CHAPTER 32
The laundry shelf was still no closer to being fixed, but who the hell cared?
James had just finished showering in the ensuite and was drying his hair, beads of water still shining on his muscled back as he searched the room for his clothes. She was tempted to take a photo for posterity’s sake. The man was gorgeous.
‘I don’t want you to think I’m kicking you out,’ Poppy began.
‘But you are?’
‘Reluctantly.’
James found his t-shirt at the back of her dresser.
‘I need to pick up Maeve at four.’
He smiled. ‘I get it,’ he said.
There was a buzz in her solar plexus like a post-workout endorphin rush. She watched him pull his t-shirt over his head, the collar flattening his hair into a solid wet fringe. Reflexively, he shook his head and his hair fell back into place. It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
Okay, okay, okay, so he’d proved he wasn’t completely perfect. She still couldn’t believe he’d confessed his feelings for his ex so openly (wasn’t it like some cardinal rule that if you were naked in someone’s bed you should at least pretend to be properly into them?), but she was finding it easy to overlook that when she had a front-row view of his biceps.
There was no need to label anything yet. She may as well enjoy the dopamine rush while it lasted. She could deal with the adulting later. Or she’d workshop it with Dani. Oh yes, Dani.
‘I can’t hang out with you at the races,’ Poppy announced. She wondered whether this was a completely redundant thing to say. Did he even want to hang out, or was he a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy? ‘I mean, not presuming that you even wanted to hang out, but if you did, I can’t, so …’
James’s head was stuck behind her bedside table looking for more clothes. His muscly back looked excellent from this angle.
‘My best friend, Dani, is coming from Sydney so I’ll be hanging with her all day. And, obviously, if you weren’t planning on hanging out with me on Saturday, just pretend this conversation never happened and I’ll just, you know, die of embarrassment.’
James straightened, having retrieved his jumper. ‘Can I say hello?’
Poppy felt a rush of happiness. He hadn’t seemed like a ghoster but you could never be sure.
‘A hello would be nice.’
James closed the space between them and kissed her on the lips. ‘You’re nice.’
Poppy smiled. ‘So are you.’
She wished there wasn’t so much goodness in him. With the afternoon light streaming through her window and the memory of his hands on her skin, she couldn’t remember how she’d managed to hate him so much. All the same, a pit of dread was deepening in her stomach. It was very unlikely this would end well.