Chapter 18 #2
And Zion’s right, she thought as she stared at her reflection.
My lady lumps are doing all the heavy lifting this evening.
In that vein, she reached under the neckline of her dress to adjust them.
As soon as she pulled them to offer maximum cleavage—because why not?
—she flinched in discomfort. They were very tender, which meant she was going to be getting her period, how long it would last or how heavy it would be was anyone’s guess. So fun.
The impending doom got her wondering how long her last period had been, and when it was.
She couldn’t remember off the top of her head, so as she pushed open the door with her shoulder she dug in her purse to pull out her phone to check.
She was swiping up to get her calendar when she abruptly came to a stop by hitting something solid.
She gasped and started to stumble backwards, but large hands wrapped around her upper arms, steadying her balance.
When she knew she was no longer in danger of needing all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put her back together again, she lifted her head and found herself staring into familiar eyes.
AJ’s eyes. Instead of the closed off AJ she’d witnessed from across the room, the one standing before her was open, his gaze staring down at her like he could see her soul.
“Hi,” she said, the word catching in her throat and coming out as a breathy almost-whisper.
His lips twitched, almost a smile, but not quite. “Hi,” he answered, voice deep and roughened by disuse. There was a micro-expression. a flicker of something like pain or regret before his features settled into their usual impassivity.
Neither moved, both stood as still as statues apart from their chests heaving as they breathed in shallow depths. She wanted to say more, but the words clogged up somewhere behind her teeth.
“How have you been?” he asked firmly, his tone soft but with an undercurrent of sadness.
“Good,” she lied, forcing a smile she hoped didn’t read as constipated. “How about you?”
He hesitated, and she found herself eagerly awaiting the words that he was about to say.
“I wanted to—”
“Tables ready,” Liam’s voice boomed from the bar area.
The moment Liam made the announcement, the hum of the restaurant seemed to intensify, the scent of smoky woodfire, seared beef, and fresh bread filled her nostrils and the overhead light illuminated the space as if every sense rushed back to her at once.
It jolted Poppy and AJ out of their statue-still standoff, but neither seemed quite ready to break the invisible string that had been tying them together.
They continued to stare at one another. From the look in his eyes, she thought he might ask her to go somewhere to talk so he could finish his thought and tell her what he wanted.
She was hoping, praying that he would. But he didn’t.
His hand dropped to his side before he extended his arm in a silent after-you gesture.
She inhaled a shaky breath and walked a half step ahead and to the right of him.
The left side of her body heated from the energy radiating between them.
It was so strong she was surprised it wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
The dinner was being held in a private room.
The table stretched the length of it and held a dozen centerpieces.
Poppy was seated with AJ to her left, Phoebe to her right, and Yaya and Frank across from her.
There were thirty-five people at the table and almost as many conversations, so it wasn’t awkward or noticeable that neither she nor AJ was speaking.
There was so much she wanted to say, to ask him, but not in front of the nosiest people in the world, aka, her sisters.
The salad course was uneventful, unless you counted several arm and leg brushes, which she did. Her body tingled long after the innocent touches occurred. Just sitting close to AJ had her entire nervous system on high alert. Her hormones were clocked in and working overtime.
“So how are things going with Daddy Warbucks?” Phoebe had adopted the nickname for Deacon because she found out through Roger that he was rich. Apparently, they knew each other because Roger is in tech as well.
“Stop,” Poppy said quietly through clenched teeth, hoping not to draw more attention to the situation.
“I’m serious, how are things?” her sister asked sincerely as she popped a large bite of steak into her mouth.
“Good, yeah, they’re fine, good.”
“What is good?” Yaya called across the table. “You talk about man you live with?”
Beside her, she felt AJ tense up. She knew it wasn’t about being jealous, since he didn’t get jealous. Maybe he just didn’t want his grandma screaming across the table.
“I don’t live with him,” Poppy quickly corrected. “I live in the ADU.”
“But he is boss, yes?” Yaya asked for clarification.
“I, um, I’m his nanny, so I guess he is, yes.”
Poppy felt strange being in the hot seat as she sat next to AJ and talked about her life. Not that he’d asked her, but still.
“And how is school? You get A’s?” Yaya wagged her finger.
“It’s not exactly typical classes like that, but I’m doing okay.”
“What are you going back to school for, young lady?” Mr. Santino asked.
“Occupational therapy,” Poppy explained.
“Good for you.” He nodded, giving her the Arthur Santino seal of approval.
She and Mr. Santino had bonded when he was admitted to the ER after being shot while protecting a neighbor from an abusive ex.
He’d given Poppy a bad time when she had to take him in for X-rays, but she’d handled him like she did every patient, with kindness, listening, and treating them as if their complaints were valid, because they were.
She’d somehow earned his respect, which she had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t hand out readily, and she felt a special bond with him.
“You!” Yaya pointed her attention to AJ. Literally. She pointed her finger at him. “What about you?”
“I’m not going to school,” he replied, and Poppy couldn’t help but smile.
