Page 89 of Poppy Kisses
“She wants you back,” she finally said, then shook her head, the ends of her puffy ponytail flying. “None of it is any of my business.”
I barely had time to get over my shock from the first part of her statement. The second half kicked my feet out from under me. “How can you say that? We’re getting married.”
“But it’s not real.”
“My feelings for you are real. My feelings for her are dead.”
Poppy’s hazel eyes shimmered when she looked at me. “Are they?”
I almost answered with a succinctyes. End of story. But Poppy deserved more, and I needed her to understand. “It was death by a thousand cuts. A million erosions of love, trust, and respect. I wouldn’t have gotten divorced if I was still in love with her. She kicked that emotion while it was down and then killed it dead for the last time right before I walked out, and she’s done nothing to make me feel differently in the last five years.”
“She said she wanted you back yesterday.”
I barked out a laugh. “What?” I was sure I heard correctly. It sounded just like Hassie.
“Said you guys were young. She made a mistake. She wants to fix it.” Her deadened tone bothered me as much as her subdued nature.
“Does it matter what I want?” It wasn’t my ex. What I wanted was right next to me.
She let out a long, heavy exhale and prodded her temples. “You have to remember, Jensen, I’ve really only known you as having a major thing for her. Ninety-nine percent of the time I’ve known you, she’s been the center of your world.”
The pressure of the last two nights shot my anger up higher than normal. “You have to remember, Poppy, that you only knew me for a fraction of my life, and none of that was when I was an adult. No one knows what an adult Jensen is like when he dates except for you.”
Her brows drew farther together the longer I spoke. She nibbled on her lower lip, and I wanted nothing more than to draw her into my arms. I'd been there before, and I’d gotten pushed back, both by Poppy and my ex, so I stayed in place.
“So what do you wanna do?” I asked more harshly than I intended. My frustration wasn’t toward her. It was at my ex and at me for not getting through to Poppy that there was no competition between her and Hassie anymore.
Dismay filled her gaze when she glanced up. “You don’t wanna get married anymore?”
“I’m not the one telling the other person that they must want to get back together with their ex-wife just because she’s interested.” Poppy recoiled, and yeah, my words were filled with heat. So many emotions tangled in my chest, hooking on my lungs and making it hard to breathe. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m upset at all this. You and I had a plan and now it’s slipping through cracks that I can’t seem to fill fast enough.”
“I don’t want…” She stiffened and straightened her spine. “I don’t want to be caught in the middle, and I don’t wanna feel like I’m holding you back.”
“For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m going forward, and that’s because of you.”
Her gaze softened. “Really?”
This time, I pulled her into me. “You can trust me, Poppy. I don’t want what I used to have. I want what I was hoping to get back then. But I’m not putting pressure on you. Yes, my ex-wife is in town, but I don’t see why anything should change between us.”
“When I saw her, it felt like everything changed.” Her voice was muffled against my shoulder.
“Nothing did for me.” She stiffened slightly, and I hugged her tighter. “Not when it comes to you.”
“So we’re still going to see where this goes?”
“Yes,” I said into her hair. Stark relief was cool on the back of my neck. “We keep those Saturday date nights, and we keep sneaking around. We keep going like we were, but you and I know what’s changed. No one else gets to interfere. Not anymore. But maybe we can cuddle a little more?”
Soft laughter shook her body. “Is that what we call this?”
“A standing cuddle? Sure.”
She snuggled into me more.
Holding her wasn’t something I got to do nearly enough, and with my ex around and juggling Auggie’s feelings about that, it might be harder to squirrel away these moments between us.
Poppy was sensitive to Hassie and me, and I wasn’t sure what the arrival of my ex meant when it came to my peaceful existence with my son. Add in Poppy, and anxiety churned in my gut. “This is new for me.”
She pushed back to look at me again. “What is?”
