“You’re wearing a suit,” she says.
“Yes.”
“To pick me up. From my apartment.”
“Should I not have?”
“No, it’s fine, it’s just—” She gestures at herself, at me, at the general situation. “You look like—like you’re going to a board meeting or something. And I look like I’m going to brunch.”
“You look lovely.”
The words slip out before I can think about what I’m saying. She blinks. Color rises to her cheeks.
“That’s—thank you. That’s very fake-boyfriend of you.”
“I meant it.”
“Right.” She clears her throat. “Do you want to come in? I just need to grab my bag. And maybe change. Should I change? You’re in a suit.”
“You don’t need to change.”
“But—”
“Poppy.” I hold her gaze. “You look perfect. Trust me.”
She stares at me for a moment. Then steps back, waving me inside.
The apartment is small. Studio, technically, though she’s used furniture to create the illusion of separate spaces—a living area with a velvet couch the color of moss, a sleeping nook hidden behind a bookshelf, a kitchen with herbs growing on the windowsill. Every surface holds something: candles, books, framed photos, small ceramic animals that serve no purpose except to exist.
It should feel cluttered, yet it doesn’t. Instead, it feels lived in. Warm in a way I forgot spaces could be.
I haven’t had a home like this in a very long time.
“Sorry about the mess,” she says, though there isn’t one. “I stress-cleaned this morning and then stress-messed it up again.”
“It’s charming.”
“Charming is a nice word for tiny.”
“I meant what I said.” I pause by her bookshelf. The titles are eclectic—romance novels beside business guides beside a thick biography of Marie Antoinette. A photo catches my eye: Poppy with a woman who shares her coloring but not her energy. The sister. Violet. Beside it, a smaller frame holds a picture of an older woman in a garden. Grandmother, I suspect. Kept close. Loved.
“That’s my Nana,” Poppy says, appearing at my elbow. “She passed three years ago. She would’ve hated Preston, by the way. Called it from the start.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She was. She also would’ve had questions about you.”
“What kind of questions?”
Poppy tilts her head, studying me. “Why a man who looks like that—” she gestures at my face, my suit, all of me “—is single. What you’re really after. Whether you’re secretly a serial killer.”
“I’m not a serial killer.”
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say.”
I almost smile. Catch myself. “Fair point. What would convince you?”
“Serial killers don’t usually submit to background checks. Spellbound does those, right?”
