No one’s there. I double check the room anyway, peering into the closet and underneath the bed. A large cockroach skitters across the floor. I step on it before it can escape.
There’s only one door left. Must be the bathroom. I yank it open, mind filled with images of Poppy held hostage, fear in her big blue eyes and a meaty hand clasped over her mouth.
She’s in the corner of the bathroom. Alone.
And she promptly starts screaming.
“What? What?” I whirl around, ready to fuck up whoever’s behind me.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You have aknife!”
“Damnit, where’s the guy, Poppy?”
“You’re actually holding a huge ass knife right now. Oh my god.” She clutches her chest, as if I’m the madman in this situation. “What thefuck, Jack?”
“You told me someone broke into your apartment. What was I going to do, bring a spatula?”
“Knowing you, you could commit murder with a spatula,” she mutters.
I shut my eyes briefly. “What the hell is going on? Did he leave? Did you call the police?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a slinky, baby blue nightgown that leaves little to the imagination when it comes to her tits. Wet hair curls down her back. “There.”
I look over my shoulder. “Where?”
“He’s right there!” Her arms wrap around me, squeezing tight. She peers over my shoulder. I catch a whiff of her rosemary and mint shampoo and stiffen. “See?”
“What...” My eyes follow where she’s pointing. “Thecockroach?”
“It’s an infestation!”
I nearly drop the knife. “You’re kidding.”
“Why would I—oh, you killed him already?”
“Poppy.” I drag my hand down my face. My heart, still racing, calms down slightly. It’s a struggle not to pay too much attention to the way she’s pressed against me, warm and a little damp. “You called me because you saw a cockroach?”
“He was terrifying! And huge!” She loosens her grip on me. I watch, rubbing my chest, as she pokes around the bedroom. “There are others, I swear.”
I don’t know whether to strangle her or hug her. Maybe both. “How do you know he’s a boy?”
My mouth goes dry at the sight of her bent over a chair, bottom in the air. Fuck, she’s wearing a little white thong. That image is going to be burned into my brain for eternity.
She straightens with a shudder, oblivious to the way I’m staring. I need to focus. “I can just tell.”
“You said, ‘He’s here.’ I thought you had astalker. Someone who wanted to hurt you.”
She lets out a shaky breath. I notice, for the first time, that she really had been crying. She didn’t call me to pull a prank or act like a brat. It might’ve just been a cockroach or two, but the fear in her voice was real.
I heave a sigh. “Come here.”
She gives me a wide-eyed look, yet shuffles closer. I reel her into a hug, my palm cradling the back of her head. My pulse jumps at the way her face presses against my neck. She sniffles wetly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice hitching. “I totally flipped out.”
