“Us three.” I squeezed my eyes shut as I admitted the truth. Not that she could see me. “Me, Shane and Finch.”
Poppy was dead silent for a few seconds; then she squealed. “I knew it! You guys are perfect for each other.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear so I didn’t go deaf as she chattered on and on about how she’d figured they were looking for a woman together. She cited Nix and Donovan, Cy Seaborn and Lucas Mills and even Mac and Hardin as examples of great guys who went their own way when it came to love.
“Perfect? How did you come up with that from the stupid break-in?”
“I didn’t. It’s just… well, it’s obvious now. I should have fixed you guys up a long time ago. You’ll make beautiful babies.”
I laughed. “Babies? Poppy, this isn’t a relationship.” I turned my head away from the main room, although no one was looking my way. “It’s just sex.”
“Okay, I’m going to try not to gag thinking about my brother having sex, but it’s not just sex, Eve.”
“It is. I made it clear that’s all I want.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s all… I… want,” I repeated but said the words slower.
“Again, why?”
“I was hurt by a guy,” I said, this time my voice soft because I remembered how weak I’d been, how much it still hurt. “I told you that much. He… he was verbally and physically abusive. I lost myself. I won’t do that again.”
Poppy sighed. “If anyone can understand, it’s me.”
She’d never mentioned a bad boyfriend, but I had a feeling the way she and Shane both hated their dad that it was him who’d hurt her.
“I just figured you were waiting for the right one. Or ones.”
Shane’s grin with that lethal dimple and Finch’s whiskey gaze popped into my head. The way they looked when they were deep inside me. When we were sitting on the couch watching a movie. How they touched. Spoke. Everything.
“They won’t hurt you,” she said. “Not like that.”
“They could.”
“You wouldn’t have gone off with them if you truly believed they’d hit you.”
“Poppy, they pretty much kidnapped me.”
“And you let them.”
I remained silent. I did know they wouldn’t physically harm me, but I remembered how I’d felt when I’d walked away from Chad. Empty. Broken. Less. The worst of it all was that I’d been in love with him. That had made it hard to want to leave, but he had destroyed me and I’d known I had to get out.
Looking back, it had been a toxic love and I’d come through the hurt better and stronger. It didn’t mean I wanted to go through that again. Heartbreak was heartbreak. It was easier to guard my feelings than to have them destroyed.
“The other night before the party, you had Finch in handcuffs on my floor. Shane was standing there, hands raised in surrender. They could have taken the gun from you, but they didn’t even raise a finger.”
They hadn’t. While Finch hadn’t liked having his shoulder torqued, he hadn’t resisted. Neither had Shane. Most guys of their size would have, especially with someone smaller like me. They hadn’t even touched me. It could have been because I’d been in my underwear, but again, most guys would have done so because of that. I hadn’t been forward. I’d been barely dressed. I’d touched them first.
“Just. Sex,” I said again, perhaps more for myself than for her.
“Fine. When are you going to have just sex with them again?”
I could imagine her making air quotes as she spoke.
Nix came back with two steaming cups of coffee and set one on my desk. I looked up at him and smiled, whispered a thanks.
“You really want the answer to that?” I asked her.