Chapter 10
Max slowly awoke from the most incredibly restful sleep he’d ever had in his life.
Well, mostly restful, anyway. I’m not sure if I can count all those times we woke up and…
His mind helpfully supplied the images. Not that it was difficult to recall or anything – he had a feeling that the memory of Poppy in the throes of ecstasy would be making itself known at the most inopportune moments for some time to come.
But eventually the two of them had fallen into a deep, deep sleep, slotted neatly together, his arm pulling her close to him, her messy curls tickling at his nose.
He took in a breath now, simply enjoying the smell of her hair – which was something he’d never imagined himself doing with anyone. He’d never noticed the smell of anyone’s hair before. But when it was Poppy, he found that he wanted to know every single thing about her that he possibly could.
Max lay there for who knew how long, simply content to be in her presence, the messy blankets providing a warm haven from the outside world.
He could have stayed there until the end of time, if not for the slow, insistent hunger that started to gnaw at him.
I suppose we didn’t really eat last night. Well, not food, anyway…
He was so comfortable and happy right where he was, and Poppy was sleeping so peacefully, her breaths slow and even, that he couldn’t stand the thought of disturbing her. But he really was hungry.
He pulled her tighter against him, as if he could fend off the hunger pangs through the sheer closeness of her presence. And it did seem to work for a time, but after a while the rumbling of his stomach got the better of him.
With agonizing slowness he worked to extricate himself, sliding his arm back and holding up the blankets so that he could wriggle backward with minimal disturbance to Poppy.
She shifted a little and snorted in her sleep – adorably, he couldn’t help but notice – before letting out a long, slow breath and settling back down again.
Relieved, he fumbled on the nightstand for his glasses, glad to see that they were still intact after last night’s… activities. Pulling them on, he had a look at the clock.
11:14.
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the muted light drifting in through the windows, he could’ve easily believed that it was 11:14 p.m., and they’d slept the whole day through. He felt well-rested, alive with energy, like he could achieve anything he wanted. He’d never felt this good before.
Slipping into his clothes, he padded back out toward the kitchen, casting a somewhat guilty glance at the rug on the way. Even though they’d eventually made their way to the bed, he was going to have some very nice memories of that rug.
In the kitchen, he looked around. Loath as he was to wake Poppy at any point, he thought that she would probably want to wake up fairly soon so that she could enjoy her vacation.
He wasn’t sure exactly how long she was going to be spending in Girdwood Springs, but from what she’d said, he got the feeling that it wasn’t going to be an extended stay.
Hopefully, at least, she wouldn’t mind getting woken up if it meant that she was also getting breakfast in bed. And he really wanted to do something for her, especially since she’d bought him such a thoughtful gift.
Opening the fridge, he surveyed its contents, before pulling out a packet of bacon and some eggs.
Humming a little tune, he got to work.
***
“What the hell is going on?!”
Poppy ran into the smoke-filled kitchen, eyes wide, forehead creased, body completely naked.
“Everything’s fine!” Max yelped as he waved a tea towel ineffectually at the shrieking smoke detector. “It’s all under control! Go back to bed!”
“I wouldn’t call this under control!” Poppy exclaimed, running to the stove and taking the entirely reasonable step of turning off the gas… which, Max could see now, really should’ve been his first step.
Well, really, his first step should’ve been serving up some of the pre-made food, rather than trying to cook something from scratch. Because, well… he was a shitty cook.
And he knew this. But he’d wanted to make the effort for Poppy. He’d been sure that he could do it.
But his sense of timing really just wasn’t very good at all. He’d never been able to master it. Any meal that required juggling multiple tasks had a tendency to end up a complete disaster.
Case in point: the bacon wasn’t technically on fire, but it was a pretty fine line that was likely to be crossed any second now.
Poppy expertly flipped the bacon onto the plates that Max had already gotten out, before whirling around and popping the toaster just as the first wisps of smoke started to rise from its innards.
Two pieces of toast sprang forth, just a little beyond his preferred level of toastedness – but, he hoped, not irretrievable.
The smoke alarm, however, continued its howling, no matter how hard he waved the tea towel at it.
