Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,26
won’t.”
“Yes, it will. When she gets there, I’m going to tie her to the grand piano and then leave her there. Alone. She’ll have to spend the whole night sitting in the music room of the haunted Roman Luck house, with its ghosts. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Don’t, Poppy. Please.” I stopped trying to sound like Alabama. I just sounded like me again.
Poppy leaned forward and kissed the hollow of my throat. Slowly. “Will you help me do this? Will you go along with it?”
“No.”
“Do it, Midnight. Help me.”
“No. Never.”
Her kisses were languid. Soft. Perfect.
“If you don’t help me, Midnight, I’ll do something worse.”
Her lips, my skin . . .
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
“If you don’t help me I’ll set the hayloft on fire and burn the barn to the ground and say Wink did it. I’ll say she’s insane. I’ll say she’s dangerous. I’ll say she’s a liar. I’ll say she lured me into the woods and tried to kill me. I’ll say she pushed me in the river and tried to drown me. I’ll say she—”
“All right, all right.” I put my hand over her lips to stop her from kissing me again. “All right. I’ll do it.”
She raised her arms in the air and squealed. It was whispery and quiet, but still a squeal.
Even Poppy’s squeals were sexy.
“But Poppy, you have to promise that after this you’ll leave her alone. This is the last prank. The last one. Okay?”
Poppy crossed her arms over her bare chest, tossed her hair, and smiled. “I knew you’d come around.”
“Promise me it will stop, Poppy.”
Silence.
“Promise.”
“It will stop. After this one last prank.”
“And I don’t want any Yellows there either. They’ll make too much noise and she’ll suspect something.” I narrowed my eyes, back to imitating Alabama again. “Wink is smart. Smarter than you think. Just me and you on this, all right?”
“Wow. You’re being so alpha and demanding tonight. I’m impressed. And I’m never impressed, especially by you.”
She leaned in . . .
I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back.
She let out a cute, childish groan. “Okay. No Yellows and no more pranks.”
She smiled again.
And then she slipped her left leg over me and sat her hips down on mine. “I wouldn’t miss doing this with you for the world. Not for the world. Wink, Roman Luck, you and me, it’s going to be so much fun, so much fun.”
She bent forward until we were touching, chest to chest, skin to skin.
Lips. Down, down, down.
And I wanted to hate it.
I wanted it to turn my stomach, make me sick, fill me with horror. But it didn’t.
I HID IT well, but climbing into Midnight’s bed gave me a comforting feeling, a nostalgic feeling, like staying at my grandfather’s cabin when I was little, back before he shoveled snow on a cold day seven years ago, had a heart attack, and died. His name was Anton Harvey and my parents used to leave me with him when they went away for their doctor conferences. My grandpa never once called me a sweet little angel baby. He hadn’t given a damn about my blond halo hair or my big gray eyes or my cherub lips, and he never ever gave me pink presents with bows on them.
Anton Harvey was gruff and silent and he showed me how to gut fish after we caught them from the river, and he wasn’t upset that I liked it. I wore flannel shirts when I stayed at his cabin, and Wellingtons, and I wore my hair in braids, and sometimes we went whole hours at a time without talking, just fishing or following tracks in the snow or sitting on the plain, tiny porch, watching a storm come in.
And just about the time I started to think, Now here’s something, here’s someone I can actually look up to, he’s not dumb dumb dumb like the rest, here’s someone I can actually admire, someone I understand, someone I could probably even love, just give me half a chance, he had to up and die.
“POPPY IS PLANNING something, Wink.”
We were outside, cupped hands, drinking ice-cold water straight from the red water pump.
“I know.” Wink cutely slurped up the water from her palms. “She was here earlier this morning. She found me in the hayloft and said you wanted to meet me at the Roman Luck house at midnight.”
Poppy worked fast. Once she made up her mind about something she shot forward like a greyhound. She’d always