Page 33 of Her Age Gap Match

I pulled my bike around to the alley behind her place, climbed the same stairs I'd watched her go up that first day after we met at The Perch. I'd barely even knocked when the door swung open and she reached out to pull me inside, scanning for anyone who might be watching.

I didn't think anyone at Bloom was the type to do surveillance…but I was starting to have my doubts.

“Sorry,” Poppy muttered, walking away from me toward the kitchen. “I'm just…ugh. I don't want anyone to see us⁠—”

She had a bottle of white wine on the counter, something cheap, and she poured a glass too full. Her cheeks were flushed; this wasn't her first glass.

“Do you want some?” she asked.

I shook my head, walking inside slowly, my helmet tucked under my arm.

“Nah, I'm good.” I paused. “You really think she's keeping an eye on you?”

“More like—” Poppy paused. “She just knows things. She always knows things and it’s kind of terrifying.”

“She does sell herself as understanding people,” I shrugged.

“And that’s so cool when you’re not trying to keep secrets from her.” Poppy groaned and gulped down some wine. I moved toward her—carefully set my helmet on the counter top in her small kitchen, then took the wine out of her hands.

She let me. Effortless, just…falling into me, looking up at me.

I took her face in my hands.

“The answer is simple,” I said. “You get in trouble…I take the heat.”

She shook her head. “But I started all of this.”

“Actually, your co-worker started all of this,” I said. “Jasper…?”

She let out a short laugh despite herself. "Jasper," she confirmed.

"Right." I stroked my thumb across her cheekbone. "So the way I see it, the culpable parties are Jasper, who ran an unauthorized report, and me, who asked the assistant to dinner after receiving said report. You were just—the person the report was about."

"I sent the email," she said. "I set up the meeting."

I gazed into her eyes…searched for what was really going on here.

“And you don’t want to be dishonest with her,” I said. “Because it’s not right.”

“Not just that,” she said. “Also—you spent too many years taking the fall for someone else. I won’t let you take the fall for me.”

I couldn’t help but kiss her.

I mean…fuck, I already wanted to. The moment I’d walked in I’d noticed that she was wearing these too-short shorts with unicorns on them, that they were almost certainly the ‘stupid shorts’ from the other night, and they did in fact look good, and I wanted to fucking tear them off of her⁠—

But it was more than that.

It was the fact that she understood what I’d done…that she saw it as brave instead of stupid.

I kissed her slow, one hand still on her jaw, the other finding her waist and pulling her in.

She melted into it immediately—both hands on my chest, her whole body leaning into mine like she'd been waiting for it since the moment I'd walked through the door. Which she probably had. Which I had too, if I was honest with myself.

I pulled back just enough to look at her.

She was watching me with those green eyes, a little breathless, her lipgloss gone, and I thought about all four of those dates I'd gone on through Bloom. Good women. Accomplished, interesting, nothing wrong with any of them. And every single one of them had looked at the ten years like a thing to get past. Something to file away under difficult history and move forward from.

Poppy looked at it like it was part of the architecture.