Chapter 5 Bright Lines #2
Harper's mouth flattened. "I don't care who dates whom. I care that twenty-year-old men with public accounts are turning women I love into a ranking chart. A boring answer gives them less to work with."
Poppy looked at the phone again. One screenshot had circles around all six women and arrows leading back to me, as if affection were a play diagram and somebody could win by identifying the correct route.
"It would work," she said.
"Probably," Harper agreed.
That honesty made the offer harder to dismiss. Nobody had come to punish Poppy. They'd brought her the safest available exit.
It was smart.
That was the problem.
Harper wasn't shaming anyone. Camille wasn't asking Poppy to apologize. They were offering a shield, and the shield worked as long as Poppy agreed to stand behind a version of herself that wasn't true.
Kit set down the extension cords. Luna moved closer to the table. Neither woman spoke.
Poppy looked at Kit first. Years of friendship moved through one glance. Kit's face held warmth, pride, and absolutely no intention of answering for her.
Luna gave Poppy a small nod.
Every protective instinct I had wanted to step between Poppy and the question. Her hand stopped me. She wasn't holding on because she needed my voice. She was making sure I stayed beside her while she used her own.
Poppy squeezed my hand, stepped half a pace forward, and faced Harper and Camille.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do," she said. "And you're right about one thing. Nobody here should be forced to explain a relationship before she's ready. I'm not speaking for Kit, Luna, Vina, Lucy, or Bristol. Their truth belongs to them."
Harper lowered the phone a little.
Poppy's voice stayed gentle. "But I'm not calling Nash casual. I'm not saying Saturday was some wild party that made us forget who we were. And I'm not describing myself as a friend who wandered into the right photo."
Her fingers left mine only so she could turn toward me and lay her palm flat over my heart.
"I love him," she said. "He's my boyfriend. That's my answer."
Nobody rushed to fill the silence.
Poppy had already filled it.
I covered her hand with mine and looked at Harper and Camille. "Poppy's my girlfriend."
One sentence. No defense attached.
Her smile hit me full force.
Harper studied Poppy. "If that makes the questions louder?"
"Then they get louder," Poppy said. "I'm not putting another woman's name into a statement she didn't choose. Mine is Poppy Summers. I love Nash Brewster. That's the part I own."
Harper's shoulders eased. "Okay. Then that's what I protect. Poppy and Nash are together. Anything beyond that stays private unless the woman involved says otherwise."
"That's fair," Poppy said.
"It won't stop the questions," Camille warned.
"I can live with questions."
Lucy came up from the pool with Bristol beside her, both of them carrying folded towels. She caught the last part and read the rest from the faces around the table.
"Questions are fine," Lucy said. "People turning me into a pose isn't. I don't care if they see the truth. I'm not recreating somebody's favorite frame every time they point a phone at me."
Bristol set the towels down. "You don't owe anyone a more convenient truth."
She said it to Poppy, quiet and direct.
Poppy's eyes shone, but she didn't retreat into a joke. "Thank you."
Jessa had been watching from the end of the bar, drink balanced against one hip. The teasing curve of her mouth had faded into something more attentive.
"So this isn't six women having a ridiculous summer," she said.
Poppy smiled. "Oh, it's definitely that too."
Jessa laughed.
"But it's real," Poppy added.
Jessa looked at me, then at Kit and Luna, then back to Poppy. "That explains why nobody's throwing punches."
"Low bar," Luna said.
"For Kappa Rho?" Jessa asked.
Luna considered that. "Fair."
The tension released just enough to breathe without erasing what had happened.
Harper pocketed her phone. "I'll keep the houses from inventing details."
"I'll remind Kappa that private doesn't mean fake," Camille said.
"That's all I'm asking," Poppy told them.
Harper and Camille headed toward the lodge. Jessa lingered long enough to give Poppy an approving little salute, then followed the noise toward the pool. She'd learned that the circle was serious. Nothing more needed handing to her.
Poppy watched them go and released a breath she'd been holding behind her smile.
"Still okay?" I asked.
"Better than okay." She slipped her hand back into mine. "I'm tired of being brave in captions and careful in person."
Kit picked up the extension cords again. "You need anything?"
Poppy shook her head. "I've got what I need."
She turned, caught my shirt in both fists, and kissed me in front of the unfinished bar.
Her mouth was warm and sure. The kiss lasted long enough to make my hands settle at her waist and long enough for every woman still standing there to understand it wasn't gratitude. Poppy kissed me because she'd said boyfriend aloud and liked the way the word felt between us.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright.
