Page 16

“Don’t worry,” Poppy said and stepped quickly away, handing him the last towel. “Do what you can with this, and we’ll just hang out in the kitchen until you air dry.”

He took the towel and glared at it in a way that would have been action-movie fierce if it weren’t for the other towel still draped over his face. As it was, he looked like an angry Muppet. “You wish my clothing to be dry.”

“In a relative sense. So just…” She waved her hand in the air and averted her eyes, feeling like she shouldn’t watch him drying all his…

parts. Instead, she found herself staring at Rai’s feet while he fiddled with the towel.

Except maybe she shouldn’t stare at his feet, either.

Feet were… Well, they weren’t anything super exciting in the grand scheme of things, she supposed, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen a lot of male feet in her lifetime, given how popular flip-flops were, but something about Rai’s feet, bare on the tile floor, felt weirdly intimate, like those historical romances where men would go drama-king bonkers at seeing a lady’s bare ankle.

She’d always thought that was ridiculous, but now—

“There,” Rai said. “I am dry. I will not be rude to your mother’s couch.” The towel dropped into Poppy’s line of vision, landing on the tile.

Poppy blinked her gaze upward. “Oh.” She narrowed her eyes at his shirt…

which was indeed dry, the printed sea foam crisp and white.

His jeans looked dry as well—which was impossible, given how denim worked, but they were a normal jeans-blue now.

They were skin-tight still, but it didn’t look like water was making that happen. Just…tightness .

And it was totally in order to assess how dry his jeans were that she was inspecting that tightness, all along his calves and his thighs and his… “Did you just absorb all that water like a sponge?”

He scoffed, looking away. “That would be impossible. I am simply very skilled at making things dry.”

Poppy bit back the filthy reply that crashed into her brain like a Mack truck, because they might be touching buddies and now feet-staring buddies but how skilled are you at making things wet?

was a buddies too far for a second date.

Or at least the beginning of it. She bent to collect the wet towels, mopping them around on the floor to catch the last of the puddle; he stepped delicately out of the way.

“I have not told you my news,” he said from behind her.

“What is your news?” Poppy stood with her damp burden, turning to face him. He still had the other towel on his head, and the waves of hair dangling beneath it were still dripping.

He beamed at her. “I have acquired a phone!”

“Since this morning?”

“Yes. I wish to text you.”

Poppy clutched at the towels, suddenly warm. “Okay.”

“I will need your number.”

“Okay.” God, she was like a parrot. A dead one, pining for the fjords. He was very close now. Had he stepped closer, or had she?

“And I,” he said with the smuggest grin she had ever seen, “am going to take your picture.”

Somehow that jolted her back into being able to talk like a human again. “What, so when they find your lifeless corpse, they know who to arrest for murder?”

His grin faded. “Is that why you took my picture? Did you think I was going to murder you?”

Well, fuck. But he was a modern guy; either he understood why most women would choose the bear, or he was the reason they would. Best to find out before she got too deep. “It’s always a possibility.”

He nodded slowly. “I suppose it is. Have people tried to murder you before?”

“No.” Trying to crush her soul didn’t count.

“Good.” He looked thunderous, but it didn’t seem aimed at her. Then he shook himself, and his smile was back. “They will not arrest you. If I am murdered by your hand, I will have earned it. ”

“Not exactly building confidence here,” she said with a laugh.

“I said if ,” he murmured, that smug look back on his face. “I will endeavor to be good. I prefer not to die.”

“So say we all.” A drop of water beaded at the tip of a dangling strand of his hair, swelled, fell. “You should finish drying your hair.”

He pouted very slightly. “I liked before.”

“When it was dripping wet?”

“No.” He pulled the mass of damp towels out of her grasp, letting them fall, and brought her hands to his head. “This.”

She inhaled deep, dug her fingers into the towel and started to rub, and he closed his eyes and made a noise in the back of his throat like a growl, or like thunder, or no, there was thunder outside, it was crashing in the distance and the rain was falling, and then his lips were on hers again, soft and tender, and oh.