A sudden banging at the front door completed the chaos, and he looked back and forth in bewilderment between the smoke alarm and the door, assaulted by the incessant beeping in one ear and Kieran’s voice calling through Poppy’s apartment door on the other.
“Here, I’ll do it,” Poppy said, grabbing the tea towel. She had not, Max noted, fetched any clothes yet, and her naked body was doing some very enticing little jiggles as she stretched up on her tiptoes and waved the towel wildly.
It was with no small regret that he went into Poppy’s apartment, his eyes firmly fixed on Poppy’s nude gyrations until he could no longer keep her in view.
“Sorry!” he called out, leaning against the front door just in case Kieran decided to burst in and see what was going on for himself.
The door was locked, but he knew that Kieran had a key, and he wouldn’t entirely blame him for using it.
“Just left the toast in a little too long. I’m dealing with it now. ”
“Are you sure?” Kieran called back.
“Positive,” Max assured him.
“I’m sorry,” Kieran went on. “The smoke alarms we put in these apartments are different to the other ones we’ve used in the past, so they might be more sensitive. I’ll have to inspect them later.”
I don’t care! Max yelled inside his head. Out loud, he said, “It’s fine, really! Just me not being a good cook.”
“I’m sure you’re great,” Kieran said enthusiastically, and Max got the feeling he actually meant it, too. The guy was absurdly friendly.
“I’m really not,” Max said – and at that moment, the beeping finally, blessedly stopped. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“All under control,” he said, mentally begging Kieran to take the hint… and maybe his powers weren’t completely messed up at the moment, because Kieran actually seemed to finally decide that he could leave.
“Just call out if you need us,” he said cheerily, and Max barely mustered an Uh-huh in reply before he ran back into the kitchen…
where he was greeted with the sight of Poppy nakedly leaning over the kitchen sink to push the window open and let the smoke out.
It was a very, very nice view, and he simply stopped and stared, unable to formulate words, or even syllables.
“Oh, there you are,” she said, turning around, egg flip in hand – and his brief disappointment at realizing that she’d put an apron on was quickly assuaged by the fact that the apron was both extremely short and extremely low-cut.
Her astonishingly messy bedhead and sparkling eyes just completed the picture.
“Uh…” he said.
“I took the liberty of putting the eggs on for you,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind fried? I can do over easy, if you prefer.”
“Over easy is good,” he murmured. The phrase conjured up all sorts of images… but he supposed that it could work for eggs as well.
But then his brain finally rebooted itself, and he snapped out of his fugue state fast.
“Wait!” he protested. “I’m supposed to be making you breakfast! Go back to bed!”
“And we saw how that turned out, didn’t we?” she said with a laugh, flipping the eggs. “It’s fine – I wanted to get up and stretch my legs, anyway.”
Liar, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it to her, even in jest.
“Anyway,” she went on, “it looks like I got here just in time. You’re lucky I like my bacon crisp.”
He dared a look at the bacon – and she was right.
More or less. It wasn’t completely ruined, anyway.
It was a little crispier than he would’ve personally liked, but it was still within the realm of edibility.
Even the toast was only slightly dark around the edges.
Maybe Kieran had been right when he said that the smoke detector might’ve been too sensitive.
That’s what I choose to believe, anyway.
“Well, thank you for coming to my rescue,” he said, as he pulled a few basil leaves off the plant and arranged them on the plates – hopefully he wouldn’t manage to mess that up too badly.
“Think nothing of it,” she said with a smirk, leaning over more than was strictly necessary as she served up the eggs.
“You’re enjoying tormenting me, aren’t you?” he murmured, and her attempt at an innocent expression couldn’t hide the impish grin that pulled at the corners of her mouth.
“Perhaps,” was all she said in reply, and as she poured the coffee – which had probably been brewing way too long at this point – he ducked into his apartment to grab a clean towel and robe, and try to get himself under control.
Not that it was worth the effort, because he couldn’t get the image of Poppy in the apron out of his mind – and it just got even worse when he got back to the kitchen.
She clearly had no intention of getting herself decent, and so he did the only thing he could do, which was put the towel down on her chair so that at least she had somewhere clean to sit, before draping the robe over the back of the chair in case she got cold.