Page 20 of When in December

I probably looked like a tomato.

Or like I had two heads by the way Hannah was staring. Had I ever seen her speechless?

“Wow.”

“I know,” I whined.

“Poppy Owens is honestly admitting that she has a crush. This is a moment for the record books. Poppy Owens is having a meltdown before our usual afternoon teatime and she liked a boy.”

“What?”

“Likes? Present tense?” Hannah corrected.

I scoffed. Hannah had missed the point. That wasn’t what I had said at all.

The house was a mess! Aaron Hayes was there, looking at me like I’d committed high treason for ogling his abs!

“He was a little high school crush. Don’t look at me like that. Yes, I’ll admit it. But that was then. Nothing more.”

“Nothing?”

“Well …” I paused.

“What more, Poppy?”

“We kissed in high school. Once,” I admitted. “But he didn’t know that it was me then either.”

Or at least, I didn’t think he had.

Hannah stared at me, wide-eyed. “I think I need popcorn for this.”

I didn’t know what I’d expected, but the lack of an appropriate response was even more concerning.

“I’m just wondering how hot this guy is, quite frankly.” Hannah leaned her head against her fist, studying me. “More than a seven on a scale of one to ten, right?”

“Did you not hear anything I said?”

“Tell me. Is he hotter than Henry Cavill?” Hannah gasped as if the thought was incomprehensible, reaching up to take off her bulky blue-light glasses. “Oh my God, he is.”

I fell back into my seat. I could see this was going nowhere.

I stared up toward the ceiling. “Different kind of hot.”

His body was … and his arms … God, his arms.

Stop. This was a client I was thinking about!

I was being terribly unprofessional.

He might have been Aaron Hayes who had made me feel awful and caused a minor break in my extremely fragile sixteen-year-old heart, seeking validation, but he was my client now.

“Today really couldn’t have gone worse, could it?” I asked.

“To be honest, Pops, I’m just impressed you made the drive alone. Give yourself some credit,” suggested Hannah. “Your first day didn’t go so great. You still have your notes of what you need to do on the admin side for the rest of the day, right? It doesn’t sound so bad. He’s probably embarrassed. I’m sure you think it’s a hundred times worse since you’ve been spiraling the entire way back.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I usually am.”

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