CHAPTER NINE
POPPY
Agreeing to a date with Parker felt like a good time to reach out to Emma and panic. I’d like to clarify, I panicked and then reached out to her and then panicked some more actually.
Once she calmed me down, we agreed she’d come over Thursday night for a little sleepover so she could help me prepare, decide what to wear, and do some gossiping in general. Thank fuck she didn’t have to work on Friday and I told my dad I wouldn’t be in. I guess that’s a perk of working with your family.
My dad is pretty great, though. He even offered to keep Aiden busy so I could enjoy the evening with Emma. He’s actually been incredibly helpful at every turn since I got back here. My mom has too, of course, but he’s really taken on being a role model for Aiden and I’m so appreciative of that.
So after a very long three days, I’m on my way home from the store with a couple of bags of junk food, two bottles of wine, and a large pepperoni and mushroom pizza, per Emma’s request. Based on our text exchange earlier, I should get home right before she arrives.
I’m pretty excited about tonight. Honestly, I didn’t have a huge selection of friends when I was married, and no one close. Everyone I knew was the wife of my ex’s business associates or an occasional mom I met at Aiden’s school. Those links never tend to run all that deep so I’ve been largely deprived of what I’d call “girl time”. I think it will be good for me and to catch up with Emma in general. I promised her I would at my party and beyond that, I want to. I’ve missed her.
Once I manage to get everything inside, I pop the wine in the freezer because I’m a heathen according to sophisticated people. I’m sorry but a room temperature glass of burning grape juice is not delicious. Chilled burning grape juice though? Delicious.
No sooner than I’ve unpacked the bags onto the counter, I hear a knock at the front door and based on no other information, I know it’s Emma.
I skip through the livingroom to the door and swing it open.
“Poppy!” Emma squeals.
“Emma!” I squeal back.
She pulls me into a big bear hug, wrapping her arms around me tightly. I squeeze her back as tight as I can. And we just stay that way for a while.
When she finally lets go, she’s got the biggest smile on her face. That was something I always loved about Emma. She always had this big toothy grin she’d plaster on and somehow it never felt forced or faked. Especially when it was for her friends.
“Ok, girl, let’s get to dishin’,” she says. “Where’s the wine?”
Inside the kitchen, I grab two coffee mugs and the wine while she piles the snacks on top of the pizza box. Then, we head upstairs.
“Just like old times, headed to your room with snacks and this time we didn't even have to sneak the alcohol,” she says.
“Shhh,” I say. “My parents still don’t know about that. They still think Theo took it.”
“Oh my god,” she says, laughing. “Why doesn’t he just tell them?”
“Because he’s the best brother ever,” I say. And that’s not a lie. He’s kept my secrets from our parents to this day and I know he’ll continue to do it all the way to the grave. And it’s a two-way street. I keep his. To this day, my parents don’t know he’s the one who bent their front fender. I told them it was me and I always will.
Once we’re both changed out of the restrictive clothing of what I call “the day people” and cozied into our pajamas, we settle onto the bed, full glasses of wine in our hands and the pizza between us.
We start from the beginning, picking up right when we started to drift apart. She covered it all. Her time at university to become a vet, the boyfriends that came and went, and when her daddy died.
“I feel awful for not being there for you,” I say. “I should’ve come back.”
“Don’t do that,” she says. “It’s okay. You were a wide and a mother already. You were needed.”
“No,” I say. “It was Wayne. He never felt like visiting. He just wanted to pretend Cardinal Falls doesn’t even exist. Maybe he felt like it was beneath him. Or hell, maybe he felt like I was, too. I don’t really know. It’s how I started to feel, though.”
“Ugh, that’s so shitty. I really hope that wasn’t the case but given how little I know about him, I can’t really say,” she says. “But I’m glad you’re here now, whatever the path that brought you back here.”
“You think things happen for a reason?” I ask, taking a sip of my wine.
“Oh definitely,” she says. “I think you end up where you’re meant to be.”
Emma looks at me, an earnest expression written on her face. Maybe she’s right. Maybe no matter what happens in life, you end up where you were always meant to. Fate is weird though. It calls into question free will and destiny and how if that’s the case, what’s the point of deciding anything? I can’t go down this rabbit hole right now. I have bigger things to deal with.
I take a bite of pizza, the flavor of the cheese and sauce pairing well with the wine. Emma picks up a slice, following suit. For a few moments, we’re content just chewing and being together. It’s nice when your friendship can withstand the test of silence, not feeling the urge to fill every moment with noise.
