Chapter 18
“You are looking criminally hot, and the charge is a felony, not a misdemeanor,” Zion complimented Poppy once more, adding to the dozen or so other creative ways he’d told her she looked nice.
When he picked her up to come to the rehearsal dinner, she opened the door, and before he said hello, he said, “Men will be dueling at dawn when they see you in that dress.” They arrived at The Castaway, and after she checked her coat, he commented, “The twins are definitely doing the heavy lifting, but you are definitely serving serious cake.” After posing for a group selfie, he checked the photo and relayed, “That dress understood the assignment.”
As they perched at the bar with a bird’s-eye view of the cocktail hour before the rehearsal dinner, he’d gone into full RuPaul’s Drag Race commentator mode, effusive in detail, describing how the fabric was just the right kind of slinky, the hue a blue that made her eyes look ultraviolet in the right light, how the scoop neckline was both suggestive and innocent, and how the hem hugged the curves of her calves before surrendering to gravity.
Poppy wasn’t even sure what that meant, but it sounded poetic.
Even now, he kept stealing glances and making little appreciative noises, like a sommelier savoring an unexpected vintage.
Being complimented by Zion felt like landing on a triple word score in Scrabble, it was just worth more than the average square.
He was a six-foot-five walking masterpiece, exuding an effortless charm and effortless style.
It made sense considering his father was Nigerian royalty and his mother a British diplomat.
His movements were fluid and poised, as if every step was carefully calibrated to perfection.
His hair was a vibrant halo of curls, which he constantly changed the shade of.
His eyes were a warm, golden brown that sparkled with mischief and wit, framed by thick, dark lashes that fluttered with every subtle change in emotion.
“Have I ever told you that you are very good for my self-esteem?” Honestly, the past couple months hanging out with Zion was like having a personal self-confidence cheerleader.
“These are not pity compliments, that would be blasphemy.” He picked up his drink and sipped. “It’s true, when it comes to lying my code is all fifty shades of morally gray but you know I hold all things beauty and fashion as sacred.”
It was true. Fashion and beauty were Zion Ash’s religion. He expressed both through the lens of his photography. She didn’t think he was just saying those things to overcompensate because she looked like a steaming pile of garbage.
Her regular Get Ready With Me (GRWM) routine took about thirty minutes.
Tonight’s was double that. She gave herself a blowout and took special care with her eyeliner so it came out sharp and crisp.
She lined her lips instead of just putting on a little stain and gloss and calling it a day, and she even watched a tutorial on contour.
The way she looked at it, love/sex was a battlefield, and this was a war.
She was just a soldier arming herself for battle.
“Do you want another one?” Zion asked as he motioned for the bartender by picking up his empty glass and shaking it ever so slightly.
“No, I’m good.” Poppy took a nervous sip from her rocks glass, which contained only Coke but no one needed to know that.
She’d been methodically nursing it for half an hour, careful to look casual and not like someone counting the seconds until their insides quit vibrating.
She had no plans to drink, she needed to have her wits about her.
That would be easier said than done considering her hands were trembling and her heart was flipping around like a trout on the boat deck—but the idea of fielding everyone’s “Come on, just one!” was even less appealing.
Zion, for his part, had ordered a whiskey sour and pronounced it “tragic,” but drank it anyway out of respect for the local bartenders.
The past forty-eight hours, since her AJ sighting, had been like one extended adrenaline rush.
She’d spent the last two days inventing reasons to be outdoors—coffee on the patio in freezing temperatures, errands four times a day, even a failed attempt at jogging—on the off chance she’d catch him in the wild.
Every time Deacon invited her to join him and Tabitha for an outdoor activity she accepted.
Barbecue? Sure. Walk? Absolutely. She’d even taken him up on his offer to quiz her on her flashcards the evening before, all with the hopes she’d see AJ. She hadn’t. Not even a glimpse.
The man was either hibernating or avoiding her. Either could be the case. That, or she’d hallucinated the whole thing and needed a brain scan. But she hadn't. The certainty felt like a knot in her stomach.
