I look at Phantom, but he looks away. “We have to get back for the kids,” I say.
Phantom leans forward and gives Stella a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday.” Then he stalks off to talk to Viper.
Stella looks from me to him and back at me. “Uh, you two all right?”
I smile. “I’m tired. Sorry to bethe party pooper. My mom is with the kids, and we promised we wouldn’t keep her out late.”
Stella cups my face in her hands and gives me the happiest smile. “You are going to be great with him, okay?” She pulls me into a hug and whispers in my ear. “He’s got it bad for you, Poppy. Sometimes he goes to dark places. Don’t let him go alone.”
She releases me and then turns and dances off toward the bar. I look for Phantom in the crowd. He’s leaning against a wall, his arms crossed while he listens to Viper. He looks like he could beat the stuffing out of someone, not like a man who just came apart inside me. As if he feels me looking at him, he flicks a look at me. His nostrils flare, and unless I’m seeing things, his eyes sparkle.
He claps Viper on the shoulder, nods, then finds me in the crowd. “You ready?” he asks, taking me by the hand.
I’m so ready. Ready to find out how things went weird so fast and what I can do to bring us back to an hour ago, when he was my everything and I felt like, together, we were just right.
We walk through the parking lot to his truck, hand in hand. He opens the door, like he always does, and helps me in.
Once he gets inside, I turn to him. “Did I suck?” I ask him. “Was the sex bad?”
He blows air through his lips and rakes a hand through his hair. “Fuck no. I’d take you again right now in this truck if…”
“Then can you please tell me why you suddenly seem like you don’t want me around anymore?”
Phantom pinches his eyebrows with two fingers and sighs deeply. He starts the truck but doesn’t even put it in drive. He turns to face me, then turns away and stares out into the darkness of the sticky Florida night. “Poppy, I…Fuck,” he hisses the last word.
He drops his hands roughly on the steering wheel, then grips it till his knuckles go white. He turns back to me.
“There’s no easy way to say this.” He looks wrecked.
“What is it?” My mind immediately starts doomscrolling, every horrible possibility I can imagine running wild inside my brain. “Do you regret having sex with me? I can go back home, Phantom. You don’t have to?—”
“I know your mother, Poppy, and she knows me.”
I’m so surprised, I’m not sure how to react. “What does that mean? How do you know my mom?”
I try to think back to when I told Phantom my mom’s name. He had seemed like he recognized it, but I assumed it was because a lot of people in our county know Mom’s name.
“Phantom?” I press, the fears and anxiety starting to ramp into high gear. “How do you know my mother?”
He sighs. “She was on the parole board. The one that heard my case when I was incarcerated.”
Oh. Whoa.
I have hardly told my mom anything, and yet shealready knows the ins and outs of Phantom’s criminal past. Shit.
“Did she remember you?” I ask, trying to stay calm. “How long ago was it?”
“Years,” he says. “And I’m pretty damn sure she remembers me.”
“Why didn’t she say something?” I ask. “When I met her at the mall with the girls, she didn’t so much as flinch when I said your name. Did she put it together that you’re the same guy?”
He nods. “I’m pretty sure.”
I wring my hands, trying to stop the spiraling thoughts, but I can’t stop the flood of words that come spilling out of my mouth. “Okay, so tell me, Phantom. What does this mean? You went to prison, I know about that. So freaking what. My mom’s going to say what about it? She came over to babysit tonight, so she can’t be too against you. Maybe she’s over it. Maybe she doesn’t care what you did then and is worried about who you are now. What happened at your parole hearing? What did she say when she voted against you? Are you going to hold it against her forever?”
“Poppy.” He turns in his seat and looks at me, his dark-blue eyes ringed with sadness. “Your mother didn’t vote against my release. She voted for it.”
That, of all the things he’s said, shocks me to my core. My law-and-order, by-the-book, politician mother voted for the early release of this man. “Okay,” I say. “So again, I need you to dumb this down for me. What does this mean?”
