Ian looks at Poppy in shock and maybe a little pain as she digs in hard with her finger once more to send him on his way. Me, I’m in shock . . . and utterly delighted. And it’s for the same reason. No one’s ever told Ian off before, but she does it easily and without hesitation, cutting him exactly where it hurts the most.

  Don’t piss her off. She really can get your balls in her purse if she wants.

  I store that tidbit away too.

  The silence is deafening, both in the hallway and in the dining room beyond. Everyone is waiting for Ian’s response. Except, of course, Poppy, who waits for no one and nothing. When Ian doesn’t skip himself right back as instructed, Poppy waves her hand at him, shooing him. “Go on. Or I’m gonna step aside and let Connor tell you in his way.”

  I’m not some attack dog she can control, calling off or siccing me on people at will, but the twisted evil pleasure she gives those words is downright sexy as hell. And fine, beating the shit out of Ian would be a fucking dream come true. He’s deserved it for a long time.

  Too bad today’s the not the day I get that chance because though he gives me one last glance, trying mightily to seem unbothered, when I take a step his way, he squeaks and runs back to the dining room.

  When I glance down at Poppy, she’s got her hands over her mouth, trying to cover the fit of giggles pouring forth. I give her a dark look, changing my trajectory and stepping closer to her menacingly. “You think blowing up my family is funny?”

  She shrugs, still fighting her laughter and not concerned at all about the monster in her midst and manages to say, “Not your mom or Caylee.” Pointing over her shoulder, she adds, “But him? Yeah, he deserves it. And it was funny.”

  She’s right, but I hold my glare steadily, not willing to lose control again. I’m able to keep it up for a second or two until she makes a fear-filled face, her shoulders hunched up to her chin, and mouths, “Mommy! Help!” Her impression of Ian sends me over.

  I can’t stop the laugh that rumbles out of me. She’s irreverent and wild, a rebel with zero fucks to give doing whatever she wants, which is somehow entertaining and interesting as hell.

  Her hand goes to my chest, her palm flat over my sternum and her eyes locked there as well. “What?” I grunt, the laugh dying off instantly.

  “Just wanted to feel that laugh,” she says softly, earnestly. “I get the feeling you don’t do that often.”

  She has no idea. I can’t remember the last time I really laughed. Polite chuckles? Sure. Fake laughs for JP to grease the skids in our relationship? Of course.

  But real laughter? I can’t remember the last time I felt that sort of pure light feeling. But she pulled it out of me, and I think she could probably do it again if she wanted to. Hell, I might do it just because she asked me to.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I laugh all the time, a regular Chuckles the Clown,” I deadpan.

  “Right,” she answers sarcastically, pinching my tie between her fingers and thumb and tugging me toward the dining room. “Then come on, Chuckles. Let’s go tell your sister you’re going to her wedding.”

  “We’re not discussing that.”

  She looks at me wryly. “You’re right. We’re not. You know you’re gonna go, I know you’re gonna go, so can we skip the whole ‘no, yes, no, yes’ deal and get on with the important shit? Your mom said there’s chocolate cake for dessert, and I haven’t had cake in sixteen days. Do not get between me and cake, mister. You hear me?”

  “Sixteen days?”

  “Out of everything I said, that’s what you heard?” she asks, then sighs. “A cupcake is my reward for benchmarks, and since I’ve had writer’s block, I haven’t been meeting them. No benchmark, no cupcake. But I’m making a special exception for your mom because nobody tells their fiancé’s mom no, especially not about cake. And cake is different from a cupcake, anyway.”

  “No, it’s not.” Seriously. Flour, eggs, butter, chocolate, sugar. How is it different?

  “Yes, it is,” she growls. “A cupcake is a sexy muffin with icing. Cake is . . . cake.”

  “Cake by the ocean?”

