Chapter 8
POPPY
I’m on Maggie’s couch with my shoes off and a glass of wine, and Macavity is on the arm doing his gargoyle impression and making me smile. He still hasn’t decided if he likes me, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s one whisker twitch away from biting me.
“So let me get this straight,” Maggie says from the floor, cross-legged, glass in hand. “You told Dale maybe and Marty heard you. And now he’s pursuing a job in Wyoming.”
“That is the situation, yes.”
She takes a sip of her rosé. “You sure are torn up over a guy you only met a couple weeks ago. Did you fall in love with him?”
My hand tightens on my glass. “Who said anything about love?”
“Your face. I’ve never seen you like this over a man.”
Love. Two and a half weeks. That’s not—it shouldn’t be enough.
Except it’s not the sex I keep coming back to, even though that night was mind-blowing.
It’s that he had the grace to apologize when he made assumptions about me that were wrong.
That he was a gentleman with me. That we had so much fun at karaoke.
That night was fun in a way I’d forgotten fun could feel.
I knew that night. Falling into his arms after we performed Stayin’ Alive, I knew.
Every single time we’ve been together, I see something more, and everything is just…
right. And I want to keep discovering more about him.
Or I did until he made another bad assumption and didn’t even think to ask me what I was planning, and the first thing he did was tell Grandpa he was interested in a job in another state and knowing it would probably hurt me.
“You might be right.” My voice is thick.
“It’s all happened so fast, Maggie, but…
I know it feels right. And then he said he was interested in a job in Wyoming without even talking to me first, and I…
” My throat closes, and my heart sinks. “He didn’t even ask me what I meant. I’m heartbroken over this.”
“But he thinks you’re leaving, too. You have to decide if you want to stay. Or did he hear wrong?”
“Yes.” The word comes out hard. “No. I don’t know.” I press my palms into my thighs until my knuckles ache. “I said maybe because I couldn’t tell if I was staying for the plan or staying for him, and if it’s for him and he leaves anyway—”
She puts her hand on my knee. “You’re scared. That’s not the same as not wanting it.”
We both jump at the sound of a knock at the door. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No,” Maggie says, getting up to open the door.
Marty is standing there, with his hair shoved back and his shoulders braced. His eyes go past her and find mine and my skin prickles from my scalp to my wrists and my stomach twists into knots. I’m not prepared for this.
“Hey,” Maggie says.
“Hey.” He’s looking at me. “Can we talk?”
The concrete is cold through my jeans, even though it’s summer. Marty sits beside me on the porch, close enough that just moving an inch would mean I could touch him, and I want to so badly my fingers ache.
I also want to shove him off this porch because he’s an idiot.
After a long silence, Marty says, “I told Dale I was interested in Wyoming.”
“Marty,” I sigh heavily, “in case you’ve forgotten, I was there.”
“I need you to know why.”
“I already know, Marty.”
“You don’t.” His forearms are on his knees, hands laced, knuckles white. “Every woman I’ve fallen for has chosen her career over me. I heard you tell Dale maybe, and I went cold and I grabbed the first exit I could find.”
I turn to look at him, but he’s staring at the pavement.
“So your answer to eavesdropping is to leave first.” My voice is low, and it shakes with anger and hurt.
“You heard one word—one word, without context—and you didn’t come talk to me.
You didn’t ask what I meant. You just made a blind assumption about what it meant, then went cold and started planning your exit.
Did it ever occur to you to just fucking ask me? ”
“What was I supposed to think, Poppy?” His head comes up. His eyes are red-rimmed, but his jaw is set. “I heard you tell Dale you weren’t sure about staying. I know what maybe sounds like. I’ve heard it before, and it’s never meant yes.”
“So you decided for both of us. Based on things that have absolutely nothing to do with me?”
“I decided for me. Before you could.”
The honesty of that hits me and makes me pause.
“I kept waiting for you to say something, anything, and you’re just—polite. Professional. Like everything between us didn’t happen.” My eyes are burning. “Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
“Yeah, I do.” He’s not flinching from this, and that’s worse than if he were.
