“Ditto,” she said, still breathing heavily. “In addition to that master’s you’ve got in public relations, do you also have a master’s in dirty talk I don’t know about?”
Rosaline snorted. “Helps to have some really... tempting inspiration.”
Poppy beamed up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’ve ever been calledtemptingbefore.”
“I don’t believe that.” Rosaline sounded aggrieved.
Sweat was beginning to cool on her skin, so she tugged her shirt closed and righted her underwear into place.
“Eh. Believe it.” But it’s not like now was the time or Rosaline was the person with whom to talk about her lackluster love life. Lackluster inmanyaspects of her life, really. She’d already embarrassed herself by dumping her feelings on Rosaline... once? Twice? Three times would just be pitiful. “Anyway, sorry again. For that picture I sent.”
The blades of her ceiling fan whirred noisily.
“What the fuck, Poppy?” Now, there was no mistaking that Rosaline sounded aggrieved. Pissed off, really. “What about the last... god, I don’t know even know how many minutes would make you think you should besorry?”
She shifted uncomfortably, reached for a pillow, and hugged itto her chest. “It was still unsolicited. It’s not what you meant when you asked what I was wearing.”
Even though she wasn’t mad—not about that—it didn’t mean that she might not have been.
“Christ,” Rosaline muttered and blew out a noisy breath. “Okay. Consider this blanket permission to send me as many tawdry photos as you’d like.” She paused. “As long as they don’t have your face in them. Not that your face doesn’t do it for me, but the last thing I need is to get hacked and have a PR crisis of my own making on my hands. Do you know how much grief Lyric would give me? I’d never live it down.”
Poppy pressed her lips into a thin line, biting back a smile. Her bottom lip still stung from biting it, but she didn’t mind, too much. Tomorrow, when it throbbed, she’d think about Rosaline.
Not that she was catching feelings or anything. It would just be a... pleasant, potent reminder of the hottest phone sex of her life.
“I’m going to choose to focus on the fact that you said my face does it for you andnotthat you think I’d ever be stupid enough to send a nude with my face in it via text.”
“You do that,” Rosaline teased. “Though, question—how else would you ever be sending a nude? Carrier pigeon? FedEx overnight?”
Poppy snickered. “Um, it’s called Snapchat?”
“Trust a third-party app with my naked body?” Rosaline scoffed. “I think the fuck not.”
Poppy threw her head back against the pillow, laughing so hard a totally unbecoming snort slipped out. “But first-party apps are totally fair game?”
Rosaline went quiet. “I think someone I know said some risks are worth it.”
Huh. She had said that, hadn’t she? “You might regret that. Giving me permission. I might end up spamming you,” she teased.
“I guess I better charge my vibrator,” Rosaline said, perfectly deadpan. “I should probably go.”
Poppy hugged the pillow tighter, chest constricting. “Right. Sure.”
The couch thing the other night had been a fluke, Rosaline hand-feeding her pizza and holding her. Even though they were a thousand miles away and it made absolutely no sense, Poppy had been hoping for... not the same thing, but maybe something close. That maybe they’d talk for a little while because it turned out talking with Rosaline was pretty fucking awesome, now that she wasn’t railroading her and staring at her like she was some accomplice in a devious scheme to break her surrogate little sister’s heart. Rosaline was funny, quick-witted, and levelheaded in a way that Poppy really admired. And she listened,reallylistened, when Poppy talked. And she hadn’t judged her or made her feel like she was less because of her—
Her heart climbed into her throat.
Shit.
So much for that wholenot catching feelingsthing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do.
“It’s just that it’s getting late,” Rosaline said, and it was probably a figment of Poppy’s overly idealistic imagination, the part of her that had accidentally caught feelings for Rosaline, but she almost sounded remorseful.
“Sure,” she said, trying and probably failing miserably at injecting a little levity into her voice because she might be a great many things, but an actress was not one of them. She sucked at poker too. “Makes total sense. Go. It’s all good.”
It was not all good.
“Lyric has a photo shoot withVoguein the morning and an interview after,” Rosaline said. “It’s a sunrise shoot. Call time is four thirty.”
