When a knock comes at my door, I’m so far into my head, I have to claw my way out just to answer it. With a twist of the doorknob, I pull it open to see Poppy in her mismatched pajamas, already braiding her hair.
I love those braids.
And how much I love them is half the problem.
Or none of the problem.
Maybe it’s the solution?
Poppy’s standing there, looking up at me with a question in her eyes. “Sorry, uh, your room or mine?”
She pokes her head into my room and her eyes land on the couch across from the TV. “Your room will work.” She ducks under my arm to the small couch across from the television.When I turn around, she’s sitting cross-legged, finishing the second braid.
That simple move is a string connecting from the center of her chest to the center of mine. The uncertain smile she gives me when she catches me looking tightens that string and reels me in.
“So,” she says.
“So,” I say, sitting on the couch next to her. My weight makes the cushion tilt her toward me, so her knee bumps into my leg.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she says.
I groan, slinging my arm across the back of the couch. “No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no?’” she asks with a giggle that tells me she’s more tired than she let on. “That’s a perfect ice breaker.”
“It’s a terrible ice breaker.”
“Oh really? What’s a better one?”
“How would I know?”
“Stop,” she says. “You’re way too good looking to not have a supply of pickup lines in your back pocket.”
I could quirk my eyebrows up at her calling me good looking, but what she’s saying is too absurd. “Have you met me?”
“You know, I think I have.” Her eyes pick up a hint of mischief. “And I think you’re a secret Casanova.”
I laugh. “No you don’t.”
“I really don’t,” she says, laughing, too. “So how do you meet women? Do they throw themselves at you on the field?”
“Oddly enough, they usually throw themselves at me at church potlucks.”
“Uh, what?”
“It’s a Southern thing. I can’t explain it. You’ll have to come and see one.”
“I don’t know that I’ll be in Mullet Ridge, South Carolina anytime soon.”
My heart thuds harder in my chest. “Why not? You’re currently between jobs, right?”
She blinks three times in quick succession. “Right.”
I shrug. “So?”
“So … you’d want me to come visit you in Mullet Ridge?”
“For the potlucks,” I say, as if either of us believes it. “It’s a cultural experience.”
