Taking a deep breath, he exhaled it slowly and leaned against the wall, before closing his eyes. The past few minutes had been an absolute whirlwind, and his brain hadn’t quite caught up with everything that had happened yet.
The thought occurred to him that he could just not go back into the kitchen, and avoid the whole situation – and normally, that would be the kind of thing he would do. It wasn’t that different from using his powers to make himself unnoticeable, really, and usually the thought of being stuck in an excruciatingly awkward situation with a stranger was his own personal definition of hell.
But there was just something about Poppy that made him insanely curious to know more about her. And it wasn’t just the fact that she seemed to be immune to his powers, or how beautiful she was – although both of those thingshadpiqued his interest, of course.
Lost in his thoughts, he stared at the bedside table, not paying much attention to what he was looking at – and then he noticed that his phone’s notification light was flashing.
Picking it up, he saw that he had a missed call, as well as a voicemail. Suddenly, he was pretty sure what the message was going to say.
Dialing his voicemail, he listened to the now-familiar voice on the other end.
Hi, Max – it’s Natasha here, from the B&B. I’m so sorry about the short notice, but someone’s just booked the other room that adjoins your kitchen…
Max listened to the rest of the message without paying much attention. If he’d been a more social person, he might’ve had his phone with him while he was eating… but he liked to only use it when absolutely necessary. He wasn’t a technophobe by any means – he’d been running his own blog for years, after all – but he preferred to keep all of that kind of stuff at an arm’s length, instead relying on a good book or his own thoughts to keep his mind active.
In this instance, though, he really would’ve benefited from the heads-up.
In any case, he knew that he was now delaying going back into the kitchen. He wanted to see Poppy, but the thought was also a little overwhelming. Shirtlessly catching damsels in distress wasnotsomething that he did with any kind of regularity, and to be honest, he had no idea how to go about making small talk after that kind of introduction.
Steeling himself, he re-entered the kitchen –
To see Poppy on her hands and knees, wiping up the broken eggs with some paper towel.
“Hey! I said I was going to do that!” he protested, bending down to help, but Poppy waved him back.
“I barged in, made inappropriate comments, and then only avoided smashing my face in because of your amazing reflexes,” she said. “It’s the least I can do.”
“But –” Max protested helplessly.
“No buts,” Poppy said, holding up a handful of paper towel and egg yolk and brandishing it at him like a weapon. “I’ll get egg on you, don’t think I won’t!”
Max held up his hands in surrender, backing off. “Okay, I get it!”
“Good,” said Poppy, and Max shook his head a little as he tried to take the situation in. She was definitely an interesting person.
“I just checked my phone,” Max said as he started straightening out the absolute disaster area that was the dining table. “I’d missed a call from the owners here, saying that there was going to be someone sharing the kitchen after all. Sorry that I was just hanging out like I owned the place. I’ll tidy up here.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” said Poppy as she wiped the floor clean. “If I thought I had a kitchen full of free food to myself, I’d do exactly the same thing. I hate being fully dressed if I don’t need to be.” Her face reddened, and she bit her lip.
The sudden mental image of Poppy lounging around in a barely-closed robe and not much else, feasting messily upon decadent foods, popped into Max’s head and refused to leave.
He coughed, suddenly feeling the need to be sitting down behind the table.
“So, what brings you to Girdwood Springs?” he asked weakly, as Poppy turned around to dump the paper towels in the trash. She stayed facing away from him for a surprisingly long time; when she turned back around, her smile looked a little forced.
“Just taking a little break, since I had some unexpected time off work,” she said breezily, not quite meeting his eyes. “There was a mix-up with my booking and I ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere, but some of the locals were kind enough to help me find this place instead.”
Max could see that she was obviously leaving some parts of her story out, but that was fair enough. As someone who tended to keep his own secrets, he could hardly blame her.
“In any case,” she went on, “I’m glad that I ended up here, rather than at that other place. It’s much nicer.” Her eyes drifted over to the food on the table. “Muchnicer.”
“You must be hungry,” Max said. “Please, sit down.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” She practically fell into one of the chairs, her eyes roving over the massive spread of food, clearly looking for a good place to start. It probably didn’t help that Max had pulled almost everything out of the fridge.
He winced as he took in just how much of a mess he’d made – his quick attempt at tidying had barely made a dent. Originally thinking that he was on his own, he hadn’t bothered with any niceties, reverting to a hands-on enjoyment of his food that was almost primal, gorging himself like a truffle pig.
Could he really be blamed, though, when the food was that damned good? Clearly it wasn’t just the cakes in this town that were way above average – every single thing he’d tried so far was simply amazing, especially the fruits and vegetables, which had had flavors so – sopurethat he’d struggled to get it down into words.
