Chapter Seven
By the time halftime rolled around, Poppy’s stomach was well on its way to trying to cannibalize itself.
She’d skipped breakfast and lunch, too nervous to choke down more than a handful of popcorn and three stale Altoids that had
lost their signature cinnamony kick. Now it was nearly six thirty and Poppy was starving.
She eyed the buffet table with a growing frown. She didn’t want miso-glazed salmon or chicken cordon bleu from a chafing dish.
She wanted nachos. Pulled pork nachos. Slathered in sour cream and queso blanco, covered in pickled jalapenos and pico de gallo. Or some loaded jojos maybe.
Ooh, with bacon bits. Real, greasy stadium food, the kind she had to trek to one of the concession stands to find.
Poppy slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“Going somewhere?”
“Jesus,” she yelped, hand flying to her chest, heart slingshot into her throat. “You have got to start wearing a bell.”
Rosaline snorted softly. “Hate to break it to you, but collars aren’t really my style.” She cocked her head, dark hair spilling
over her shoulder like ink. “Besides, that noise you make when I sneak up on you? Extremely amusing.”
Poppy swallowed hard, toes curling inside her sneakers.
She could think of a few other noises she could make that Rosaline might find equally as diverting, but she wasn’t going to because it would only make her feel crazier than she already did.
“Well then, for your sake, I hope it will be a funny heart attack.”
Poppy’s stomach took that moment to unleash another ungodly growl. Not one of the noises she had in mind, but Rosaline laughed
anyway.
“Hungry?”
“Starved.” Poppy pressed a hand against her stomach. “I’m going to find food.”
Rosaline arched a brow. “You realize there’s a whole table of food behind you, right?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want chilled asparagus swimming in lemon aioli or a tuna nicoise salad board.” She liked asparagus as
much as the next person but . . . “It’s a football game. I want nachos.”
She wouldn’t go to an expensive steak house and order a hot dog any more than she wanted to eat shrimp cocktail and ahi poke
while watching guys in tights tackle each other.
Rosaline pursed her lips. “Okay.” She turned on her heel and marched straight for the door.
Poppy stared for a moment before her feet got with the program and she hurried after Rosaline. “Where are you going?”
“If I have to smile and pretend to be nice to one more person who just wants to pick my brain about Lyric, I’m going to commit
homicide.” Her lips twitched. “That and you kind of sold me on the nachos.”
“You’re saying you don’t think you could manage Lyric’s PR from prison?”
“It’s more that I look god awful in orange than my lack of faith in my ability to do my job from inside a cell.”
Oh, bullshit. Rosaline was one of those people who could make a paper bag look like haute couture. “I don’t know. I bet you’d rock a prison jumpsuit. Very, uh, Orange Is the New Black, you know?”
A surprised laugh burst from Rosaline’s lips. “Don’t get me wrong, Taylor Schilling’s pretty and all, but I, for one, am kind
of hoping I never have to find out how well I’d fare in a penitentiary.”
Pretty. Poppy tried hard not to make a face at Rosaline’s use of the ultimate ambiguous compliment. Pretty could mean everything from the straightest of flattery to that dress would look better on my floor.
Rosaline’s footsteps slowed as they reached the end of the hall. “Left or right? I have no clue where I’m going.”
To be fair, the place was a maze, not helped by the fact that the halls all looked the same, the walls identical cement block
painted light charcoal, the floors throughout the stadium all the same forest green stamped with the Pathfinders logo, two
interlocking capital Ps.
“Unless you want to wind up in the visiting team’s locker room? Left.”
“I think I’ll skip that part of the tour if you don’t mind.” Rosaline wrinkled her nose. “Eau de sweaty football player doesn’t
really appeal to me.”
“I think you mean ew de sweaty football player.”
Rosaline laughed. “Touché.”
Poppy tugged her ponytail in front of her mouth, hiding her smile behind her hair. Every laugh from Rosaline was a windfall,
an unexpected boon that put a bounce in her step, mirroring the lightness in her chest. “Aside from narrowly avoiding a felony
charge, are you enjoying the game?”
“I am. And to be fair, it was mostly only Cash’s mother who tried to pump me for information.”
“Ah.” Poppy winced. “Yeah, Eileen can be a bit of a, uh . . . mother hen.”
“That’s certainly one way of putting it.”
That sounded ominous. “What did she say?”
If Eileen said something truly egregious, Poppy would have to pass it on to Cash. He’d want to know.
Rosaline sighed and pressed her fingertips to the space between her brows. “She asked me if Lyric plans to retire after having
children.”
