Poppy and Erin exchange a glance over my feet, loaded with everything words would only flatten.
"So you're just pretending?" Erin asks pleasantly, which means she's trying not to push.
"We're being mature adults who understand the situation."
"You're pretending."
"There's a nuance..."
"Lily." Poppy sits up slightly, and I can feel her attention even without looking. "Be honest. When you're in the same room as him right now. What is that like?"
What is it like? I think about the hallway in the house four days ago. I was coming out of the kitchen and he was coming in from outside, and there was a moment, maybe two seconds, where we were close enough that I could smell him. That clean soap-and-summer smell that makes my whole body lean toward him before I catch myself.
I think about the last time I saw him. He came home mid-shift and I was on the living room floor with my school books spread around me, and he walked in and saw me there and walked directly back out again. Just redirected himself to the kitchen and stayed there until I left. The whole time I sat there feeling his absence like a hole in the room.
Will chuckled and said, "You stay there and finish your reading," when I tried leaving. Like my presence hadn't just made his son flee his own house.
That's when I decided even fewer visits from now on, shorter ones. I won't be the reason he has to leave his own home. Will's going to have opinions about it, but Will doesn't get a vote.
Then I think about the way he watches me when hethinks I'm not looking. The distinct possibility that we're both looking at the same time and pretending otherwise.
"It's a lot."
It's the most honest thing I've said all evening.
"Are you okay?" Erin's voice is full of concern, and I sit up slightly just to see her face.
"I'm fine." I consider this for a moment, turning my wine glass in my hands. "I'm fine in the way where fine is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting."
Poppy makes a sympathetic sound and reaches over to squeeze my ankle.
"Is there anything..."
"No." I sit up fully, swing my feet off Erin's lap, reach for the wine bottle. "We said it's nothing. So it's nothing. I'm choosing to be mature about it."
"You're choosing to be repressed about it," Poppy counters.
"In this family, those are the same thing."
That gets a laugh from Erin, which is satisfying. I'll take what I can get.
The conversation moves on after that, drifting into a mix of town gossip and Erin's ideas for her novel. I listen, have another glass of wine. I let the evening remind me what I came here for in the first place: these women, this living room, the kind of company that feels like the family I always wanted.
"Can I ask something else?" Poppy's voice cuts through my thoughts, and I suppress a sigh.
"You're going to regardless."
"Have you at least thought about it?" She tilts her head, curious and completely unashamed of it. "Like, if it weren'tcomplicated. If none of the other stuff existed. Have you thought about what it would be like?"
Erin is examining her wine glass like it contains the secrets of the universe. She always knows the balance between asking and pushing.
"I've thought about it."
"And?"
I let myself go there, just for a second. Those green eyes, tender when he's laughing with his dad, something sharper when they land on me. He's gentle with everything and everyone, like care is just his default setting. The sheer size of him, those shoulders, those hands.
"And considering the sheer size and height of that man, I just know it would hurt so perfectly."
