ARLO
You’re very good at pretending not to like me.
It’s almost convincing.
POPPY
I’m not pretending.
He laughs, because she is.
August 9, 2018
Vera S.
What does Poppy WANT? Why is Arlo’s attention so special?
Chapter Twenty-Two
I stood on the edge of my bed, trying to reach the chain for the ceiling fan. When it came to my ideal sleeping conditions, I had always been a ceiling fan princess. The circulation was nice, but the sound was what really lulled me to sleep, and I’d had withdrawals while crashing with Ruby.
“Damn it,” I muttered. I was about three inches too short to reach the chain. I stepped onto the edge of the footboard, testing my weight. I leaned out and up in an effort to make up those three inches, but my socks foiled the plan, and I began to slip, letting out the scream of a woman who was falling to her death.
“Vera!” Eli rushed into the room as I landed on the floor in a heap.
“Ow,” I groaned, both body and ego bruised.
“Let me help you up,” he said.
I rolled over and sat up against the foot of the bed. “I think I’ll just stay down here for a minute.”
“I’ll join you,” he said, and sat down beside me.
I held up my palms to examine and saw that I’d broken the skin against the hardwood floor.
Eli gently took one of my hands and examined the heel of my palm. “Any other scrapes?”
“I can feel a bruise forming on my hip, but other than that, it’s just the sting of embarrassment.”
He stood up and went into our shared bathroom before coming back with a first aid kit. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing to clean.”
“So says the woman with an open wound on her hand. What kind of doctor would I be if I left you unattended?”
With a sigh, I presented my hand to him.
He went in with an alcohol swab, swiping gently against the skin.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the slight sting and instinctively pulled my hand back. But he didn’t let me go, and instead brought my hand close to his mouth and blew on the scrape. His breath was cool as his bottom lip brushed my wrist, and a terrifying thrill raced up my spine.
I watched as he made no effort to pull away at the touch and, instead, concentrated on my hand for a while longer, before peering back to me. “Better?”
With a nod, I licked my lips. One of us needed to say something. To just talk. About anything.
“What were you up to today?” I asked.
He set my hand down on his thigh and searched through the extremely well-organized first aid kit. The faint orange mark from my bingo blotter still lingered on the top of his hand.