Oof. That was—bad, putting the cart way in front of the horse. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but Cash’s parents are kind of—”
“Fossilized?”
“I was going to say traditional, but yeah, that works.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “It took forever to convince them that there was nothing going on between
me and Cash, that contrary to whatever old-fashioned notions they had, guys and girls could be just friends.”
Rosaline cast her a sidelong glance. “So you and Curran never . . . ?”
Poppy shuddered so hard she almost crashed into the wall. “God, no. Cash is—he’s like my brother. No offense to him or whatever, but definitely not.”
Rosaline’s shoulders relaxed, rolling down and settling low, arms loose at her sides. “Jocks not your type?”
“Not really?” Poppy hedged as they stepped out onto the crowded concourse on the western side of the stadium. “To be fair,
I don’t think I have a type.”
The only thing any of the people she’d dated—and she used that term loosely—had in common was that they’d all eventually dumped
her, leaving Poppy for greener pastures.
“Maybe you just haven’t found what you’re looking for.”
“Maybe.” Though looking implied she was putting actual effort into trying to find someone and Poppy hadn’t been out on a date
in over a year. “What about you?”
They joined the line outside PDX Grille, queuing up behind a guy who’d foregone a shirt, half his torso painted green, the
other half black, the colors in the middle muddied by the sweat dripping down his back. Rosaline squinted up at the menu.
“Football players aren’t really my type, either.”
“Darn,” Poppy joked. “And to think Cash wanted to introduce you to Goliath.”
Rosaline whipped her head toward Poppy, her eyes comically wide. “Goliath?”
She bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to smile. “Yeah. Robert Haverford. Number fifty-four, offensive tackle. They call
him Goliath because he’s six eight and weighs, like, three hundred and eighty pounds. Cash thought you’d make a cute couple.”
Rosaline’s eyes narrowed. “See, I know you’re fucking with me, but in case Curran ever gets the bright idea to play Cupid?
Tell him he can save his breath.”
“Oh? Are you, uh, seeing someone?”
It was a fair question, perfectly within the realm of polite get-to-know-you conversation.
“No.” She shot Poppy another sideways look. “But I don’t have any problems procuring my own dates.”
Somehow, Poppy had no trouble believing that. “That makes sense.”
The corner of Rosaline’s mouth dimpled. “Does it?”
Heat crept up Poppy’s throat and into her cheeks. “I mean, you’re . . . you know.”
Gorgeous. Confident. Sexy. Successful. Practically a celebrity in her own right. Rosaline could take her pick of adjectives and she wouldn’t be wrong.
“I don’t, actually.” She arched a brow. “Enlighten me.”
Poppy pretended to study the menu despite already knowing exactly what she planned to order. “You just . . . strike me as
a person who knows what they want and isn’t afraid to go after it. That’s all.”
Rosaline hummed softly and their shoulders accidentally bumped together as the line moved forward. Poppy was ready to move
away, worried she’d invaded Rosaline’s personal space when she swayed, seeming to purposefully bump into Poppy. “You’re not
wrong. I am rather—”
“The fuck you mean you don’t take cash?!”
Beside her, Rosaline froze, and Poppy did the same, eyes trained on the guy sweating off his body paint and bitching at the
harried-looking worker behind the concessions counter.
The woman offered him an apologetic grimace as she set a plastic cup full of foamy beer on the counter. “Sorry, sir. We went
cashless at the start of the season. But there are cash-to-card kiosks located throughout the stadium if you need one.”
“’s fucking ridiculous ’s what it is,” he slurred, obvious that this beer was far from his first. He flicked his credit card
across the counter and didn’t even try to stifle his laughter when it hit the worker in the chest and fell to the floor, forcing
her to bend down to pick it up.
Rosaline’s lips flattened into a thin line, her nostrils flaring delicately. “Prick.”
The man stiffened, drawing up to his full height, a hulking six-foot-four, easy. Poppy cringed and stepped back. Shit.
He glared over his green-painted shoulder. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me.” Rosaline stood her ground, unflinching. “She’s undoubtedly underpaid, overworked, and doesn’t make the rules; lay the fuck off.”
A stale, beer-soaked sigh exploded from his lips and—it was like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion. One second, he
was twisting around and the next his glassy eyes were widening as he stumbled and lost his footing on a souvenir football
someone had dropped, the beer he held sloshing up the sides of the cup and over the rim, spilling onto and instantly soaking
through Poppy’s sweatshirt all the way to her skin.
He gaped at her, then frowned at the empty cup in his hand. “Fuck that. I’m not paying for this.”
He tossed the cup to the ground and staggered off, disappearing into the sea of fans, forgetting all about his credit card.