Page 72 of Halloween Town

Thom thought they could easily dismiss Benji for lack of performance, but it seemed like no one had the balls to go up against his stepmom, who held the majority of Sheffield Strategy shares.

“Not interested, Mark.”

“Can we just have a meeting, thrash it out?”

“What’s the point? I’m done. You and the board made your choice; this is its consequence. Don’t call me again, I have nothing to say to any of you.”

Disconnecting, he stared down at his phone and shook his head. What a way to start the morning. But a part of him reveled in the fact that Benji was such a crap CEO. They shouldn’t have fired him, the assholes.

Shrugging off his frustration, he looked around for Poppy and saw that she was standing between Wren and Dane, with Fel’s butt on her foot. His dog—actually, he was now more Poppy’s dog than his—looked up at her in adoration, while Poppy pointed to the Gratitude Tree and shoved her phone in her friend’s faces. He hurried across to them, his head cocked. Huh. That branch wasn’t where Poppy had hung her tag.

After greeting Dane and Wren, he placed his hand on Poppy’s neck and looked up at the tree. “Your tags have been moved,” he said.

Poppy danced on the spot. “Exactly! See, I told you that the ghosts would mess with the tree.”

Thom’s fingers stroked Poppy’s neck as he met Wren’s eyes over her head. She lifted her hands. “I told Poppy that there is no way that the ghosts have moved anything, that someone sneaked in to do it, that it’s a publicity ploy, that there’s a reasonable explanation. But she’s determined to believe that the ghosts did it,” Wren stated.

Poppy scowled at him, then at Wren. “I am standing right here, you know. The teenagers set up cameras,” she said, pouting, “and they didn’t catch anyone.”

“Because there is no way that someone can sneak up and switch off the cameras when they fall asleep,” Thom said, because someone had to point out the obvious. Both Poppy and Felony rolled their eyes.

“Or when they are making out,” Wren added.

“Ugh, you two are so annoyingly closed-minded,” Poppy snapped. She looked at Dane. “Don’t you have anything to say, Hot Doc? Are you also going to tell me that I’m delusional?”

“Hold on, I never said that—” Thom interjected, hearing a hint of anger in her voice.

Poppy pointed to the tree. “Tags moved. Other people are reporting drawings on theirs. Nobody caught them. Nobody has caught anyone doing it since it was first reported, and we are talking forty, fifty, maybe even sixty years,” she said, her voice cold. Oh, shit. They were going to have their first argument about ghosts and their supposed antics.

Fuck.

Thom kept his eyes on Poppy’s furious face, vaguely aware of Wren and Dane melting away. Thinking that if they were going to argue, it might as well be over something important, he lifted his arm and tapped her tag, the one where she’d stated that she was grateful she’d run from her wedding.

“Benji,” he stated.

She opened her hands and sent him a wary glance. “What about him?”

Asking about Benji was a roundabout way of finding out whether she considered him, Thom, comfort in human form. A sideways way of asking whether he was her security blanket or her way to self-soothe. Had she actively chosen him? Was she with him because she was into him, or because he was familiar and trusting him was easy, because she didn’t want to be on her own?

Unlike before, this barrage of questions didn’t land gently. They hit hard and low, and he felt rattled.

“You’ve never talked about his cheating. In fact, you’ve hardly mentioned him at all. Why not?”

Poppy lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Forgive me,” she replied, super-sarcastically. “I thought I was being polite not talking about my ex-lover to my current lover, especially considering that they are brothers.”

He’d once considered Benji a brother, but not now. Instead of backing away, he decided to double down. He was stubborn about doing everything well. “And I wouldn’t be asking if you had, at the very least, spoken to Wren about him.”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“Have you?” he countered. When she looked away, he had his answer. “You are someone who works through problems by talking them out, Poppy. The fact that you haven’t means that you are still holding on to—” Shit. Could he put his fear, that she still had feelings for Benji, out there in the open? “You’re holding it in, and I want to know why.”

“Benji cheated on me. It’s over. It doesn’t matter.”

Oh, it mattered. It mattered a lot. After Benji’s and Ingrid’s betrayal, he vowed he’d never again be the one who loved harder and felt more, the easy choice and the safe option. But he was in very real danger of walking back into a similar minefield with Poppy.

Thom cursed and jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. This was turning out to be a pretty shit morning. First, Mark had irritated him; now, Poppy was being mulish and uncommunicative. And he couldn’t help thinking that she was taking a leaf out of Benji’s book by pretending nothing had happened and expecting Thom to just swallow her explanation, to ignore the problem.

She had to be hurt by Benji’s cheating, and nothing would convince him otherwise. But if she couldn’t face what had hurt her, if she couldn’t look it in the eye and deal with it, then would she expect him to simply absorb and ignore it, too? He’d done that all his life with Benji; he would not do it again. Not even for Poppy.