“Well?” Kali’s eyes bug out. “I knew it. I saw the way you two were sitting at that table last night. And the way you both left at about the same time.Eww! Did you bring her to your room and screw her?”
Jules chokes out a laugh. “I bet if you woke Mom up, she would have cheered from the sidelines.”
As sick and twisted as that sounds, I know it’s true.
Jules sours as if on cue. “Don’t tell me you and that hussy have something happening between you. She treated you like less than dirt for the better half of your life. I’m not going to let her take advantage of you that way. And if she’s suddenly your best friend again after all these years, I can’t help but wonder if it’s some Stade Steel green she’s after.”
Poppy isn’t a gold digger, but as much as I want to defend her, it’ll only rile Jules up. Jules can be rabid once she gloms onto a subject. Get her lathered up in a heap, and there’s no letting go of it on her part. And the last thing I want her shredding to pieces is Poppy.
“You’ll have to wait and see like everybody else. Dinner tonight at the Montgomery’s. It’s going to be a memorable night.”
“I bet.” Kali kicks me from under the table as if she’s already enjoying the prospect of Poppy and me toughing it out. Not that the thought of being with Pops would be tough on any level. I miss her. The old Poppy, Eight Ball to be exact. I miss the old us. I miss my father being here and our mothers colluding to get us together. I miss a lot of things. But this new version of what we’ve become is one thing I can do without.
Jensen crashes into my arms as Jules snorts out a laugh. “I wouldn’t miss tonight for the world.” Jules shakes her head at me, her eyes already both disappointed and curious as to why I’d ever keep a secret from her. “What have you gotten yourself into, Jaxson?”
“Wait and see.” I turn Jensen into an airplane for the rest of the afternoon. I could listen to his laughter all day long, and I do just that until it’s time for dinner with a girl I never thought I’d see again.
Poppy and I are about to kill it.
It’s show time.
Iput on a suit. I take off a suit. I put on my favorite jeans. I take them off. I take two hot showers, brush my teeth ten times, and practically down the mouthwash. How far are we going to take this? Why isn’t Poppy returning any of my text messages? Was this all some big prank onme? The thought has crossed my mind about a dozen times this afternoon. Poppy has always been up for tossing a good jab my way. There weren’t too many occasions that I escaped that razor-sharp tongue of hers.
A dull smile comes and goes. I’d love to tame that little shrew. And as much as I used to pretend I hated our acid coated banter, I secretly loved every barb-wired minute.
I opt for the button-down shirt, twill blazer, and a pair of cords I’ve excavated from the dusty end of my old closet. It’s strange being back in my childhood bedroom. Of course, I could leave, stay at a hotel, not that there is a plethora of choices in Oak Grove. But Denver is certainly an option. I can run the company from a satellite office for as long as I like—hell, I own the company. I can uproot my office any damn day I please, but I choose to leave it be each and every time.
My mother and sisters drive down to the Montgomery’s first. I pull in last, not so much to make an entrance, but because for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m nervous as hell.
The minute Poppy Montgomery walked into that bar looking hot as liquid steel, her tiny body squeezed into those jeans, that leather jacket that screamedlet me tie you up and teach you a lesson or two—and I would welcome Poppy tying me up, although I have a feeling she’s going to teach me a lesson or two regardless—I knew I was in for a ride I would not forget. Poppy was smoking hot, and I wanted nothing else but to stomp my way over and toss her onto the nearest table and take her like a beast. I may be known for my revolving door of bedmates—although there have been far fewer than public perception has been rumored to believe—but in my spare time, during every lonely night it’s Poppy I go to bed with.
Before the great fall that spelled out our demise, Poppy was the closest I had ever gotten to another human being. Since then, there have been plenty of girls, but not one of them has even compared to the intimacy Poppy and I once shared. Ironic, since I never knew Poppy in a carnal sense. And a part of me wonders, hopes against hope, that our relationship might take a turn for the carnal. But the truth is, with Poppy, I’d want something far more than that. I’d want everything we had back in spades, and then some.
The Montgomery home is stately in a humble, suburban country house sort of way. They live a good ten miles from us, but as the crow flies you could cut across the woods and cross our property and end up on theirs.
I spot Frasier Montgomery on the porch swilling a highball in his hand, whiskey over ice with seltzer to finish it off, just the way my dad used to drink it. Much like Charlene and my mother, Frasier and my dad were the best of friends. Way back when, my father offered Frasier a position at the steel mill that would have set the Montgomerys up with a nice nest egg, stock options, mega retirement payout, but Frasier was too proud to take it, and retired recently from the insurance job he held for a majority of his life.
“Well, if it isn’t the prince of peace.” He offers me a quick slap to the back as we head on in.
“That’s one nickname I don’t think I’ve ever been called.” I laugh at the thought.
“Are you kidding? You’ve been as quiet as a ghost. I don’t think I’ve seen you at this end of town in the last five years.” It’s true. For as close as my mother is to the Montgomerys, I never seem to venture over.
Conner is in my life on a daily basis, and that’s always been enough Montgomery for me. My stomach clenches at the lie. Yes, Conner has been around for me, but I’ve always craved a little more Montgomery. I’ve craved Poppy. She’s addictive, the kind of person people naturally magnetize to, and not always for the right reasons. She’s a show if anything.
Five years. It’s been five long years since Poppy left for L.A. and this house became a painful reminder of everything that transpired between us.
“That’s right,” I muse as I take in the familiar foyer. “But I’m haunting the place tonight,” I say, ducking into what amounts to a time warp. The Montgomery home is light and bright, white walls, painted wooden floors, a cluster of family photos on all of the walls. Every free surface is adorned with frames filled with pictures that I remember seeing as a child. If it’s one thing Charlene Montgomery is good at, it’s holding on to the past. And ironically, if it’s one thingPoppyMontgomery is good at, it’s forgetting it ever existed.
I glance into the living room and spot Poppy with Sadie, and behind them Jules and Kali mill around with Conner. But Poppy. She’s stunning in red. Her hair is long and wild, and the unruly beast in me demands to twist it around my wrists as I make her mine.
“Jaxson Stade?” Char shouts so loud that everyone behind her stops all movement and turns my way. “Look who decided to come to dinner!” She glances to my mother, shocked as hell. It’s clear that Mom held out on her as she barrels on over, squeezing my cheeks as if I were three-years-old all over again. “My God! Did you know that Poppy is here tonight, too? It’s a real Montgomery-Stade reunion with all of the important members front and center!”
My eyes snag on a picture of my father just over her shoulder. It’s the picture we took as a family—the last one—at Lawson creek after Kali caught a trout. It’s hard to believe that family as I once knew it is done and in the record books.
I want to correct a well-meaning Char, that no, not all of the important members are front and center tonight.
Poppy appears beside her mother wearing a grin and not much else. Holy hell, that dress, that body, those eyes that have always seemed to see right through me.