  “Now you’ve got jokes? About cake? Which is totally different from a cupcake.” She glares at me, daring me to disagree with her repeat declaration. “Besides, since it’s your fault I’m missing benchmarks now, I think it’s only fair that I get cake out of the deal.” She’s being sassy and playing up her anger. And maybe a part of her is mad, but right now, that’s not the emotion at the top of her roller coaster.

  But the reminder of why she’s here with me is sour, stabbing sharper than I would’ve expected. The laptop. It all comes back to that damn thing and my spontaneous solution to a problem. That’s why I plan so much . . . so fuck-ups don’t happen. And Poppy doesn’t even know why I stole her laptop. What would she think if she knew? That I’m not some petty thief but that I stole The Black Rose?

  She’s digging into a sore spot—my perfectionist tendencies and need to keep everyone at arm’s length. The irritation is growing, scratching just below the surface, looking for a way to lash out and inflict the most pain in return. And the hardest part of it all is . . . it’s an irritation that I’m starting to think I might like, which only pisses me off more.

  “You’re really cute when you’re angry,” I say condescendingly, making it seem like I’m trying to irritate her right back. To add lighter fluid to the fire, I twirl a lock of her red hair around my finger, aiming for mindlessness but laser focused on her every reaction.

  I knew pulling that grenade pin would cause an explosion, and it does. Her breath hitches, then goes jagged, her eyes widen and then narrow sharply, and she flicks her head, roughly yanking her hair from my grasp. With her head held high, she stomps right past me, intentionally bumping my arm with her shoulder.

  I remind myself, It’s for her own good.

  Mine too, I think. Because her hair felt good, and again, I’m back to full mast in my slacks. I turn around, squeezing my eyes shut as I slowly count to ten and recenter myself.

  It works until from behind me, I hear Caylee ask, “Did he say yes?”

  I grind my teeth painfully as I wait for Poppy’s answer, knowing I won. There’s no way she’s going to see me for anything other than exactly what I am and recognize that she needs to stay far, far—

  “Yep, he’ll be there. We’ll be there. It’s just one more teeny-tiny day, a few hours, really, but it’s the most important one for you and Evan, and we wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

  What the fuck?

  But the damage is done. I hear Caylee’s squeal and fast footsteps. “Thank you, Poppy!” Caylee says in a high-pitched voice. Before I know it, Caylee is in the hallway with me, happiness pinging off her like neon disco lights. She throws herself at me, hugging me tight. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Connor. I don’t think I could walk down that aisle if you weren’t there.”

  Poppy’s head peeks out of the dining room, and I look at her over Caylee’s head, where she’s still snuggled into me. I don’t think she’s hugged me in years. Poppy licks her fingertip and draws it through the air, giving herself a winning tally mark.

  I’m going to kill her.

  Or maybe kiss her again.

  Maybe kiss her and then kill her, my mind suggests. It’s a lot less Tim Burton that way.

  Chapter 10

  Poppy

  “And then . . . oh, my God, Connor looked like . . . mmm-mmm!”

  Around the table, I’m getting a mix of looks. Daysha looks amused while Becca’s a little confused. “Connor?”

  “You remember!” Jasmine says, hushing her. “The hot security guard, the guy who stole her laptop?”

  “Oh . . . I thought . . . never mind,” Becca says, grinning now. “Right, hot security Connor. I’m with you. Go on.”

  Go on. How in the hell do I do that? I feel like someone stuck a stick blender in my head and tapped the power button for a quick ‘bloop’. I’m able to make some coherent thoughts, but half the time, I feel like I’m just swirling and trying to still make sense of everything.

  “So anyway, after I jumped him—”

  “You go, girl!”

  “Not like that!” I correct Becca, who pouts. “I jumped on his back and beat the shit out of him. Or well, I tried. But he threw me to the ground.”

  Aleria doesn’t look happy at that. “He violated your person?”

  “Al, she did jump on him,” Daysha says. “Rule in life. You start shit, expect shit. That’s true for everyone.”

  “And I did end up kneeing him in the nuts,” I point out, making Daysha give me a double-take.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t.” She laughs. “That’s cold.”

