Chapter 14
“Stop being a bed hog,” Poppy mumbled through a giant yawn.
“Says the girl sliding her way into my sheets.” Kiki grabbed the corner of the blanket and flipped all the way over, rolling until she looked like a mummy, effectively yanking the blankets clear off Poppy, leaving her in nothing but her pj’s and the late night’s chill.
“Seriously?”
“You can tell me why you’re camped out in my twin bed when you could be in a California king in your own bedroom with your own sex god or you can freeze to death.”
Poppy would rather freeze to death than admit that she kissed Decker.
Because not only had she kissed him, she’d kissed him.
The kind of kiss where all rational thought flew out the window and sheer hormones took over.
If he’d picked her up and carried her off to the bedroom like a caveman, she wasn’t sure she would have objected.
Only he’d put the kibosh on anything more.
One second, hormone alley; the next, cold-bucket alley.
Even more embarrassing, as he’d pulled back, her lips had extended like a snake trying to maintain connection as long as they could.
But when he went in for round two, he’d given her enough air to gather her wits.
She was, embarrassingly enough, plastered to him like plastic wrap.
Then there was the way her hands fisted in the hem of his shirt, clinging on for dear life.
Oh my god! How humiliating!
She’d yanked her hands back in a flash and yelled, “Bad lips!” Even though she was pointing the scolding finger his way, she was speaking to her own lips. Because they were behaving so badly, they needed a good scolding.
Without further explanation, she turned and sprinted across the law like the coward she was and snuck into Kiki’s room—where she planned to hide out the entire night.
She needed time to process because she still hadn’t a clue as to how she was going to face Decker in the morning.
She’d considered avoidance strategy, then remembered she’d promised never to do that again.
Stupid promises. Plus, it wasn’t as if they were working on the Winchester Mystery House.
Three thousand square feet doesn’t seem all that big when you’re talking about a man built like Paul Bunyan with his ox of a dog.
The worst part of this whole mess wasn’t just the kiss. It was that she’d kissed him back. And it was good. Scratch that. It was mind-blowing. He’d only used his lips and her panties caught fire.
Talk about a kissing god. Lord, she needed help.
She side-eyed Kiki, who was staring her down, and sighed. If there was anyone in the world who’d know what to do it would be her best friend. And since the backyard and pool house were the only places not camera-ed up, and the cameras were turned off for the night, now was the time.
“Thor and I kissed. Well, he kissed me, but I kissed him back. It wasn’t a game of tonsil hockey or anything, it was more of a consensual exchange of lip smacking.”
“That was clear by the way you kept mumbling ‘Bad lips, bad lips, bad lips’ when you tiptoed in,” Kiki said. “What I want to know? Is his hockey stick as impressive as the censor tag implies?”
Poppy sprang up. “It was just a kiss!”
Kiki yawned. “Oh. Of course it was. I forgot who I was talking to. A certified hall monitor.”
“Why does everyone assume I’m so boring?”
“You’re sharing a bed with a sex god, who wants to do more than swap bedtime stories, and you call a kiss ‘consensual lip smacking’ instead of foreplay,” Kiki said. “The problem is, I can tell you like him.”
Poppy flopped back on the bed. “It doesn’t matter. We’re both here to do a job. America is watching and I don’t want to make a public mistake when Aunt Opal’s house and my show are at stake.”
“How is mind-blowing sex a threat to any of that?”
“Are you kidding? I’m cursed with the worst picker in the history of pickers. Even Cupid has it out for me. My aunt is the most famous matchmaker in the world and I am perpetually single.”
“And what is that reason again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. You have become so myopically career-focused that you don’t have time for dating and relationships.”
“That’s not true,” Poppy insisted.
“Name the last time you went out with someone other than me.”
“Decker,” she said, and the disdain she’d felt for him was nowhere in sight. “Look how that went.”
“I think it went great. You just don’t want to admit that there could be something there, but you’re too laser focused on your show to give it a chance. Until tonight.”
“What does that mean?”
Kiki rolled her eyes. “Um. You kissed.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Was it though? The Poppy I know doesn’t make mistakes. In fact, you are so determined to be in control that you’re missing out on the fun part of life.”
