Chapter 31

The party didn’t end with a moment.

It dissolved.

Laughter thinning out, music getting softer, conversations stretching into goodbyes and half-drunken promises to text tomorrow. The fireworks faded into the kind of quiet that always feels heavier than the noise before it.

Poppi barely remembered walking back toward the house.

She just knew she needed distance.

From the yard. From the crowd. From him.

And especially from Anchor.

Because Anchor hadn’t said much after that moment.

She didn’t have to.

But the way she watched them—both of them—had changed. Sharpened. Like something she’d been unsure of had finally clicked into place.

And now she was just waiting.

Poppi felt it all the way up the stairs as she slipped inside.

The house was quieter than the outside world, but not peaceful. Not really. People still lingered in the kitchen, voices low, cleaning up, stretching out the night.

Madden was somewhere behind her.

She didn’t look.

She couldn’t.

If she did, she might not stop herself from going back.

So she kept moving.

Down the hallway.

Past the rooms.

To her door.

She shut it softly behind her like that could seal everything outside.

But it didn’t.

Because her body still remembered the way he looked at her in the yard.

The way he didn’t pull away.

The way she didn’t either.

Poppi pressed her palms against the edge of her dresser, staring at her reflection in the mirror like she didn’t recognize herself.

“This is a mistake,” she whispered into the quiet.

It didn’t sound convincing.

A knock came.

Soft.

Once.

Her breath stopped.

She already knew who it was.

“No,” she said immediately, “Go away.”

Silence.

Then—

“I can’t,” Madden’s voice came through the door, lower than before. Strained. “Not like this.”

Her eyes closed.

Her grip tightened on the dresser.

“You should,” she called back. “We should both just—forget it happened.”

A pause.

Then his voice again, closer this time.

“I tried. Poppi…please,” he said, with a gut wrenching pain in his voice.

That did it.

Her eyes opened.

The room felt too small suddenly, too full of everything neither of them had said out loud for too long.

Another knock.

This one didn’t ask.

Poppi turned toward the door before she could think better of it.

When she opened it, he was already there.

Hair slightly messy. Shirt undone at the collar. Like he’d been standing there long enough to lose patience with pretending.

Their eyes met.

And everything from the terrace came rushing back at once.

His touch.

His lips.

The way he held her.

How safe she felt.

Neither of them spoke.

They didn’t need to.

Madden stepped inside.

The door clicked shut behind him.

The space between them vanished the way it always did, too fast, too inevitable, too familiar.

“This is still a mistake,” she said again, weaker this time.

“I know,” he replied.

But neither of them moved away.