Who was Poppy Peterson anyway?
College had been a breath of fresh air, granting her the freedom to figure out who she was without all the bullshit artifice getting in her way, without worrying constantly what everyone thought of her. Classes had been challenging, work-study jobs had kept her busy, and the campus had offered a plethora of clubs, all opportunities for her to discover the beat of her own drum and learn to dance to it. Life had been good, and she had been happy, and then she’d graduated and got a job working at a midsize PR firm in Portland, which had been fine, and reconnected with a few old classmates, which had been... less fine. Overnight, it had been like all the work she’d done on herself was erased and she was right back in high school, feeling wrongfooted and second-guessing her every move. Only this time, she had all the responsibilities that came with being an adult. All the stress.
Suddenly, Poppy had been unmoored. Cash, her best friend and the only person she’d never felt like she had to fake it around, was in Seattle, playing for the Seahawks. She was lonely and—it wasn’t an excuse—she fell into some really terrible habits. A glass of wine to unwind after work all too easily became a bottle, and a beer with friends meant blacking out. Soon, she hadn’t been able to function without a drink, a little something to take the edge off and relieve the near constant stress she was under. Stress that, in hindsight, was mostly of her own making.
The after-work and weekend drinks turned into a splash of vodka in her morning cappuccino and that splash became a shot and that shot became a heavy-handed pour that had her slurring in a meeting, and suddenly, Poppy was packing up her desk, fired. She’d gone to a local bar and—she’d already fucked up, why not drown her sorrows and numb the pain?
She’d woken up in the hospital missing the last twelve hours. Her parents had been called, her emergency contact, and they’d looked at her with such abject disappointment, as if they didn’trecognize her. Not much of a shock considering they hardly ever spoke and when they did the conversations were little more than perfunctory, surface-level “how are you?” questions that were never intended to be answered honestly or deeply, Poppy already too much of a burden by simply existing, let alone requiring actual nurturing.
The real problem was that Poppy hadn’t been able to recognize herself. She’d needed help, help that Cash had been eager to provide when he heard through the grapevine, from his grandparents, that she’d been in the hospital and later, when she spilled her guts to him on the phone and he learned the full extent of how not okay she was. He’d gotten on the first flight he could, helping her pack a bag and bringing her back to Seattle with him. A few short months later, Cash was the first player selected in the NFL’s expansion draft and they were headed back to Portland. He’d needed a new publicist, Poppy had desperately needed a job, and the rest was history.
Cash was her rock, picking her up when she was at her lowest and helping her put herself back together, giving her a job and a place to live, helping her find a purpose. He’d saved her life and she’d never stop owing him for that.
So she understood his concern, but this wasn’t history repeating itself. Approval wasn’t what she was seeking from Rosaline or anyone else. She wasn’t trying to be someone she wasn’t, only the best version of herself. Whatever that looked like.
“It’s not like that. I’m not tying myself in any knots, promise. I just—” She blew out her breath. Right now Cash was looking at her like he didn’t quite believe her. “Do you remember how nervous you were before your first training camp?”
At three in the morning, he had called her, too keyed up to sleep. She’d kept him company all night, distracting him byforcing him to quiz her for her Gender, Media, and Diversity midterm.
He chuckled under his breath. “I thought I was going to hurl.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think I did, actually.”
“You knew you were good, that you were a first-round draft pick for a reason. But you wanted the coaches and the other guys who’d been playing for longer to see that you were good. You wanted them to give you a slap on the ass and tell you,Good job out there, Curran.”
Cash burst out laughing. “Way to make it sound homoerotic.”
She raised both brows.
“Okay, fine,” he conceded, tipping his head. “It’s a little homoerotic.”
“Thank you.”
“So what you’re saying is, you want Rosaline Sinclair to smack you on the ass and tell you you’re doing a good job?” He smirked. “Sounds kinky.”
Her cheeks burned. “No, but she’s the best of the best at what she does. She’s the GOAT. It would be like if... Johnny Unitas told you that you played a great game.”
“Johnny Unitas died in 2002, Pop. If he told me I played a great game I’d get my head checked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, it would be like if, God, I don’t know, Peyton Manning told you that you played your ass off on the field. You’d have no doubt that you’d played a great game.”
Unlike Cash, Poppy wasn’t a first-round draft pick. Not even close. She’d been the equivalent of a free agent, hired only because Cash had needed someone, and she was there, with the bare minimum qualifications required to do the job. She didn’t have a track record of being great, just a burning desire to be more than a pity hire.
So, no, it wasn’t about approval or jumping through hoops to prove herself to Rosaline; it was about affirmation. She didn’tneedRosaline or anyone else to tell her she was doing a good job. She just really,reallywanted to hear it so that maybe that awful, insidious little voice in her head, the one that whispered that just because she hadn’t yet didn’t mean she still might not fuck up Cash’s career the way she had her own, would shut the hell up for once. She hated that voice, would drown it if she could because... sometimes she worried it would drown her. The ultimate kill or be killed battle, only it was her against herself.
“I get it.” The corner of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile. “There’s nothing wrong with having a praise kink.”
A—seriously? “Why are you so obsessed with my sex life?”
“How can I be when you don’t have one?”
She set the glass down on her nightstand and snatched the nearest pillow, whacking Cash in the face. “This is bi-on-bi crime.”
He snickered and stole the pillow. “Oh come on. I don’t hear you denying it.”
“I am a professional.”
“A professional what?” he teased. “Simp?”
Without her pillow, she had to resort to using her fists, punching him in the shoulder.
