Page 191 of Pucking Sweet

Okay, I was really hoping this would go differently. I wanted to sweep her off her feet with a bold declaration and kiss her senseless. That’s how they do it in all her movies. But now she’s a crying, snotty mess. I rock back on my heels, thinking fast. “I’ll adopt it.”

She goes still. “What?”

“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll adopt the cat.”

She huffs, digging in her pocket for a tissue. “Lukas, you hate cats.”

“So?”

“So, you’re not adopting a cat you’re gonna hate, just to hold some kind of weird emotional leverage over me. I can’t do that with you. It’s too much. It’s too hard.”

My gut squeezes tight and I take her hand. “Poppy, no. That’s not what I—”

She gasps, eyes wide as she points down at my arm with her free hand. “Lukas, what isthat?”

I follow her point down to my newest tattoo. Right. She hasn’t seen it yet. “Okay, so—”

She tugs me forward to inspect it. Just like Cole, she rubs a thumb over it, praying that will smear the ink. “Lukas, is this permanent?”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Well, yeah. It’s a tattoo—”

She chokes on a shriek as she shoves my arm away and stands, nearly tripping over the bucket. “Lukas Novikov, tell me you didnotpermanently brand your body with a cartoon doodle of a penis!”

Slowly, I stand too, facing her. My heart is fucking racing. This is the moment, right? This is the moment I tell her? “I didn’tnotdo it.”

“Oh my god, you aresoirresponsible.”

“What? It’s just a tattoo. I have like fifty others—”

“Yeah, tasteful, beautiful pieces of art,” she cries, waving at the rest of the tattoos on my arms. She’s seen them all, inspected them, asked for stories about them. The memories of her, warm and soft and naked in my arms while I took her on a tour of my tattoos, is something I hold deep in my chest, buried with whatever part of me holds my soul.

I cross my arms, making sure the cock and balls tattoo is visible. “Well, this is art to me.Youdrew it.”

She shakes her head, arms crossed, mirroring my stance. “You walk away without a second look. For weeks, you freeze me out, freeze Colton out. And then you dothis? I wanna know why! Why would you get that as a freaking tattoo?”

“Because I fucking missed you! I was sad, and alone, and feeling like my entire life was caving in on me. I was so fucking desperate, feeling like the only thing I could do to make the pain stop hurting was to go numb. And the only way I’ve ever been able to go numb before was through drinking or sex. Well, I couldn’t drink because I had a game.”

Her eyes go wide as she steps away from me, the walls of her heart slamming shut.

Oh, fuck.

“No, no,” I say quickly, raising my hands toward her. “Poppy, I justthoughtabout doing it. Old habits die hard, right? I thought I’d lost you both forever. I wanted to die—”

“What were you going to do?” she says through her tears.

I shake my head, my tone firm. “I didn’t do it.”

“What were you going to do, Lukas?” she asks again.

She’s not gonna stop until I say it. “I didn’t go out and fuck someone else, Poppy. I swear on my fucking life, I haven’t been withanyonesince I walked away from you.” But then I’m groaning. “Well, I mean,technically, I have. But—”

“Goodbye, Lukas.” She darts around the other side of the Zamboni.

“Poppy,no! It’s not like that. Just wait—”

“Just get away from me, Lukas.”

I grab her arm, pulling her to a stop. “It was Cole.”