AJ:412 Aspen Trail Drive
Less than a second later he received a response.
Niko:Ohhh, someone’s fancy.
AJ, Niko, and Frankie used to ride their bikes in the Hope Falls Hills, where Aspen Trail Drive was located, and talk about how they would have a house there someday. Well, Niko and Frankie would talk about it. AJ never said much. He’d always planned on buying a home close to Papou and Yaya.
He climbed behind the wheel and looked up. When he did, he saw his grandmother putting the flowers in a vase. It was strange to see another man in the kitchen with her. A man who wasn’t Papou. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but he did know he was happy for Yaya. And he knew Papou wouldn’t want her to be lonely. But it was still strange.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one having a fresh start.
16
Hope Falls Hillswasn’t a neighborhood Poppy could have picked out on a map or even pictured in her mind, but she’d heard the name often on homegrown realty podcasts, in real estate Google ads, and of course, on the streaming juggernautHome Sweet Vacation Home, which was like the dopamine delivery vehicle for anyone with a weakness for aspirational home porn. A spinoff of the originalHome Sweet Home, it featured impossibly sparkling families in even more impossible houses, the kind with wine cellars, indoor swings, and wet bars built into the main suite closets. She’d always assumed those were staged, rented for the season by whichever influencer the network was trying to promote. Apparently some of them were real. Apparently some people in Hope Falls actually lived like that.
She pulled to a stop and idled at the address she’d been given, marveling at the modern Mediterranean mansion with its movie-set stucco and tiled roof. Before she could even shift into park, a blur of motion burst from the front door. Tabitha, a human confetti storm at age five, tore across the grass with her loose curls bouncing behind her. If Poppy blinked, shewould have missed the flash of a pink bunny hoodie, a Hello Kitty backpack, iridescent mermaid scale leggings, and a manic smile that looked like it could power an entire grid of the Sierra Nevada. Deacon strode after his daughter at half the velocity with a kind of athletic grace, like a minor league pitcher warming up between innings. He stayed just outside the blast radius of his daughter’s enthusiasm and managed to look both weary and amused. He wore a dark gray Henley and jeans and looked like he’d just stepped out of a Patagonia ad.
Tabitha skidded to a halt beside the car, causing her blonde curls to fall into her face. She pushed them off, revealing impossibly blue eyes with a kind of all-at-once openness that could be dangerous in adulthood but was angelic for now. Her voice was pitched at a frequency high enough to shatter glass. “Miss Poppy! You’re here! You’re really here! You are going to live with us!”
Poppy couldn’t help but be charmed by the tornado in cosplay leggings. She stepped out of the car, and Tabitha launched herself onto her, wrapping her arms tightly around Poppy’s waist as she repeated, “You are going to live with us!”
“I know!”
“In the house behind ours,” Deacon corrected his daughter. His voice was even deeper than she remembered, but not in the “I’m going to intimidateyou,” way, more like, “I just spent three years reading bedtime stories in a whisper.” “Sorry for the ambush,” he said, flashing an apologetic grin. “She’s been watching for you all afternoon. Probably would have camped out on the curb if I let her.”
“No worries.”
“You want me to show you your house?” Tabitha released her hold and began bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Sure.” Poppy agreed.
“Can I show you my room first? Please?” She folded her fingers together.
Poppy looked up at Deacon, who shrugged in the universal sign of “it’s up to you.”
“I would love that.” Poppy barely got the words out before she was being tugged up the stone path, past manicured topiary and strings of solar fairy lights that gave the place a storybook glow.
The main house was bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. The entryway had a custom-tiled staircase wide enough for a marching band, and the ceilings soared high enough to echo. There was a grand piano in the foyer and a Rottweiler who sat lounging like minor royalty on a Turkish rug. “Who is that gorgeous puppy?” Poppy asked.
“That’s King Rocco!” Tabitha ran up and collapsed against him.
“Can I say hi?” she asked Deacon.
“Of course.” Deacon made a clicking noise with his mouth and Rocco stood and walked to Poppy.
“He was on place,” Tabitha explained to Poppy. “It’s like timeout but he wasn’t in trouble.”
“Oh my goodness, what a good boy.” Poppy bent down and gave Rocco scritches on his face and behind his ears. He panted and looked like he was smiling up at her. “You are so handsome, yes you are. What a handsome boy.”
Poppyalwayswanted a dog, but she’d been at her bungalow for ten years, and her landlord wouldn’t allow her to have pets. She’d considered moving several times just so she could have them, but with her long hours, ten to twelve hour days, she just didn’t think it was fair to an animal.
Whenever she needed a fix, she went to her sisters houses and played with their dogs, and most recently, Liam’s house.He rescued an Irish Setter named Lucy. Actually, the dog just showed up on his back deck, so Lucy rescued herself.
“Come on, let’s go see my room!” Tabitha enthused.
“Right, sorry.” Poppy apologized for getting sidetracked and gave Rocco a kiss on the forehead before returning her attention to the tour.
They continued on, Tabitha proudly guided Poppy around her room complete with a loft playhouse bed, a slide to get down, an indoor swing, and a rainbow and butterfly mural painted on one wall. Poppy was appropriately impressed by Tabitha’s Barbie and Paw Patrol collections, extensive princess costume wardrobe, and bookshelves filled with over two hundred classics she was excited to revisit and new stories she’d not even heard of. When they went back downstairs, the girls found Deacon in the kitchen, which looked like a chef’s wet dream. Gleaming steel commercial-grade appliances, a fridge that was larger than Poppy’s childhood bedroom and waterfall marble that stretched as far as the eye could see. Beyond that was a massive living space with what had to be 40-foot ceilings arranged around a monolithic stone fireplace with built-ins on both sides.
