“Opal needs an X-ray and an MRI. Last I looked, the delivery app for that has yet to be invented,” Poppy said. “Plus, where she goes, I go. End of story.”
“No car with sirens of any kind,” Opal explained.
“I’ll take you guys,” Decker said.
“That’s a hard no,” Jack said. “All it takes is one fan to see you, one photo of you two out of this place, and TMZ will report that the rules of the show have been broken. It will be devastating for ratings.”
“I know someone at the hospital who works the discreet door that celebrities go through,” Decker said. “It has its own private waiting room, and the staff is beyond discreet.” Jack seemed to think this over. “We’re going with or without your permission. So do you want us pulling up with sirens or…?”
“Then I’m going with you,” Jack said, waving his hands with dramatic flair. “But there are rules. At no time are you allowed to interact with the public, watch television, use a phone, look at a newspaper?—”
“Fine,” Decker said, the picture of calm and control. “But we’re leaving now.”
DIARY ROOM:
Producer: Do you feel guilty misleading Poppy?
Opal: First, they don’t call me Hollywood’s matchmaker for nothing. Plus, who doesn’t like a little romance?
Producer: But she thinks this is a renovation show, not a dating show.
Opal: And who says romance can’t be a fixer-upper. Don’t you see, this house is just a metaphor for two broken people who will rebuild each other. They are fixer-uppers themselves; they are just too proud to admit it. And they are a perfect fit for each other.
Producer: Do you have anything else you want to add?
Opal: Welcome toRomance Renovation!
17
“Why are you here?” Poppy asked.
Wasn’t that the question of the hour. One Decker didn’t have an answer to. He’d just seen Poppy go down and knew there was nothing that was going to stop him from being by her side.
“In case you wanted to throw a board meeting,” he teased.
Poppy looked over from the hospital chair next to him, her big mossy eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion, and she was wearing the saddest fucking smile he’d ever seen.
“We had a board meeting when I didn’t want to get checked out. You kind of hijacked the meeting.”
“Damn straight.”
“I told you it was nothing. Just a few bruises. I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine. In fact, she looked one breath from falling over. And not just from exhaustion but from the kind of fear that only comes when faced with losing a loved one. It was a feeling Decker knew well. The night his dad had the stroke, Decker had sat in a waiting room just like this, anxious to hear from the doctors that everything was going to be okay.
His dad survived, but nothing was ever okay again and heeventually passed on. But Decker had had his family to share the pain. Besides him, Poppy was in the waiting room all alone.
It made him wonder who she had in her life to lean on. By the looks of things, she had no one but Opal and Kiki.
His fingers grazed her cheek as he tucked her hair aside. “You say you’re fine, but I needed a doctor to tell me that.”
“And the doctor confirmed, nothing but a few bruises.”
She looked at the clock on the wall. The sun had long gone down, and still no news on Opal. They’d taken her back for X-rays and now they were just waiting for the doctor.
As promised, Decker’s friend had whisked them through a private entrance and given them their own waiting room. It wasn’t glamorous by any means, vinyl chairs in a muted floral print, sterile white walls, and not much bigger than a bedroom. But it was away from prying eyes and that seemed to pacify Jack, who had Jessika running around trying to get every staff member that came through to sign an NDA while he sat in the corner thumbing through his phone.
“What’s taking them so long?” she asked.
