Poppy
The number of times I almost chickened out was truly absurd.
I changed my outfit about ten times…waffling between business casual to make it seem like a real meeting, or date cute to make it seem like a…
well, like a date. I couldn't figure out if I wanted my hair up or down.
If I should keep it professional. If I should wear sensible flats or the shoes that Stevie so eloquently described as “fuck-me heels.”
Then of course I started agonizing over what I was going to say. There was no real reason for this meeting. I could make it up in the email, yeah, but in real life I would have to be much more creative. Should I keep the pretense? Should I be straightforward and explain the situation?
Meet him at the door, yank him into the nearest bathroom, and ask him to have his way with me?
By the time I got to The Perch—fifteen minutes early—I had answers to none of those questions.
And the real kicker? Johnny was already here.
I saw his bike before I saw him, the Harley parked outside the coffee shop, helmet hung over one of the handles.
Even the sight of his bike made my stomach do weird things.
It kinda flipped over and then I thought I was going to vomit and then I thought I was getting horny, which was all very confusing.
I stood outside for a second longer than was strictly necessary, doing a final check of my reflection in the dark glass of the door.
The outfit had landed somewhere between professional curiosity and I definitely thought about this — dark jeans, a rust colored sweater that Stevie had pointed at and said that one without looking up from her cereal, ankle boots that were not the fuck-me heels but were not not trying either.
Hair down. I'd almost put it up four times on the train and talked myself out of it every time for reasons I didn't examine too closely.
I pushed the door open.
The Perch was small and warm and smelled like good coffee and woodsmoke from a fireplace in the corner that had no business being as charming as it was.
Big windows faced the lake, grey and choppy in the November cold.
A handful of people with laptops. Soft music.
The kind of place that felt like someone's living room if their living room had an espresso machine.
And there he was.
He was at a table by the window, already with a coffee, his jacket over the back of the chair. He was reading something on his phone and hadn't seen me yet, which gave me approximately three seconds to just — look at him.
Silver hair. The jaw. The way he sat like he was completely comfortable taking up space, not performing it, just genuinely at ease in his own body in a way that most men half his age weren't. He was wearing a dark henley pushed up at the forearms and I remembered what Stevie had said when I'd described him once, which was that's not a man, that's a problem.
She had not been wrong.
He looked up.
Smiled.
Seemed…a little confused.
Yeah, so was I.
I gave him an awkward wave then went to the counter to get a drink, feeling his eyes on me the whole time. Got myself a hot chocolate because I certainly didn't need more caffeine. Once the drink was made, I went to the table, taking a seat across from him, and it felt…
It felt good. It felt more right than talking to him over a desk. Like this was where we were supposed to end up from the very beginning.
“It's good to see you,” he said. He was drinking black coffee, maybe an Americano. “You take the train?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It was nice and roomy. Gave me some time to think.”
Damn it, Poppy, think about what?! Your decisions? I realized I didn't have to make it so obvious, but my mouth seemed to have other plans.
“I would've offered you a ride if I'd known you had to take the train.”
“Oh, it's no problem. And I've never been on a motorcycle before so—”
He laughed softly. “I have a car too. Not gonna force you to do anything that scares you.”
Those words should not have had the effect on me that they did.
I swallowed hard.
"Right." I wrapped both hands around my hot chocolate. "Good to know."
He was watching me like whatever was happening in this conversation was the only thing happening. Most people's eyes drifted, checked their phones, catalogued the room. His didn't.
It was a lot to be on the receiving end of.
"So," he said, and there was something in his voice that was almost amused. Almost. "Jasper Ellison has observations about my compatibility profile."
I felt my face do something involuntary.
"He does," I said. "Jasper has — yes. Many observations. He's very observant. It's kind of his whole thing."
Johnny looked at me.
I looked at my hot chocolate.
He knew something was up, but I could tell right away that he wasn't going to push it. It frustrated me a little, irrational as that was. I wanted him to call me on my bullshit, interrogate me, for me to say it out loud. That was definitely not going to happen.
“I wasn't completely honest with you,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
He gave me a skeptical—but kind—smile. “I have…no idea what's going on here.”
Again, I swallowed. It wasn't helping. The hot chocolate mug was burning my palms, and that wasn't helping either.
So I reached into my bag, grabbed the report, and shoved it at him.
Johnny took the sheet of paper, narrowing his eyes to peer at it. I fixed my eyes out the window, barely brave enough to even watch him in my peripherals.
He took a few minutes, then look up at me over the paper.
“What—Poppy, what is this?”
“It’s a Bloom Agency compatibility report.”
“I see that,” he said. “But it’s got your name on it.”
“And yours.”
He put the paper down on the table, his hands still on it.
“What are we doing here?” he asked me.
Very calm and direct.
He deserved a direct answer.
I finally got the nerve to look at him again, clasping my hands in my lap, trying to make my body as small as I could.
“We’re not supposed to be in the system, but a lot of us are in there as test cases,” I explained. “Jasper…he thought we had chemistry, so he removed the employee restrictions and he gave me that piece of paper.”
Johnny scoffed, shaking his head. “Ninety-nine percent?”
“Jasper always says the algorithm doesn’t lie.”
“Yeah, but you dont—I’m twice your age–”
“And I like you anyway,” I interrupted.
The words hung between us. I cleared my throat.
“Johnny, I’m not…I don’t just mean it in a friendly way. I like you. Jasper noticed. I think Sophie did too. I had—” I lowered my voice. “I had a dream about you.”
He blinked.
My face burned.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that—”
But he was leaning forward now, resting his elbows on the table. “What was I doing?”
It was my turn to blink, to be caught offguard.
“I probably shouldn’t have said that either,” he started, but I was already whispering back to him.
“You were whispering in my ear,” I said. “Telling me to come.”
His expression darkened. “And did you?”
I held his gaze…nodded.
I’d never taken Johnny Lawson as someone who was even remotely impulsive. I’d read his profile; he wasn’t like that.
So I knew when he looked at the paper again that he was doing much longer calculus than just the afternoon.
“Why are we really here right now?” he asked.
My eyelashes fluttered. I wanted to look away so badly, but I also didn’t want to, and I really couldn’t. I needed to see him. How he would react.
“Because I’ve had a crush on you for two years,” I admitted. “Then Jasper gave me that report yesterday. Then I had that dream last night, and I woke up and emailed you less than ten minutes later.”
“What do you want?” he asked. “Not the algorithm. Not Jasper. You.”
The question was clear and direct, no agenda attached. He wasn't going to answer it for me.
He was doing exactly what the report said he would do.
"I want to spend more time with you," I said. "Outside of Bloom. I want to — " I stopped, started again. "I want to find out if it's real or if it's just the algorithm and a very vivid dream."
"That's honest," he said.
"I'm trying."
He nodded slowly. "I need you to understand something first."
I waited.
"If I'm in," he said, "I'm in. That's just how I work. I don't do things halfway." His voice was even, not a warning exactly, more like information he needed me to have before I decided anything. "So I need you to be sure. Not about forever. Just about whether you actually want to find out."
The lake churned outside. The fireplace crackled.
"I'm sure about that part," I said.
He held my gaze for a long moment.
“You wanna go for a ride?” he asked.
I didn’t hesitate when I said yes.