‘Come in, Poppy,’ Nina prompted gently.
Poppy opened the door and walked in, a hairbrush in her hand. Her big brown eyes narrowed in on Markus sitting on the bed, close to Nina.
‘Is she gonna laser vision me to death?’ he whispered.
Nina introduced him. ‘This is Markus.’
Poppy didn’t say hi. She asked, ‘Is he your boyfriend?’
‘No. He’s mybestfriend,’ Nina replied, hoping to ease Poppy’s mistrust. ‘He came to visit me for the weekend.’
Poppy stopped a few feet in front of them, but she didn’t take her eyes off Markus. ‘Do you know the bad man?’
‘The bad man?’ Markus looked at Nina in question.
‘Oh.’ Nina’s heart hurt at Poppy’s anger on her behalf. ‘Markus is the one who saved me from the bad man,’ she hurried to explain. She turned to Markus. ‘The attacker,’ she explained.
Poppy seemed to consider this new information for a moment before nodding. ‘My dad’s not gonna let the bad man come here.’
Markus only raised both his brows in Nina’s direction, said, ‘Girl.’
‘I know,’ Nina replied.
‘If I don’t have ovaries, I just grew a pair,’ he muttered. But he turned back to Poppy. ‘Lady, I like your outfit.’
Poppy looked down at her white dress and brown cowgirl boots. ‘It’s my favourite.’ She shook her long hair back, said, ‘I dressed myself.’
‘Okay, diva. You have style.’ He made a twirling gesture with his finger, and when Poppy instinctually twirled, Markus clapped his hands. ‘Gorgeous!’
Nina looked down at her phone, noted it was near six o’clock. ‘Where are you going all dressed up?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Poppy laughed. ‘I was supposed to ask you if you wanted to come to the barbecue with us.’
Nina opened her mouth to refuse. Just the idea of all those people made her feel queasy.
But Markus didn’t give her a chance. ‘We would love to! Especially if we get to dress up too!’
Poppy beamed at him. ‘It’s fun. And there’s dancing and music and food,’ she added in her sing-song voice.
‘My three favourite things,’ Markus declared.
‘Mine too!’ Poppy laughed, immediately forgetting her initial scepticism.
Nina sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she would be attending her first resort event. She saw the hairbrush in Poppy’s hand, noticed that her hair was still slightly damp from being freshly washed. ‘Did you want me to re-braid your hair?’
‘Yeah. The French braid.’ Poppy passed her the brush and knelt on the floor between Nina’s knees without being prompted.
Nina stoically ignored Markus’s shocked silence and instead focused on Poppy. ‘What about a waterfall braid?’
Poppy angled her head back. ‘What’s that?’
Nina pulled up a picture on her phone and showed it to Poppy.
The five-year-old stared at her with big eyes. ‘You can do that?’ she asked, her tone reverent.
‘I usually only do it in my hair, but I can try if you want?’
Poppy nodded eagerly.