“The last time I put my trust in someone they left me to fend for myself. I was eight and left with an unfit mother, all because of a misunderstanding that had nothing to do with me. A dad is the person who raises you. It doesn’t matter if you share DNA or not.”
Poppy swallowed hard, which made her mad. She didn’t get emotional over Steve. It was a long time ago. But after seeing him, it was like he’d ripped the bandage off her heart, exposing the raw underbelly that she’d repressed all these years.
Poppy shook her head. “I had to defend myself to survive. No kid should go through that. Plus, I’ve worked too hard to put myself in that position again.”
“Not everyone is like Steve,” Kiki said quietly, and even hearing his name brought back so many painful memories and emotions it was hard to swallow past the betrayal and heart-wrenching disappointment.
“Not everyone is an asshole and bails when things get messy,” Kiki assured her, but Poppy had been left holding the bag too many times to feel any kind of reassurance.
“Something better came along.” Story of her life.
“That doesn’t mean Decker will bail. He can’t because he is contractually bound. Not to mention he needs this job as much as you do.”
That was what she’d gathered by the phone call with his brother. Not that she was about to share something so personal. It was his story to tell. And his alone.
“Don’t worry about that asshole. Steve isn’t worth thinking about,” Kiki told her.
She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d wondered if she should have tried harder to convince him to stay.
But what would have been the point? Her mom pled with her dad to listen to the truth about Poppy being his biological daughter, and he didn’t even want to take a DNA test. He just bailed and started over with a new family.
He claimed her mom’s infidelity was too hard to overcome.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Kiki scolded. “One more thought in that direction, and I will make you Sheetrock the ceiling today.”
Poppy gasped and felt perspiration bead behind her knees. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I have and I will.”
Poppy closed her eyes and imagined being on drywall stilts and went slightly dizzy from her fear. She forced her eyes to shoot back open and shivered.
“Maybe that’s why I have it out for Cupid. I saw what love and the loss of it did to my mom. The little bastard has wings and flies. You know I get sympathetic height fear.”
“I’m talking about banging a sex god. It’s interesting though that you brought up those words because I never said anything about relationships or Cupid?”
Poppy was in more trouble than she thought because Kiki was the second person that evening to point it out. Talk about Freudian slip.
“Enough with the therapy talk. What I need is solid advice on what to do next.”
“My suggestion? Sleep with him and find out. It’s okay to be selfish sometimes.”
Her belly flipped over the thought of tangling the sheets with Decker. Her head reminded her that it was not the time for an illicit affair. “How about option two?”
“Go for the unaffected attitude, like the kiss was just a kiss and always wonder what if.”
“Under no circumstances is he allowed to stay,” Jack said early the next morning. He was dressed in wrinkled jeans, yesterday’s stubble, and bed head. “It’s bad enough that the kid spoke to you at all. It could ruin the trajectory of the show.”
“It’s a home improvement show. What kind of deep dark secrets could he expose?” Poppy said, but Jack remained silent. Suspicion weighed heavy in her gut, her little warning bells blasting. “Unless there’s something else you’re not telling me.”
“Me? No. Not at all,” Jack said quickly. “It’s just we want you to focus on the task at hand and not what is going on outside the set. Just think of how it would affect Decker if he was bombarded with updates on his sex tape? It could change the whole mood of the show.”
A protective feeling arose in her chest. “Are you saying the situation has worsened and you haven’t told him? Because if that’s true, you’re a self-centered jerk who puts ratings over his relationships.”
“It was a hypothetical.”
Poppy wanted to call bullshit. But in order to do so she’d have to admit Decker called Brian, who spilled the beans about Holly being the leak.
It would only prove Jack’s point and there would be no way he’d ever let Miles stay.
And after listening to Decker be berated, then beg his brother to let Miles stay, she wanted to do whatever she could to make that a reality.
Decker always came off as larger than life, a boulder that was impossible to move. But earlier he was as vulnerable as one could get, and instead of shying away or lying his way out of the situation, he’d been honest. And that had touched her.
Then there was the way Miles had sounded when he talked about learning from his uncle that reached out and tugged at her heartstrings.
She might not want to rekindle her relationship with Steve, but Decker was doing whatever he could to fix his family.
And she’d do whatever she could to assist with that.
The time to save her own family had long ago come and gone, but she could help with his.