5. Chapter 5
Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! This is how you get murdered, Poppy! You fucking idiot sandwich!
My brain screamed at me as I obediently followed the intimidating man in the leather coat into the building.
The doorman held open the door for us, and I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at him.
Instead, I focused on the fascinating mud stains on my boots, shivering like an idiot while trying and failing to distract myself from the fear brewing inside of me.
Leather Coat Guy led me directly through the lobby and onto an elevator.
I pushed myself back into a far corner. The harsh fluorescent lights bounced blindingly off the mirrors on the walls and ceiling.
Leather Coat Guy stood directly in front of the doors, facing away from me.
I had no fucking idea where he was taking me or what was about to happen.
The air in the elevator was warm and stale in my lungs.
The higher we rose, the more my anxieties twisted themselves into knots.
My heart thudded violently. Was this guy going to chop my body into small pieces and distribute those small pieces to various dumpsters across town?
Too much true crime, Poppy.
I blindly followed because I hated confrontation and some place deep inside maybe I thought I deserved whatever dark fate awaited me.
When the elevator finally stopped, my stomach lurched.
Pitifully, I hugged myself to avoid vomiting.
Leather Coat Guy motioned for me to follow as he stepped into the hall.
I sucked in a huge breath through my nostrils, trying to steady myself before again blindly following to my doom or death—to be determined, of course.
He led me down the hall and through a door.
My heart thrashed against my ribs like a caged animal desperate to escape my chest. I stepped into a brightly lit foyer, where I looked up to Summoner’s piercing green eyes, scowling at me.
His lean, muscular frame stood imposingly over me.
His arms were crossed tightly over his broad chest, and a scowl etched deep lines on his face.
My shivering ramped as his gaze drilled into me.
Leather Coat Guy had definitely brought me to my fucking doom.
My throat tightened as I opened my mouth to speak, but before any words could escape, Summoner raised a hand, silencing me with a single gesture.
“Yer persistence is gan te get ya killed. Yer gannin’ te catch ya bloody death out there!” Catching himself, Summoner coughed loudly, calming himself before continuing. “Moore, could you fetch her a blanket? One of the thicker ones?”
“Boss, you sure about this?”
My insides wilted. They were talking about me.
How many times had I been a topic of discussion?
Summoner affirmed with a nod of the head. Leather Coat Guy, whose name was apparently Moore, nodded his understanding before disappearing down another hallway. I swallowed and turned my attention back to Summoner, who continued to glare at me.
“Poppy, come with me. You need a cuppa tea.” He turned on the heels of his plaid house shoes.
Brain shortcircuiting, I sputtered some unremarkable words as I kicked off my boots and followed. Today was a day of blindly following.
He led me out of the foyer, down a short hall, and through a formal dining room.
I wanted to run my fingers along the length of the dark wood table as we walked past it.
Attached to the formal dining room by an open doorway was the kitchen.
Bewildered, confused, and slightly worried, I stepped into a polished sea of silver granite.
His kitchen was massive and most likely custom made.
Summoner pointed at the island in the middle of the kitchen as a silent order.
As best as possible, while still shivering my ass off, I hopped up onto a barstool.
I tapped my finger on the countertop as my heartbeat finally slowed.
On the opposite side of the island, Summoner placed a second mug beside one waiting on the counter.
Tea bags in, he grabbed the waiting kettle from the restaurant-grade stove.
“How do you take your tea?” he asked with a cursory glance over his shoulder.
“…Uh, a bit of milk and six spoonsful of sugar.” Chattering teeth accompanied my words.
His chuckle was paired with a shake of the head. Although disapproving, he pulled down a container of sugar from the cabinet. The lightness of his laughter was gone as he turned toward me and placed the pair of mugs down on the island.
“Boss.” Moore walked into the kitchen carrying a red tartan blanket.
Summoner took the blanket and walked over to my side of the island.
“Take that coat off.” His order was flat, yet effortlessly impactful.
I slid off the stool. After much bumbling from shivering so hard, I handed over my damp coat to Summoner, who then passed it to Moore.
He left the kitchen with my coat, and I was too cold and confused to ask where it was going.
Summoner unfolded the blanket and reached around me to wrap it over my shoulders.
The tartan was woolier and heavier than expected.
The fabric covered me in its warm embrace.
My mouth fell into a small “O” at the decadence of such a blanket.
But that wasn’t what stopped my shivering.
What froze my body was his hands resting on my shoulders.
I expected him to shake me, to curse me, or threaten me, but nothing of the sort happened.
His hands carefully smoothed over the red fabric.
Even through the weight of the blanket, I could feel the motion of his hands.
He flexed his fingers. His thumbs caressed. His nails dug and picked.
My thighs trembled at the closeness. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at his face.
I stared at his collarbone. A totally inoffensive place to look.
Totally not weird. His neck was ridges of thick muscles and delicately aged skin.
Flesh, veins, muscles, and bones. His Adam’s apple bobbed, the aftereffect of a harsh swallow.
Growing up, I often wondered what rock stars were actually like. Who were these larger-than-life personalities in their quiet moments? Today I learned they used cedar bodywash. A tiny tidbit of information I held close to my chest.
My shallow breaths were enough to smell him, but not enough to fill my lungs.
Just when the rage of breathlessness started its attack, he stepped back.
The moment his hands left my shoulders, my body remembered what coldness was.
Air rushed into my nose, and I attempted to act as if I was unaffected. Summoner handed me a mug.
“Thanks.” My hands circled the warm mug gratefully.
His head nodded in unspoken acknowledgement before grabbing his own mug.
“…Does this mean you let me interview you?” I asked out of nowhere.
My question spilled from my frozen, discolored lips with little thought behind it.
I was discombobulated from the cold and wanted to know why he had invited me in.
