“Wow.” Poppy shook her head.
He could see that she was really impressed. It was funny to him the things that impressed people.
“Um, well, as much as I wouldloveyour help, I don’t even get my keys till Monday at the earliest, so…”
“Okay.”
Her brows furrowed. “You’re staying until Monday.”
“I’m staying through the holidays, maybe longer.”
Her jaw dropped. “Really?”
He nodded.
“What about your job?”
“I decided to change everything.” It was his turn to callback to a conversation from the night they’d met, this time it was when they were talking on her couch.
She smiled. “Yeah, so did I.”
“You bought a house, I’m selling mine,” he told her.
Her eyes widened in shock. “You’re selling your house?”
“The first open house is this weekend.”
Her smile widened even further. “But why hasn’t Frankie or Yaya said anything? Did you tell anyone?”
“No.” As much as he was enjoying this, and he was, helovedit being easy between them again, with no awkwardness, He had to ask, “Why didn’t you respond to my messages?”
“Oh, um…” Poppy licked her lips.
He felt himself already growing hard at just the sight of her tongue. Tonight, seated beside her, had felt like foreplay, the brushes of their arms and legs. The crackle of electric energy exchanging between them. He hadn’t been with anyone since he’d been with her. He’d barely even jacked off. The times he had, she was who he’d been thinking of, so it had felt like it was still her.
She inhaled. “When the woman was in your house and she’d expected you to invite her to the wedding… I didn’t want to be involved in whatever you had going on.”
That was why she hadn’t spoken to him? Because of Emory? These past two months he’d been miserable because of Emory.
He took a step towards her. “I told you she wasn’t my girlfriend.”
Her chin dipped as she nodded, and he heard her swallow audibly. “I know, but she obviously felt like there was something there, so much so she expected you to invite her to a wedding in anotherstate. And that was another reason—you live across the country.”
“Lived,” he corrected.
She lifted her head. “What?”
“Ilivedacross the country.”
“Right.Lived.”
“So, the woman who I haven’t spoken to in months now, who wasn’t my girlfriend and broke into my house, and geography, which is no longer an issue, anything else?”
She bit her lip, then took a deep breath. “And I liked you. A lot.”
Despite having a difficult time reading people, he didn’t have that issue with Poppy. Usually. But at this moment he was unsure why her liking him was a bad thing.
“Are you being sarcastic?”
