She grins, wicked. "Are you going to finally admit that you moved to this town for a certain firefighter with a stammering problem every time he sees you?"
I throw a stem at her. "I moved here for rest and emotional recovery," I say firmly.
"Uh huh."
"And because I love Erin."
"Totally," she agrees, biting into her pastry. "None of it has anything to do with Cal Holt?”
My stomach drops. Small, involuntary and deeply stupid. I'm choosing to ignore it.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lie, focusing very hard on the dahlias.
"You went nonverbal on a staircase when you met him, Lily," Poppy reminds me, licking icing off her thumb like she's discussing the weather. "I was there."
"I did not go nonverbal. He did."
"You literally froze," she presses, pointing her pastry at me. "Mid-step. I was there."
I line up three dahlias. Trim them at once.
"I paused."
“Shepaused," Erin repeats flatly, and the look she gives Poppy over the roses is criminal.
I set the scissors down with a sigh.
"I'm going to regret moving here, is that it?”
They both grin at me. The exact same grin, which is terrifying because they're not even related.
Last summer, I met said Callahan exactly once, and I had indeed lost myself a little. It was a warm night, my two best friends dragging me out for drinks, when I stopped short on the stairs.
He was coming up, head down, eyes on his phone, but I could see the rest of him—tall, broad, and gorgeous. Then his head came up and he went completely still, and I forgot how stairs worked at the sight of those sea-green eyes.
"Callahan," he had blurted when I had introduced myself, then shook his head like he'd gotten it wrong. "Just Cal. Everyone calls me Cal.”
Hot. Adorable. Stammering through his own name like he'd never said it before.
I remember saying "I'm not everyone" at that and watching him forget how to walk.
We crossed paths a few more times after that. Spoke even less. I went back to Chicago and didn't think about it. Much.
"He's just a person," I say with a shrug. Very casual. Very unbothered.
"A person you haven't stopped thinking about," Poppy sing-songs, grin insufferable.
"I stop sometimes. I sleep," I grin back.
"Do you dream about him?" she asks, leaning forward with way too much interest.
"Goodbye, Poppy."
She cackles, nearly choking on her pastry. Erin covers her mouth, but her shoulders shake.
Poppy's never wrong about this stuff. It's the most irritating thing about her. She can spot a crush from four hundred yards, and mine is right there on the surface, barely hidden. Probably glowing.
He had been an expert at avoiding me after that first meeting. He walked the other way when he saw me on the street once, yet still managed to track my every move across a pub table all night.
