Chapter 12 #3
It was so domestic, so damn intimate, real, and easy and normal.
He waited for regret to show up, then fear.
Nothing bubbled up, and he frowned, a little shocked.
He was so used to being on his own, of having this house to himself, the stillness, the quiet.
Normally, music like that, a jaunty, happy tune, would set his teeth on edge, and he always avoided the morning after with his one-night stands.
Dealing with someone else in his space before he had coffee was usually beyond his skill set.
But this was Poppy, and she belonged in this house.
Unsettled by his happy homemaker thoughts, he backtracked.
Of course he’d think like that: for the first twenty years of his life, Poppy was as much a feature of this house as Grandpa and Grandma M.
—she belonged here, possibly even more than he did.
He was just caught up in the past and his memories…
Thom padded over to her, wound his arms around her waist, and kissed her bare neck.
When she tipped her head back to kiss his mouth, he sank into the kiss, tasting coffee on her lips.
Resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at the disaster zone forming on his table.
She’d already made one pie, yellow and anemic, the color of pastel poo, and he winced, hoping that he wouldn’t have to taste-test it later.
There were the beginnings of the filling of another pie, this one was a pale pink—made from what?
A whisper of cherries, a hint of strawberries?
—and there was more filling on the table’s surface and on the floor than there was in the bowl.
Thom sighed. It might be easier to set fire to the kitchen than clean it up. “Why are you baking, Pops?” he asked.
Poppy turned in his arms and placed her hands on his pecs. Without looking down, he knew he had two flour handprints on his long-sleeved navy T-shirt. “I’m practicing for the upcoming Bewitched Bake Off.”
First he’d heard of it. Then again, he only frequented the hardware store and The Bar, where discussing ghosts, the paranormal and Halloween-based events was banned.
If you were caught, per Jasper’s rules, you had to buy the entire bar a drink of their choice.
It could be, depending on how busy the bar was, and it often was, an expensive mistake. “Which is?”
“Do you remember the baking competition Grandma M. always entered when we were kids?”
“Sure, she won most years. Not a surprise since her pumpkin pie was to die for.” He glanced down at the table and took in the pale-yellow pie. Oh, God, he hoped that wasn’t Poppy’s version of it.
“Well, Luna took that tradition and turned it into the Bewitched Bake off—”
“Of course she did.” Because a bake-off couldn’t just be a bake-off, it had to be Halloweenified.
“—and anyone can enter. It’s happening next weekend, but there are new rules. The recipes must be heritage or symbolic, and you must explain what memories it stirs or what significance it holds. It has to have a story.”
Because Poppy was, at her core, sentimental and a lover of stories and history, of course Luna’s concept would appeal to her.
“It’s a big event, everyone dresses up in a costume, and using spells to improve the baking is prohibited.”
And she said that with a completely straight face. His eyebrows rose. “And how could anyone tell whether a spell was used or not?” he asked, trying not to laugh. God, this town, it was absurd.
Poppy’s earnest expression didn’t change. “The committee brings in an out-of-town witch who can detect whether magic is used.”
Of course they did.
“And you want to enter?” Thom asked.
“Yes, with Grandma M.’s pumpkin and cherry pies.”
Pulling out of his arms, she walked over to his old-as-shit oven—the one Grandma M. used—and peered at the settings. “Hell, I forgot to put the oven on.” She turned some dials, and Thom thought about telling her that the oven had been misfiring ever since he moved in, and probably before that.
But judging by the trainwreck table, a faulty oven was the least of her problems. When she walked back over to him, he reached for her, hands on her hips, his lips on her temple, half undone by how crazy-but-also-normal this all felt.
He waited to flinch, for the urge to retreat, and it didn’t materialize.
Strange.
“Any chance of coffee?” he asked, unwilling to let her go.
She lifted up floury hands. “Can you make me another cup?”
“Sure.” He reluctantly pulled away and moved to the coffee machine.
Not finding any cups in the cupboard, he opened the dishwasher and grimaced at the full load.
Removing two cups, he put on the dishwasher and handwashed the cups.
While he waited for the beans to grind and the machine to dispense life-juice, he looked at Poppy, who’d resumed sieving flour.
He wasn’t much of a cook, but he knew enough to realize that baking was about being precise, and if a lot of the product was out of the bowl and not in it, it would probably affect the result.
