30. THIRTY
It was very definitely not fine. What the fuck was he thinking?
Just what he’d said: He didn’t want her to leave.
He dumped the plates in the sink, turned on the hot tap with enough force that it started to leak around the base even worse than it usually did.
Scrub, scrub, scrub…
It was fine. They lived together. This was no different. Just living together here instead of there. Perfectly, completely logical and—
“I don’t have anything to wear,” said Poppy. “No pyjamas.”
“Borrow a t-shirt.”
“No toothbrush.”
“I’ve got spares.”
“Right. OK.”
He turned the tap off, dried his hands. Leant back against the counter and looked at Poppy.
She fiddled with a chip of paint on the door frame. “I should just go home.”
“Probably,” he said. “But please don’t.”
She breathed a faint laugh, matching his own wry disbelief. This was a thing? They were really both doing this thing? Whatever it was. He didn’t know. Just that they were all tangled up together, warm here at home together, and neither could bring themselves to pull apart.
You hang up.
No, you hang up…
At least they were as stupid as each other. At least Poppy was on the same page as him. She was so on his page he wanted to frame that page and put it on the wall. Here is the woman who gets me.
“Don’t sleep on the sofa,” she said.
And the rest of him looked on in wild disbelief as his traitorous mouth said, “OK.”
He gave Poppy a t-shirt, taking a while to rummage through his chest of drawers, discarding several for being too old, too creased, too…just not right. The one he handed her was soft and white and oversized even on him. It would look like a nightdress on her, would reach to her knees.
He tried not to think about it.
She went into the bathroom, then the bedroom. Roscoe loitered in the kitchen, wiping clean the already clean surfaces. Then, with the manner of a man deciding to leap from a high cliff into unknown waters far below, he got ready for bed, and walked into the bedroom.
Poppy lay under the covers. They were dark navy, almost black in the low amber light from the one bedside light she had left on. Her face was pale against the dark pillow, her copper hair glinted with fire tones from the lamplight, burning embers and precious metals. She watched him walk towards the bed, eyes bright, a soft, shy smile curving her lips.
“Hey,” he said. “Comfy?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
He drew back his corner of the duvet. Paused. “Do you want a glass of water or…?”
“No. I’m fine.”
He nodded. Got into the bed. Kept all his limbs strictly on his side. Poppy turned further towards him. He turned onto his side to face her, too. For a long moment they looked at each other.
“Is it weird,” she said, “that this doesn’t seem weird?” A blush tinged her cheeks, and his heart, which had been racing for a long time, kicked up another notch. “I mean,” she continued hastily. “It seems a bit weird. But also…doesn’t?”
He smiled—the sort of smile he felt in his eyes. His chest. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She gave one small nod.
His instinct said to reach out and touch her—cup her cheek, stroke her hair. But, of course, he couldn’t. His hand, under the duvet, knotted into the fabric.
We should sleep,the sensible voice in his head said. Night, night, Poppy. Instead, he just looked at her, and her smile curved a little deeper, mischief creeping in.
“Teach me how to do the voice,” she said.
“Voice?”
“The posh voice. The accent.”
He huffed a laugh.
“If you’re going to teach me how to become one of you…” she began, then reconsidered, turning more serious. “Actually… Teach me the confidence thing. That’s the real difference, I think. Between people like you and people like me.”
Deep inside, something winced and insisted We’re us, Poppy. We are us.
“You think I’m confident?” he asked. “The man who hides panicking in bathrooms?”
“Yes. You’re confident. Aubrey, too. Your father. Andrew Carter-Hall. Elliott. Your friend Cassie. You all share a certain…something.”
He grinned. “A certain je ne sais quoi?”
She wrinkled her nose. He noted how it shifted the pattern of freckles there. “No. A sort of…assuredness. An air of consequence. I don’t know. Other people seem to duck and scurry through the world, barely clinging on. And you walk around as though the furniture will rearrange itself around you.”
It was his turn to pull a face. “That sounds…awful. Like I’m some cocky twat.”
She shook her head quickly—as much as she could when half was cupped by his pillow. “No. I don’t mean that. Well…” She grinned. “Maybe a little cocky.”
He unknotted his hand from the covers. Reached out. Poked her shoulder. She laughed, and his hand came to rest above the duvet, between them. Her eyes flicked down to it. Seemed to catch there a moment before meeting his.
“But that kind of confidence,” she said. “Do you think it’s something someone like me could ever learn? Or do you need to be born with it?”
“You have every reason to be confident. You’re smart. Brilliant. Beautiful.”
She blushed. So did he. “I just mean…” he said awkwardly, “that you have every reason to feel confident. There’s nothing special about people born to my sort of life. We’re no better than anyone else.”
“Inside me, I know that. But also… I’m intimidated.”
“By me?”
“By all of it.”
“Don’t be. Poppy, please. I hate that thought.”
He almost did reach for her then. Needed somehow to reassure her—reassure himself—that they were together in this. Whatever this was. Life? The world? The thought of any kind of distance between them was acutely painful.
“But what do I bring to this…friendship?” she asked. “You give everything. I have nothing.”
“You, Poppy. You. You’re what has value. Nothing else in the world means anything compared to that—the value of people.”
Her smile slanted. “Spoken like a man who’s never gone hungry.”
He raised himself onto one elbow, unable to stay still, burning with the frustrated need to make her see sense, make her see how much she meant—
“Kiss me,” she said.
Everything went very still. She toyed with the seam of the duvet cover that was pulled almost to her chin. Then her hand slid down, found his.
“That’s the only thing I have to give,” she said quietly, her words weighed down with heated anticipation.
Roscoe looked at her, heart pounding. “No, no… God, Poppy, this isn’t—”
“I don’t mean like that. I mean… The way I want you. That’s all I have. I want you. I want you to kiss me. I want to have you. That’s all I can give—how much I like you. To be honest about that.”
His pulse raced, thoughts hot and rushing. Every part of him flooded with heat. With mad, urgent desire.
“We can’t…” he said.
“I know.” But her hand moved to his face, traced his jaw.
“This is a really bad idea.”
She nodded, slipping her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. Goosebumps broke down his spine. He shuddered with pure, undiluted want.
“It’s a bad idea,” she agreed. “But it’s the truth.”
She didn’t pull him to her. She let it be his own choice.
He lowered his head. Found her lips.