Page 60 of Her Age Gap Match

I smiled softly and shrugged. “Don’t apologize. I was enjoying the view.”

He relaxed too.

"Prison thing?"

"Routine keeps you sane in there," he said. “You don’t have much else, so you build structure. Every morning, same thing, same order.” He grabbed a towel from the rack next to the door and dried his hands on it. “Never quite shook it. Other women…they thought it was a little weird.”

“I don’t think it’s weird.”

He looked at me.

"I mean it." I stepped forward and put my hands on his chest, felt his heart rate coming down under my palms. "I want to know all your weird habits. The circuit every morning. The same breakfast. The cast iron pan." I looked up at him. "I want all of it."

He covered my hands with his.

"How'd it go?" he asked. "With your parents."

"My dad went upstairs to process."

"And your mom?"

I thought about that. “We should go to Lawrence soon,” I finally said. “Wanna come home with me for Christmas?”

He grinned, then leaned in to kiss me…and he murmured against my lips:

“I would love to.”

CHAPTER 18

Johnny

While Poppy slept the next morning, I did something that maybe she wouldn’t like…but I knew I couldn’t talk her into letting me take the blame.

So I called Sophie Bloom.

I woke at the crack of dawn, left Poppy in bed looking like a goddamn angel, and slipped out to get dressed. Broke my routine—didn’t make breakfast yet, didn’t work out. It made my brain itch, but I needed to do this more than I needed to feel comfortable.

The phone rang as I stepped out into the snow, which was already melting. I could hear the lake moving through the woods…birds singing in the trees.

She picked up on the second ring.

“Johnny.”

I exhaled a long breath. I’d expected formality, maybe a little anger…but she sounded more—expectant, like she knew I would call.

“Hi Sophie,” I said. “Appreciate you picking up.”

“Of course I was going to pick up,” she said. “You’re my client.”

I leaned against the porch railing and looked out at the snow. It was still coming down, mostly shaking out of the trees as squirrels ran from branch to branch. “Then you know why I’m calling.”

“I have a sense,” she said. “But I’d like to hear it in your words.”

“Where should I start?”

“From the very beginning.”

Okay…