Page 49 of Sunshine
Poppy’s fingers tighten, and she moves closer, her arm against mine. “There are a lot of people in your world who love you and Izzy. I hate that you feel alone.”
“I know. I’m so grateful for Charlie, who has been here all along, and for Finn and Daisy, who have been a huge help thelast six months. But on some level, everyone expects me to have my shit together. I’m the one who takes care of people. I’m the brother who never left and will never leave the ranch. The one who gets things done and always does the right thing. I’m not the brother who falls down and gives up when things get tough. I don’t say no or neglect my responsibilities. I don’t do things just because I want to or because they feel good.”
My thumb moves across Poppy’s skin again becauseshefeels good. Not just the steady warmth beside me and the softness of her skin, but the glow she ignites inside me too. It feels unreal to have someone to talk to. Someone in my life to lean on.
Poppy glances down at our hands twined together. “You’re an incredible father and a wonderful brother. You love too big and too hard for that to ever change, but you’ve earned the right to sometimes do things that feel good, even if they feel selfish or you wonder if they’re wrong.”
“Like running away?”
Poppy’s mouth lifts, and she shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”
“Does it work for you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, Aster Springs felt so small when we were kids. I had a lot of living to do, and I couldn’t do it here. Plus, my best friend had a big brother who was always there to keep me from getting into too much trouble.”
“You ran away from me?”
She hesitates, then squeezes my fingers and squints out to the horizon, shaking the frown from her forehead. “I was just making a joke. A bad one. You and Daisy were—are—the best things about this town. I never run from anything other than my own fears, and what I chase is the hope of my very own happily ever after.”
“But you haven’t found it.” She gives me a quizzical look, so I add, “Otherwise, you’d never have come back, and you wouldn’t be leaving again.”
“I haven’t found it.” Her smile now is wry as she glances at our hands. “I guess I’m still in the colorful, messy part of life. Older but apparently not wiser. Still reckless and still doing stupid things. Waiting for someone far more sensible to save me from myself.”
The implication that this thing between us, whatever it is, is her choice or her fault or her bad judgment annoys me, and I don’t like the suggestion that she’s the only one capable of questionable behavior. Okay, yes. One of us pays our bills on time, and the other drives with the gas light on, but Poppy reminds me of who I used to be. And I used to be free. Like her.
“I’ve done plenty of wild things, too, you know,” I tell her.
She smiles prettily and pats my shoulder with the hand that isn’t captured by mine like she doesn’t believe it but I’m cute for trying. “I’m sure you have.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No. I believe you. I just think thatyourdefinition of wild andmydefinition of wild are two wildly different things.”
I drop her hand and lift the hem of my shirt, tugging it up over my shoulders and then turning my back to her so she can see the tattoo between my shoulder blades. “See? I can be stupid.”
When she doesn’t say anything, I look at her over my shoulder, and she shakes her head like she’s in a daze, then sets her hand to my bare skin and pushes me around to get a better look at the body art.
I almost groan at the feel of her hand on my waist and decide getting half-naked in front of Poppy is just more proof that I can be stupid.
It’s also a damning reminder that stupid feels so fucking good.
I inhale sharply when her fingers caress my back, tracing the lines of the tattoo. “Are these… Are they dandelions?” Her touch travels up to my right shoulder, then down over my rib cage, anda rush of blood goes straight to my dick. “And these are the little seeds floating away?”
“Yep.”
She coughs a little, and it sounds suspiciously like she’s covering up a laugh. “Is there a reason you’ve got a pretty tattoo of a weed on your back?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” I shove my shirt back down and spin to face her. “The summer after we graduated, a group of us drove to San Francisco for a blowout weekend. We got drunk, stumbled into a studio, and agreed to randomly pick art from a catalog. We didn’t realize it was a catalog more popular with eighteen-year-old girls.”
Poppy covers her mouth to stop her laughter and nods along with wide, watering eyes.
“I was fucking lucky,” I protest. “Mikey got one of those decorative butterfly stamps on his lower back, and Cody had to tattoo a wreath of flowers around his wrist. Jose’s got a tiny fairy on his ankle, and Dustin has a song lyric across his pec.”
“Oh, yeah? Something poignant, I assume?”
“Fuck, no. It wasIf you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”
Poppy’s bright, beautiful laughter explodes across the valley, and I’m drowning in it as she turns me around again, slips her fingers under the hem of my shirt, and pulls it back up to my shoulders. Her fingertips coast over my skin again, tracing the dip of my spine and then the lines of the tattoo, and when the delicately sharp tips of her nails lightly scratch my skin, I think of her raking those same nails down my back, hard enough to leave a mark. Hard enough to draw blood.
