Page 33 of Poppy Kisses
She hesitated, and anticipation shot through me. Was she going to hang out for a bit? We’d been like ships passing in the night. I was up first, or at least out of my room before her, and got Auggie up. Then she got ready while I took him to school. Two mornings a week, she tutored Auggie and got me set up with some proofreading programs on my computer and my phone.
In the evenings, she retreated to her room, except for last night when she’d gotten a sandwich from the store and ate outside on the porch. Auggie had joined her, but for some reason, I’d held back.
Auggie didn’t get special attention from a mother figure. While I would never shove Poppy in that role just because she was a girl under our roof, the more he was treated like he was special, the better. Deep down, his mom’s half-assed caring had to affect him.
“Do you mind if Clover comes to visit?” she asked.
Was that what she was nervous about? “No problem. This is your place for the next year.” A little more—thirteen more months. I got her for longer than a year.
She twisted her hands together. Was she wearing a bra? Damn. “She’s going to bring a guy. But they won’t stay here,” she rushed out.
“Not a problem. When?”
“Saturday.”
Perfect. “That’s our date night.”
She blinked a few times. “What?”
“Aw, come on, you remember the deal.” My team had lost that day, fair and square. But I’d made sure that no matter what, I’d won. Since she’d been moving, I hadn’t bugged her about it, but I still planned to get my two months’ worth.
She rolled her eyes, but a smile played along her lips. “It can be a double date.”
I was growing into a desperate man. “You and I double-dating with Clover? Who’d have thought.”
“It’s not my first time double-dating with her.”
My irritation started to rise. It should damn well be her last. For a year. I didn’t have a say after that. Add in her tits being practically invisible, and this evening was starting to suck. “They were all losers though. This’ll be the first time you wow her with your choice in men.”
The corners of her lips lifted. “There were some losers.”
I settled into the corner of the couch. “Grab us a couple of beers, darling, and tell me all about them.”
She crossed her arms. Yep. Bra. But those tanned legs couldn’t be hidden. “Doesn’t seem fair to tell you about my tragic dating history.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t exactly complain to me about the mother of your kid.”
I could. A lot. “There’s not much to say.” That was the truth of it. There wasn’t much to tell, and that had been the issue. “She loved her career more than us.” Sympathy crossed her face, but I wanted to keep this lighthearted. “Was one guy an emo?”
She barked out a laugh and went to the fridge. “What about me makes you think I’d go for the emo type?” She withdrew two cans of my favorite pale ale. Good. She was going to accept my invite to hang out for the evening. “His name was Leif and I met him in college.”
It was my turn to laugh.
She crossed to me and handed me a cold can before dropping onto the other side of the couch. “He played in a band. That’s supposed to be hot.”
Supposed to be.Now that was better. “Not hot?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunately, not after I heard them play. Then there was the guy right after I graduated. He texted his ex the whole time. He told me that they hadn’t really been serious.”
“But?”
“But his sister dropped the fact that they’d been engaged, and not only that, his ex was thinking of getting a restraining order against him. He kept helping himself to her apartment and waiting for her outside of work.”
“Shit.” I had little dating experience before Hassie had finally gone out with me. Perhaps that was why I was hesitant to go out with anyone, but after hearing only one of Poppy’s bad experiences, maybe I’d been right to lean into my single-dadness. “Did he cause problems with you?”
“He wasn’t obsessed with me.”
