And then Poppy’s shoulders relaxed, her eyes closed . . .
Her lips started moving under Wink’s . . .
The kiss went on. And on. Soft and slow and lips and girl, girl, girl.
Thomas and Briggs stopped eating tomatoes and looking sulky and aggressive. They leaned forward, shoulders almost touching.
. . . the kiss . . .
Buttercup and Zoe held hands and stared. Zoe’s mouth was open a little bit.
. . . the kiss . . .
The light was now an eerie twilight blue, and the forest had gone dark, and we’d promised Mim we’d be home an hour ago.
. . . the kiss . . .
Wink pulled back. Just like that. Snap. She put her hands back in her pockets, spun around, and came back to me.
“Your turn,” Wink said, and gave me her ear-popping smile.
I didn’t do it.
I just took Wink’s hand and walked right past the stunned-looking Poppy and the stunned-looking Yellows, right into the dusky black woods, not another word.
No one tried to stop us. No one said anything at all, except Poppy, who called out my name, just once. But I didn’t turn around.
THAT PERT PERT pert little redhead.
Things were starting to get a little out of control, but I knew I could handle it, I’m Poppy, for fuck’s sake. I never give up, ever, I don’t have it in me.
I told Briggs to meet me at midnight in my backyard between the lilac bushes and then I told Thomas to come to my bedroom at eleven and we were both mostly naked when Briggs found us, just as I’d planned, Thomas with his hands sliding up my bare back and me with my face in his blond hair and my knees gripping his hipbones, just as he liked.
Thomas’s younger sister died, she drowned in the Blue Twist River when she was eight years old, and Thomas was supposed to be watching her when it happened. Their father went crazy, he’s in an institution and is considered dangerous to himself and others, and Thomas, oh how sad he is, how he worries about me whenever I hang out at the river, worries I’ll slip in and disappear in an instant, just like his dead baby sister, and I like his sadness, I do, but it’s not enough, not enough to stop me.
Briggs swore revenge on Thomas, like a character in a book, and I laughed out loud and asked if they were going to duel at sunrise because I’d like to place bets on who would kill who . . . and then Briggs turned his anger on me, and my god I had them both wrapped around my damn finger, it was too easy. Briggs said I was going to get what was coming to me, that I’d led them both on, and turned their friendship to ash, very dramatic, especially for Briggs, and it was all so perfect, I wouldn’t have wished for more if I’d done it on a falling star.
Thomas started crying then, soft, quiet tears down his tanned cheeks, and I will say this, he was hot even when he cried, just like Midnight, and I felt a twinge in my heart then, just a twinge, just a flicker. Thomas didn’t swear or make threats like Briggs, but then, the quiet ones are the ones you have to watch out for.
THE HERO ATE dinner with us, and afterward he asked to see my bedroom, but I shared it with Peach and Bee Lee, so I didn’t take him there. Mim had a late-night reading and the twins were camping in the woods. Felix had a girlfriend already, he was like Leaf in that way, and the two of them had claimed the hayloft. His girl was pretty and gentle, with rosy cheeks and bashful eyes, but Mim had given Felix the Bliss and Baby talk recently, so I wasn’t worried.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff boy had dark hair and two different-colored eyes. Blue and green.
Different-colored eyes meant a lot of things.
A curse.
Bad luck.
Madness.
A withered soul.
A pact with the devil.
A family secret.
A lie.
A changeling.
A promise, un-kept.
I brought Midnight to the garden, and he stretched out down in the dirt with his head in the strawberries while I spelled out my secrets on his naked back, my fingers drawing the letters up his spine.
He asked me about my father again.
And Leaf.
He tried to get me to talk about my kiss with the Wolf.
But I wouldn’t say a word.
“Midnight.”
Warm breath on my skin. The covers rustled, a body next to mine, side to side, spoons. Was I dreaming? Was there a Sandman in my bed, whispering in my ear, blowing on my neck? I kept my eyes closed, stretched out my fingers. I wanted to tangle them in her tangled red hair.
But they slipped right through, water, silk.
I smelled jasmine.
Poppy.
“I climbed the drainpipe.” She turned over, kissed my earlobe. Slow. “Two miles in the dark of night. I went through a forest and up a wall.” She wriggled. Slithered. Soft skin everywhere. “Do I seem like the kind of person who would let a red-haired hayloft girl in unicorn underwear take what’s mine? You are mine, Midnight. For as long as I want you.”
Her lips on my neck, chest, stomach . . .
“Poppy, stop.”
She didn’t.
“Poppy, stop.”
She did.