Cash (11:13 a.m.):have fun. don’t do anything i wouldn’t do
Poppy (11:14 a.m.):Considering your track record, that should be a piece of cake??
Cash (11:15 a.m.):??
At exactly 11:59 a.m. on the dot, a mint-colored Chevrolet Corvette that appeared to be in mint condition pulled up to the curb outside of the Beverly Wilshire.
Poppy slid into the passenger seat with a smile. “Nice car. 1956?”
With one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gleaming silver stick shift, Rosaline peered at Poppy over the top of her bright green Bottega Veneta cat’s-eye sunglasses. She looked like an Old Hollywood starlet, curls pinned in place beneath a white silk scarf. “Hello to you too. And I’d say good guess, but I don’t think it was, was it?”
Rosaline’s lips twitched in a smile, and it would’ve been so easy to stretch across the small gap between the seats and find out if they were as soft as they looked.
If kissing were on the table, and it wasn’t.
An ache formed in the tender, fleshy spaces between Poppy’s ribs, but she ignored it, leaning forward and stroking the dash reverently. “Didn’t they only make something like one hundred and fifty of these? In this color, I mean. Cascade green with beige coves?”
Rosaline’s brows rose, impressed, and Poppy’s smile broadened into a satisfied grin. “One hundred and forty-seven, actually. And only one hundred and eleven with a special high-lift camshaft and dual four-barrel carburetors.”
She whistled. No wonder she could feel the engine’s purr in her bones. “Nice.”
Rosaline waited for Poppy to fasten her seat belt before flipping on her left blinker. “I didn’t take you for a car enthusiast.”
She wasn’t. Not really. “My dad loves cars. Classic ones, mostly.”
That she knew anything at all about cars beyond the basics was a credit to her desperate desire to find common ground with her dad, even if it meant forging it herself. After school, she spent time in the detached garage, curled up in a rusty old lawn chair, poring over back issues ofCar and Drivermagazine while her dad tinkered around until Mom yelled at Poppy to do her homework and leave her father alone.
“He a collector?”
“Eh, not unless you count a 1972 Thunderbird he bought off a guy in Coos Bay that turned out to be a total lemon. But he andDillon—my brother—used to fly to Pennsylvania every fall for the, uh, what’s it called?” She snapped her fingers. “Antique Auto Club of America Eastern Meet, I think?”
“Did you ever go?”
“Um, no.” She hoped she was the only one who could hear the decades-old disappointment in her voice, which she tried to cover with a breezy shrug. “It was more of a father-son thing.”
Even though Dillon didn’t know the difference between a carburetor and a clutch plate and had once fried the electrical system in his Kia Forte by trying to jump-start it with the battery connected backward. No hard feelings.
“You know, there’s a big roadster show every February in Pomona.” Rosaline made a left onto Beverly Drive. “Maybe next time you can come with me.”
Poppy turned, seat belt strap biting into the side of her neck. “Wait—really?”
She cursed Rosaline’s sunglasses for making it impossible for Poppy to see her eyes. To gauge what she was thinking. All she saw was surprise splashed across her own face reflected in the mirrored lenses.
“I usually drag Lyric with me,” Rosaline said, by way of explanation. “She couldn’t care less about cars.” She downshifted as the light ahead turned red. “Are you hungry?”
What she really wanted to know was what it meant that Rosaline had invited her to something that was four months away, but sure. “I could eat.”
Erewhon was just around the corner. Overpriced and overhyped as the luxury supermarket was, the weather was perfect for a quick picnic on the grocery store’s patio and the hot bar meant they’d have a plethora of options to choose from. And Poppy honestly wouldn’t mind trying one of those smoothies she kept seeingall over TikTok. The ones made famous by the likes of Hailey Bieber and Bella Hadid and boasted benefits like boosted energy and perfect skin.
Inside, Poppy had to take a second to get her bearings, the store almost as cramped as it was colorful, niche overpriced organic items filling the aesthetically pleasing, Instagrammable shelves.
“Meet you at the café?” Rosaline asked, reaching past her for a basket, fingers brushing Poppy’s hip in the process, the touch of her hand fleeting, gone before Poppy could press into it the way she wanted, the way she would’ve if she’d had the chance. If they weren’t in public, where anyone could take a picture and post it on the internet. “I just need to grab something first.”
Rosaline disappeared down one of the too-narrow aisles to the left and Poppy set off in the opposite direction.
There were items here she had never heard of. Pure luna sea moss gel and purified reverse osmosis hyper-oxygenated water. Truffle-infused hot sauce and hump fat made from the humps of wild camels, which was apparently an actual thing people ate. Supplements and adaptogens and—what the hell were nootropics? She snapped a few pictures of the most bizarre items to send to Cash before joining the line for the café behind a guy who looked a little like Jesus. If Jesus were white and wore $750 Ferragamo slides and Loewe pave crystal sunglasses indoors and talked too loud into the latest model of an iPhone.
“Can you believe the bitch is actually suing me?”