My throat is so tight I can barely swallow. I want to be angrier, but I can’t because I can hear the hurt in his voice. He’s not making excuses. He’s telling me what he did and why, and the why is exactly what scared me when he said yes for a job in Wyoming.
“That’s not good enough,” I say, but the edge is fraying. “You panicked, and your panic chose a direction that you had to know would hurt me.”
“I know. And at that moment, I wanted to hurt you.” His voice drops. “I handled it wrong, and I’m sorry. I really am. I should have walked into that trailer and asked you what maybe meant instead of assuming it meant what I was afraid of.”
A car passes and the headlights sweep across us and then we’re back in the dark again.
“I’m not planning leaving,” I tell him, and my voice cracks on it.
“I told Grandpa maybe because if I just say yes he’ll fixate on it and start ordering business cards before I’ve caught my breath.
I still need to clean out my apartment by the university.
Would I love to work with him? God, yes.
But saying yes means closing other doors, and no matter how much I want to work for Grandpa, there are still things I have to consider.
” I wrap my arms around my chest and hug myself tightly.
“The maybe had nothing to do with not wanting it. It’s also that I didn’t know what was happening with us, and I’m not sure I’d want to be here if you were gone. If we weren’t together.”
Marty turns to look at me, his eyes soft and the anger gone from his face.
“You were—are—part of the reason I want to stay,” I say. “That’s what scared me. Not any plan I’ve made for my career, not Grandpa, not the job. You. The fact that you were already so tangled up in my decision that I couldn’t see where the work ended and we could begin.”
“So we were both running.” His voice is barely there. “Just in different directions.”
I press my lips together and nod. The blood is loud in my ears, and the urge to touch him is so strong that my thigh muscles are shaking.
“I turned down Wyoming,” he says.
“When?”
“This afternoon. I called Dale and told him I’m not going.”
“Before or after you came here?”
“Before.” His little finger brushes my thigh.
The contact is the lightest touch, but his breath changes when he does it, shorter, rougher, and any frustration I still had dissolves in an instant.
“I turned it down before I knew you’d talk to me.
I turned it down because the thought of being twelve hundred miles from you made me sick and no job is worth that. ”
“I’m in love with you,” I admit, my voice breaking.
“Since karaoke night. I haven’t had that much pure fun in so long, and you just…
went along with it. Those ridiculous Travolta moves in front of a packed bar.
And it was so easy and so right and I knew I wanted to feel that way for as long as you’d let me.
” I swallow. “And I’m terrified and I need to know this is real. ”
His hand finds mine, and the heat of his palm makes me relax.
“It’s real. I’m in love with you, too.” His voice is low.
Marty moves his thumb lightly across my knuckles, and every pass sends a current straight to my heart.
“I tried to tell myself I couldn’t fall for you because I was sure you’d break my heart and I wouldn’t be able to survive it.
But every time we were together, everything just clicked.
I realized I never wanted to be apart from you. ”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was working up to it. I was going to ask you to stay after we met with Dale. And then I heard you through that door, and I—” His fingers tighten on mine. “I got scared. And I’m here now because I made a mistake. I need you in my life, Poppy.”
He lifts my hand. Presses my knuckles against his mouth, and my heart expands.
“Don’t,” I say, and my voice is wrecked. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not.” He lowers my hand but doesn’t let go. “I’m choosing here. I’m choosing you. Not the job, not the town.”
“And the plan?”
“I don’t care about the plan.” He turns toward me and his knee presses against mine and the contact sends heat straight up my thigh. “Stay for the plan, stay for Dale, stay because you like the town—I don’t care why you stay as long as you’re here.”
“And if I’m staying because of you?”
“Then I’m the luckiest guy in Forge Creek, and I’ll spend every day making sure you don’t regret it.”
My free hand goes to his jaw. The stubble is rough under my palm and his eyes close and he goes slack under my hand. I’m dizzy with love for this man.
“So I wasn’t a summer fling,” I say.
“Fuck, no. Poppy. You were—are—so much more than a fling.” His hand comes up and covers mine against his face. “You’re everything.”
“Marty.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you,” I say, then lean forward and kiss him softly.
“Come home with me,” he says against my skin.
And the word I give him isn’t maybe.