He debated whether he should point that out and decided not to.
She was having fun, and he was having fun watching her.
“Are you following a recipe, Popsicle?”
“Pfft.” Poppy dug her hands into the bowl to mix the flour and butter. “I made so many pies with Grandma M., I could do this in my sleep.”
He remembered those baking sessions, and Poppy often had her nose in a book while Grandma M. baked, and only paid attention when she was offered a bowl to lick or a bite to taste. Question: how was he going to get out of tasting her pies?
He looked at Felony and saw that his dog was watching him with what looked like an expression of terror on his face. He might love Poppy much more than he did him now, but he wasn’t keen to sample her baking either.
Felony released a long, mournful howl, and Poppy immediately dropped what she was doing to sink to her haunches in front of her. Realizing that her hands were covered in batter, she tried to use her elbow to rub his head. “What’s the matter, darling?” she crooned.
Thom hurried over to her before she could bury her hands in his fur. Felony gave him a side look that clearly said, “See how into me she is, man?”
Behind Poppy’s back, Thom, because he was mature, showed him his middle finger. Felony gave him the doggy equivalent and lifted his top lip. Then, because he was a complete poser, he howled again. Thom grabbed Poppy’s arm and pulled her up before sticky hands met dog fur.
“Do you want to bake or cuddle the psychopath?” Thom hoped that she’d choose the latter and that she could move on from baking. Because God, that pie looked dangerous.
Poppy smiled at him, and his heart, stupid thing, rolled over. “Bake.”
Shit.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if I won the bake-off with Grandma’s recipe? Wouldn’t she be proud of me?”
Thom knew there was more chance of earth being sucked into a black hole than that happening but chose to stay quiet.
“I really think you should work from a recipe, Pops.” He remembered Grandma M.
had a pile of exercise books where she scribbled down her recipes and asked Poppy what happened to them.
“I think I have them somewhere,” she answered him. “But this is under control.”
He’d never seen anything less controlled, but …
okay. The coffee machine stopped grinding the beans, and life-saving liquid streamed into their cups.
Releasing Poppy, who went back to her bowl of horrible, Thom remembered the shower incident.
“By the way, did you think about showering this morning?”
Her head jerked up, and her cheeks turned pink. “I woke up and saw that you were dead to the world, I thought I’d let you sleep. I quietly brushed my teeth, pulled on your shirt and came downstairs. Why? Do I smell?”
He laughed, then shook his head. Mmm. What was more likely, Poppy forgetting that she’d turned the shower on, or the shower coming on by itself? “When I woke up, the shower was running.”
She rubbed her hands together to release the crumbs from her hands and they spun off in a hundred different directions. He watched as a thick clump landed near Fel’s nose, who sniffed it, looked at Thom, and nudged it away; a clear indication that it offended him.
“Maybe it was a ghost who turned the taps on,” Poppy mused, using the back of her wrist to push a strand of hair out of her eyes.
Thom pulled a coffee cup out from under the spout, took two scalding sips, and sighed.
Walking the cups back to the table, he looked down, wondering where he could put them.
There was no space, and even if there was, he suspected Poppy would knock it over within a minute or two.
She nodded at the cup and pursed her lips. “Gimmee.”
Well, that was one option. “Careful, it’s hot.” Thom blew on the surface, held the cup to her lips, and tipped it gently. Poppy sipped and then pulled back. “Ugh, no milk. Or sugar.”
He nodded to the empty packet of sugar on the table. “You used it all. And didn’t I ask you to pick up milk yesterday?”
She pulled a face. “Sorry, I forgot. Give me some more.”
“Your wish is my command, Duchess,” he dryly stated, but helped her take another sip.
“Life would be so much easier if you just treated me like one all the time, Sheffield,” she said, her eyes laughing.
“You’re enough of a handful without the title,” Thom told her, bending to kiss her nose.
Then, because he was in the vicinity, he moved his mouth to her lips, sinking into her coffee-tinged warmth, loving the way she tipped her head to the side so that he could deepen the kiss.
As he kissed Poppy, in the disaster zone that was his normally bare but neat kitchen, he realized that for the first time in, God, forever, he was happy.
Properly happy. This time, happiness wasn’t accompanied by a presentation, a meeting, by a task, by something he had to do or be. It simply was.