Page 29 of Poppy Kisses
“Thanks for showing me.” I meant it. I didn’t want to see Hassie, but Auggie could’ve had major issues with this arrangement. Yet he’d been cool. He was a good kid. I hoped for his sake, Hassie called him soon.
There was a bark outside. “I’m going to play with Luna.” He tossed the magazine into the drawer and didn’t bother closing it before he ran out.
Jensen propped his hands on his hips. “He’s not the neatest kid.”
“Are many ten-year-olds?”
He gave me a small smile. “I don’t have much experience with ten-year-olds.” His gaze strayed to the magazine. “His mother has even less.”
Ouch. If he was smitten with her, he at least realized that she put her career over their kid. “She’s doing well.”
“She dropped baggage so she can really fly,” he said bitterly. His smile turned empty. “It says so in the article.”
Outrage heated my cheeks. “What? And Auggie read it?”
“I was two days away from hoping he’d forgotten about that damn magazine so I could throw it out. Now I have to start the clock again.”
Sympathy rose up. For Jensen and his worry for his son. For Auggie. The familiar tug of frustration toward Hassie for only thinking of herself. “That’s gotta be hard.”
“Yeah. Especially when he keeps this room like a shrine to her.” He shook himself and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Anyway, you get all settled? Sorry I wasn’t there to help you haul everything in.” He spread his hands out. “I had to wash up. I didn’t want to risk getting stain on any of your stuff.”
“I’m tougher than a little stain. So are my things.”
“Would’ve bothered you before, four-ten.”
A lot would’ve bothered me when it came to him back then. He was a lot more now. Bigger. Stronger. Kinder. He’d never been mean unless he was comparing me to Hassie. No, a little stain wasn’t what would get me worked up about Jensen. “Well, I don’t have a feature in a magazine, but I can figure out something for dinner if you have to work. I don’t have any sessions today.”
“Auggie asked for spaghetti. It’s his favorite meal, so he wanted something special for you. If you cook, he’s going to be upset with me. You get the night off.”
“Aw, he’s a sweet kid.” I tapped my chin. “Who does he get that from?”
Jensen’s smooth grin sent all sorts of tingles down my spine. He had to go past me to leave the room, and he stepped closer to me to miss a stack of books.
My breath caught as he leaned in. He put his mouth by my ear. “The real question is, how sweet can I be?”
* * *
Jensen
Poppy stopped beside me at the sink, her sunshine-and-peaches smell wrapping around me, tightening my gut. Fuck, she was like my very own summer day. Her presence brought me back to a day spent outside, doing nothing but having fun, tossing a ball around, playing in the pool.
“I insist on helping with the dishes.” She opened the drawer with the ladle and spatulas, closed it, then pulled open another drawer full of knives. “Where are your dish towels?”
“Right here.” Auggie tugged one out for her on my other side.
“You’re not doing dishes your first night in the house,” I insisted.
“I’m not sitting and watching you,” she said and accepted the dish towel from Auggie.
“You haven’t changed at how well you listen.”
She snickered. “And you haven’t installed a dishwasher, cabinet man?”
I ticked up a brow at her moniker. “I had to make a decision about destroying the old cupboards and messing with old plumbing. Decided the two of us don’t make a lot of dishes.”
She took a step and studied the cabinets. “Seriously? These are the originals?”
She sounded impressed, and goddamn, that made me glow inside. I washed and rinsed a plate, setting it in the drying rack. Auggie had taken advantage of Poppy’s offer and vanished. “I painted them. I might regret it later, but the cabinet style is just dated. An eighty-year-old house is going to show its age no matter what. I wanted to preserve some of that and did it by using the shape but making the color bright.” I looked around at the pearl of the cabinets, the opalescent tile backsplash, and the pale-blue walls. “Farmhouse chic.”
