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I waved the fetch stick at him when he stepped closer again. “Come closer and I’ll hit you, Andrew. I’m not kidding. If you touch me one more time, I’ll beat the shit out of you and smile while I do it.”
“Poppy! What the hell?” His frown deepened but he stayed away.
“You’re engaged to my cousin, asshole. Not only that, you’re a monster. You put me through hell. You need to leave. Any minute my boyfriend is going to walk through that door and if he finds you in here, he’s going to twist you up like a pretzel and eat you.”
“Shit, Poppy. You’re right. I shouldn’t have come. I just… Seeing you has been hard. Remembering all the things we went through together makes me miss you. I spent some of the best times of my life with you.”
“And I spent some of the worst times of mine with you. Now leave.” I looked down as Bogie finally joined me after finishing his dinner. He was still licking his chops as he stared at Andrew and gave a low growl. “You heard him. Leave.”
Andrew backed towards the door and gripped the handle. “I need to do some thinking. I don’t think we’re done, though, Poppy. Think about the good times. Remember how much you loved me. I’ll call you, okay?”
I snorted. “Don’t fucking bother.”
He stared at me longingly. “I just want to feel your lips one more time before I go, Poppy. Please. Can you give me that?”
I threw the fetch stick at him. “Get out of my house!”
When the door closed behind him, I sank to the floor next to Bogie and hugged him close. I could still feel him all over me and I wanted to scream. I could hear his words, hear the way he romanticized my trauma, and I felt like snakes were crawling all over my body.
The first time I told him I loved him, the first time I’d ever said the words to anyone who wasn’t family, he’d just stared back at me with a blank expression. When he finally did react, it was just to roll his eyes and laugh me off. He’d made a comment about little girls and fairytales before walking away. He’d ignored me for a week after that as punishment. When I even mentioned the incident a year later during a fight, he’d laughed at me again. Loving Andrew had been brutal. Telling him I loved him had been a huge mistake.
I could still feel the shame and smallness that came with the word. I could feel his judgment and dismissal. He made me hate love. He turned love into something terrifying. Love got you ignored and laughed at. Love got you left alone and lonely. Love was a useless emotion that caused massive amounts of pain.
Bogie whined and licked my face, not understanding why I was sad. When he left me to get a beer out of the fridge for me, I started to worry that we were all teaching Bogie unhealthy habits.
I didn’t know why Andrew had shown up. I would never believe he actually wanted me. I’d been in his face for ten years and I’d never been what he wanted. It made no sense to think that had suddenly changed. He had Kaitlyn. He had to be playing some mind game, exacting some extended torture on me.
As I opened the beer and let my head fall back against the wall, I hated that I was letting him win. I felt like I’d been put through an emotional woodchipper. I felt raw and scared, clammier than ever at the idea of opening up. I just wanted to hide. Maybe forever.
48
***Poppy***
MyphonerangandI checked it to make sure it wasn’t one of the guys. I’d left them at the park with my brothers hours earlier and I was starting to worry that one of the two sets of men in my life were dead. I’d gotten smart after the last time Andrew called and I’d saved his number so I wouldn’t answer him again. It had been handy this evening. He’d called half a dozen times after leaving. I let the most recent one go to voicemail like the rest and was considering sending out a search party when I heard multiple sets of feet stomping up my steps.
When my door opened a few seconds later, I was faced with three straight-faced men who seemed to be all in one piece. I stayed where I was, on the other side of the living room, standing with my phone clutched in my hands. I figured they would be angry at me for how I’d abandoned them and I didn’t want them to be.
“Why was your door not locked, Poppy?” Sam walked straight to me and bent down to kiss me. “There’s our track star.”
Jude stumbled a bit as he came into the house. “When you jumped over that stick, Poppy, I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel I laughed so hard.”
“Give our girl some credit!” Cyrus grinned so wide that I knew instantly that he was drunk. “She ran so fast she broke a wind record, I bet.”
Sam snorted and fell onto the couch. “She broke wind? Cyrus, you drunken fool.”
If I thought I was done being shocked, I was wrong. When Charlie came through my front door next with a shit-eating grin on his face, I could feel trouble brewing.
“Sorry we got your boys so drunk, Pops.” Charlie was hammered too. “We had to welcome them to the family.”
Paulie stumbled in next, his eyes barely open. “You need to turn more lights on, Popster. Or is this the mood lighting?”
I made a disgusted face as my two brothers made seventies porn music sounds and swiveled their hips. “What the fuck is going on?”
Cyrus pulled me in for a kiss and missed my mouth. “You’re a slippery one tonight, babygirl.”
“Who drove you assholes here?” I had never seen my best friends so drunk. I wasn’t sure I’d seen my brothers this drunk, either.
Johnny peeked his head in and grinned at me. “Poppy Jo, I have some explaining to do.”
