To his surprise, she didn’t move. Well, she did fold her arms across her chest in a fuck-off-and-die kind of way. But she was willing to hear him out. “You have thirty seconds.”
“That video was taken in the early stages of my career when the fame and what came with it was all new. I was a stupid kid who made a stupid decision with a consenting, enthusiastic partner. Haven’t you ever made a decision you regretted?”
Her eyes softened a bit, but her stance was still giving clear fuck-off vibes. “I have.”
He felt his chest loosen. Maybe he could fix this and rewind so she was still smiling at him like he was interesting and funny—and not some douche who supposedly screwed his ex on film. “I was really enjoying our night and I’d love to get out of here and explain more.”
He looked around the bar and her gaze followed. He knew the minute she understood that the entire bar had gone silent and all eyes—and a hundred phones—were pointed at them.
Her hands nervously came together in front of her. “I don’t know. I’m not big on chaos, and you’re a chaos agent. Maybe it’s just best if we call it a night.”
She turned to leave again, and again he caught her elbow. “Wait, um…” He stumbled when he remembered he didn’t know her name.
She yanked her arm back. “You don’t even know my name, do you?” she asked, and he remained silent. “Oh my god. Did you even know this was a date?”
“No, but when you clearly thought it was, I didn’t know how to correct you.”
“Maybe by telling the truth.” She shook her head in disgust. “No matter what you say, you’re stillthatguy. Because if you had any respect for me at all, you would have done the hard thing and been honest from the start.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
She waved a hand at the crowd, who were rapt with every interaction they had.
“Well, you screwed that up real good.” She looked at the screen. “Then again it looks like screwing comes easy to you. I would say forget my name, but that won’t be a problem since you never knew it to begin with.”
3
Poppy Hart could DIY herself out of any situation, but she couldn’t DIY herself out of this.
She sat in the study at Stark House, one of the most famous examples of modernist architecture in the ritzy Hollywood Hills, with her mouth agape. Aunt Opal sat innocently crocheting a pair of baby booties to donate to the local pediatric ward.
Her aunt neither crocheted nor liked babies, so something was up. A big something.
“I think I’m going to need you to repeat what you just said,” Poppy said. “Because it sounded a hell of a lot like you saying you wanted to sell this house.”
Opal’s fingers moved faster, as she looped and hooked her way into a guilty rhythm.
At seventy-five, Opal wore age the way other women wore couture—effortlessly and with intention. Her silver hair was swept into a polished twist, her makeup flawless but restrained, the kind that whispered wealth and confidence instead of shouting for attention.
Today she wore a tailored pantsuit in a rich, unapologetic color,sharp lines softened by silk at the collar and statement jewelry chosen with a practiced eye. She looked less like a grandmother and more like a woman stepping onto a red carpet between interviews, elegant and formidable, radiating the unmistakable energy of someone who had lived well, loved hard, and still had plans.
“You can’t be serious. You’ve had this house since before I was born. Stark House is a local landmark. It was built by Pierre Stark, the god of mid-century modern! People come here to see the architecture—study it. Be a part of the history! A part of history that you have been a guardian of for nearly sixty years.”
A part of history that had not only saved Poppy at a time when she’d needed saving the most, but also a part of history that had opened her mind to all the beautiful memories trapped between the walls of a house begging to be preserved for generations to come.
The Stark House wasn’t just glass and steel to Poppy—it was a fishbowl in the sky where she learned to walk, argue, dream, and stand still without ever being alone. Its walls were windows, its ceilings clouds, its nights lit by the hum and glitter of Los Angeles below instead of a night-light.
Most kids had big backyards; she had cityscape. Most kids built forts; she built worlds in her head because privacy wasn’t something you could hang on a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass. The house was beautiful—breathtaking, magazine-famous—but to Poppy, it was a place that taught her early that people can see in, and they assume they know the whole story just because the walls are transparent.
All it needed was a little renovation to bring it back to its original rendering and it would be, once again, perfect.
Opal set the deformed bootie in her lap and reached across to place a supportive hand on Poppy’s knee. “Honey, it’s five bedrooms and three bathrooms. With just me living here, it’stoo much for one person to keep up with. For me to keep up with. I offered it to you, but you refused to take it.”
“Because this is your house. Your retirement.”
“Exactly, and it’s time to move on and let another family take the reins.”
Poppy would love to take those reins. But this house, this location, the unprecedented history, lent itself to a mid-seven-figure listing price Poppy could never afford. Unfortunately, her childhood dreams had a price tag, something she should have seen coming. Twenty-seven-year-old Poppy knew better than to wish, but the little girl who had already experienced so much trauma and loss in her younger years had stupidly held out hope.