“So onto the main reason I’m here,” she says.
“Parker.” I say his name and a little smile takes over my mouth. I can’t even help it.
“I assume you’ve been texting this week?” She asks.
“Yes,” I say. “He sends me a ‘good morning’ text and a ‘goodnight’ text daily and there’s usually a few sprinkled in between. Sometimes it’s just a meme or random funny question.”
“Good, keeping it light and casual,” she says.
“Yeah, and sometimes he will say he can’t wait to see me Friday or that he’s excited but it’s in a nice way not a creepy way. It doesn’t come off as too much or too intense.”
“Also good,” she says. “Parker is a good friend but when he’s dated over the years, I haven’t known the women well enough to ask what he’s like to date. So I’m glad to hear he passes the dating vibe check.”
“Has he dated a lot since night school?” I’m not usually one to gossip and it’s none of my business really, but I’m curious. It’s not even from a jealous place. More like I’m not all that experienced having gotten with Wayne so young and it makes me sort of nervous.
“Umm, not too much. He dated this one girl, what was her name?” She says, as if asking herself. “God, that’s bad. His longest relationship was like a year and I can’t remember her fucking name.”
“What happened there?” I ask, taking another bite.
“She moved away for a job, what was that job?” She muses mostly to herself again. “Shit I’m a terrible friend. I can’t remember anything about her. Anyway, she got a job offer somewhere else, and asked him to go with her and he said no. I heard from Wade that he said it didn’t feel like love. He said something like he knew it wasn’t love when his first instinct wasn’t to follow her.”
“I feel him on that, honestly. I probably would’ve thought the same thing.” I nod my head in unison. I’m a firm believer that when you know, you know. It doesn’t matter if you’re fourteen or forty, you can feel it.
“Well, it seems he just hasn’t found the right girl,” she says.
I begin to wonder if I could be the right girl. It’s not that I’m anywhere near thinking I’m ready to settle down again. That would be way too soon. But it’s fun to imagine any number of scenarios, some being that Parker and I hit it off and we’re together forever. Then again, more than once this week I have imagined tomorrow going so terribly that we hardly speak to each other after due to multitude of fake embarrassing scenarios. Did I do some overthinking this week? You betcha.
“What are you planning to wear?” She asks, breaking my trainwreck of thought.
“Umm, he said casual so I was thinking my light colored bell bottom jeans with this white crop top and a light blue knit sweater,” I say. I’m pretty confident about that outfit.
“Oh I like the sound of that,” she says. “Try it on for me later.”
“I’m just nervous,” I say. “Like really nervous.”
“I mean I get that. I’m not even going to pretend like I wouldn’t be acting the same way just before a date. But the important thing to remember is that Parker adores you. You’re going into the date knowing that. It’s not like you just met him on one of those god awful dating apps and you’ll be meeting each other for the first time,” she says.
That’s true. God, that sounds like it has the potential to be traumatizing. In a very real way, I hope it works out with Parker just so I can avoid that altogether. Then again…
“I think it’s pretty clear he had a crush on me back in high school. I’ve gathered as much. Which means he’s had a decade to just imagine what I’m like in a romantic capacity. And there’s a real chance I might disappoint him. What if who I really am doesn’t live up to who he’s built me up to be in his head?”
Emma tilts her head to the side for a few moments, clearly giving me question a fair amount of thought. I’m sure she’s thinking she can’t deny what I said could happen. It’s definitely a possibility.
“I don’t think Parker is the type of man who has expectations of people. He’s always struck me as someone who just accepts you as you are in the moment. I think he likes you for who you are at your core,” she says.
“And who am I at my core?” I ask, not sure I understand.
“You’re kind and caring. You’re patient and smart. You’re funny. You have a good heart, Poppy,” she says. “No matter what Wayne might’ve made you feel.”
Tears are close to the surface at this point and I really, really don’t want to cry tonight unless it’s from laughing too hard. But her words make me feel good. She’s saying them despite my distance over the years and that means something.
“Thank you,” I say. “I think I needed to hear that.”
Before she can respond, my phone dings from it’s place on my nightstand.
“Ooooo, I bet that’s him,” she squeals.
She’s probably right. I don’t really text a lot of people these days. It’s basically Parker, her, and my brother. She’s here and I have it on good authority that Theo is having some sort of special date night with Ellie so I doubt it’s him.
I reach for it and glance down at the screen. As I suspected, there’s a text message from Parker.
PARKER: Are you having fun?
ME: Yeah, I think I definitely needed to Emma time.
