Page 25 of Halloween Town

Poppy bent down to scratch his ears, and Felony stretched but still made no effort to get to his feet. “Are you feeling lazy, puppy?” Poppy crooned.

There was the slightest movement to his head, as close to a nod as Fel would deign to make. Thom placed his hand on Poppy’s lower back and steered her to the door. They walked out onto the porch, down the steps, and hit the grass in front of the house. It was instinct to walk toward the lake, to the boulders where that photo had been taken.

But before they got to the long-ago past, he wanted to know what happened in Boston. “Why did you run from your wedding, Poppy?” he quietly asked as they approached the shore. When they were young, a mini playground, built by Grandpa M., stood to their right, but all that was left was the old chain swing hanging from the branches of the live oak.

“I got scared, and I didn’t love Benji enough to push past the fear,” she said quietly. “I should never have agreed to marry him. I knew it was wrong the moment he slid that ring onto my finger.”

He supposed that was as good a reason as any. The truth, but not the whole truth. Because he couldn’t pull his eyes off her face, he smiled when she clocked the swing. As he expected, she ran up to it and sat down on the seat, her fingers curled around the chains. He knew what was coming next.

“Push me, Thom.”

Yep, there it was, the same demand, the same impatience in her now adult voice. He folded his arms and scowled at her. “You do know that you aren’t five anymore, right?”

She grinned at him. “You were the best pusher,” she told him, blatantly batting her long eyelashes. The mix of mischief and quiet pleading in her voice hit him square in the chest, sparking a flare of attraction—and irritation—at the same time. Attraction, because fuck, she looked effortlessly cool sitting on the swing, heels brushing the ground, nostalgia and temptation wrapped up in one infuriatingly pretty package.

And irritation, because pushing her back and forth like a well-behaved friend was the very last thing he wanted to do. For her and to her.

No. What he wanted was reckless and selfish and a fucking terrible idea. His thoughts slid south, heat pooling low and dangerous, and he locked his jaw. Wanting her naked and exposed—wanting to kiss away her defiance, her doubts, her hurt, and her carefully constructed bravery—only made him angrier. At her. At the situation. At himself.

And if he did that, his life would turn messy and unpredictable, two things he couldn’t abide.

Poppy climbed to her feet and stood on the wooden seat of the swing, her expression pensive. “I spent so many hours doing this, running through the park and the woods, swimming and boating, and playing. How can it seem like it was yesterday but also a hundred years ago?”

He felt the same. Some days, he could reach back and touch the past; others, he felt he needed to leapfrog a chasm.

Poppy, right now only a little taller than he was, looked at him. “I need to know what I did wrong, Thom.”

Shit. It was here, the conversation he’d been dreading. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. Poppy deserved an explanation, and his was long overdue. He pushed his hand through his hair and rubbed his jaw, trying to find the right words. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Poppy.”

“But I did do something.”

Yeah. “You grew up,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry?”

Apparently, he was doing this. He had to do this because he couldn’t let her, not for one more moment, think that she was to blame for their lack of contact. Because it had all been on him.

“At the time I genuinely didn’t think you’d miss me that much, or that you’d be so hurt by me dropping out of your life,” he began, his throat tight. He wasn’t a talker, or an explainer, and every word was the tip of a fire-heated nail scorching his throat. He shrugged. “You were so popular and had so many friends.”

“I did have a lot of friends, but I only ever confided in you and Wren.”

Those nails morphed into tiny daggers.

“Are you going to tell me why, Thom?”

Yes, if he could find the words. “That photo of us on the rocks… Do you remember how you leaned against me?” he asked.

She nodded. “Sure.”

“That was fine when you were five or ten, or even thirteen. I saw you as a kid, the same kid I watched grow up.” Poppy’s confused expression suggested she had no idea where he was going with this. “But that last summer we spent together⁠—”

“Technically, it was only two weeks,” she interjected.

He scowled at her. “Are you going to let me explain or not?” Poppy grimaced, nodded, and gestured for him to continue. “That summer, I was twenty, you were seventeen. We were on the wooden raft that Hayes and I had built with your grandpa. I can’t remember everyone who was there.”

“Hayes, Wren, Benji, my sister Isobel, a few other kids we knew.”

“You’d been swimming, and you came up alongside the raft and demanded that I pull you out. I grabbed your hand, I remember that you wore a white and navy spotted bikini.”