Page 52 of Faking It With the Grumpy Single Dad

She turns toward the back of the house, where the little nook she’s claimed as her primary living space is, but I reach for her hand to stop her. She pauses, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“I’m sorry I snuck out earlier,” I tell her.

A tender smile dances on her rosy lips. “Don’t be sorry for that. You had to go take care of the boys, right?”

“Right.”

“But you came back?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah.”

She blinks. “Why?”

I take a deep breath. We look like polar opposites. Me, in my old blue jeans and plain cotton tee. Her, in her gorgeous designer dress that seems to be melded to her perfect figure like pure silver. Me, with my callused hands and abrasive social skills. Her, with her flawless posture and graceful words.

We aren’t the type of people who are supposed to cross paths. Not in any way beyond customer and client. It’s the sort of situation that is only ever meant to be professional. Anything beyond that is too complicated.

And yet… I’m not sure I can bring myself to walk away from Poppy Minton right now. Or ever.

“Go get changed out of that dress,” I say softly. “I’ll wait out here.”

She nods, those gray-blue eyes churning like the Atlantic beyond the dunes.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Chapter Seventeen: Poppy

My heartbeat slows back down to a steady rhythm as I return to my sleeping nook. Kneeling in front of the suitcase that I’ve been living out of for weeks now, I dig around for something halfway decent to wear. My dress is in a disastrous state. When I send it out for dry cleaning, I’m sure the launderers will have a heart attack over the wrinkles that I’ve allowed to let form in the silk.

It’s just a dress, though. It can be fixed.

What can’t be fixed is the past. What’s happened has happened, and now there’s no going back. Percy went too far, and now he’s been taken into police custody.

And, for whatever reason, Joe has returned to the cottage. He arrived with metaphorical guns blazing, prepared to come to my rescue, but what does that mean? I know better than to take offense that he slipped out earlier this morning. He has two kids that he needs to look after. I’m not his first priority. I wouldn’t expect to be.

But he came back. On an early Sunday afternoon. There’s no excuse to be made about extra work or a materials delivery. Hedrove all the way home to deal with the two most important people in his life and then drove all the way back here to Mermaid Shores for… for what? For me? Did he somehow find out that Percy was planning to come over here? Was his arrival instinctive or just lucky?

I shake my head. I guess I’ll find out what the answers to all those questions are when I go back out there to the kitchen.

For now, I grab a pair of pink running shorts and a hoodie from a corny tourist shop in Malibu, and disappear into the one functioning bathroom in the entire cottage. Trying not to be too vain, I limit the time I spend in front of the mirror scrubbing away last night’s makeup, and run my hands through my tangled hair to the best of my ability.

“Good enough,” I tell my reflection.

This time, I know better than to walk barefoot through Joe’s construction zone, so I stop by the nook to slip my feet into a pair of slippers before returning to the kitchen.

Joe is leaning against what remains of the cabinetry, arms crossed, gazing out the window toward the front lawn.

When I clear my throat, he jumps slightly. Our eyes meet across the room. I feel a strange tugging sensation in my chest, like there’s an invisible string pulling me closer to him. I obey the sensation, stepping toward him, but stopping short of entering too closely into his personal space. For all I know, he came back to the cottage today to tell me that what happened last night can never happen again.

As in, we can never dance in each other’s arms again. We can never share parts of our souls with each other as I dig through my late father’s precious belongings. We can never fall asleep beside each other in the quiet comfort of the midnight silence. Not only because our relationship was only ever supposed to be professional, but because he doesn’t want me like that.

It would be my fault, after all. I’m the one who started the fake dating scheme when Percy showed up that first time. He’s the one who felt pressured to play along.

So, really, if he ventured back out to Mermaid Shores just to reject me once and for all, I have no one else but myself to blame. I should have seen it coming. It was stupid of me to get so caught up in how handsome and kind he is.

The silence that stretches between us isn’t heavy, and certainly not oppressive or awkward. Actually, I feel like I can finally breathe again. Still, the weight of the morning’s events still clings to me, leaving me feeling raw and exposed.

Joe’s gaze softens as he watches me. For the first time in a long while, I feel like I don’t have to pretend to be okay. So, I let the carefully curated smile fall from my face.

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