  “Yep,” I affirm, grinning. “And he basically admitted to stealing my laptop.”

  “What did you do?” Jasmine asks. “Call the cops on him?”

  I glare at Jasmine, my eyes asking if she entirely slept through the part about how unhelpful the police were with the whole missing laptop issue and how much I wanted to kill Detective Carter with my bare hands.

  “Right, right. No cops. So, what did you do?”

  “Uh, well . . . his phone rang, so I swiped it and told his mom that I’m his fiancée.”

  Around the table, the response is unified and simultaneous. “You what?”

  “Well, I figured that if I called the cops, I wouldn’t get anything,” I try to explain, trying to give a reason for my instantaneous decision. “I mean, even if he ratted on his guy, it’s not like that guy’s going to just admit it, and so on and so forth. But anyway, he agreed to get my laptop back, and I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. Plus, I need leverage, so I went to dinner with his family and pretended to be his fiancée.”

  “You . . . to the guy who stole your laptop?” Becca asks, confused again. I swear, how does she keep her characters straight when I’m only talking about two people—me and Connor—and she can’t keep up.

  “Well, it sounds weird when you say it like that.”

  Daysha snorts. “It is weird, woman!” she grins. “But go on.”

  “So, at dinner, they’re all giving him shit, and they don’t even know he’s a thief!” I tell the hushed group. “So when the wedding came up, I said yes.”

  “What wedding?” Aleria asks. “Wait . . . you’re marrying the guy who stole your laptop?”

  “What?” I ask, shocked. “No! His sister’s wedding. He got mad and dragged me into the hallway, and that’s when we kissed.”

  “Kissed?” Jasmine asks with a raised eyebrow. “The laptop thief neighbor?” At least she’s got it all straight. And now Becca is nodding, apparently thankful for the Cliff Notes.

  “Okay, kissed doesn’t begin to describe it,” I admit with a happy sigh. “I’ve never been kissed like that, like I forgot my own name in a drunken haze.”

  I sit back, still in utter awe of the memory of last night.

  I feel their eyes on me until finally, Daysha sighs too. “That’s the best kind.”

  “Wait, badass Daysha has a big streak of gooey romance in her?” Becca teases. “Ooh, I gotta know more because I thought you were all whips and chains, ‘take what I give you, my sweet slut’, and emotionally damaged savior types. This is news!”

  “One story at a time!” Aleria begs. “I have to keep them straight. But we’re totally coming back to that.”

  Becca snorts. “You said coming.”

  Wanting to move on, I jump in before an argument can spring up. “So we’re going to the wedding next weekend.”

  Aleria looks totally unfazed while the other girls look like I’m nuts. “What about the laptop? Your book?”

  “Connor says he’s working on it,” I admit, pulling out my current replacement. “In the meantime, this’ll work.”

  Jasmine scoffs. “Girl, you’d better get to ‘working on it’ yourself or Hilda is gonna skin you alive.”

  “I know! What do I do?” I ask the group, frazzled again. “About the laptop and book? About all of it! What sayeth the W3AS?”

  We’ve been talking and even laughing at some of the outrageous things that have happened since I saw them last, but I’m serious now. I need their help and advice. The four women sober instantly, ready to stand steadfastly by my side.

  Daysha sits up and fixes me with her light brown eyes. “Okay, focus. This Connor. He might be hot as hell, babe, but I don’t trust him. Nothing personal, but he hasn’t exactly given you a reason to trust him.”

  It definitely makes sense. And Daysha’s always got her head screwed on nice and tight. “That’s true, but I have a gut feeling about him. I feel like . . . there’s more to him than what he lets people see.”

  “You should trust your gut instinct. Sometimes, the primal self knows things the intellectual mind hasn’t figured out yet,” Aleria says in all seriousness.

  “Yeah, well, my gut’s saying you want him all up in yours,” Jasmine tells me. “And that can affect the accuracy of your instincts.”

  Also a valid point.

