“I was tracking you for months, Pop. Hell, for years.” I fight a smile. “Ever since you punched Donnie Roberts on the playground for being mean to Clover.”
“That was in first grade,” she whispers.
I just hold her eyes in answer.
“I…” It’s still a whisper, still awed. “I thought—”
“I thought you were beautiful.”
And untouchable.
And someone who could never be mine.
“Oh,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. “Oh.”
Her face changes, emotions rippling across her face, and doing it so quickly I can’t read them all.
Like she’s conflicted.
Like she doesn’t know whether to hate me or love me.
Well, not love, but—
“That’s Cedar Hollow,” she murmurs. “Everyone knows everyone.”
“No,” I say. “It’s you. I wanted…” I shrug, tuck a lose strand of hair behind her ear. “That day I just got lucky enough that you gave me an opening.”
“No, it was lucky you were a good kisser,” she teases.
“Want to see how much better I’ve gotten?”
The words slip out before I can process how dumb they are, how risky…
How much I want her to take me up on them.
Stupid as shit.
Yeah, I might have been spending the last seven years avoiding this town, but I’m not just here for Holly.
Poppy has always been in my heart.
Your heart, huh? A cold voice that sounds very much like my dad slides through my head. And how did that go with Joey—
I slam the door on those thoughts.
Joey was different.
This…well, Poppy isn’t Joey.
But even as I think that, a part of me isn’t convinced.
“That’s not a good idea,” Poppy murmurs, echoing my thoughts, my worries, that fucking voice.
“No?” I ask, not sure why I’m pushing it.
She’s right.
But…fuck, I don’t want her to be.
“No,” she says gently. “Not with Holly—”
“I won’t hurt Holly,” I promise even though I’m not sure if that’s true.
Because if I’m anything like my dad…
She straightens, tugs against my hold, but I keep her close.
“I won’t,” I say, more firmly.
To her. To myself.
“Does that mean you’re staying?” she asks, glancing up, her eyes locking onto mine, something like hope flickering through the emerald depths.
“I know you and Rain are working on the house together, that your dad left it to both of you”—I don’t ask her how she knows that.
This is Cedar Hollow, after all—“but does that mean you’re here for the long haul? ”
I open my mouth. I want to promise I won’t leave.
But I can’t do that.
Because once upon a time, I thought I had stability, family, permanence.
And then I was traded to the Hawks.
That’s my reality.
I could be traded tomorrow.
Could have to leave—
“Right,” she says, my silence answer enough.
That stings.
Not that I blame her. Career aside, I was the one who left. Who stayed away.
“I get it,” she says. “Big job. Big life.” A laugh that’s all sharp edges and jagged sounds. “It certainly has to be more exciting than living here in Cedar Hollow.”
“Pop,” I begin, some part of me needing her to understand why I moved away like I did, why I stayed away. “That’s not—”
“Look at me!” Holly cries as she barrels by us, wobbling left and right, but staying on her feet as she speeds around. She’s peeled off a couple of layers of clothes and her hair is windblown, her cheeks flushed pink as her friend chases after her.
She’s kicking ass.
I grin.
Poppy smiles too. “Way to—ack!”
I lurch forward, wrapping my arms around her middle, steadying her. “I’ve got you,” I promise.
And I want it to mean that I have her now, that I’ll have her…
For days and months and years.
For longer.
For…forever.
But the reality is that I know she’s thinking the same thing I am.
I have her.
Just…for how long?
We eat an early dinner at Molly’s and I walk Poppy and Holly home, slipping the hundred-dollar bill into Poppy’s pocket before I leave.
But I don’t stay away. Or not for long, anyway.
Instead, I stand in the entry of my father’s house—
Of—fuck—my house.
(And Rain’s.)
Debating.
Lingering.
Hesitating.
Because I know I’m about to do something stupid.
Sully’s is close by and Poppy is working tonight.
And Holly’s right there too.
Maybe I can sneak upstairs and read her a book, can spend some more one-on-one time with her…and then come down and hang around the bar with Poppy. Prove that I’m—
What?
I don’t even fucking know.
But I’m still reaching for the knob anyway.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
I shake myself and pull it open, thinking it’s probably Clover—or more likely, her cousin Riley, who I’ve caught Rain glaring at several times over the last few days—to remind him about clearing out the gutters and trimming back those cedars.
“What the fuck?” I grind out when I see it’s decidedly not Clover.
Or Riley.
Instead, my teammate Shep is standing on the front porch, his smile wide, his eyes amused, his gaze drifting behind me. “Nice place you got here.”
“It’s a shithole,” I mutter.
“Yup,” he says cheerfully. “It sure is.” His gaze flicks down to the jacket in my hand. “Going somewhere?”
Yup. Straight to hell.
“Nope,” I lie.
He smirks. “Okay then. So, you gonna let me in?”
Motherfucker.
“Nope,” I say again.
“So…” He looks around the rotting exterior then turns back to me, grinning like the asshole he is. “We’ll just face off on the front porch then?”
Christ.
I tilt my head back, stare up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. Then, knowing there’s no point in prolonging the torture that is Shep, I exhale heavily and look back at my teammate. “I’m walking downtown.”
“I like that we’re sharing.” He rolls a hand. “But give me more, Stormy. Why are we walking downtown?”
I don’t miss the fucking nickname. And I don’t miss that he’s said we.
But I don’t acknowledge either.
Giving Shep an inch is giving him a mile.
“I’m,” I emphasize, “getting a drink and then going to bed. You’re”—I gesture to his car parked at the curb—“going to drive your ass out of—”
“Cool,” He interrupts, turning on his heel and walking down the driveway. “I’m thirsty. Let’s hit it.”
I debate slamming the door shut and going back upstairs.
But the lock doesn’t work, and Shep is totally the type of person to let himself in.
And second…
Peaches and cream skin. Vanilla in my nose. Holly’s laughter in my ears and a chance at spending more time with both of them—even under Shep’s watchful gaze.
It’s more appealing than brooding in my room.
Even under the aforementioned watchful gaze.
I tug the door shut behind me, start following my teammate down the driveway and along the sidewalk.
He gestures at a sign stapled to a telephone pole as I come up beside him.
“What’s the Cedar Hollow Mafia?” he asks with a frown. “Some kind of neighborhood watch?”
“Not exactly,” I say.
“The five rules of the Cedar Hollow Mafia,” he reads. “One, never make direct eye contact. Two, never run. Three, never negotiate.” He looks up, brows dragging together. “I thought this was a small town.”
“It is,” I say as we keep walking, turning by the elementary school…
And one of the Cedar Hollow Mafia’s main hangouts.
“Then what—?” he asks, following me.
“That’s the Cedar Hollow Mafia,” I say, sweeping my hand out at the darkened field, the shadowed forms of sleepy geese curled up in regular clumps.
His eyebrows fly up.
Then he laughs loudly.
Loudly enough to garner the attention of the mafia.
Or at least one high-ranking member.
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
I open my mouth to tell him I’m absolutely not fucking with him.
But Gerald proves my point before I can so much as utter a syllable.
“Honk!”