Page 39 of Sunshine
“Oh. That’s good to know.”
“Yeah.” There’s a beat of awkward silence, which I spend distracted by her face, before I gather the courage to speak. “About what happened tonight…”
“Which part?”
“The kiss.”
“You regret it,” she says, her throat bobbing with a nervous swallow. “It was a mistake.”
I shake my head, huffing out a dry laugh, hating myself for reacting the way I did and causing her hurt. “No. I don’t regret it and it wasn’t a mistake.”
Poppy blinks, her eyebrows drawing down like she thinks she misheard me. “You don’t? It wasn’t?”
“No, and I never should have said that. I’m sorry.” I run my good hand over my head, fingers sticking in the styling gel I don’t usually wear and don’t particularly like. “I’m attracted to you, Poppy. You’re beautiful and warm, and that kiss was… It was fucking fantastic.”
Her hopeful smile falters, replaced with something self-mocking. “I sense abutcoming.”
“ButI was a selfish prick to do it. And it can’t happen again.”
She nods, glancing away for a moment before she says, “Because of Daisy?”
“Uh, sort of. I mean, that’s part of it. There’s always been an unspoken agreement that I’d never date her friends. She was weird about it for years although I can’t tell you why.”
Poppy casts a lopsided smile my way. “I can.”
“Seriously?”
Poppy lifts one shoulder and drops it with a small sigh. “When we were at school, there were always girls who feigned interest in Daisy to get to you.” A twitchy smirk crosses her mouth as she lifts one eyebrow. “You were kind of hot stuff back then.”
“Hey! Aren’t I hot stuff now?”
That earns me a little laugh. “Maybeyou’re hot stuff now, but high school was both easy and hard for Daisy. She made friends quickly, but she lost them quickly too. People came and went, usually after they figured out that being close to Daisy didn’t mean getting close with you. One night when we were kids, she made me promise to never touch you. Never date you. Never even think about it.”
This is news to me. “Are you…? Is this for real?”
“Yep. It was not long after your mom passed. We’d just been ditched by a few girls at school for not beingcool enough—Daisyrefused to set them up with you and your brothers—and then she kind of freaked out about losing anyone else.”
A tingle of old grief tickles the bridge of my nose and I’m suddenly sad for my teenage sister. Sad and guilty that she felt it necessary to hide her pain from me. “Thank you for giving Daisy the reassurance she needed. She’s lucky to have you in her corner.”
Poppy shakes her head. “No.I’mlucky to haveher. I don’t know what my life would look like without Daisy, and our friendship was more solid after I swore that I’d always love her more than I love you.”
“I… So… You mean…?”
She saidlove, but she didn’t meanlove-love. Right? There’s a blankness to her expression that makes me wonder if she’s teasing me or if she’s got no idea what she just said.
“So, it was an easy promise to keep,” I finally say. “You, uh, loved Daisy more than you loved me. You still do.”
“Yeah.” Poppy watches me as thoughts I can’t read pass behind her eyes. “I still do.”
I should feel relief instead of a weird, almost physical discomfort, and I shift in my seat. “But it isn’t only about Daisy. It’s about Izzy too. I can’t kiss you just because I want to. I can’t complicate my life like that, because it’ll complicate Izzy’s life, and things are too fragile for me to think with my dick right now—or ever.” My bad hand is in my hair now, and when pain spasms in my fingers, I carefully drag them out. “Izzy is my priority. I don’t know if or when there’ll be a good time to introduce someone new to her life, but I do know it isn’t now. Her life is confusing enough. She needs more stability, not less. I can’t risk putting her in the middle of something between us.”
“Something that might not work out?”
“Yeah. My life is here in Aster Springs and you’re leaving again in the summer. Plus, this thing between us—it’s a physical thing.And that’s…” A fleeting thought of Annalise passes through my head, reminding me that I’ve taken that risk before. “I have to be smarter than that.”
“I get it.” Poppy drops her head back against the headrest, and I trace the graceful line of her pale throat. “I should have known better than to let you kiss me, but I’m not in the best position to resist temptation. Daisy and I are halfway through a twelve-month dick-tox.”
“Awhat?”