"Now," she said, handing me the drill, "finish my bar."
"Your bar?"
"I claimed things today. Keep up."
Kit laughed. Luna shook her head. Lucy carried the towels toward the lodge, and Bristol followed with the smallest smile on her face.
Poppy climbed onto an unfinished stool to watch me work. Her bare foot brushed my thigh every time I leaned toward the next screw.
The lake had an answer now.
It still didn't know Poppy.
***
By seven thirty, Bella had turned leftover check-in momentum into a cookout nobody remembered planning.
The grill smoked beside the deck. Music moved under the guest noise, loud enough to make the resort feel alive without forcing everyone to shout.
The new string lights glowed in uneven sections above the outdoor bar, bright over the part we'd finished and dark where bare hooks still waited for wire.
I had finally put down the drill and claimed a stool with a burger when Poppy appeared at my elbow.
"Move your plate."
"There's another stool."
"I don't want another stool."
I moved the plate.
Poppy turned and settled sideways across my thighs with the confidence of a woman returning to reserved seating. One arm looped around my shoulders. Her ass fit snug against my lap, warm through denim, and the loose curls at her neck smelled like strawberries, sunscreen, and a full day in July.
"Better," she said.
My hands found her waist. "For who?"
"Everybody important."
She picked up my burger and took a bite.
"You have your own plate."
"Mine doesn't taste stolen."
Poppy held the burger to my mouth. I took a bite, lips brushing the ketchup from her thumb. Her body shifted against me when she felt it.
The contact lasted one second.
It followed me for the next ten.
Bella came through the bar opening with a basket of napkins. She spotted Poppy on my lap and handed her half the stack.
"Far tables, honey. Before the wind puts them in the pool."
"I'm on it."
Poppy slid off me, set out the napkins, brought Bella a fresh drink without being asked, and returned before my lap had stopped missing her.
She stole my fork, fed me a bite of potato salad, and reclaimed her seat across my thighs. Bella saw the whole maneuver, shook her head, and set an extra plate beside us anyway.
No ceremony. No first invitation into family business. Bella treated Poppy like she belonged because she already did.
Kit worked the buffet line, helping a guest balance two overloaded plates while Luna organized a cornhole game near the pool.
They moved through Brewster Bay with the easy ownership of women who no longer felt like visitors.
Every so often Kit caught Poppy draped across me and smiled like she'd been waiting years to watch her best friend stop pretending this wasn't exactly where she wanted to be.
Vina came around the bar, took my lemonade, and drank half of it.
"You could ask," I said.
"You'd say yes. This saves time."
She leaned over Poppy and kissed me, mouth cool from the drink and warm everywhere else. It was quick, casual, intimate enough that it didn't need an audience to justify it.
"Thanks, baby." Vina handed the cup back and wandered toward the food.
Poppy caught her wrist before she got away and kissed her cheek. "You look good in girlfriend mode, Lips."
Vina flashed her a grin. "I look good in every mode, Sugar."
"True."
Poppy watched Vina go with the pleased expression of a woman whose friend had finally stopped standing outside a door that was already open. Then she tucked herself more comfortably against me and stole another bite of my burger.
Sam stared after her from beside the ice chest. "She says that like you've been married for six years."
"You objecting to marriage now?" Poppy asked.
"I'm objecting to Brew surviving things that would put me in a medically induced coma."
Vina heard him and called over her shoulder, "Build stamina, Sammy."
His ears turned red.
Sally arrived with a cold bottle of water and pressed it against the side of his neck. Sam yelped.
"Drink," she ordered. "You're sweating through your shirt."
"It's ninety degrees."
"And yet the rest of us remember hydration without supervision."
She wiped a streak of sweat from his temple with the edge of a clean napkin, then pointed toward the open seat she'd saved beside her. Sam obeyed with a grin he tried and failed to hide.
Poppy watched them over the top of my cup.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing, Brew."
Her smile said she knew exactly what she was looking at.
"That's not a nothing smile."
"It's an you'll-catch-up-eventually smile."
I glanced toward Sam. He was drinking the water Sally had handed him while she stole fries from his plate.
"He's dehydrated."
Poppy patted my cheek. "Sure, baby. That's it."
I saw Sam and Sally falling into the same comfortable rhythm they'd had all summer. Sally bossed. Sam listened when it mattered. Whatever amused Poppy about that could wait until I had fewer women rearranging my understanding of the world.