Page 14 of Working For Her Curves

“I’m going to ask her.” I pull my hands from my pockets and pick up a loose stake, turn it end over end. “For real. Not the bullshit we’ve been doing where we both pretend we’re not planning past next week. I want to tell her I’m staying and ask her to stay with me.”

“Damn.” Noah’s eyebrows go up and he tilts his head. “That’s—yeah, that’s big. I honestly never thought you’d say something like that.”

“She’s not like other women.” I throw the stake and it spins and sticks in the dirt twenty feet away. “She makes me want to stay and build a life here. I thought she was like other women I’ve dated, but she has more depth and just…I don’t know how to say it. She continually surprises me, and the more she does, the more I need more of her.”

“You sure about that?” Noah asks, shielding his eyes against the sun.

“Absolutely.” The honesty comes out easier than I expect. “I’m done being the guy who leaves first because leaving first hurts less. I’m all-in for her.”

“So you’re in love with her.”

The stake snaps in my hand. I hadn’t put words to my feelings, but I realize Noah is right. I do love Poppy. Imagining a life without her is physically painful.

I’m halfway across the lot to Dale’s trailer, trying to practice how to ask her to stay, when I hear them through the open window. Dale and Poppy talking.

“Have you thought more about staying?”

“I’m not sure.” My boots stop on the gravel. “Maybe. I’m still thinking about it.”

Still thinking about it. My hands ball into fists at my sides. I know that sentence. It’s the exact careful tone women use when they’ve already decided but don’t want to admit they’re letting you down. It’s a fake gentleness that has more cruelty than just saying no. Sarah said we’ll see three days before the moving boxes were delivered. Kim said let’s not rush anything the week she’d already booked the interview in Chicago. And Poppy is saying maybe to Dale right now, while I’ve been planning a future with a woman who’s clearly got one foot out the door.

The words I was practicing sour in my mouth. I feel like a man who just handed the woman he loves the exact tool they need to take him apart.

I stand in the door and Poppy looks up and her expression changes. I sit down and open my copy of the binder and I don’t look at her. Twenty minutes ago I was going to ask this woman to build a life with me. Now it’s painful to look at her.

“Glad you’re here, Marty. I was just telling Grandpa that we’ve worked out the issue,” she says, then turns back to Dale. “The timeline starts in March, when a new contact took over at Green Valley. Guy named Rawlins.”

“Every invoice since then runs three to six days ahead of delivery.” My voice is flat and professional and nothing like the man who had his mouth on her neck twelve hours ago. “None of the quantities match. They’re all ten to twenty percent over.”

Dale’s jaw hardens. “How much total?”

“Fourteen thousand.” Poppy hands Dale a page with all the details.

Dale reads it, his thumb pressing white against the edge of the page. “Fourteen thousand dollars. From my own supplier.”

“The pattern’s clean,” Poppy says. “No ambiguity.”

“I can see that.” Dale’s voice goes low and flat. “I’ll handle Rawlins and Green Valley. Personally.”

Poppy opens her mouth and Dale raises one hand, and she closes it. “You did good. Both of you.” Dale leans back. “One more thing—Marty, your contract wraps end of August, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Buddy of mine in Laramie is looking for a framer. Big residential project, good money, starts next month, before the weather turns.” He takes a drink of his coffee. “Want me to put your name in?”

Three hours ago I could see a house on Forge Creek Road. I could see Poppy at the kitchen table. And my mouth opens and what comes out is, “Yeah. Put my name in for that.”

Poppy turns quickly and stares at me with a face so deliberately blank it unnerves me.

“Good deal.” Dale reaches for his phone. “I’ll call him tonight. Good job, you two. You did good work. Knock off early if you want, Marty. Poppy, I’ll see you later at home.”

We walk out into the late-afternoon light and she’s through the door three strides ahead of me, pace hard and fast and aimed at the parking lot like she can’t get away from me fast enough.

“Poppy.”

“Don’t.” She doesn’t even look at me and she sure as hell doesn’t slow down.

“Poppy, stop.”