Apparently, it didn’t take much to explode my brain, just a mug of tea and a warm blanket.
Summoner rested his hip against the kitchen counter and looked at me appraisingly as he took a long sip from his mug.
My eyes followed the casual up and down movement of his Adam’s apple as he drank.
He lowered his mug, exposing the corners of his mouth lifted in a humorous smile.
“No.”
His answer wasn’t harsh. His tone wasn’t rude. My stomach still dropped.
“We’re going to watch a movie,” he chuckled.
What?
“A movie? Seriously?”
“Yeah, come.”
Summoner led me to his living room. The doorway shared space with an open fireplace.
The room was filled with light even on such a gloomy day.
Floor to ceiling windows ran the length of the room.
Snow whipped by the glass with a magical twirl.
The view was breathtaking. I paused in the entryway just to take it all in.
The view from Jordan’s apartment was shit compared to this.
“Poppy?”
Summoner’s voice snapped me out of my awe.
I stepped into the room. A collection of large canvas paintings transformed the ordinary beige walls.
I couldn’t tell for sure, but if I squinted, one painting looked like a Basquiat.
Another wall housed built-in shelves that were lined with books.
Music biographies, glossy photography books, pocket versions of Shakespeare, even a bodice ripper or two.
In the middle of the room, a gray shaggy rug covered the polished hardwood. On the rug sat a gold, artsy, geometric coffee table, and a massive cream-colored, L-shaped sofa. Summoner sat at one end and, with eyebrows raised, he motioned for me to join him. I swallowed. I didn’t know where to sit.
There’s a proper etiquette to all this, right?
I didn’t want to sit too close and creep him out. But I didn’t want to sit too far away and make him think I hated him.
Ugh…
After an agonizing moment where I thought about where to sit so long my gums started to itch, I decided on a spot toward the middle.
A sigh dug at my throat as I settled on the couch.
It was the perfect mixture of soft and firm.
Summoner grabbed a remote off the table and pressed several buttons, setting off a chain reaction of motion.
With a whoosh, the fireplace started. Then a screen lowered from the ceiling.
As he flicked through the menu, I finally took a sip of my tea.
It had cooled a bit, but was still warm enough to pump heat into my still-frozen system.
The tea was rich with earthy flavors and the tiniest hint of citrus.
I lowered my mug as Summoner pressed play on a movie.
In black and white, the camera panned over from the ocean along a brick road and to the opening of a mine.
A whistle blew, signaling the end of the day.
Yet, in all the chaos of the workday ending, the camera focused on one man.
His hair was wild, and his face was dirty.
But rather than run home like his coworkers, he stood and stared into the distance.
His gaze looked wistful, almost romantic.
After a big gulp of tea, I sat aside my mug and burrowed into the warmth of the blanket.
Settled against the cushions, my body melted into a pool of utter relaxation.
The man on screen sang longingly about being pulled between two worlds, the land and the sea.
His tone, not so much his words, screamed loneliness.
A lonely, sad guy looking for anything in this dark world.
Relatable content.
Suddenly my eyelids were very heavy. The cold paired with the emotional gauntlet I put myself through left me drained. My lids inched down and down and down…
I jolted upright. A mess of uncoordinated limbs, I flailed like a gasping fish out of water. The light from the windows had shifted to the west. The sun was going down. I looked at the screen and the credits leisurely inched their way toward the ceiling.
Oh fuck! I fell asleep!
“Shit! I wanted to know what happened,” I mumbled.
Reality smacked me aside with the weight of a truck.
I wasn’t home. My studio didn’t have floor to ceiling windows and movie screens.
I was in a multimillion-dollar penthouse with my favorite singer, and I’d fallen asleep.
I’d fallen asleep watching a movie with Summoner.
Millions of people would chop off their right arms for such a chance, and I fell asleep. God, I was such a fuckup.
Sheepishly, I glanced over at his spot on the couch. I prayed he had wandered off to do rockstar stuff. But nope, he was still there, long legs stretched out in front of him. He stared at me. Suddenly, my body felt too warm. Drowned in a wave of heat, I shook the blanket off my shoulders.
His eyes. Those same eyes from the album covers and concert DVDs.
Those same eyes I used to daydream about being on me actually were.
His gaze wasn’t heavy with judgment or scorn.
They twinkled. Brilliance in the low light.
The corner of his lips curved up, forcing lines into his cheek.
It wasn’t much of a smile, but his eyes deceived him.
They always did. I amused him. That knowledge made my chest tight.
“…Uh…did the guy go to sea?” The painfully awkward timbre of my voice cut into the silence.
“You’ll have to watch it again sometime. But luckily for you, Poppy, Water at Dawn is one of my favorite movies.”
“Does that mean I can come back another time?” Hope exploded through the tightness in my chest.
He laughed. The sound was a personal handful of confetti tossed overhead.
If…No, when I see him again, I must make him laugh.
“…It’s getting late.” He stood and stretched his arms overhead. “I’ll have Moore take you home.”
Reluctantly, I climbed off the couch and out of the cocoon I’d made from the blanket he’d wrapped me in.
Without looking at me, Summoner led me back to the front foyer.
Moore, FKA Leather Coat Guy, was already waiting with my coat in hand.
I was very thankful for the ride. I wasn’t looking forward to facing the cold again.
I put on my coat and, using the wall for support, I pushed my feet into my boots.
I stood up and looked at Summoner, who stood there watching me with that sparkle in his eyes.
Moore opened the front door and headed toward the elevators.
“Thank you.” I winced at the audible wobble in my voice.
Summoner dipped his head. I took the hint and stepped into the hall to follow Moore when Summoner’s voice followed me.
“Stay warm, Poppy.”
If the furnace that exploded under my cheeks was any indication, I would.