“Well, thank you for coming to my rescue,” he said, as he pulled a few basil leaves off the plant and arranged them on the plates – hopefully he wouldn’t manage to messthatup too badly.
“Think nothing of it,” she said with a smirk, leaning over more than was strictly necessary as she served up the eggs.
“You’re enjoying tormenting me, aren’t you?” he murmured, and her attempt at an innocent expression couldn’t hide the impish grin that pulled at the corners of her mouth.
“Perhaps,” was all she said in reply, and as she poured the coffee – which had probably been brewing way too long at this point – he ducked into his apartment to grab a clean towel and robe, and try to get himself under control.
Not that it was worth the effort, because he couldn’t get the image of Poppy in the apron out of his mind – and it just got even worse when he got back to the kitchen. She clearly had no intention of getting herself decent, and so he did the only thing he could do, which was put the towel down on her chair so thatat least she had somewhere clean to sit, before draping the robe over the back of the chair in case she got cold.
“A man after my own heart,” she said, eyeing off the towel as she brought the coffee over. “I have to respect a guy who respects his accommodations.” Her smile turned devilish. “Well. Mostly. I don’t know if the bed is ever going to recover.”
“I guess we’ll have no choice but to run some tests,” he said mildly, trying like hell not to look like he was two seconds from sweeping everything off the table and ravaging her right then and there.
“For science,” Poppy agreed.
“Anyway,” said Max, pointing at her, “you sit down. This was supposed to be a surprise breakfast in bed – the least you can do is let me finish bringing it to you.”
“Oh, all right, if you insist,” Poppy said, smiling as she sat down.
“I do,” Max said, and brought her over her plate.
***
One of the many things that Max liked about Poppy, he had discovered, was that she didn’t talk just for the sake of talking, or do things just for the sake of doing them. She was apparently quite content to just hold his hand and wander through the snowy woods with him, occasionally pointing out a bird or plant, or exclaiming at animal tracks in the snow.
The downside to this, however, was that when shedidwant to talk about something, she grabbed on to the topic like a terrier and wouldn’t let go.
Like now, for example. She had brought up the topic of her unexpected and utterly unfair unemployment situation, which still made his blood boil in fury. Although he had made it clear toher that he cared for her whether or not she had a job, he could justtellthat at least half the reason she had brought the subject up was, in fact, because she wanted an excuse to do some digging aroundhisemployment situation.
And he knew that he would have to tell her at some point that he was, in fact, the fabled Aubrey Z. Sooner, rather than later. But he just wasn’t sure how to go about it, especially given that whole farce where he’d panicked and slandered Aubrey Z.’s good name. She would laugh herself silly, and rightly so. Maybe he would just have to slick back his hair, grow a pencil mustache, and put on a cravat, and leave her to connect the dots.
He sighed internally. There was no way around it – no matter how she found out, it was going to take a while for him to live it down.
Still, maybe he could build up to it. There was plenty of other weirdness in his life that she would need to know about, so maybe he could satisfy her curiosity for now by letting her know about something else. Being a secret food critic would probably seem very mundane and uninteresting if he led withHey, did you know my mother can turn into a lion? Not me though, just my mother. But don’t worry, she definitely won’t eat you.
He grimaced a little.
Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be good to bring up that her potential future mother-in-law can turn into a flesh-eating queen of the jungle.
But there were other things too – Poppy might be interested in the fact that he had the ability to make himself become imperceptible when he so chose… though she would probably have a tough time believing that one, given that his powers didn’t seem to work on her at all. Really, she would probably think it was all veryconvenient– couldn’t shift, couldn’t make her forget his presence, and couldn’t even do anything to provethat he was Aubrey Z., and yet he’d be expecting her to take all of those things on faith.
In the end, all he could do was try. And he wasn’t sure where he was actually going to start.
“My dad left when I was four,” he said, surprising himself. And Poppy too, if her raised eyebrows were anything to go by – but then her face shifted into an expression of understanding.
He had no idea of what he was going to say next, but already there was a wave of relief sweeping over him, relaxing muscles he’d had no idea were even tense. He’d never discussed any of this with anyone outside of his family, and the idea of having a relatively neutral party to talk to about it was outside of his experience.
Beyond all of that, though, he knew that Poppy would listen, and not judge.
Encouraged, he continued talking as they meandered through the forest, not thinking too hard about what he wanted to say. “He just walked out one day. Said that he had to leave and couldn’t explain why, but he’d make sure me and my mom were provided for.”
“‘Provided for?’” Poppy asked, looking confused.
“He left us with some money,” Max said, before clarifying. “Quite a bit of money, actually. Enough that we could get by without any trouble.”
Poppy blinked, before seeming to choose her words carefully. “He sounds like a… complex person.”
Max smiled a little, feeling lighter than he had a minute ago, even as the old pain resurfaced. “Yeah, you could say that. The only memories I have of him before he left are good memories. It makes things difficult.”