She tightened her grip, the terrycloth rough under her hands as she pressed closer.

His hands were on her face, his thumbs tracing sigils on her cheeks, and his mouth was cool and tasted of rain, and she drank him in like he was the fountain of life.

She knew she had to stop, that this was too much, too fast, that her mother was waiting, that she needed to think and needed to breathe and needed and needed and needed but then loud thunder and lightning crashed nearby, the tiny string of lights that lit the Arizona room browning out around them, and Rai stepped away, looking out at the rain and shaking his head sharply so the towel fell to the floor.

“That was close,” Poppy said, taking a shaky step back.

“I did not expect it.” Rai looked befuddled. Of course, she probably looked befuddled, too. She was befuddled, her head spinning and her heart pounding.

She took refuge in sarcasm. “Says the man who just got caught in the rain for the third time this week.”

He looked at her sidelong. “A woman who lives in a house of glass should not…throw boulders?”

“Got me there. Still, I thought we had all learned a valuable lesson.”

“I have learned many lessons,” he said, smirking. “Today I studied for hours.”

“And yet.” Poppy gestured at his still-soaked shoes.

“I promised to come,” he said, his expression mutinous.

“I wouldn’t have minded if you checked the weather and decided not to come. ”

“I knew the weather, and still I came.”

She bit her lip. This was turning into their first argument, if a polite one.

Also a stupid one—he was a grown man who could walk in the rain if he wanted to.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, hearing the apology in her voice, and they both fell silent, looking at each other.

Lightning flashed and Poppy counted inwardly. One, two, three. Thunder rolled.

“I have a weather app on my computer,” Rai suddenly blurted, eyes flickering off to the side. “Because I did not have a phone. But now I have the weather app on my phone.”

“Oh. So you have a computer?” That was surprising; she’d thought from their previous conversations he was a complete Luddite.

Which was, she had to admit, probably a peaceful sort of existence.

Still, she leaped on the conversational divergence like it was the last donut in the box. “Windows or Mac?”

He gazed out through the screens at the pounding rain, frowning. “It’s…on my computer.”

Ah, if he didn’t know, it was probably a company-issued brick of some sort.

So she hadn’t been too far off; he must use it just for email and nothing else.

In any case, they were back on solid, casual ground now.

“You know, I can lend you an umbrella if it’s still raining when you leave. I won’t make you walk home in this.”

“You are very kind.” He took a step closer. “With a golden heart.”

There went the solid ground, a landslide from under her feet, and god, if he started kissing her again, they were never going to go inside.

And then her mom would come looking for her, and it would be more embarrassing than that time in high school when she’d gotten caught smooching what’s-his-face, because it wouldn’t stay just kissing for long.

Not when he was an instigator with no boundaries and the attitude of an orange cat wanting a bellyrub, and her traitor brain was still trying to get her to ask him about his skills at making things wet , nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more.

“My mom lit candles,” she said instead, going to grab the wet towels again.

“Scented ones, to make the bathroom smell nice. It would probably make her happy if you mentioned them.”

“I am brilliant with mothers,” Rai said.

Poppy took a deep breath. It had been a good day.

A really good day. Everything was going to be good.

“Don’t worry about the shoes—Mom’s house is a no-shoes zone anyway.

I’ll get some newspaper to stuff in them and…

and I can put your socks in the dryer if you want.

And get you some socks if your feet are cold.

I think I have some that will fit you if you don’t mind polka do ts and—”

“You are frightened.” Rai reached out and touched her hand, even though it was buried in the mass of towels. “Do not be. I will not break your mother or insult her couch.”

“You haven’t seen this couch,” Poppy quipped weakly. “It’s got more sunflowers than a Van Gogh exhibit.”

“Excellent.” His voice didn’t sound sarcastic at all.