CHAPTER 12 #2
I watch Poppy light up as she tells the story, her hands moving, her voice animated. She’s good at this—drawing people in, making them feel included. Building connection. It’s what she does for a living, but there’s nothing calculated about it right now. She’s just... herself.
“So I’m walking. And walking. And the streets keep getting narrower, and my phone is dead because I’d been filming content all morning, and suddenly I’m in this neighborhood where nobody speaks English, and all the street signs look the same.”
I can picture it with painful clarity. Poppy, stubborn and proud, refusing to admit defeat. The Gothic Quarter swallowing her whole—those labyrinthine streets that have confused travelers for centuries. I walked those same streets in 1847.
“By hour three, I’d given up on the tapas place,” she continues. “I just wanted to find anything familiar. A Starbucks. A McDonald’s. A tourist wearing an ‘I Heart Barcelona’ shirt. But no. I was in the Bermuda Triangle of Gothic Quarter side streets.”
“This is where the laundromat comes in,” Violet prompts.
“I’m getting there!” Poppy waves her hand. “So it starts raining. Not cute movie rain—angry rain. And I duck into the first open door I see, which happens to be this tiny laundromat run by a woman named Marta who spoke exactly four words of English.”
She pauses. The table waits. Even I find myself holding what would be breath, if breathing were still necessary.
“‘You are lost, yes?’”
The table erupts in laughter. I notice Preston glance over from across the room—drawn by the sound, by Poppy at the center of it. His expression flickers with something I recognize: the belated realization that one has discarded something valuable.
Too late, I think. Far too late.
“Marta took one look at my mascara running down my face and my destroyed paper map and just... handed me a bag of churros.” Poppy’s voice softens. “She had a whole bag of them and said ‘?Churros excelentes!’ while miming eating them as she pointed at a plastic chair.”
“So you sat in a laundromat eating churros,” Chris says.
“For two hours.” She nods solemnly. “Marta let me charge my phone behind her counter. She showed me pictures of her grandchildren. Her washing machines had this rhythm that was weirdly soothing? And the churros were—I cannot stress this enough—incredible. Still warm. Perfect amount of sugar. I’ve never had better churros in my life, and I’ve been actively searching for the ‘?Churros excelentes!’ ever since then. ”
The table laughs again.
“Did you ever find the tapas place?” I ask.
“No. Marta’s grandson eventually drove me back to my hotel on his Vespa. I had to turn my ‘authentic Barcelona experience’ into ‘unexpected adventures’ await.”
“It got like eighty thousand likes,” Violet adds.
“The algorithm loves a disaster story.” Poppy shrugs. “And honestly? Sitting in that laundromat with Marta, watching the rain and eating churros—that was the authentic experience. Just not the one I planned.”
She glances at me.
“The best things rarely are,” I say quietly. “Planned, I mean.”
The words emerge before I can consider them. Too honest. Too revealing. But Poppy’s expression shifts—surprise giving way to something softer—and I find I don’t regret them.
Then the realization hits me. Not like lightning, more like snow—soft, inevitable, covering everything in its quiet way. I’ve been falling for weeks. Since she handed me that laminated cheat sheet and looked at me like I might be worth knowing.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I don’t check it. I already know what it says. Some new taunt. Some reminder that Damien is watching. Some threat, veiled or direct, that’s meant to make me pull away again.
I won’t.
Not tonight. Tonight, I’m going to sit here and listen to Poppy tell embarrassing stories about herself. I’m going to hold her hand under the table. I’m going to pretend—just for a few hours—that I’m a man who deserves to be here.
Even if I’m not.
Even if the monster outside the window is only waiting for the right moment to remind me what happens when I let myself care.
The dinner ends around eleven.
Poppy is slightly tipsy from the champagne toasts—three glasses, which is one more than her usual limit. She leans into me as we walk back toward our building, her arm looped through mine, her head occasionally resting against my shoulder.
“That went better than I expected,” she says.
“Your family is less terrifying than advertised.”
“You haven’t seen them at Thanksgiving.” She laughs. “Last year, my mother and aunt had a thirty-minute argument about whether it’s acceptable to put marshmallows on sweet potatoes. Violet cried. My uncle left early to ‘check on the dogs,’ which we all know means drink whiskey in the garage.”
“Sounds eventful.”
“It was a bloodbath. Metaphorically.” She glances up at me. “Do you have family? I’ve never asked.”
The question is casual. The answer isn’t.
“Yes,” I say. “A few brothers.”
“I’d love to meet them.”
“I’d like that.” I squeeze her arm gently. “I’d like that very much.”
She considers this. Thinking. I can almost hear the questions forming—what’s their names, how old are they, are you close to them—but she doesn’t ask them.
Instead, she says: “What about friends?”
I think of Marcus. Of Celeste. Of the handful of immortals I’ve known long enough to trust—and the much larger number I’ve known long enough to fear.
“Marcus,” I say. “My driver. He’s been with me for quite some time. He knows more about me than almost anyone.”
“Does he know about this? About me?”
“He knows I’m here with you. He knows—” I hesitate. “He knows I’m being careful.”
“Careful of what?”
Of you. Of myself. Of what happens when I forget that this is temporary.
“Of making mistakes,” I say instead. “I have a history of... miscalculating when emotions are involved.”
She stops walking. We’re in the garden now, halfway between the restaurant and our building. Lanterns illuminate the path. Somewhere, a fountain burbles softly.
“Is that what this is?” she asks. “A miscalculation?”
“No,” I say quietly. “This is not a miscalculation. This is the most deliberate thing I’ve done in a very long time.”
She rises onto her toes. Kisses me—and it’s a real kiss. Not for her family. Not for Preston. It’s for us.
When she pulls back, she’s smiling.
“Good,” she says. “Because I’m not very good at miscalculating.”
“You’re terrible at it. You have spreadsheets for everything.”
“Exactly.” She takes my hand again. “Come on. I need to take off these shoes before my feet stage a rebellion.”
We walk. And I let myself have this—her hand in mine, her laughter in the dark, the illusion that I might deserve it.
Even as I scan the shadows for Damien.
Even as my phone vibrates with another message I refuse to check.
Even as I know, with the certainty of centuries, that happiness like this never lasts.