“No! What we talk about! You. Family. Babies. Your baby sister gets married. You need wife!”
Poppy watched as Mr. Santino checked back out of the conversation, sitting beside Yaya, quietly eating his food.
He was so unassuming, so opposite of Yaya, but somehow they worked.
From the first interaction she’d witnessed of the couple, when she’d had to take Mr. Santino to radiology for x-rays after he’d been shot and Yaya came with him, chewing him out for being curmudgeonly, Poppy had been fascinated by the couple.
“Adonis Josiah Costas!” Yaya snapped, using his full name when her grandson didn’t respond to her question.
“This is not the time or place,” AJ responded calmly.
“What time? What place?” Yaya fanned her arms around. “This is family! Of course is time and place.”
Poppy tried to act as disinterested as possible, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she truly wanted to hear what he had to say. And she also couldn’t hide the fact that she was a notorious eavesdropper.
“I told you, I don’t want kids.”
He doesn’t?
Poppy had only looked at her infertility from one perspective.
She’d been so upset about not being able to have kids, she hadn’t thought at all about being with a man who didn’t want children.
All she’d seen were the negatives. But maybe this was a tick in their compatible column, not that he needed another.
That is if he was even still interested in her.
His eyes looked interested in her when they were in the hall, but she had ignored him for two weeks after they hooked up.
In her defense, a woman had broken into his house to retrieve her belongings after they broke up because he hadn’t taken her to an out of state family wedding…
That screamed messy, and Poppy was trying to clean up her act.
The rest of the dinner was spent with both AJ and herself out of the spotlight, except when other people were telling stories about them.
She tried not to broadcast her hyper-awareness of the man beside her, but it was nearly impossible to do.
His earthy musk drove her wild, the deep timber in his voice sent shockwaves rippling through her.
Any contact, no matter how small or insignificant, an arm or hand grazing hers, caused tingles to spread through her body like butter on a hot frying pan.
As the dinner was coming to an end, Poppy wished that they’d had more one-on-one time to speak. Even though she knew they would see each other the following day at the wedding, she was desperate to spend more time with him.
She was trying to think of a way to drop into the conversation that she knew he was staying next door without seeming creepy or stalkerish, but she wasn’t sure how to do that. The Costas and Davies clan collectively did not leave lulls in conversations. They interrupted and spoke over one another.
Before she knew it, everyone was standing and collecting their coats. She’d hitched a ride from Zion, who walked over and extended his elbow. “Uber for Poppy.”
“You didn’t drive?” AJ asked.
Poppy glanced up at him, and her insides did cartwheels. “No.”
“I can give you a ride,” he offered.
“Are you sure?”
His lips curled in a lopsided grin. “It’s just next door.”
Poppy’s eyes widened slightly in shock. How did he know that? How long had he known that? Had he been avoiding her?
“Um, okay. Yeah, thanks.”
Zion grinned, his eyes bouncing between them. “See you crazy kids tomorrow. Do everything I would do,” he added with a wink.
Poppy smiled, shaking her head as she lifted her hand and waved to Zion, then turned back to AJ. “How did you know I was staying next door to you?”
AJ helped her on with her coat and his lips grazed the cusp of her ear as his hot breath fanned across the bare skin of her neck. “I saw you when I was doing dishes and you were walking home with the girl.”
A shiver ran down Poppy’s spine as lust clogged her throat making it difficult to speak. She managed to swallow it down, but just barely. She looked up at him over her shoulder. “You did?”
He nodded, the intensity in his eyes stole her breath. “I thought you might be with him.”
“With him? I’m not, no it’s not—”
“I know that now. But I didn’t like it.”
The way he said he didn’t like it caused her sex to clench with need as she swallowed a whimper. He didn’t like it? Zion said AJ didn’t get jealous… Was he jealous?
Her mind was still spinning with questions when she felt the weight of AJ’s hand on her lower back as he ushered her out of the restaurant.
When the valet arrived with AJ’s truck, they climbed into the SUV and neither spoke on the way home.
The silence was thick but not uncomfortable, it was the kind of silence that felt loaded, like a first move in chess.
As he drove the short distance from the restaurant to the rental house, Poppy’s mind raced.
She couldn’t take her eyes off AJ’s hands on the steering wheel.
They were big, capable hands, and she remembered exactly how they’d felt on her body, all the things he could make her feel with those hands.
When they pulled up into the driveway of AJ’s Airbnb, her heart bottomed out.
She did not want the night to end. He came around and helped her down and neither moved.
They just stood there staring, as if they were both afraid moving would pop the bubble they were in, and the night’s magic would be over.
“Thank you, for the ride,” she finally said.
She gave it a moment, hoping he would say something, do something, but when he didn’t, she turned and began to walk next door to the ADU.
“Do you want to come in for a drink?” he asked when she got a few feet away.
“No.” She glanced over her shoulder, then repeated the same line he’d given her the first night they met when she thought he was rejecting her invitation to come inside. “I don’t want a drink.”