Page 41

CHAPTER 41

M arley had walked me home and made sure I was safe upstairs, said goodnight, and then left to go back to his apartment across the hall.

That was good. I was dealing with being mad at Darius for still expecting me to want college and him, and at Marley for defusing a damn bomb and almost getting himself blown up, and at Louise for trying to take our crab rangoon, and at Mei for leaving even though I knew she had to and I’d hugged her good-bye and told her it was going to be okay, and just everybody in general. Yes, I knew that was stupid and irrational, but some days are so bad that stupid and irrational are a big step up from screaming and crying.

And I couldn’t sleep, which was just stupid. If I could sleep with Marley next to me, I could sleep alone. It’s not like my subconscious was thinking he’d spring up and save me from Serena’s ghost. There was no reason for me to be safer with him, he was just a friend . . .

Okay, that was a lie, but I had enough to worry about without opening that can of worms.

Get your act together, Malone, I told myself, you do not need a man to save you, and then realized that was something Marley would say. I didn’t need Marley with me anymore, I’d just absorbed him into my inner life, he was kind of part of me now.

Which was a big improvement on having Serena in my inner life, so I rolled over and after a while, I went to sleep.

Hours later, when it was almost dawn, I awoke to a huge boom and the building shook.

I got out of bed and without thinking ran out of my bedroom and across the hall to Marley’s apartment and into his bedroom.

He was staring out the window at the street, his broad body silhouetted against the orange glow outside.

“What the hell?” I said, and he held out his arm without turning around, and I walked over beside him to look out the window and put my arm around his waist as he pulled me close.

Lian’s law office was on fire. There was fire licking out of blown-out windows, but the building seemed okay; at least the roof was holding for now.

“I don’t suppose that was a gas leak,” I said.

“We should call 911,” Marley said.

“No.” I watched the flames lick higher and start to move toward the next building. “Wait until it burns down Nice Funerals.” I was never going to forget finding all of Geoffrey Nice’s trophies there. Especially the piece of Ozzie’s shirt . . .

“Poppy,” Marley said gently. “We don’t want to torch the whole town.”

“Maybe,” I said, but then I remembered the other side of Nice Funerals was Luke’s shop, full of beautiful wood furniture and no bodies, and that if Jackie turned Nice Funerals into a clinic, Quill could stay. “Okay.”

“Hold on,” Marley said. “Look.”

As we watched, the flames began to go down.

Marley laughed. “I forgot. Lian had Luke put in a sprinkler system. Reggie and I helped him do it.”

As we watched, the flames died down until it was mostly dark again, just some glowing inside the windows, like there were embers still.

Markey let go of me and went over and pulled on his jeans. “I’m going to check it out. You stay here.”

“You do not tell me what to do,” I said. “But yes, I will stay here because that building is not safe and it’s not dawn yet. So you are staying here, too.”

He grinned at me. “You are not the boss of me.”

“Okay, what do I have to do to make you stay? Watch Ice Station Zebra again? Because that’s a big ask, Bernard.”

“You could start by putting on that black dress again,” he said. “But I’m still going down there.”

Okay, now I really was annoyed. “ Not alone.”

He snorted. “What are the chances? Pike, Max, Luke, they’re already there. This is man’s work, honey. Go make me a sandwich.”

He pulled his hoodie over his t-shirt, and I said, “Fine, you’re a sandwich.”

“I’ll be back,” he said, and as he went by me to the door, he bent and kissed me on the cheek, just a peck, but it was a kiss, and said, “I’ll be careful. Stop worrying.”

I didn’t say anything, just watched him go, wondering what the kiss meant—we’d been friends a long time but there had been no cheek-kissing before—and what I wanted it to mean and what he thought it meant, but mostly I just wanted to know what the hell had happened to Lian’s building.

And if the person who blew it up knew that Lian and Mei had already left, or if the point of all that was to take them out.

I was never going to sleep now, so I went downstairs to the kitchen, and, of course, my mom was already there, making cocoa. The woman is uncanny about serving people’s needs.

“You okay?” she said, looking all flushed and rumpled in her blue robe.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Lian’s building is toast. Marley went out to see what Max was doing.”

I sat down at the table, and Mom poured two cups of cocoa from the pan and sat down across from me. “You had a very bad day.”

