You Again
Poppy
When it came to things I never thought I’d do, running for mayor was tops.
I didn’t own a single pantsuit. I’d never so much as taken a debate class in high school. I nearly flunked political science, and I was the absolute worst bullshitter on the face of the planet.
But there I was with my family in tow, heading to Lindenbach’s city hall to file my application to run for mayor of the small Texas town where I’d grown up.
If our previous mayor hadn’t landed himself in prison, I’d probably never have considered it, but things being what they were, it seemed I was the ideal candidate. The stars had aligned in an eerie sort of way. I’d climbed on a soapbox as an advocate for our town in opposition of Mayor Mitchell just before his ship went down in flames, and since the only person I knew who’d be running was Doug Windley, local jerkass extraordinaire, I figured anybody’d be better than him.
I did have a little experience under my belt—I could argue the paint off a wall thanks to years of practice with my sisters. I possessed an oftentimes annoying need to be right, especially about what was right. I’d gone toe to toe with the disagreeable half of our town fearlessly and sometimes carelessly, but there wasn’t a soul who would argue my devotion to Lindenbach and its wellbeing. Not even chronic dickheads like Doug Windbag.
We caravanned into town, Mama in the passenger seat, Jo and Grant in his teeny tiny Audi behind us, and Daisy and Keaton in his truck behind them. A handful of our family friends were set to meet us there in what Daisy swore would be a very casual show of support.
When we pulled up to city hall, I realized I should have known she was full of it.
I put the truck in park and sighed, my pulse ticking up when I saw a knot of proud, familiar faces holding signs that read Poppy for Mayor! and Vote Blum! and Poppy is the bee's knees!
“I’m gonna kill Daisy,” I said with a smile out the window, waving before gathering my things.
Mama laughed. Traitor.
“How do you know it was Daisy?”
“Because she can’t help herself from doing what she thinks is nice for somebody else, whether they want it or not.”
“Well, for your information, it was my idea. Jo implemented. Daisy just ran interference.”
I rolled my eyes and checked my reflection in the rearview, doing my best to button up my nerves. “The more people here, the more nervous I get.”
Again, she laughed. “Poppy June, you have never been nervous a day in your life.”
“You’ve got me confused with Jo, Mama.”
She watched me dig around in my bag for a second while our family exited their vehicles on either side of us. “Last chance to back out. Are you sure you want to do this?”
My hands paused, and I met her eyes. “If it’s not me, then who? I don’t know if I trust many people to run the town, not as it stands.” I looked out over the little crowd and shook my head. “Things used to seem so simple, or maybe I was just too young to know better. Maybe it was always this awful.” I sighed, mourning the loss of my naivety. “Either way, I took on Mayor Mitchell more than once—I know what I’m up against. Who knows if I’ll be any good at it. But I think I’ve got to try, don’t you?”
“I think that if you’re called to do it, you should do it.”
“Well then, we’d better get in there and turn my papers in to Verna before I talk myself out of it.”
With a smile more confident than I felt, I popped open my door and climbed out into the Texas heat. In the shade of the ancient oaks it wasn’t so bad, but the second we stepped into the sun, a delicate sweat broke out along my hairline and down the valley of my spine. Only a smidge of that had to do with the temperature.
Though I didn’t own the aforementioned pantsuit and hoped to God I’d never have to wear one, I’d dressed up for the occasion. Other than the occasional sundress, I lived in jeans and shorts and leggings. Jo might have been considered a tomboy, but I owned decidedly fewer dresses, had less of an inclination for mascara, and was absolutely terrible with a curling iron. I had the still-stinging burn on my forearm to prove it. Because I was so bad, I’d managed to burn my forearm curling my hair.
My outfit was Daisy’s, and she’d also helped with my makeup on finding me swearing at my mirror and trying to blink mascara off my poor innocent cornea. The white tailored shirt I’d borrowed was matte and silky and light in the heat. The pencil skirt was less comfortable, but the pointy-toed flats weren’t the worst. I twisted my long, dark hair into a rope and let my neck breathe for a moment. Oh, the things I’d have done for a ponytail. But we were being adults today, and adults supposedly had the willpower to wear their hair down in the dead heat of summer in the hill country.
