Not with someone who will ruin everything I’m working towards.
“Wesley, I can’t,” I gasp, pressing my palm to his chest, forcing space between us. “Not with you. Not with a—”
“Felon?” he interrupts, voice already going cold.
I nod, unable to meet his eyes. “Sleeping with you would be a mistake.”
The silence that follows is devastating.
He lets go, his resentment building.
He takes a step back, fists clenching in frustration while I stand there in abandoned chaos, my lips desperate for more, my skin suddenly too cold from where his fingers just were.
The fire that was burning in his eyes is gone, snuffed out and replaced with something colder and more distant.
“I may be a felon, Poppy,” he says in a controlled tone that makes my skin crawl, “but there will never be another man who will fight for you the way I would have.”
And then he’s gone.
I don’t stop him when he disappears down the hall.
I don’t run after him when I hear the front door open and slam shut behind him.
I just stand there shaking, his kiss lingering like a permanent tattoo, my heart lodged painfully in my throat like I’ll never be able to swallow again.
His engine starts, and the tires peel away, and still I stand there completely confused and shaken.
Whatever chance I had, a reckless and desperate hope that he’d somehow keep chasing, disappears down the street with him.
He won’t come back. Not this time.
And that’s how my prom night ends. Not with fireworks and my chastity broken, but with a painful regret that will haunt me for years to come. All because of a boy I was too scared to let in.
Chapter Four
Wesley
(Five years later)
I can barely remember the last time I saw Poppy Kiplinger, but I haven’t forgotten about her. Her face has been forever etched in my memory since that kiss after prom, the one that lingers and festers in my thoughts like it’ll never go away.
They suspended me for the rest of the school year over the Tony prom incident, disqualifying me from graduation, and leaving me to fend for myself when it came to finishing high school. As much as I hated it, I ended up grabbing my GED through Sierra Nevada Job Corps instead. There, I learned how to really wrench on cars through one of their training programs, snagged a few certificates in auto repair and maintenance, and scored myself a job at Eddie’s Uncle’s shop until he got incarcerated. Now the shop belongs to Eddie’s dad, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You doing okay?” I question Eddie, watching as he angrily wrenches on a car that’s giving him shit.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“Amber and I kinda got into it last night.”
“What happened?”
Eddie sighs, dropping the wrench so he can look at me. “She’s going to Vegas this weekend with Poppy and Pippa.”
Just hearing Poppy’s name has me suddenly interested.
“What’s wrong with that?”
