Page 22 of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (Houston Baddies #3)

turner

. . .

T he truck is too damn quiet, but I’m scared to turn on the radio. Or a podcast.

Or speak.

I got this stupidly massive, fully-loaded, shiny new truck three months ago and it’s like driving a living room on wheels. Suddenly I’m hyper aware that it’s high off the ground, shiny, and technology centric. It feels like a spaceship.

It makes me look like a fucking douche.

Not that Poppy’s said anything, but her neck cranes as she looks around. Front seat, back. Taking it all in. The leather seats. The massive touchscreen. The sleek dashboard that lights up like the Fourth of July any time I do something as basic as hit the brakes.

WARNING. WARNING!

So obnoxious.

“Nice truck,” she says at last.

“Thanks.”

She leans forward, pressing her finger to the entertainment center. “Is this an espresso machine?”

My head jerks around. “Huh? No.”

My roommate giggles. “I’m teasing. With all these buttons, I figured it could be.” She pauses. “Mind if we stop for one? Would you pull over for me?”

Of course I’d pull over for her, she’s fucking adorable.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice coming out a little too eager. “Sure. Coffee. Totally.”

“Thanks,” Poppy says, leaning back against the headrest, her eyes closing like she’s already mentally sipping that first hit of caffeine.

I try not to stare at her throat. Or her legs. Or the way her shorts ride up when she shifts in her seat.

Focus.

When we eventually roll into the coffee shop drive-through, and I squint at the menu like it’s written in hieroglyphics. I almost never stop, preferring smoothies or pressed juice in the morning, having never developed a taste for caffeine.

“What do you want?” I ask, dragging a hand through my hair.

She leans forward so she can see the menu and get closer to the speaker, boobs pressing into my arm.

I stop breathing.

Literally forget how my lungs work.

I’m not even sure if I’m blinking. Because now her hair is brushing my cheek, and she smells like some kind of vanilla-sugar-cookie-fucking-witchcraft, and I want to bury my face in her neck then get down between her?—

“Can I get a brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso?” she says, voice all sweet and polite as she settles back in her seat. “Grande. But in a venti cup with extra ice.”

“Anything else?” I ask, eyes on her mouth. Wondering what she’d do if I leaned over and planted one on her.

“Nope.”

Okay. Cool.

I lean forward toward the speaker as the barista inside says I can give her my order whenever I’m ready and clear my throat.

“Yeah. Hi. Can I get a brown oat. Uh.”

I forgot.

Poppy bites her lip, her eyes twinkling. “Brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso.”

“Oat milk shaken espresso,” I yell at the speaker as if I’ve never been through a goddamn drive-through before.

“Brown sugar. Grande,” Poppy whispers, still brushing against me. “But in a venti cup. Extra ice.”

Right. “But in a venti cup with ice,” I shout.

I’m such an idiot.

If her order is correct it will be a bloody miracle.

The speaker crackles with a long, heavy pause. “Got it!” the cheery voice tells me. “Anything else we can get for you today?”

Maybe I should get something, too—strictly so I have something to do with myself other than stare at her bare fucking legs.

But my brain blanks. What do I drink? Water? Air? Protein shakes with gravel in them?

“Uh…” I scramble, eyes darting to Poppy like she’s got the answer to a test I forgot to study for. “I’ll get the same thing she got.”

Poppy blinks at me, eyebrows shooting up. “You want a brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso?”

“Yup,” I say, as if this is a perfectly normal decision for me. “In a venti cup. Extra ice.”

Then my roommate leans over farther. “Can you draw a smiling face and heart on his? He loves a cute doodle!” she yells with a giggle, as if she said the funniest thing.

“Got it.” The speaker crackles some more before the voice says, “Two venti brown sugar oat milk shaken espressos with extra ice. Your total is $14.90. See you at the window!”

Right.

I pull forward, the truck lurching like I just learned how to drive five seconds ago, easing around the tight corner while praying I don’t scratch the paint job on the cement retaining wall on the path leading to the window.

Poppy leans back against the passenger seat, sighing on a giggle.

“You know what this reminded me of? A caveman ordering at Starbucks for the first time. You’re like a bear wandering into a coffee shop from the woods and trying to order a treat.”

I am insulted.

At the window, I pay (although my roomie offers) and take both drinks, handing Poppy hers—and putting mine in the cupholder.

“Have a great day!” the barista chirps, practically bouncing on her toes.

Poppy waves at her from the passenger seat as we drive away.

I take a sip, the cold liquid hitting my tongue. It’s…

Sweet. And smooth. And kind of really good?

Poppy is watching me like she’s just handed me a glass of poison, waiting to see how long it takes for it to kick in and kill me.

“ Well ?”

“I like it.” I lick my lips, taking another sip. “It’s good.”

“You like it?”

I nod, taking another long sip to prove it. “Yeah. What, you think I couldn’t handle a fancy coffee?”

Her grin spreads slowly, dangerously. “Oh, I knew you could handle it. I just didn’t think you’d actually enjoy it.”

“Well, it’s good,” I repeat, because I really, really like it. The sweetness, the coldness, the way it makes me feel like maybe I could get used to this.

Yummy. Froo froo.

