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CHAPTER 10

Salem

I GROWLED AT MY PHONE in frustration at threw it on the coffee table, where my feet were propped up Rowdy looked at me out of the corner of his eye and reached out to

It had been three weeks since our date at the park Three weeks in which I no longer went to bed alone or had to chase hiht at his apartment we just sort of fell into a place where we decided without words being spoken that ould rather hang out together, spend time with one another than be alone We alternated apartular basis, which e now looked like a college frat boy had stocked it

"What’s wrong?" He titled his head at hed and puffed out a breath to send some of the dark hair that had fallen into otten and as at ease as he see that still set hiet buried under doubt and hesitation--Poppy We both pretended to ignore the fact that she was still there, a specter hovering in thearound us, but I was in overaround her or the past she shared with either of us

"Poppy She’s uy and she never answers any of my calls or texts me back I’m worried about her because this dude is a total control freak and she doesn’t have anyone in Loveless to look out for her best interests I don’t think it’s a very happy situation for her"

He stiffened next to me and ht and reached up to rub a finger along the tic that started to work in his cheek

"It’s that bad, Rowdy? I can’t even bring up her naaze and I saw hiet his ees the past, Sale ago so tightly that it’s keeping you anchored to the bad ood moments isn’t okay either"

He curled his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him so that he could kissforward just fine"

I sighed and put a hand on his tight stomach muscles "Not if I can’t talk to you about my sister you aren’t She’s my family, the only member ofup her na to stone, then you are still very much back there in that place I know she hurt you, we both did, but if you can forgive me you have to work your way to that place with her as well"

He twisted soers and took a long

"I had a crush on Poppy from the first second I saw her She was so sweet She just see I had never experienced before She loved her family She was settled deep into the church and school Even when I was that young I knew her roots ran deep" His tone dropped a little lower and the light fro him look almost sinister as the rasped why she was so important to me, and when you left she was my only tie to fas worse by clinging to her, by deciding that all ofto be tied up in her It was too irl that had never been out of her hometown and out from under her father’s rule"

He dropped his chin down so that it was sitting on the top of ing him and rested my cheek on his heart

"Her terrible taste in men, her endless desire to please your father--I take the bla her and I think she was doing whatever she could to get away froet lost Poppy ended things in a really final way but I think I drove her to it So along with the heartache I have carried around for a long tiuilt I don’t like to think about it I like to pretend none of it ever happened"

"You fell in love with Poppy because you knew she was never going to leave?" It sounded incredible but in my heart I knew itand he was used to being unwanted and bounced around, so it totally followed thatpart of the fabric of Loveless would be appealing She was a safe bet and not a threat to his fragile heart