A Thousand Boy Kisses(40)

Nervousness.

In her outstretched hand was a pink heart. Only this heart wasn’t blank. It was full, both sides. This heart’s ink was pink, practically disguising the message.

Poppy pushed her hand further out. “Take it,” she insisted. I did as she asked.

Sitting up, I shifted into the path of light. I focused hard on the light ink, until I could make out the words. Kiss three hundred and fifty-five. In my bedroom. After I made love to my Rune. My heart almost burst. I turned the heart over and read the other side.

I stopped breathing.

It was the best night of my life … as special as special can be.

I closed my eyes, yet another wash of emotion flowing through me. If I had been standing, I’m sure it would have brought me to my knees.

Because she loved it.

That night, what we did, it was wanted. I hadn’t hurt her.

I choked down on a noise that was slipping up my throat. Poppy’s hand was on my arm. “I thought I’d destroyed us,” I whispered, looking into her eyes. “I thought you’d regretted us.”

“I didn’t,” she whispered back. With a shaking hand, a gesture rusty from too much time spent apart, she pushed back the fallen strands of hair from my face. I closed my eyes under her touch, then opened them when she said, “When everything happened…,” she explained, “when I was seeking treatment,”—tears, this time, did slip down her cheeks—“when that treatment stopped working … I thought of that night often.” Poppy closed her eyes, her long dark lashes kissing her cheek. Then she smiled. Her hand stilled in my hair. “I thought of how gentle you were with me. How it felt … to be with you, that close. Like we were the two halves of the heart we always called ourselves.” She sighed. “It was like home. You and me, together, were infinity—we were joined. In that moment, that moment when our breathing was rough and you held me so tightly … it was the best moment of my life.”

Her eyes opened again. “It was the moment I replayed when it hurt. It is the moment I think of when I slip, when I begin to feel scared. It’s the moment that reminds me that I’m lucky. Because in that moment I experienced the love my mamaw sent me on this adventure of a thousand boy-kisses to find. That moment when you know that you are loved so much, that you are the center of somebody’s world so wonderfully, that you lived … even if it was only for a short time.”

Keeping the paper heart in one hand, I reached up with the other and brought Poppy’s wrist to my lips. I pressed a small kiss over her pulse, feeling it flutter beneath my mouth. She drew in a sharp breath.

“No one else has kissed your lips but me, have they?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I promised you I wouldn’t. Even though we weren’t speaking. Even though I never thought I’d see you again, I would never break my promise. These lips are yours. They were only ever yours.”

My heart stuttered and, releasing her wrist, I lifted my fingers to press them across her lips—the lips that she had gifted to me.

Poppy’s breathing slowed as I touched her mouth. Her lashes fluttered and heat built in her cheeks. My breathing quickened. Quickened because I had ownership of those lips. They were still mine.

Forever always.

“Poppy,” I whispered, and leaned toward her. Poppy froze, but I didn’t kiss her. I wouldn’t. I could see that she couldn’t read me. She didn’t know me.

I hardly knew myself these days.

Instead, I laid my lips on my own fingers—still over her lips, forming a barrier between our mouths—and just breathed her in. I inhaled her scent—sugar and vanilla. My body felt energized simply from being near her.

Then my heart cracked down the center as I moved back and she asked brokenly, “How many?”

I frowned. I searched her face for a clue to what she was asking. Poppy swallowed and, this time, she placed her fingers over my lips. “How many?” she repeated.

I knew then exactly what she was asking. Because she stared at my lips like they were a betrayer. She stared at them like something she once loved, lost, and could never win back.

Ice-coldness ran through me as Poppy pulled her shaking hand away. Her expression was guarded, her breath held in her chest as though protecting herself from what I would say. But I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t, that look on her face slew me.

Poppy exhaled and said, “I know about Avery, of course, but were there any others in Oslo? I mean, I know there will have been, but, was it a lot?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, my voice low. Poppy’s paper heart was still in my hand, the significance of it almost scalding my skin.

The promise of our lips.

The promise of our halved hearts.

Forever always.

Poppy slowly began to shake her head, but then, shoulders slumping, she nodded once. “Yes,” she whispered, “it matters. It shouldn’t. I set you free.” She dropped her head. “But it does. It matters more than you’d understand.”

She was wrong. I understood why it mattered so much. It did to me too.

“I was away a long time,” I said. In that moment, I knew that the anger that held me captive had taken back control. Some sick part of me wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt me.

“I know,” Poppy agreed, her head still low.