I shrugged. “Nobody I love died, although Marley almost screwed that up, too. He could have been blown up . And now he’s out there again.” I thought about him, poking around a still-hot building that was probably going to collapse on him, with Max, who had about as much sense as Marley did. There’s a dangerous situation, they both seemed to think. Let’s run into it. “ He told me not to worry and kissed me on the cheek like I was a little kid, like that would make it all right.”

Mom sipped her cocoa.

“I’m not upset about yesterday,” I told her. “I didn’t enjoy it, but Junior’s gone and Betty’s still alive and I am unperforated by bullets. I still have a hard time sleeping, but I couldn’t do that before today, so what the hell.”

Mom nodded.

She had that look on her face that said she was waiting for me to say something important, so I said, “ What? ”

She shook her head. “Just a lot to think about.”

“I don’t want to think,” I said and sipped my cocoa, hot and sweet and chocolatey.

“Marley kissed you on the cheek, huh?”

I rolled my eyes.

She nodded. “So what’s new with the shop?”

“I’ve changed the name.”

“What’s the new name?”

“Odd Poppies.”

She laughed, and I had to smile, too.

“Reggie’s going to make me a sign.”

Mom nodded again, approving. “Those are good boys, Reggie and Marley.”

“They’re not boys, Mom,” I said and then felt bitchy because she hadn’t meant anything by it.

“I know,” she said quietly. “Poppy, what is going on with you and Marley?”

I lifted my chin, eyes straight at her. “According to Mei, we have a situationship.”

Mom nodded. “And that is . . .”

“It’s like dating purgatory. We’re not not-together but we’re not together, either.” I thought about it. “It’s confusing because of Darius and Mei, and because I’ve known him forever, and because everything keeps blowing up here, and I need sleep to think clearly, so . . . it’s a situationship. I’m confused.”

My mother looked at me sternly. “Well, get unconfused. That’s a good boy and you’re making him crazy. Pick a lane, Poppy, and if it’s not the one he’s in, let him go.”

“I don’t have him,” I said, insulted.

She just sat there and waited.

“I don’t even know if I want him.”

She waited some more.

“It’s not like I don’t have other things to think about,” I said, sounding defensive.

“How would you feel if he started dating somebody else?” Mom said. “I ask because I was waffling about Max for a long time?—”

I snorted on that one because as far as I could see, there’d been zero waffling, but I think she was trying to make a point.

“—and then Louise hit on him and I thought about ripping her throat out.”

I frowned at her. “Maturity is not your strong suit these days. You’re getting violent, Mom.”

“So if Olivia came by and put her arm around Marley and invited him to the movies?—”

“I would not care,” I lied through my teeth. “You know a building just blew up down the street. Why are we talking about this?”

“Because I can’t do a damn thing about the building except make cocoa for everybody, but your life I have an investment in. You’re happier with Marley than I’ve ever seen you. You’re smiling again for real for the first time since Ozzie died, and it’s always when you’re with him. Mei’s gone, Darius is gone, you really like Marley?—”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Mom shrugged. “When I wasn’t sure, I crossed the hall into Tennessee and jumped Max. And then I was sure.”

“You really did?” I said, surprised out of my annoyance.

“Yep. Surprised the hell out of him, but he coped.” Mom tilted her head at me. “I’m betting Marley would cope, too.”

I frowned at her. “You’re telling me to have sex with a boy? That’s not like you.”

“It’s not the sex. I think you should figure out what you want and go after it. I want you to be happy. And I don’t see you doing anything to get that. You’re stuck circling the drain, and you need to do something to get yourself out of that. Don’t wait for anybody to rescue you, don’t wait for some hero to come along and tell you what you need; if you don’t know what you want, go find out and then get it. Move, Poppy. Save yourself.” She smiled at me then, the old loving smile she’d been lavishing on me for almost nineteen years. “You can have what you want, but you have to go after it. Depending on men to rescue you could mean a really long wait. Ask me how I know.”

I just sat there with my cocoa, looking at my life through her eyes. She was right. I wasn’t trying to save myself, I was just trying not to be things. Not to be afraid, not to be awake, not to be . . . alone.

Go after what you want , Mom said.

And I thought, I want Marley.

It was such a relief to finally just think that, admit that, that I exhaled and relaxed in my chair.

Yep, I wanted Marley. Great humiliation could await me, but that was life for you.

I wanted Marley.

“I’m going to go see what Max is doing,” Mom said, standing up. “He and Marley together—” She shook her head. “—you know they’re doing something macho.”

“Dumbasses,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Marley was being a dumbass, but he was my dumbass.