Lysander sniffs. “What kind of friend are you?”
“Arewe friends again?” Asher’s brows kick up. “I thought I was just your foot soldier.”
He shoves past Asher with a snarl, refusing to dignify him with an answer as he heads swiftly for the shuttered door at the far end of the hall. Un-fucking-flappable as always, Asher falls into steady step behind him.
“Leave her alone, Lys.”
He doesn’t. He can’t. He shoulders open the door to his childhood room and skids immediately into Poppy, standing just on the other side. In her arms, the possum hisses up at him, teeth bared. He draws up short, snatching his fingers out of reach.
“What are you,” he asks, “security?”
Poppy’s smile doesn’t touch her eyes. “I think you should find somewhere else to be.”
“Ihavenowhere else to be.”
There is nothing more important than this—fixing what he broke. Mending it, before the cracks can splinter into his psyche. Before there’s nothing left of him. He can see Shea just behind Poppy, her legs tucked under her in his mother’s rocking chair, red starlight wobbling around her head. In her lap she cradles a little board book, a thin white rabbit on the front. The spine is creased, pages bent. He knows every line cold.
He barreled in here without a plan—without any thought in his head but her, her, her—but now that he’s here he knows exactly what he wants to say.
“My mom used to read that to me,” he says, speaking around Poppy. “The boy in the story loved that rabbit so much, its fur wore thin and its stitching came loose.”
“Oliver,” warns Poppy.
“There’s a line in the book about what it takes to be real,” he says, speaking like he has something to prove. “It’s not about how you’re made. It’s about how you’re loved—”
“Oliver.”
“—so much that it rubs you raw.”
Shea’s eyes are on his. He swallows around the grit in his throat.Threadbare, he’d called her. He’d said it all wrong, that night at Mercy Ridge. He’s always saying everything wrong.
“That was very nice,” says Poppy, wedging the door into his chest. “Now leave.”
“Wait.” He jams his boot in the gap just before it closes. Reaching into his pocket, he pries out the small brass sprocket he’d pulled from the bell strike at the old stone church, collapsing the system with a single, swift tug. “Can you give her this?”
Poppy stares down at the cog like it’s live ammunition. “What is it?”
“A birthday gift.”
“Her birthday is over.”
“Poppy.”
“Oliver.”
“Just give it to her.” With more defensiveness than the situation merits, he adds, “It’s for her necklace.”
“I’ll consider it.” She plucks the cog from his open hand. “Now go away.”
The door snicks shut before he can argue. He’s left staring at the splintering inlay of his childhood bedroom, the dark swimming around him in dusty fractals. And he’s not alone. He can feel eyes on him, cool and assessing. Asher stands a few feet away, his shoulder butting up against the wide paneled wall.
“What areyoulooking at?” he asks hotly.
“You,” says Asher. “It’s like watching a train wreck.”
He wrings both hands over the back of his neck. “Fuck.”
“She’ll forgive you,” says Asher. “You just need to back off.”