“Those two are gonna give me a cavity,” Zion teased as he smiled from ear to ear at Liam and Frankie sharing a stolen moment in the corner of the restaurant.
Poppy couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see the look on her brother’s face. He was beaming down as he cupped the face of the woman he was going to marry the following day.
“Seriously.”
“Speaking of cavities, anyone satisfying your sweet tooth?” Zion turned the spotlight on her love life, or lack thereof.
As if on cue, AJ entered stage left. Well, if stage left was the restaurant.
Beside her, Zion sighed. “Now that is a man who I would get a filling for any day.”
Poppy couldn’t help but smile and agree with Zion’s statement as she watched her former one-night-stand and current temporary-neighbor, as he was greeted by his family. He was like the ghosts of crushes past, present, and future all rolled into one person.
“I mean, he doesn’t walk into a room, he arrives,” Zion stated with a sigh. “There is a difference.”
Zion was right. The atmosphere shifted when AJ entered.
Poppy watched as he spoke to his cousins and uncle, and something made her feel…
sad. She barely recognized the man she met two months ago.
He smiled, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes.
He looked closed off, like a wall was up.
More than anything now, she just wanted to ask if he was okay.
“He is the perfect male specimen,” Zion continued.
“His face card is lethal, his body is chiseled like a Greek god. He is smart, funny, barely talks, would never cheat, and he doesn’t lie or get jealous.
” Zion took a sip of his drink. “I mean, for people who want a healthy relationship, this is a ten out of ten must recommend. For those of us addicted to toxic, we do love a little jealousy.”
“He doesn’t get jealous?” Poppy could not relate at all. That was definitely an emotion she was all too familiar with.
“No, ma’am, he does not,” Zion confirmed. “The subject has come up on several occasions, and he says that the emotion is not logical.”
“Oh, right, yeah.” Poppy wished she could just not feel something because it wasn’t logical. Or did she? She wasn’t sure.
“Zee!” Frankie called out from across the bar, waving her hand as she stood between her aunts.
“Duty calls.” Zion kissed Poppy on her cheek and then crossed the room to join Frankie and her aunts, which left Poppy alone.
Poppy scanned the room, mapping out the social landscape.
Everywhere she looked, people were clustered in little constellations.
AJ was in an all-male Costas huddle, an inscrutable wall of broad shoulders.
Her sisters lounged with their husbands by the broad stone fireplace.
All of them were coupled off, bodies turned inward to one another, knees brushing, voices pitched low and intimate over tumblers of whiskey or glasses of wine.
Poppy could join them, but she’d be the seventh wheel, and the prospect of fielding well-meaning but increasingly pointed questions about her love life made her stomach feel worse than it already did.
Her mom and Teresa were locked in what looked like a heated debate with Yaya and Yaya’s brother Leo, which Poppy wouldn’t go near with a ten-foot pole if you paid her.
There were safe zones of friendly faces that she knew would include her if she joined their convo, but the idea of inserting herself into someone else’s easy, effortless rhythm made her feel like a child again, trailing the grownups at a boring party, wishing desperately for a dog to play with or a lost earring to find.
Luckily, feeling like the one person outside the party, looking through the glass at the people inside the house, was not new to Poppy. It had been that way most of her life. When in doubt, her move was always self-maintenance.
The bathroom at The Castaway was one of the few spaces in Hope Falls that aspired to urban chic, with individual gold-framed mirrors, dark marble counters, and a lighting scheme that seemed designed to make everyone look ten percent more attractive.
She allowed herself a few bonus minutes alone after freshening her mascara and lipstick and used the time for a self-pep-talk.
She told herself that AJ was just a person, he was not actually a Greek god.
They spent the night together, big deal.
Well, it was a big deal to her, but… Anyway, she was the one who hadn’t returned his messages, so technically, she ghosted him.
Sure, she’d done it preemptively to avoid having her heart put through the meat grinder, but that was irrelevant. He didn’t know how she felt about him.