Page 107 of A Real Goode Time
With a boyfriend.
Poppy…god, I’d missed her. She was more amazing than ever—she’d reached her full height by tenth grade, and had spent the past few years flowering into her adult body…which, unfairly, meant her boobs got bigger, her ass rounder yet somehow tighter, her waist narrower, her cheekbones even more perfect. And, of course, living in New York had given her a distinctly Bohemian fashion sense that just fit her perfectly.
Case in point: she and her boyfriend—whose name, I shit you not, was Errol, because even her boyfriend was over-the-top cool—showed up in a vintage VW Westfalia camper van. Poppy descended from the driver’s seat wearing a long, loose, flowy, bohemian skirt, a peasant blouse showing a nearly-but-not-quite obscene amount of cleavage, a thick black leather belt, and knee-high black boots. Her hair was nearly as long as mine, but thick and feathered in natural waves and layers, worn loose under a floppy fedora-type hat. Huge gold hoop earrings, a diamond stud in her left nostril, and, ohhh shit, Mom was gonna freak—nipple piercings, obvious through the front of her shirt, because apparently she didn’t believe in bras either, even though her tatas werewaytoo big for that to be practical or comfortable.
Oh my god, Poppy, you freak.
I was the first to see her, being the only one with nothing to do but sit outside Badd’s Bar and Grille and sip soda water and watch various members of the clan fly in and out looking for something or someone—Badd’s was ground zero, apparently, where all the luggage for those of us going to LA, and the guys going up into the bush, was being held.
Poppy saw me, and burst into a run, pawing her hat off her head and slamming into me for a hug. “God, Torie, I don’t know how I’ve lived without you these last couple years,” she whispered in my ear.
I clung as tightly to her as she was me. “I know, right? Why did we think it was a good idea to be apart?”
“I had this whole stupidI’m gonna go to an Ivy League university like Charliething going on.” She sounded so derisive, self-deprecating. “What an idiot I was.”
“So now you’re…what?”
She laughed. “I don’t know! Not going to Columbia anymore, at least. I officially withdrew a couple months ago.” She pulled away, held me by the shoulders at arm’s length. “Let me look at you.”
She did just that, looked me up and down. Then, with a giddy grin, she tapped the underside of my boobs.
“Torie, you have titties!”
I rolled my eyes and whacked her hands away. “Shut up. I just grew them, like, last year and I’m very sensitive about them, so be nice.” I reached out and flicked the bead of her nipple piercing. “Yours got even bigger…andpierced. You know Mom is going to shit puppies, right?”
“They did get bigger, didn’t they? It’s because I put on the freshman fifteen, except it was more freshman twenty, and most of it went to my tits and ass.”
“Right, because life isn’t fair and you suck.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, you try lugging these monstrosities around all day,” she drawled, cupping the objects in question. “Why are we still talking about our boobs? Come on, let me introduce you to Errol.”
“I’d gladly lug those around for a day, just to see what it’s like,” I said, following her back toward the VW van, which was parked down the street.
“Save you the trouble—tie a pair of sandbags to your chest, fill them with ten pounds of Jell-O each, and make them freakishly sensitive to everything.”
“And you pierced them…why?”
She leaned close to me. “I was lit, and it sounded like a good idea at the time.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And then I met Errol, and it turns out it was agreatidea.” She shivered, a meaningful expression on her face. “The things he can do with his mouth? Oh man.”
“Poppy!”
She laughed. “What? I’m an adult.”
“Barely.”
“I’m over the age of consent, I’m legally an adult, and I’ve been on my own as long as you have.” She gestured, and the passenger side door opened, and a veritable angel of the Lord himself appeared.
If angels had colorful tattoos, blond hair in a surfer man-bun, scruffy stubble, and the most piercing blue eyes known to mankind, that is.
God, he was hot. I mean, I’m in love with Rhys and all, butdamn. The eyes, the stubble, the man-bun, the stubble, the tattoos? He wore board shorts like he’d been born in them, flip flops, a tank-top, and what looked like a necklace made of shark teeth.
He had an air of confidence, like he’d seen the worst life could throw at him, handled it, and then saidlet’s go chill at the beach.
Poppy took his hand, twined her fingers in his. “Errol, this is my next oldest and possibly favorite sister, Torie. Torie, this is Errol.”
When he grinned at me and shook my hand, the charming brilliance of grin threatened the integrity of the sun itself. Clearly, Poppy did not mess around with her choice in men.
“Hey,” he said, in a thick Australian or New Zealand accent. “Nice to meet ya, finally. Pop’s talked my ear off about her four cool-as-hell sisters.”