I told Parker she was coming over earlier today and he said he was glad to hear it and he’d keep his evening texting to a minimum.
PARKER: Good, I’m glad. I know I said I wouldn’t text much so I’ll keep this short. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Still ok with me picking you up a little earlier than I originally said?
ME: Yep, that works for me.
PARKER: Great. Can’t wait to see you.
I can’t contain the smile that text causes and Emma is eyeing me like a hawk. There’s no use trying to deny it.
“Please don’t let me drunk text him later,” I say.
“I cannot confirm or deny if I will let you do that,” she says, laughing.
Damn her. She’s not lying either. She’s just as likely to encourage that sort of behavior as she is to steal my phone for the rest of the night. You never really know which Emma is coming out to play until she’s already dancing on top of the kitchen table.
I sit my phone back down and turn back toward her. The conversation moves from Parker to the last guy she tried dating to how she’s sad Wade doesn’t have someone and back to Parker again. Then we talk about Theo and Ellie and how we hope they get married. I make sure to slide in the occasional Wayne-hating comment to which Emma cheers. By the time I think to check the time, a couple hours have gone by and the second bottle of wine has been opened.
“I’m going to text him,” I say pulling my phone close to my face. By this time, we’re lying down in my bed, propped up on our elbows and I’m more than a little tipsy.
“Do it,” Emma says. She spoons out a heap of Nutella from the jar and shoves it in her mouth.
ME: Hey
Shit that wasn’t original.
PARKER: Hey mama
ME: I like it when you call me that
PARKER: Yeah?
ME: Yeah. It gives me tingles
PARKER: Tingles?
ME: Yeah, tingles in places
PARKER: What places?
My cheeks turn hot thinking about telling him exactly where he makes me tingly but I can’t bring myself to do it.
ME: I can’t tell you
PARKER: Why not?
ME: It’s not ladylike
PARKER: Maybe I don’t want you to be ladylike
“What are you saying?” Emma asks, staring at me intently.
“I’m being bad,” I say, hiccuping.
“Good,” she says. “You should be bad. You should be a very bad girl. Go for naughty.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, closing one eye as I try to read my phone screen. Honestly, I think it’s helping a little.
“Fuck yes. When’s the last time you were?” She asks.
I try to think back and find myself coming up empty. Oh my god, was I never bad? Was I seriously never naughty?
ME: Maybe I don’t want to be ladylike anymore
PARKER: Good
ME: When you call me that, it makes me pussy tingle
PARKER: Even better
ME: I can’t believe I just told you that
PARKER: It’s all I’m going to be thinking about now
I look up from my phone to find Emma still staring at me with another mouthful of Nutella. Who knows how many spoonfuls she’s had.
“Don’t stop on my account,” she says. “Do your thing.”
She might not be saying that if she knew what was transpiring.
ME: What are you going to think about?
PARKER: Your hot, wet pussy pulsating every time I call you mama
Oh my god. Yep, turns out that will do it too.
ME: Do you want to know a secret?
PARKER: Yes
ME: The other night you called me mama in your goodnight text and I had to use my vibrator before I could fall asleep
PARKER: Did you make yourself cum?
ME: Yes
PARKER: Good girl
Jesus. I guess that does it too. His mouth is filthy. Or maybe it’s normal and I’m just imagining all the filth.
ME: I should go. Emma is here and if we keep this up, I might die
PARKER: Lol, I know what you mean. Goodnight mama. I’ll see you tomorrow
I put my phone back down, my face still hot from the exchange.
“Well that got downright a little bit pornographic,” I say.
“Oh my god, really?” Emma says, her voice straining to keep a low volume.
“He’s got a filthy mouth,” I say.
“Oh I love that for you,” Emma says. “But don’t tell me much more or I won’t be able to look at him the same when we’re all hanging out. There’s some things you just shouldn’t know about your friends.”
I laugh, finding myself in agreement. I’m also finding myself wondering if what I just said will change the way tomorrow goes. What if I made it awkward? I can’t worry about that at this point. What’s done is done and I wasn’t lying. I really did have to give myself an orgasm the other night because he said that magical phrase and I’ve been pent up for a while now and I got off thinking about him whispering it into my ear and then biting my neck and lower. And honestly, I slept like a baby after that. It was the best sleep I’ve had since I moved back.
Who knows. Maybe I’m entering my ho phase. I never really had one before. I hear it’s a common thing after people divorce. Not that I blame them. It seems like a good time to do it.
The funny thing is, in my mind, I don’t really want to be a ho for anyone other than Parker.