He knows how to fix things. Objects can be manipulated and cured with tools and skills… People, relationships, they’re not like that.”
He’d told her that he valued people. That they couldn’t be replaced. Turner wasn’t ignorant to the importance of his family, of which his friends were a part.
The sound of an engine approaching didn’t bother her. When it stopped, close by, Poppy raised her head to see a truck parked on the street in front of the house. And not just any truck, it was one she knew.
“Don’t be mad,” Val said when the driver’s door opened. “I called him to take you and Charley to work.”
The woman rose to go down the path. With no other choice, Poppy didn’t want to be rude, so stood up. If Charley was getting in a truck with him, Poppy would have to do the same. Going down the stairs, she went after Val who got a hello kiss on the cheek from her son.
As Poppy came up beside them, she felt Turner look at her, but didn’t go so far as to make eye contact.
Val gave her son’s chest a single-hand pat. “I approve,” she stage-whispered.
Although she wasn’t explicit in naming what she approved, Poppy definitely hadn’t expected Val to say something so direct. The undercurrent in their conversation was one thing, but to just blurt it out like that to Turner…
“Doesn’t matter. I broke it,” Turner mumbled, without an ounce of surprise his mother was so open.
“Then do what you’re good at, boy. What your father taught you,” Val said, hooking a hand around the back of his neck to yank him down and kiss his cheek before speaking again near his ear. “Fix it.” Stepping away from her son, she opened her arms. “You are welcome any time, Poppy.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said, overwhelmed by the security of the woman’s hug. “I had a wonderful time.”
Val smiled at her and then kissed her cheek. She glanced at Turner again. “I’ll keep your sisters busy out back for a bit… You two need to talk.”
“Mom,” Turner groaned.
But Val didn’t pay him any attention, she just wandered down the path, offering them both a wave. She went up the stairs and back inside, leaving her and Turner there by the truck.
Figuring they couldn’t just stand there all night, Poppy cleared her throat. “I didn’t intend to stay, I said to your mother that I… Charley wanted me to go in and I—”
“It’s okay. Their stories aren’t worse than the guys.”
“Is that why you introduce them to women first? If a woman can handle your friends, she can handle your family?” He didn’t say anything. Poppy wasn’t sure why she was smiling. Manners? Discomfort? Could go either way. Whatever it was, she scrubbed her expression clean. “Did you get hold of Ritchie?”
“Poppy—”
“He was stone cold sober. You trust him and he doesn’t know whatever ‘us’ was, so I would assume he’d have no reason not to tell you if I was insatiable last night.”
Not too long ago, Poppy had been telling his mother that she couldn’t stay mad at him. That didn’t erase her hurt.
“Poppy,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and swinging her around to press her against the quarter panel of his truck. Though he’d seemed intent, his certainty faded as he searched her. “Everything in my life made sense until you came into it.”
“And nothing in my life made sense until I found you,” she said. “I said you’d never hurt me and then you went right on and did it. I don’t know if you thought I was challenging you or if you were making a point… It was naivety. My naivety. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” Facing the truth wasn’t easy. “I imagined us as this picture perfect thing because that’s what I wanted us to be…” Poppy took one of her cleansing breaths. “I see it now, I understand it better. We’re in different places. Completely different places. I want my life to be different, to progress, to find happiness… And you want your life to be the same. To stay the course… You don’t want change and I do… We’re in different places.”
“I haven’t slept… can’t remember the last time I ate, and I have tenants screaming at me from all angles while I try to do fifty different things for them… My head isn’t on straight right now.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you for this morning. It was nothing in the big picture; it helped me look