“Do I?” I lean in, brushing my lips over hers. She tastes like coconut lip balm and smells like sugar. “Maybe I should do it again, just so I’m sure we’re on the same page.”
She laughs, stepping away before I can kiss her properly. “I am going riding, but note it’s against my will.”
“Get mixers on the way back!” Hazel calls.
When she’s gone, Owen fixes me with a long, deliberate look. “I see your taste for fine things hasn’t diminished.”
I head to the walk-in to make sure we aren’t missing anything essential. Owen just follows me inside.
“What?” he says, at my glower. “It’s obvious. I’m surprised you’d risk it with another nepo baby, that’s all.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“I do like her. But you do realize this feels just like Jessica, right? I mean, they even look alike.”
The fact that Jessica and Poppy have similar looks hasn’t escaped me. Chester teased me about it ages ago at Salty Joe’s, after all. “She’s nothing like Jessica.”
“You know what these rich types are like. One minute they’re interested, the next, you’re nothing to them. They always end up going for someone in their own circle.”
Before Poppy, I’d have agreed immediately. We’d have laughed about it. But I know Poppy, and unless she missed her calling as an actress, there isn’t a disingenuous bone in her body. She simplyis, flawed and real and vibrant. Jessica couldn’t hold a candle to her.
“She’s different.” I give Owen a look. “And what about Mateo? You met him on one of your yachting jobs, right?”
Owen holds up his hands in surrender. His hands are a chef’s hands, like mine and Hazel’s and even Herman’s: calloused and scarred, holding enough muscle memory to cook blindfolded. “Fair. Sometimes there are exceptions. But her family is coming to opening night, right? Do they know? It’s pretty easy to see that you’re in deep.”
I swallow, hard. The thought of seeing Poppy’s family again, after everything that has happened between us, sets off alarm bells in my head. I can’t imagine any of them being thrilled to see Poppy move on to yet another guy so quickly. Especially since that guy is me.
But I’m not convinced either of us can let this go, either.
“Chef?” Hazel pokes her head into the walk-in. “Chester says there’s a delivery. Dairy, looks like.”
“Awesome. Thanks.” I stride past Owen, grateful for the distraction.
Chapter 37
Pub Subs
Poppy
Chester sweeps into the room, tray in hand. “Margarita?”
“That’s what you thought would go with a Pub sub?” Jack asks, voice tinged with amusement.
“Everything goes with Pub subs,” Kiara says, joining us in the living room with another tray piled with sandwiches and chips. We brought them over, Kiara and I, in lieu of a proper dinner, after standing on a hellishly long line in the deli section of Publix.
“I still don’t get it,” I say, reluctantly taking the margarita Chester’s holding out to me. It’s a fifty-fifty shot on whether the tequila will make me feel more or less anxious about tomorrow. Riding a horse—a sweet old gal named Meadow—alongside Kiara this afternoon was amazing, but it didn’t do much to dampen my nerves. “What’s so special about them?”
“It’s unexplainable,” says Chester.
“Magical, really,” Kiara adds. She throws Jack a look. “I still can’t believe you’ve lived somewhere without Publix this long.”
“Neither can I,” Owen says, from his place on the couch next to Mateo. Mateo, so far, seems shy, but Hazel has already declared that she’s going to coax him into dancing with her at some point tonight. I get the sense that Owen is the more exuberant one in their relationship.
Jack peels himself away from the wall, coming to my side. “It’s been difficult, but I’ve persevered.”
“You, too?” I give him wide, betrayed eyes.
He snorts. “Just try a bite.”
