Johnny
I was very tempted to cancel my meetings for the day and take Poppy back to my apartment.
She’d brought me to that coffee shop to tell me we were compatible—which felt obvious in hindsight. I’d been flirting with her over that front desk for two years. She told me she’d had a sex dream about me, for fuck’s sake.
I desperately wanted to fuck her. Hadn’t wanted anyone like this in years…no one I’d met through the agency, no one at all. Other than Poppy.
Poppy Hayes, who was definitely the woman Sophie had been referring to. The someone else she’d asked me to sit with.
I’d sat with it at The Perch…I’d decided.
We walked out together, Poppy clutching her bag, looking uncertainly at the bike. I went around to the left side and watched her carefully, trying to pick up on any discomfort.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said. “But—at least let me get you an Uber or something—”
She frowned. “You’re not…you’re not taking me home with you?”
Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, her lips red and shimmering with gloss. Again, I considered cancelling my meetings.
“No,” I shook my head. “Not that I don’t want to—but this is fast. I want you making this decision with a clear head, not…not fresh off a compatibility report and a sex dream.”
Her blush deepened, more about embarrassment—or maybe arousal—than the cold.
“I can just take the train—” she started.
I reached out and caught her wrist, pulling her closer. She stumbled a step forward, almost straight into my arms.
“Poppy Hayes,” I said, “I want to be very clear. I want nothing more than to take you home right now and take you apart piece by piece. I want to know what you’re wearing under those clothes…
want to know what your skin feels like in my hands, want to taste those lips.
Fuck, I do.” I paused, her breath catching.
“But more than that—I want you to feel safe.”
She inhaled, shaky.
“So let me take you home,” I finished. “Your home. Where’s your apartment?”
She exhaled against my mouth. I tasted hot chocolate and vanilla lip gloss.
“Wicker Park,” she said. “I can give you instructions.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
I grabbed the helmet and handed it over to her. She looked nervous all of a sudden.
“You okay with the bike?” I asked.
She nodded vigorously. “Yes, please. I’m just…a little scared?”
“That’s okay,” I said. “For what it’s worth, you get to wear the helmet.”
I leaned forward to put it on her, and she laughed softly when I pulled up the visor. Her green eyes sparkled inside, showing me her smile even with her eyes only.
“You keep that on,” I said. “Now…”
I swung my leg over the bike and settled in, got it stable and running. Then I looked back over my shoulder.
“Foot pegs are just there—” I nodded down at them. “Right foot first, then push up and swing over. Take your time.”
She was careful about it, a little awkward—but then she was on, her arms around my waist. Even through our jackets, I could feel her heat, her breasts pressing against my back, her hands dangerously close to my waist.
“Hands on me,” I said. “Don’t let go. You lean when I lean and don’t fight it. Ready?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was right by my ear, muffled by the helmet but so sweet that it made a shiver go up my spine.
“Alright,” I said. “Hang on tight.”
I pulled out onto the street.
Poppy tightened her grip immediately, her breath picking up a tick. After the first block, she started to relax into it.
I could feel the exact moment it clicked — the way she stopped anticipating and just followed, her body moving with mine through the turns like she'd been doing it for years.
Like she trusted me already. It did something to me that I wasn't prepared for, that easy trust, her weight shifting when mine did without any hesitation.
I'd taken Cassius and Marco out on the bike when they were teenagers.
That was different — that was two boys white-knuckling it and pretending they weren't scared, too proud to hold on properly.
Poppy held on properly. Both arms, firm grip, her chin probably up by now behind that visor, watching the city move around us.
I liked it more than I had any business liking it.
The cold was sharp off the lake, the kind of November air that clarified everything, and she pressed closer against my back without thinking about it — just seeking warmth, purely practical — and I felt the full length of her against me and had to redirect my attention very firmly back to the road.
I took the long way over to Wicker Park.
I was going to be late for my noon meeting, but I truly didn’t give a damn; just made the choices that kept us moving, kept the ride, alive, kept us touching.
There was a stretch along the park where the trees were bare and grey and the lake was visible between them, choppy and dark, and I slowed down slightly without meaning to.
Just to give her a second with it. Just to give myself a second with her arms still around me and nowhere to be yet.
She didn't say anything. Just held on.
At a red light I felt her shift, her helmet coming to rest lightly against my shoulder.