I made sure to secure my smile as we met the throng, accepted their congratulations and promises of votes. Although the day and time we had to turn in our applications was public knowledge, no one was there but those my family had bribed into coming. Our little newspaper was in attendance, and our old high school photography teacher who doubled as a photojournalist snapped pictures of me all the way, stopping to tell me that she’d always known I was bound for something big and that she was proud of me.
Half of Lindenbach would disagree. Politics had divided our town for quite some time, the animosity boiling over of late. Mayor Mitchell’s side would rather lick pavement than see me in power, not only because his family had held the office for seventy years, but because my family had played a small part in his demise. Which meant beating Doug Windley wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, even if the liquor store owner was a pompous toady of the former mayor.
As I approached the door, it opened, and out came Doug, his face souring when he saw me.
“Heard you were runnin’. Hoped it was bullshit.”
I wore a placid smile. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I figured you and me’d have a race on our hands, but looks like neither of us stand a chance.”
My brow quirked. “How come?”
A smug sort of anger slid over his face. “Oh, you don’t know? Well, don’t let me spoil the surprise. I’d wish you good luck if I didn’t hate your guts.”
His laughter was a whip crack, biting and bitter as he walked away.
Confused and curious, I stepped up to the door to city hall. A gust of cold air blew my hair back when I opened it, heading for the counter. But Verna was occupied with someone else. A man in a suit stood in front of her, his broad back to me, and the most elegant woman I’d ever seen at his elbow. In her heels, she was nearly as tall as him, with long, shining blonde hair spilling down her back. She wore the same basic outfit as me—tailored shirt, pencil skirt, though I’d break my neck in those shoes—but we looked nothing alike. I was a TJ Maxx clearance rack, and she was an advertisement for Bloomingdale’s.
When my eyes slid back to the man in the middle, my head cocked, brows drawing together. Something about him was familiar to me, though I didn’t know a single human on earth besides Jo’s rich DC boyfriend Grant, who owned a suit like that. It was navy blue and cut to perfection, from his wide shoulders to the taper of his waist.
And then I heard his voice.
“Thanks, Verna.”
Two words. That was all it took. Icy cold slithered down my spine with hot rage in its wake. The heat pooled low in my belly, simmering into something that felt curiously like desire for the man I hated more than anyone in the entire world.
Duke Daniels turned with a snake’s smile on his stupid, beautiful face, stopping me dead. But even with his ample training in law, he wasn’t able to school a flicker of emotion before I saw it. I didn’t know exactly what it was, some churning, swirling mixture of shock and longing and pain. He blinked it away before I got a good chance to figure it out.
Twelve years since I’d seen him. Twelve years since the boy I loved decided he was through with us and started a new life, leaving us all behind.
Leaving me behind.
Fresh fury tore through me.
How dare he show up here, like this, looking like that.
His smile hadn’t budged since he’d fixed it there, with teeth too perfect and lips too wide. His jaw was that of a superhero, well-cut and squared at the chin, his nose both strong and elegant. His eyes were an unnatural shade of green, like Superman’s kryptonite—and just as devastating—lined with dark lashes. They sparked with the intelligence that had won him an academic scholarship to Harvard and the wit that had charmed my heart out of my chest many years ago.
As he approached, I was caught in my shock and rage, stupefied and blinking. I could see the boy he’d once been in the man he’d become, but beyond that glimmer of the past, I recognized nothing. Not in his tidy dark hair or his stride, which commanded attention, exuding power with nothing more than a handful of steps and the gentle swing of his arms.
Aphrodite or whoever she was smiled genuinely, beautifully at me, with bright blue eyes and full red lips. She had to be his girlfriend or his wife—oh God, is he married?—and my mind avalanched thoughts so fast, I was swept away like an unsuspecting Swiss skier.
In my periphery, Mama recovered the fumble by greeting him with all the friendliness of a woman reuniting with her long-lost son. For years, he had been like a son to her, despite him having a family of his own whom he loved and who loved him. But Duke collected people that way, always had. Social currency was his preferred method of exchange. That, I noted, hadn’t changed a bit.
“My God, look at you!” Mama said, reaching up to cup his jaw.
