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I hugged her tighter and repeated one of Ro to ask her how she knew for a fact that Sale bark and the door behind ht I would poke "
Ji roo even darker when she saw that I holding on to her sister I letit probably didn’t look all that great as Poppy hiccuped a little and rubbed her tearstained cheeks
"It’s better now" Poppy’s voice was surprisingly clear but Sale foul and was refusing to rime knocked off the past and it looks a lot clearer toshe would pick up on the subtle undercurrent of my words but she just sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth and twisted the ends of her hair around her finger like she did when she was agitated
"All right I need to take Jimbo back home and head don"
Poppy stepped around ave it one last squeeze "I’ll take hiht I ever had on one" She smiled at ood to see you again, Rowdy Ito say when Salem already looked like she wanted to skin me alive or pack a suitcase and hit the nearest airport I could see her ready to bolt out the door and possibly ht her ar rash or permanent
"She was crying and I felt bad for her I just gave her a hugthat’s all"
"Good She probably needs asbut her stiff body language and the way she wouldn’t look at er under her chin and forced her to look up at me "She isn’t you No one is you and no one has ever been you, so don’t get any crazy ideas, okay?"
She didn’t answer and shook off the hold I had on her aro and so do you Don’t be late for work, Rowdy"
"Salem," She looked at me over her shoulder because she was already out the door "Don’t leaveand I didn’t call her back as she made her way down the hallway and disappeared
Like I always said, if it wasn’t for bad luckOf course she would’ve had to show up just when I had my aroing to have to take Asa’s advice and make sure she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was only her She ht not be my first love but she would always be my last love and I understood what that meant now
CHAPTER 14
Salem
I WASN’T GOING TO leave him--at least not physically--but my mind was a
I wasn’t so insecure that I didn’t realize et, but that didn’t change the fact that walking in and seeing Rowdy holding her like she was so insideafter hi and wide in the center ofto see Poppy as the safer choice Plus there were undoubtedly the protective instincts that had to fire up in hi my sister all broken and battered, and I wasn’t absolutely sure that those wouldn’t guide his he may have had in the past I wanted to be , wanted the doubt to seeet a handle on all of it, and as a result I took the coward’s way out and avoided Rowdy because I just didn’t knohat to say to him
Luckily no one questioned me when I called in sick on Wednesday ere supposed to be at the new shop together I kneasirls after work on Thursday so I could avoid hi up atto do because he sentto I even called Sayer to see if she wanted to grab dinner on Friday after work to avoid him even further I just didn’t knohat to say that didn’t in to fathom what I would do if those fears were realized and he admitted he still loved irls knew soet the words out to explain everything that was racing around insidearound in my heart I just told them that my sister had shown up unexpectedly and that her husband had been hurting her, so I was stressed out about the situation They were all smart women and I’m sure they could read between the lines, but they were all kind enough to just let uts over a situation that was eating ure out what I was doing and hoas going to handle being in love with soht very well never be able to love me back, but it was hard because Ito bed alone and I felt like a real assle becausewhere his playmate was No one had ever said relationships were easy, but somehow I didn’t think they would be this hard or this heartbreaking either