Page 17 of Forever Focused

“And Miss Poppy Walters? Are you ‘cool’ around her… or maybe that was a one-time event - hmm, dear brother?”

Madison was the only person who knew how much he loved Poppy still – and how deeply it cut him years ago when she said she didn’t return his feelings. Seeing her at the opening of Madison’s coffee shop had resulted in several sleepless nights, remembering that first kiss they’d shared, and the near-kiss that day by the hangar before he left for the Academy.

Just hearing his sister taunt him about a love he would never have, never experience, was more painful than everything he’d been through recently. Michael cursed under his breath at the fresh burst of emotional scarring within him – only to have the bathroom door jerked open. He glared at her, unsure what to say, before putting his finger in his sister’s surprised face.

“You… h-have no… no t-tact and no empathy,” he snarled, stammering hotly as his temper got the better of him.

“Aww, poor widdle Michael getting mad at his sissy?” Madison pouted dramatically, taunting him – and he saw red.

“Like a p-pit v-viper or a… a shrew! I don’t know w-what Emmett sees in you, I swear!” – and threw his hands in the air, walking off. He was so flustered, so tired from lack of sleep, and so emotionally charged that he was afraid to say something that would leave a mark, not unlike the one he was currently trying to keep from tearing asunder in his own soul.

He raced down the stairs, grabbed his keys, and jerked open the front door… only to see Poppy standing there about to walk away. At the sound of the front door opening, she turned toward him, her dark glistening eyes meeting his.

“You didn’t text me,” she whispered.

“I lied,” he began, trying to lash out… and couldn’t.

“I did too, you know,” she began as a tear cascaded down her cheek. Her eyes were raw with emotion, full of hope and yearning, and he just didn’t have it in him to fight this anymore. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven past hoping to see you here.”

“Well, you should have stopped.”

“Everyone told me to give you space…”

… And Michael sagged.

People always seemed to volunteer information they thought would help along the way, and he could believe her words. Hadn’t he been the recipient of a massive amount of advice lately himself?

“I think I’ve clicked on your website a thousand times,” he admitted, feeling himself fall apart as he stared at her, falling into those beloved dark eyes once again. “Watched your travels and read your posts…”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I can’t help myself.”

“I can’t either,” Poppy smiled tearfully, taking a step toward him – and Michael was already moving in her direction. The drowning and adrift sensation that he’d felt for so long was fading. Just seeing her there was like spotting a life raft in the middle of the ocean. He grasped her, pulling her close. At the same time, she was threading her arms around his neck, moving to kiss him like both of their lives depended on it.

Like two magnets drawn together, two orbits finally in sync, the feeling of perfection was staggering. The two of them stood together in the doorway, lost in each other’s arms. He heard Poppy’s soft sob and captured it with his mouth, tasting her like a man dying of thirst.

He felt someone tap him bluntly on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry – and you were right,” Madison said as she squeezed past him at the doorway, breaking that fragile spell between him and Poppy.

“Huh?” Michael uttered in a daze, wondering if he was dreaming. He kept expecting her to disappear, to wake up, or have Poppy lash out at him for taking so long to talk to her, but all he could do was stare at her lips, picturing them, memorizing them, like an unbalanced person focusing on something to keep them from tipping over.

Firefly had told him once on a Friday that if he got drunk, to put one foot on the floor to keep himself steady and prevent the ‘hurls.’ Poppy’s pink smeared lipstick was his ‘foot on the floor’ because he could have sworn his whole world was spinning out of control right now.

“I said it’s like watching a big mouth bass open and close its mouth,” Madison said, and he heard another person laugh but didn’t care. He only had eyes for the woman that was there before him in this magical dream.

“I just love fish…” Poppy whispered before kissing him again.

Ya’ know what? I freakin’ love fish too, he mused, deciding that he was going to get some bumper stickers, magnets, and a shirt that proudly proclaimed it. Maybe he’d even get one of those big hooks to put on his baseball cap. Yep, if fantasizing about Poppy made them both think of fish, he was about to become the world's most avid fisherman in the world.

Where’s my waders, yo…?

He was lost in the moment, kissing her with everything he had, only to hear a voice a few moments later.

“Eh-hem,” his father interrupted. “Earth-to-space cadet…?”

Cadet?

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