Page 28 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

“Nah, Ali has some good qualities too. I mean, he’s real, for one.”

He followed her downstairs. He wasn’t sure that he had many good qualities back then, but in the intervening years, he’d found some. That kid who thought he was the shit had woken up to realize he wasn’t, and there was a lot he still had to learn.

It had been hard to admit that a lot of those lessons had come from Poppy after she left him. “You sure you want to walk?”

“Definitely. I’m used to walking around Birch Lake,” she said.

“How’d you end up there?” he asked. “I thought your aunt lived in Bangor?”

“She does. Mum and Dad have a rental property in Birch Lake. I am the caretaker for it, and they let me live in it rent free for six months,” she said.

“You had money. I never cut you off from the accounts,” he said.

“It was your money. Not mine. You weren’t offering the one thing I wanted, so there was nothing you had that mattered to me.” She put her sunglasses on and then started a workout on her watch. “Merle and I have a friendly competition on our watches. He pretty much just sits at his desk all night, so I think competing with me for the most steps is good for him.”

Alistair’s brows drew together. It was too easy for her to switch topics. Her words echoed from the past, stretching out to wrap around his throat. There was a residual tinge of regret that brought him back to something she’d said—or hadn’t said—earlier.

He was pretty damn sure that if the opportunity to use him presented itself, Poppy would take it.

Eight

Going to the pub wasn’t the worst idea. After the conversation they’d had, he’d tried to keep things light as they walked, and Poppy seemed to be on the same page. It was one of those hazy almost summer days that felt like it would last forever. Having Poppy next to him made his skin feel too tight. All he could notice was the way her skirt moved around her legs with each step she took.

She got a text and took her phone out to answer it.

This gave him too much time to notice how thin the material of her dress was and how, when he slowed down to walk at her pace, the scent of her vanilla body spray surrounded him. Her fingers tapped quickly on the screen of her phone and then she tucked it back into her crossbody bag.

“Sorry about that.”

“Your friends warning you to keep your guard up around me?”

“Sort of. I mean, you know everyone in Birch Lake believes we’re witches,” she said.

He’d heard that. Maybe there was more than a kernel of truth to it. That would be a nice way to explain the hold she’d always had over him even when he hadn’t wanted her to. “Are you going to curse me?”

“Who says I haven’t already?” she said.

“That would explain a lot,” he said, thinking of the past eighteen months. It would be nice to blame otherworldly forces instead of his own cocked-up stupidity. But taking ownership of his own actions was something his therapist had reinforced many times.

“Kidding. I’m not into cursing people,” she said.

A memory tugged, and he canted his head to the side to watch her. “Didn’t you make a poppet of our econ lecturer?”

Laughing in that small, tinkling sound that he couldn’t help feeling all the way to his toes. She nodded. “That’s right. I’d forgotten all about that little kit I picked up in the spiritual store. Since meeting Liberty, I know all the ways that those things can go wrong. No wonder I failed the exam.”

“I did suggest using the time reading over the notes instead of perfecting the doll,” he said as they approached the Cross Keys.

“Yeah, you did, but I’ve never been good at taking advice,” she said.

“Not sure I gave any good tips.” He held open the door for her to enter before him.

The temperature inside the pub was tepid, and it was a little stuffy given how hot it was today. “Want to try the beer garden?” he asked.

His local pub had a pretty decent dinner menu, and after eight, they had different local bands play. It was a Monday, so not a big going-out night normally. The sun was out, the pub was crowded, but they managed to find a seat toward the back of the beer garden.

Poppy looked at the menu and gave one of those smiles that sent a zing straight to his heart.

“Pub food. I mean it’s a gastropub, so some really nice dishes, but you know I’m going straight for the fish and chips,” she said with a grin. “What do you want? I’ll order for us.”

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