“Still good?” I asked.
“I love it,” she said.
The light changed.
We kept riding.
Into Wicker Park now, where Poppy leaned close to start giving me directions.
Left on Milwaukee, she said, he lips close enough to my ear that I could feel the warmth of her breath even through the cold.
I turned.
Right on Damen.
Her hand lifted from my waist to point, her arm crossing my chest, her body pressing closer so I could hear her. I caught her scent, warm and sweet, not the hot chocolate but a perfume or shampoo I’d noticed across her desk a dozen times and never let myself think about too much.
I was thinking about it now.
If my sheets would smell like that after I’d spent a day or a week making her come in my bed.
Just past the intersection—the brick three-flat, yeah, right there—
Her voice was so close. Every direction delivered directly into my ear, my jaw, the side of my neck. I was operating heavy machinery. I was doing fine. I was extremely aware of every place her breath landed and how quickly the cold took it away.
I pulled into the alley she indicated and cut the engine.
The quiet was immediate and total, just the tick of the cooling bike and the distant sound of the street. Her arms were still around me. Neither of us moved for a second — just a beat, just long enough to acknowledge that the ride was over and neither of us was in a hurry about saying goodbye.
Then she climbed off. Unclipped the helmet with slightly clumsy fingers, pulled it free, her red curls spilling out around her shoulders.
“This was…” she stopped, laughing a little. “I don’t know what this was yet. But it was good. I’m—when do you want to—”
I reached out, cupped her cheek, and kissed her.
With me on the bike and her standing, she was right about at eye level with me…and she melted when I pulled her to me, her hands on my shoulders. The helmet fell to the ground. Probably not great, but I didn’t care.
I kissed her hard. Didn’t even try holding back. Let her press herself against me, hang onto me, tilting her head so I could thrust my tongue past her lips and taste her.
Those dozen times I’d seen her in the Bloom office completely collapsed, feeling like a sequence of events all leading to this moment.
When I pulled away from her she looked dazed, her eyes half-lidded, her lips swollen.
“Tonight,” I said. “You have plans?”
“Just finishing this Ted Bundy series with my roommate,” she breathed.
I laughed.
She laughed too.
“Think you could reschedule that?” I asked.
She nodded.
“In that case…dinner at my place? I’ll cook for you.”
She didn’t look surprised, but she did look flattered.
I cocked my head.
“Most women are a little more shocked that I cook.”
She bit her lip. “I’ve read your file, remember?”
“Right,” I nodded, laughing. “So…when you read my file, did you think maybe you would like it if I cooked for you?”
“I kinda did,” she smiled. “So yeah. That sounds great.”
I reached for her again, kissed her again…let it stay softer this time, let it linger. She still leaned into me like her knees would buckle if she didn’t hang on. I let her.
“Seven?” I said against her lips.
“Seven,” she agreed.
I made myself pull back. Picked up the helmet from the alley floor, checked it over—fine, just scuffed—and hung it off the handlebar. She was watching me with that look she'd had in the coffee shop, the one that made it very hard to be a patient man.
"Go inside," I said. "Before I change my mind about tonight."
She laughed, a little breathless, and took a step back toward the little wooden stairwell that zigzagged up her building. Then she stopped.
"What are you going to make me?"
I thought about what I had in the refrigerator. What I could pick up on the way back from Bridgeport after my meeting. What felt right for a November Friday with a woman I'd been thinking about for two years sitting at my kitchen island.
"Pasta," I said. "Nothing fancy."
"I love pasta."
"I know," I said. "It's in your file."
She stared at me.
I kept my face completely straight for about four seconds before she realized I was joking and dissolved into laughter, one hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. It did something to me, that laugh. The full body quality of it, completely unguarded.
"Go," I said, smiling. "Seven o'clock."
She went. Up the stairs, through a green door on the second floor.
I sat in the alley for a moment, helmet in my lap, the bike ticking quietly beneath me. Somewhere above me, a window—probably hers. I didn't look up.
I had a meeting to get to. I had pasta to think about. I had approximately six hours to figure out what the hell I was doing and make peace with it.
There were a thousand reasons not to do this…but the algorithm didn’t lie.
Ninety-nine percent match. Three other couples, all married with kids.
Poppy having a sex dream about me, of all people.
This was happening.
We’d find out tonight if the report meant anything.