Page 76 of Brewing Up a Bad Boy

“The moon will help,” Liberty said. “I don’t know what to say. I wanted to hate him, but he’s not really a dick. I mean, I’ll totally hate him if he hurts you.”

“Thanks, Lib.”

“I like him too,” Sera said quietly. “But there is something...I can’t place my finger on. Like he’s uncertain.”

Which was what scared Poppy.

Twenty-One

“Ready?”

Kombucha was an acquired taste. The first time Ali had tried it, he wasn’t expecting something that smelled so funky to actually be palatable. Poppy looked skeptical and cute as she tried not to breathe in the initial whiff of vinegar.

She had on a pair of incredibly short denim shorts that showcased her long legs. A T-shirt printed with Edward Robert Hughes’sMidsummer Eve’s moon fairy completed her look. It was all he could do to keep his hands off her. The shirt, the kombucha brewing shed, Poppy... They were drawing him back to that night on the Tor.

He’d truly believed his life had changed when he put hands on Stephen, but the truth was, that had only been an awakening. He’d found his path on that long walk up the Tor on the magical midsummer night with Poppy.

“Did you change your mind?” Poppy asked. “You’re staring at me like...you’re not sure I’ll survive.”

“Ha ha. Of course you will. At worst, it will taste bad,” he said. “Want me to go first?”

“No. We agreed to do it at the same time.” She held her free hand to him, and he took it, lacing their fingers together. “One.”

“Two,” he said, lifting his own bottle to his mouth.

“Three.”

She took a deep swallow, and he did the same. The taste was...not bad. Actually, he got the faint hints of strawberries and mint that Poppy had suggested they use in the last fermentation.

“Not bad,” she said. “I think we’ll beat Freddie with this one. He was determined to get summer boardwalk in his kombucha. Pretzels and all that.”

“I don’t know. Is winning important?”

She shook her head, putting down her bottle, and then put her hand against his forehead. “Seriously, did you just ask me that? Alistair Miller, who has to beat every car to the red light? The man who was determined to get the one recipe that had eluded the rest of his family?”

Yeah, that had been him. Intent on being first at the cost of everything else. “Winning doesn’t matter if you don’t have someone to share it with.”

He hadn’t meant to let those words out, but that was where he was. Who he was. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t hiding behind anger or class. Not acting like he was better than everyone else to prove he was number one. He was just Ali.

Old fears and expectations stirred. As if he wasn’t good enough without the trappings of his family, of his name.

But Poppy wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “This one is for both of us,” she pointed out. “You’re not alone at the top.”

Hugging her wasn’t enough, so he pulled her into his body and lifted her up onto the table, moving to stand between her legs, his mouth hot and hard on hers.

His feelings for her were bottled up inside of him, and not unlike his past anger, he felt like they were going to explode out of him. When had that ever been a good thing? He kept his mouth on hers so he didn’t blurt out how he loved her.

The past few weeks had been a good run, and now the kombucha had turned out successful. The better things were, the tighter that knot under his heart got. The one that warned him not to fuck this up. To say the right things and be the man that she was digging.

Her arms were wrapped around him, pulling him closer, when he heard the fence gate slam.

“Poppy, you back here?”

Pickle started barking from her spot in the sun on the patio. Merle.

Alistair pulled back and put Poppy back on her feet. “Later.”

She walked out of the shed to greet her cousin. Alistair stayed there for a few minutes to get himself under control and also to give them a moment together.

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