Page 75
I might like Ben. Last night was more than incredible, but I have to focus on Boston.
My phone buzzes on the counter and Ben’s name flashes up.
Poppy grabs it and accepts the call, putting it on speaker. “Ben, it’s Poppy. I’m chatting with your roommate.”
I sigh, even more irritated now, because I know that if I did that to Poppy, she’d totally lose it.
“Ahh,” Ben says, noncommittally. “What were you chatting about?”
A smile twitches at the edge of my lips. He wants to know if we’d been discussing last night.
“I was telling her that Worth and I are having dinner at his house with a bunch of friends and Avril has FOMO—oh, you should both totally come! Oh yes, perfect.”
“Poppy,” I say. “Ben doesn’t want to—”
“Sounds good to me,” Ben interrupts. “Unless you don’t want to go, Avril?”
I’m not sure if he’s just challenging me because he thinks I’ll say no or whether he really wants to go. “I—”
“Believe me, she really wants to go. But you probably have something planned.”
“No, dinner with the fam sounds great,” Ben says.
I groan. “It’s not dinner with the fam—”
“It’s totally dinner with the fam,” Poppy says, “except the fam includes found family as well as blood family.”
I smile at her description. She’s right.
“What?” Poppy says, looking at me and reading my expression all wrong.
“Nothing. But I’m sure Ben doesn’t want to deal with our particular brand of crazy.”
“Count me in,” Ben says. “What time?”
“Any time from seven,” Poppy says, before I can say anything.
“I’ll pick you both up from the hotel at six forty-five.”
My stomach flips, half in excitement that I’ll see him and half in disappointment that it won’t be until then, and we won’t have any time on our own.
No, this is good. If Poppy is there, she can dilute any awkwardness.
“Awesome,” Poppy says. “We’ll see you then.”
“Catch you later,” Ben says, and hangs up.
And then I realize I didn’t find out why he was calling.
TWENTY-TWO
Ben
As I walk to Hotel on Ninth Street, I mutter to myself, a group setting is better, for the millionth time today. It’s cold and my driver is going to meet me at the hotel, so he’s probably taking this exact same route, but I wanted to walk. I needed time to clear my head.
Even if it is dinner with the fam, a group setting has to be a good idea tonight. I’d planned a low-key dinner at a popular Tribeca steak house tonight, it wasn’t a big deal to cancel. When Poppy mentioned the family dinner, it seemed a good solution to avoid Avril and I sitting opposite each other across a table, not knowing what to say.
Because what is there to say?
