“He was with a girl.” Poppy makes a wincing face as if she’s waiting for the bomb to land.
A hot, sticky feeling licks at the back of my neck, and I feel my expression give me away for a second before I school my features into casual indifference. I’ve moved on, found peace after he broke my heart, and found success. I’m adifferent person than I was ten years ago, and I’m past it now.
But that flickering flame of fury I feel whenever I see him, the one that burns red hot, is now a sickly shade of green. Jealousy. I will it back to anger. Anger is easier to understand. Anger and I are friends.
“Who?” I ask, still trying to conceal my emotions though my voice shakes. I grew up in Heartwood. It’s probably someone I know. I mentally flip through the little black book in my mind, recalling all the girls Poppy and I went to school with, trying to guess who it could be. I wince as Poppy starts to speak, preparing for impact.
“I didn’t recognize her,” Poppy says, her voice cool like what she’s said hasn’t shaken me. Someone new in town? She must have come here recently for Poppy not to know her either. Which means I have nothing to go off to size her up. “Emma? She’s Alma Rose’s granddaughter. She said she’s giving her a hand with Rose Antiques for the summer.”
My mind feels like it’s on one of those pirate ship rides, going back and forth as I gain new information from a different perspective on the situation. It’s making me seasick.
“So, she’s not here to stay.” I don’t know why I care, or why her only being here temporarily is suddenly a good thing in my mind. It shouldn’t be.
“Who knows. I don’t think Alma has much time left in her to manage the store.” I fill in the blanks, which would mean Emma could take over. I mull this over, swishing my wine from cheek to cheek before swallowing.
“What was she like?” My competitive edge sharpens, wanting to learn everything I can about this girl, although Istill don’t know why I’m competing with her. I’m not. She can have Hudson. She’ll have to learn the hard way that he doesn’t consider anyone’s feelings other than his own … but that’s her cross to bear.
“She seems nice. Sweet. Killer body,” Poppy says and then covers her mouth quickly. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine, Pops. I’m not jealous.” I wave a hand in front of my face like the idea is simply ridiculous. “I wish them well, honestly. I hope everything works out for them.” Even as I say it, I can feel the emptiness in the words, that they don’t ring true.
But itistrue. I don’t feel anything for Hudson anymore, other than plain and simple loathing. Am I still angry about what he did to me? Of course. Who wouldn’t be? It doesn’t mean I still have feelings for him. Just the opposite.
“In any case, I gave him shit for it once Emma left.”
“You what?” I nearly spit out my wine. “Poppy, I can’t have him thinking this bothers me, okay?”
She puts her hands up as a display of innocence.
“What? He’s acting like an idiot, and he deserves to know it. You don’t think it’s strange he’s been single all this time, hasn’t so much as looked in another girl’s direction for ten years, and suddenly you’re back in town and he has a blonde bombshell on his arm?”
The information hits me like a sucker punch, and all the air is sucked out of my lungs at once. Not that Emma is a ‘blonde bombshell’ or that Poppy gave him hell for seeing her, although that is entertaining to think about—I wish I’d been there to see it, frankly. No, it’s that Poppy has chosen toinform me that Hudson has not been withanyonesince me. That’s fresh-off-the-press news.
Poppy has never once mentioned it on our many FaceTime calls over the years, and I assumed Hudson went down the same path as his little brother, Jett. Jett has always been a playboy, and once I left, I started hearing about all the dumb shit they got up to together.
Not to mention all the pranks, hazing the younger guys at the firehall, the annual boot drive competition between him and Cole. Poppy kept me up to speed onallhis idiotic antics—I figured bedding women would have been one of them.
“It’s fine, Poppy,” I reassure her. She doesn’t need to defend my honour to Hudson. “He can date whoever he wants. I have no interest in him anymore.”
Poppy squints her deep brown eyes at me from beneath equally dark, wispy bangs.
“If you say so,” she says with skepticism lacing her tone.
“Do you smell that?” I say, sniffing the air.
“Okay Wren, loud and clear. We can change the topic?—”
“No, I’m serious, it smells like smoke.” From where we’re seated at the table, I can see tendrils of smoke coming out of the cracks in the oven door. “Oh my God, the pizzas!” I cry, the words coming out so fast they all sound like one.
I run over to open the oven door. When I do, even more smoke comes out, setting off the smoke alarm above me. With the noise blaring in my ears, and my eyes burning and blinded from the black cloud, I have no idea what to do.
I manage to wave away the smoke long enough to see thesource; the back half of one of the pizzas has flames licking the crust, which is now completely charred.
“It’s on fire!” I shout in surprise. I’m panicking. I have no idea what to do in this situation. I slam the oven door shut. I saw something online about if you deprive the fire of oxygen, the flame will eventually go out.
“Wren, what are you doing?!” Poppy cries, running over to me and reaching for the oven door.
“I don’t know, stifling the flame? Depriving it of oxygen?” I stammer, throwing my hands up.