His laugh sounded like a superhero’s too, masculine and jovial and honest, though I had my doubts as to the latter. Once upon a time, I’d believed every word that passed his lips.
I still hadn’t forgiven him for making a fool out of me.
Hadn’t forgiven myself either.
“Mrs. Blum, I didn’t know it was possible to age backward.”
Mama giggled like a schoolgirl. “Flatterer. Good to see some things never change.”
“Wonder if he’s still an asshole too?” Jo asked loudly enough for everyone to hear and quietly enough to pretend like she hadn’t intended anyone to. Mama shot her a look.
“Good to see you too, Jo,” he said without a molecule of sarcasm, a chuckle on its heels. “Daisy, how are you?”
Ever the polite one, she stepped up and gave him a hug. “It’s nice to see you, Duke.”
He shook hands with Keaton, who he’d played football with in high school, then with Grant, who watched him with more suspicion than Jo, but he was like that. If Jo didn’t like Duke, Grant would figure that was reason enough for him too.
Good to know somebody was on my side.
When he finally stepped back in front of us, he looked down at me with that godforsaken million-dollar smile.
“Poppy. It’s been a long time.”
Somewhere in the midst of his long hellos, I’d pulled myself together. I was an adult. I could be cordial.
“Twelve years,” I said, “since you ghosted me like a coward.”
Okay, maybe I couldn’t.
He lifted his chin a little and smiled, bastard. “Would it be too much to say I missed a good old fashioned Blum banter?”
“Yes,” Jo and I answered at the same time.
Without missing a beat, he casually ignored my accusation, laying his hand on the blonde woman’s back. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Evangeline.”
“Hello,” Evangeline said with a beautiful smile and a lovely voice. “I’ve heard so much about you all, especially you, Poppy.” She extended her hand for a shake, and I did my best to show her courtesy. There was no ring on her finger, and I decided to excuse her from her association. Surely she didn’t know she’d roped herself to a lying shit.
“I can’t imagine what he’s said, but I don’t think I want to know,” I answered, shaking her hand.
I didn’t know what it was with these people and their dismissive laughter, but everything about it grated my nerves to shreds.
“Good things, don’t worry.” She smiled at me like we were friends.
“I can’t say I could return the favor,” I noted. “What are you doing here?”
“Same thing you’re doing, I figure.” Something in the way he said it sounded like an apology. An apology I instantly rejected.
A dry laugh escaped me. “You’re running for mayor? You haven’t set foot in this town in twelve years, and now you’re just gonna swoop in and run the place?”
“I left to learn how to run the place. So before you tell me I don’t belong here, just remember—that was part of what kept me away.”
Fuming. Boiling. Churning raging inferno of wrath.
And he was still unfazed, like bumping into me was regular Tuesday stuff.
“You know, if it helps you sleep at night, you think whatever you want,” I snapped.
Before I could excuse myself and leave him with a scathing one-liner I had yet to think of, he turned to my family and said his goodbyes, coming to me last.
“You won’t believe me when I say it’s good to see you, but it’s the truth,” he said earnestly, that politician’s smile shining down on me and his eyes so soft and understanding that I did believe him. In fact, I forgot for a moment that I hated his cheating guts, and that he was low-key fucking with me.
He leaned in to kiss my cheek. His lips brushed my cheekbone, sending a burst of electricity from the point of contact. But before he pulled away, his mouth came close enough that his breath disturbed my hair, tickling the shell of my ear.
“It really is good to see you. But it’s a damn shame you’re gonna lose.”
My spine straightened, the hairs on the back of my neck rising and a creep of terrible longing shuddering through me. It took everything I had to keep still so I could meet his eyes with my dignity intact. Our eyes snagged, and in his I read the same feeling.
With a wry smile and my heart thundering, I bowed my head at him. “Take your best shot, Daniels.”
His smile tugged up on one side in more of a smirk than a polished baby-kisser. “Always do.”
As he walked away and I found my feet, commanding them to carry me to Verna on shaky knees, I thought of about twenty things I should have said. At least five of them were such intense burns, he would’ve needed skin grafts to recover. But I’d been caught off-guard and unaware, the shock of seeing him after all this time shutting down my executive functions.
But I made a solemn vow, one I wouldn’t break.
Next time, he wouldn’t be so lucky.
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