  “Did he even say why he stole your laptop?”

  “Uhm, no, actually.” The girls look at each other knowingly, and even Aleria looks concerned. “Look, he didn’t know about my being an author or about the book. I mean, it is a pretty good laptop, you know? He said that he gave it to someone.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Jasmine says. “I mean, you’re there in the middle of a whole room of bigwig writers, the whole thing. There was a whole room of fancy shit. Computers, books in progress, fancy purses, jewelry, and even the damn Black Rose! Why your laptop? Makes no sense.”

  “Exactly. Like I said—don’t trust him,” Daysha concludes as if Jasmine just argued her case for her. “Now, the second issue. You need to work at the same time you’re figuring out this laptop deal. That’s priority one. Write, write, and write some more. I don’t care if you shower, shave, shit, or anything else. Hell, I’ll have food delivered if that’ll help because you need to write like you’ve never written before, starting now.”

  Daysha’s right, and a good friend. She would make sure I’m fed if that’s all I needed to get this book done. She would also come stay at my place and spank me with a ruler every time I pause if that’s what I needed. I could do with the former and hope it doesn’t come to the latter.

  We get to work, and I have to say I’m in a rhythm that I haven’t felt in a long time. I still haven’t dropped back to the sex scenes yet, but the chapter I’m working on right now? Oh, it’s flowing like water.

  Finally, Becca closes her laptop. “There. Sprint one done. Now Pops, I know you need to work, but we need to address the elephant in the room. The not-book one. Tell me more about that kiss.”

  “It was . . .” I start before shaking my head in disbelief. “It was the best kiss I’ve ever had. Is it crazy if I want to kiss him again? Even after he stole my laptop?”

  “Yep,” everyone says at once.

  “Yes, totally crazy,” Jasmine repeats. Seeing my crestfallen expression, she reaches over and shakes my shoulder before I can drop into a deep pout. “Hey, that’s not a bad thing. I’ve known you’re crazy for as long as I’ve known you. Doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “I don’t know . . . this could be a bad idea,” Becca says, but she’s quickly hushed by everyone else.

  “Poppy,” Aleria says, “the universe wants us to find happiness. To follow our hearts and make connections along our journey. There is a purpose to this moment, this craziness, as you call it, and though you might not see it yet, it will all be revealed when the time is right. Understand?”

  “Yes, follow your heart, just make sure to bring your head along for the ride,” Daysha warns a bit more cynically, but then she shrugs, giving in. “I guess you never know. It might be the ride of a lifetime.”

  Chapter 11

  Connor

  The coffee shop is rather busy, but that’s actually a good thing. When everyone’s off in their own world, nobody’s going to notice me as I settle onto a stool at the bar top in front of the big window. From here, I can see the world outside go by.

  It’s your typical weekday morning, with men and women in suits mixing with college students in much more relaxed outfits. There’s the occasional worker in a uniform of one kind or another, a delivery driver, a postal worker, or even the occasional restaurant worker adding distinct bits of color to the mix. Everyone flows by, only aware of themselves, their own agendas and plans, oblivious to each other and their surroundings for the most part.

  It’s honestly fascinating, though I feel so outside of that type of existence.

  I take a sip before setting my cup down with the coffee shop’s logo facing the street and then subtly watch as a man at the bus stop across the street gets up to head to the shop. He enters, orders, and comes over to sit down next to me. Taking a sip of his drink, he groans. “Getting so hot out there, I’m going to have to switch to some vanilla iced latte shit like I’m a sorority girl named Madison.”

  “Nah, black coffee only. No substitutes.”

  All the proper security protocols complete, Hunter gives me a glance. “Wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon, Connor.”

  We’ve traded code and counter code, so he’s able to speak more freely, though we’re still, and always, aware of our surroundings. There’s a reason we use this particular chain of coffee shops for these meetings. They like to use polarized windows for privacy, which give us not only a view of the outside but ghostly reflections of the shop around us.

  “Couldn’t be helped. I need your input on something.”