I hope that’s true because in the scarce moment it took me to get the pizza, I’ve realized that she’s right. If I don’t show up for the dinner now, my mother will never quit calling me. And Caylee will never forgive me.
A little part of me that hopes for redemption at some point says I can’t let that happen. I have to try, at least.
“Okay,” I say as I sit down heavily in my chair, my appetite for sausage and jalapeños lost for now.
Poppy freezes, her mouth full of pizza. She mumbles, “M’kay, wut?”
“Dinner. You can go. Just that, though, not the wedding. One day. You’ll be my one-day fiancée.” I’m making it sound like I’m doing her a favor, but we both know the opposite is true. She’s the one giving me half a chance to try and have a future with my family . . . potentially.
She proves me right when she open-mouth grins, showing me the half-chewed pizza. “Cool.”
“If . . . you can eat with your mouth closed,” I deadpan.
Her mouth clacks closed, and she chews before swallowing thickly. “Okay, mom and aunt, sister and cousin. What else? Give me the whole intel brief like I’m Jane Bond going in for an operation.”
I set my pizza down, staring at the small puddle of grease on top. “I wasn’t always the bad guy, actually started off pretty decent.” She looks at me wryly, but I keep going. “But I got into a bit of trouble when I was a kid, nothing too serious. Pickpocketing, petty theft . . . stupid shit, but just enough to embarrass them. Things got tense after that. I left the day I turned eighteen, and that’s when I . . . got really good at what I do,” I say carefully.
“Like bag snatching?”
I nod, letting Poppy continue to think all I stole was her laptop, probably assuming it was J.A. Fox’s or something. I’m not going to divest her of that assumption. She’s already too close, too tied up in a bad situation. “Anyway, to try and get some breathing room, I made up Scarlett. They think because of her, I turned my life around, became an upstanding citizen, a business consultant with a sweet, kind-hearted, patient fiancée.”
Poppy levels me with a playfully evil smile. There’s no sweetness in the way she bares her teeth, but the light in her eyes tells me she’s joking. “Well, if you can play upstanding, I can play sweet. What about your dad? You didn’t mention him.”
“Sore subject. He’ll be there,” I admit through gritted teeth. “In body, at least, but he’s been absent for a long time. He probably won’t speak to you.”
That’s the long-story-short version. My dad checked out on our family years ago when his father died unexpectedly. We all dealt with it in different ways, but Dad never got out of the hole he fell into. But that’s probably something that won’t come up in our dinner and doesn’t need to be discussed.
“Grumpy dad, getting info is like pulling teeth . . . wonder where I’ve seen that before?” Poppy says, and that zings. She taps her chin thoughtfully, gazing into the distance. Her eyes clear and zero in on me. “And again, I haven’t forgotten about my laptop. Speaking of, I need to get moving. I’ve got to go buy a backup laptop for work, though I don’t know what I’m going to do without the first chunk of my writing. Should I start over completely or continue from where I left off?”
She doesn’t seem to be asking me but rather trying to decide for herself, so I wisely stay quiet. Watching her process is fascinating. She seems to be talking to herself, not silently but out loud, actually turning her head left and right as though arguing with herself. It’s a weird and interesting sight, like she’s legit got the classic cartoon ‘angel and devil’ on her shoulders.
“What’d you decide? Did the left shoulder or right shoulder win?” I tease finally. “Or is it a secret?”
Poppy shrugs her right shoulder up, looking at it from the corner of her eye. “I’m going to keep on keeping on, trusting you to come through and get my laptop back. So something cheap it is.”
I’m surprised. She has no reason to trust me other than desperation, but it feels like more than that. I can’t help but question her instincts if she’s putting her life, which is what she called her manuscript, in my hands. “Okay then. Go get your temp laptop, and I’ll make some calls.”
She gets up, setting her empty plate in the sink before heading to the front door. I follow her, more of a gentleman than I would’ve guessed. To justify the action, I take the opportunity to look at her ass in the very nicely fitting yoga pants she has on.