Poppy
“Poppy.” Paxton’s voice is soft and gentle, a caress of warmth and emotion that makes tears form in my already overactive tear ducts. He stops with a solid foot of space between us, and though the night air is still warm, my skin pricks with goosebumps, missing his heat. “What are you doing here?” He shakes his head. “No. I mean…” he expels a shallow breath and then reaches forward, brushing a strand of my hair from my face. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was just about to hop in a car and find a plane or a bus or a car that would take me to you.”
Heat fills my chest, a warmth that exudes from my heart and spreads through my body like electricity, alerting every cell and fiber of my being to pay attention and be present because I know we’re about to make a memory that I’ll never want to forget.
“I’m sorry things got so crazy. I never meant for them to get so damn messy. I never meant for you to get hurt. I hate that I hurt you. Your trust and your happiness mean so damn much to me. I want to make this better. I want to fix this between us because I need you in my life, and it’s not to keep me sober or away from Candace or because of my stupid reputation. I need you, Poppy, because without you, I’m a fraction of myself. Because you make me feel a sense of calmness and ease that I’ve never known before, and because I love you so damn much that none of this matters without you.”
Tears slip down my face, but my lips tip up with a smile that is so wide it makes my cheeks ache. “I never should have listened to either of them. I should have come to you first and talked things out.”
“I never should have let her inside. I never would have invited her over. It meant nothing.”
“I know,” I say, brushing another stray tear away that is a product of my overflowing emotions. “I’m used to things being a certain way, and things got really messy, and that terrified me,” I tell him. “But, I had this really strange epiphany while eating a cupcake of all things. You see, I spent all of yesterday baking the best cupcakes of my life. It took most of the day and made the biggest mess. I think I’ll be cleaning up powdered sugar until Easter, but they were so worth it. And it had me realizing that this thing between us—that was fifteen years in the making—is probably going to continue to have some more messy moments, but that’s what makes it so damn good.”
“So damn good,” he says, taking a step closer to me as his eyes spark with emotions that I can identify and list off, leaving me to realize I might be good at a fourth thing: being with Pax. Lust and desire, relief and doubt, hope and fear—they’re all present in his familiar blue eyes and likely reflected in my own gaze as well. “I’m far from perfect, but you make me want to be perfect. And you make me believe in things I’ve lost sight of, things my dad made me doubt. I know this thing between us began with rules and ulterior motives, but every time I was with you, every time you laughed, every time you were honest—I fell for you, and when I think about my life, you’ve always been there as a bright spot. I love you, Poppy, and I need you in my life, pushing me to do better—to be better.”
I reach for him. “What if it’s the rules that we love? The honesty, the lack of games, the forced commitment?”
“Everyone has rules—everyone. It’s just most of the time, we’re too damn afraid and prideful to share them or dare to break them or explore them or define them. And half of the time, we end up forgetting the rules because we get so wrapped up in someone else. But we can keep them. We can write our own rules, write them in ink, type them, print them…” He shakes his head, his words coming fast and with a passion and intensity that makes my heart thrum in my chest.
“What happens after June? I don’t want to hold you back. I know you want to play for Seattle, but if you get drafted to another team—one that takes you to the other side of the country—you have to take it. I would expect and want you to take it.”
His mouth draws up with a taut smile. “I thought you said you believed in me and that Seattle would pick me?”
“That was before I learned how the draft works.”
His smile flashes with something that looks almost sad, but there isn’t a hint of doubt. “Then, we’ll earn a lot of airline miles. Just because things change doesn’t mean we change.”
“I’ve cared about you nearly my entire life,” I admit. “And I think I knew that if I fell for you, you’d ruin things for all guys in my life.”
A pirate smile flashes as his eyebrows arch upward. “Thank fuck because I know that you’re the only one for me. You see me and believe in me in ways that make me know that if this were to all end tomorrow, you wouldn’t care.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t. You’ll always be my favorite rule.” I whisper the last words, my lips so close to his that I feel the slight pressure against
