Page 59 of Special Delivery
Meant to send thumbs up.
Penic texting now!
*PANIC!
Sorry for all the texts!
Stopping now!
Poppy put her phone down and tried to slow her breathing to match her daughter’s. Oh jeez, nothing was ever straightforward, was it?
‘Who are you texting?’ asked her mother, interrupting her own commentary on the merits of magnolia canopies.
‘Ah …’ Poppy didn’t know how to introduce the concept of James to her parents. ‘Dani,’ she lied.
Her mother peered across the table to Poppy’s phone, where an oversized eggplant emoji was still visible.
‘Oh, of course,’ said Chrissie. She turned to her husband. ‘They’re texting about my moussaka.’
‘The lasagne?’ he asked.
‘It’s moussaka, Paul. It’s made with eggplant, you dill, not pasta.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Less carbs,’ explained Poppy.
‘Yes, lots of women prefer eggplant,’ added her mum.
Unbidden, a vision of James’s chiselled body flooded Poppy’s central cortex, his jeans stretched to the perfect tension across his butt. It was wildly inappropriate to think about friends that way, but she was dog-tired and clearly delirious. Her mind dipped to the denim below his belt buckle and she inexplicably felt like exploding with laughter.
She swallowed the final mouthful of moussaka and nodded enthusiastically. ‘You’re absolutely right, Mum,’ she said. ‘Now and then, we all love a bit of eggplant.’
CHAPTER 27
Poppy ran to the mirror for a quick check. Her hair was loose over a cashmere-blend jumper that she had paired with her ‘good’ leggings. She was aiming for casual, but not slobby, but still kind of attractive and, you know, clean. Cleanliness was a seriously hard vibe for new mums to nail.
‘Pizza delivery,’ called the voice behind the door.
‘Shush,’ Poppy said, opening it. ‘You’ll wake Maeve.’
‘Shit, sorry,’ said James, looking around as if Maeve might be asleep somewhere on the verandah. ‘I’m just excited about super supreme with extra olives.’
‘You won’t regret it,’ said Poppy, moving aside to let him in. ‘The veggie to meat to olive ratio is perfect.’
James walked into the kitchen and put the pizza boxes on the counter. ‘I got garlic bread too,’ he said, fishing an aluminium-wrapped roll from a bag on his elbow. ‘And this.’ He handed her a bottle of red.
Poppy inspected the label. ‘Nice. Your choice?’
‘I know you like your drinks guava-flavoured, but I wasn’t sure how that would go with pizza. And the pepperoni is a red meat so I figured a shiraz would be a good match.’ He spoke in that almost-smiling way she was getting used to. ‘Maeve go down alright?’
‘Oh, you know, with a complex combination of milk drunkenness, swaddling, patting, rocking and singing. Piece of cake. Actually, she slept through until four this morning. That was a record. By the time I’d finished feeding her it was five and I was so well rested I kind of thought of staying up. I didn’t, obviously, that would be dumb, but I can tell you, four am wake-ups are actually amazing after months of broken sleep.’
‘Wow, go Maeve!’ said James. ‘Who knows? Maybe tonight she’ll sleep through till four thirty.’
‘Don’t jinx me!’ hissed Poppy.
‘Forget I said anything! This conversation never happened. Quick, change the subject!’