Poppy is watching me, grin as wide as the goddamn Grand Canyon. “Should I make you a playlist to go with it? Maybe something like ‘Songs to Sip Your Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso To.’”

I roll my eyes, setting the cup down in the cupholder and trying not to laugh. “You’re cute.”

She is.

My eyes stray to her smooth legs, crossed at the knee, bare and bronzed and sexy as hell. The shorts she’s wearing barely cover the tops of her thighs, and the way she’s leaned back casually makes her look like she belongs.

Comfortable.

Unlike me, who can’t stop thinking about my dream.

About the way she tasted. The way she sounded. The way she looked up at me with those wide, dark eyes while she…

“Turner?”

My head snaps up. “Huh?”

“You just drove past the party store.”

Did I?

Shit.

“You okay there, buddy? You seem… distracted,” she says, voice dripping with fake concern.

I grip the steering wheel, jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“Right,” she says, dragging out the word. “Because the giant, bright red flailing wobbly thing flapping in the breeze is impossible to miss.”

Touche.

I hang the next right. Make another right into the parking lot.

She’s not wrong. Plus, there’s a giant inflatable gorilla clutching what has to be two dozen balloons whipping in the wind, one of its big arms half-deflated and limp.

We step out, and the wind immediately slaps us in the face with a wall of heat. The kind that makes the asphalt shimmer and my shirt stick to my back. Poppy’s hair whips around her shoulders, a few strands catching on her lip gloss. She brushes them away, squinting at the store’s front entrance.

“Monster Smash cut-out, here we come,” she says, her tone deadpan.

“Right. Let’s do this.”

Inside, it’s like a sensory overload. Balloons in every color of the rainbow. Confetti falling from some invisible source. And is that a karaoke, instrumental version of “It’s Raining Men” playing over the speakers?

I glance around, eyes darting to the inflatable unicorns, disco ball pinatas, and a life-size cardboard cutout of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wearing a birthday hat.

He’s standing next to a T-Rex, a life-size Woody, from Toy Story —and Freddy Krueger.

Jeez.

“This place is bonkers,” Poppy says, her gaze trailing over the rows of costumes and novelty wigs. She plucks up a pink one and eases it on over her hair, fluffing it like she’s getting ready for a night out at the club. “What do you think?”

“I think you look like cotton candy.”

Good enough to eat.

Poppy grins, does a little hair flip, and strikes a pose in front of the cowboy cutout. “What do you think? Wanna be my boyfriend?”

The cowboy, unsurprisingly, says nothing.

Poppy bats her lashes dramatically, fanning her face with her hand. “Oh, stahp—you’re making me blush. Stop it.”

Before I can respond, she yanks a silver cowboy hat off a nearby shelf and plops it onto my head.

“There,” she says, stepping back to admire her work. “Now you look like a real Texan.”

I glance in a fun-house style mirror at my reflection. The cowboy hat sparkles like a disco ball under the fluorescent lights, making me look like the world’s least intimidating party sheriff.

“Howdy, ma’am,” I say in a deep, southern drawl, tipping my hat. “I reckon you best take that wig off before I have to carry you off into the sunset.”

Her eyes go wide.

Poppy swallows, her eyes locking on mine, and for a second, the air between us goes heavy. Charged. Like we’re both thinking the exact same thing because we probably are.

Dicks.

Come.

Blow jobs.

Tits, ass, pussy.

“Oh my god—look!” She removes the wig from her head and darts to a display of colorful candy.

Okay. So maybe we aren’t thinking of the same things.

Ha!

I follow her, taking off the cowboy hat and placing it back on the rack, trailing along as she runs her hands along the display case. M&Ms of every color. Gumballs. Rock candy.

“I used to love rock candy when I was a kid,” she tells me, taking a pink piece out of the case and resting it on her tongue. “I tried making it once with my friend Cara.”

Her lips wrap around the pink crystal like she’s got no idea what it’s doing to me, and my brain is short-circuiting. Poppy sucks on it, completely oblivious to the fact that my cock just twitched a little inside my pants.

I swallow hard, dragging my eyes from her lips to her eyes, forcing myself to focus on the words coming out of her mouth and not the way her tongue just slid over that stupid piece of candy.

“And?”

“ And ,” Poppy laughs, tossing the candy back into the bin, “her dumb little brother had eaten all the sugar crystals off the strings and puked rainbow vomit all over the kitchen floor.”

Rainbow vomit.

Right.

I stare at her mouth.

She sucks on the tip of the stick.

Licks it.

When she pops the candy out of her mouth, our eyes meet as she drags her tongue along the edge of it before holding it toward me, offering me some. “You want?”

Yes.

Yes, I really fucking want.

I lean in, close enough to smell the candy on her breath. “Poppy, are you flirting with me?”

Her gaze drops to my mouth. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re flirting back.”

I’m not.

But not because I don’t want to.

It’s just—I’m bad at it.

Flirting, I mean. Everything else…

Amazing.

Before I can say a word, she spins away, hair swinging, hips swaying, and I’m left standing there like a sucker, my brain somewhere between wanting to pin her against this candy counter and wondering if we’ve even looked for the damn pinata yet.