Page 12 of Her Age Gap Match

But…I wasn’t smart.

Not when it came to Poppy Hayes.

I looked at the email one more time. She’d included her phone number at the bottom of the email, right beneath her name. No Bloom Agency signature.

This wasn’t coming from Sophie or from Bloom.

This was coming from Poppy specifically.

I added the number to my contacts and sat at the counter for what felt like a very long time. Then I got up…put my phone in my pocket, went to look out the window. The neighborhood was waking up slowly; a frazzled-looking young man was walking his dog down the street, rubbing his eyes, hugging his coat around him. It looked like it would snow soon, maybe.

I pulled my phone out again.

Stared at Poppy’s name.

JOHNNY

Poppy—this is Johnny Lawson. Happy to meet. Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.

I hit send before I could think about it too hard.

I put my phone back in my pocket and watched the dog walker disappear around the corner. The young man had given up hugging his coat and just looked resigned to the cold, which felt like the right attitude for Chicago in November.

But I wasn’t thinking about some stranger outside.

I was thinking about Poppy and her wild red hair and the listing bouquet of flowers and the crooked buttons on that too-tight shirt.

I was forty-five. I had spent ten years learning patience the hard way and fifteen more choosing it, and I knew better than most people what it meant to do something you couldn't take back.

I also knew what 3:17am meant. I knew what a personal email address meant. I knew what Jasper Ellison has observations meant from a gmail account called poppyflower98—born in 1998, most likely, because that was what kids born in the internet age did when they were making throwaway email addresses.

She was twenty-six years old.

I was forty-five.

The math wasn't complicated.

But I still got this little thrill when my phone buzzed…when it was a text from her, faster than I’d ever expected, when I could feel her smile through those few words.

POPPY

Great! How about The Perch in Lakeview? 10am today work?

Today. Shit. She was moving fast.

The whole damn thing was moving fast…and I knew I shouldn’t say yes, but I did it anyway.

JOHNNY

Sounds good. See you then.

Sure, I had a meeting at noon. Yes, this was a horrible fucking idea.

But it was happening.

And I needed to get dressed and get a move on if I was going to make it to Lakeview in time.

CHAPTER 5