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And Rai had been…stranger than most. She didn’t know how to define it.

Almost childlike at times, with the kind of enthusiasm most grown men of her acquaintance considered embarrassing, but at other times seeming ancient in experience.

From his stories, he had to have been traveling the world for more years than his face seemed to hold, been to almost every country in the Americas and half the continental states, as well.

He was on the slim side, maybe, but that didn’t mean anything except that he wasn’t into bulking up.

Plus, he had the sort of job that wasn’t for teenagers and hadn’t blinked an eye when Poppy had mentioned her own age, so he couldn’t be that young, could he?

Unless he hadn’t blinked because he’d looked at her and seen someone way too old for him, not even worthy of consideration.

Or maybe he was one of those guys who only dated girls younger than him, and thirty-three was out of the question. She wished she had actually asked.

And it was insane that she was even thinking of him now, when he’d responded to her tentative, uncharacteristic suggestion of sharing numbers with the clear rebuff I do not text.

It was 2023, and he had a job as a traveling sales representative.

He had to have a phone, even if it was one of the vintage-style flip-phones she sometimes saw retirees tapping away at.

So no matter how much she had enjoyed his company—no matter what he’d said—he clearly didn’t want to talk to her again, much less see her again on his business trip or even send casual, impersonal pictures of the countries he’d told her about. He hadn’t wanted anything from her.

Like I have time for a social life anyhow, she told herself firmly and smiled at her mother. “Do you want some tea?”

Her mom nodded. “Yes. Tea. Oh, but I can fix it.”

“No, I got it. Why don’t you get ready for bed? It’s late.” Poppy leaned over and grabbed the TV remote, then pressed the off button. The weather map and its frustrating red spiral disappeared, and she headed for the kitchen as her mother pattered back into her bedroom.

While the water heated, Poppy quietly checked the cupboards, sighing in relief at the slight hints of disarray.

Thank god she’d decided to brave the rain after seeing all the missed calls and frantic texts.

She’d gotten home before the anxiety had gotten to rearrange-the-cupboards levels.

Though it probably helped that the cupboards were mostly bare.

While she was looking, Poppy did a quick inventory in her head.

She’d have to do some creative finagling, but all right, they could do a pancake night, and there was enough sugar to last until Friday if Poppy left it for her mother’s tea.

And her mom’s habit of saving unused paper napkins from fast food orders would take care of the toilet paper issue.

They could manage. Even if she was starting to wonder if the internet had a recipe for turning ketchup packets into soup.

She hastily closed the cupboards when she heard movement; her pajama-clad mom appeared in the kitchen doorway a moment later, leaning her head against the doorframe. “I remembered to take my meds,” she said in a soft voice. “Not right when the alarm went off, but close.”

The kettle clicked off and Poppy fetched mugs. “Of course you did. Mint or chamomile?”

“Sleepytime, please. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Mom. It’s okay.” This was part of the routine, too—her mom feeling guilty after an episode, which then made Poppy feel guilty in return. And both of them knew they shouldn’t, and both of them did anyway. “Here you go.”

They settled in the dining nook to drink their tea, and though it took a bit, Poppy managed to get her mom talking about something that wasn’t the storm or the possibility of a leaky roof or whether Poppy might catch a cold.

Thankfully she managed to not sneeze during the discussion of the latest book her mom was reading, or she’d be promising a trip to the emergency room that she couldn’t afford.

Still, by the time her mom was all tea’ed up and ready for bed, Poppy could feel the cold of her damp clothes down to the bone.

She set the mugs in the sink and surreptitiously stuffed a handful of napkins in a Ziploc before bidding her mom good night and heading out the door.

Thank god her mom had been too agitated and then too tired to ask about the shopping trip.

Poppy collected the still-dripping bags and took them back to the guest house that was her current home.

At least for as long as they managed to keep within the sweet spot on the mortgage payments that was, if not strictly on time or caught up, at least not foreclosed.

When her parents had moved out to Tucson, Poppy had been just out of college and trying to make the transition from the part-time job that had helped pay for her education to her career job at Beaumont, so she hadn’t been deeply involved in the decision making.

But from what they’d told her, the guest house had been most of what had drawn them to this particular house just north of downtown and west of the university.

Her dad had wanted a studio where he could be messy and occasionally loud without distressing his wife, and her mom had loved the house’s antique woodwork and proximity to the biannual street fair.

Now that Poppy was here, the guest house gave her a small haven of privacy where she could work in peace and do her own painting when she had the time, even though she still spent most of each day at the main house with her mother.

It had a small bedroom, its own bathroom with a shower and bathtub, a mini fridge that was currently almost empty, and a kitchen area with a two-burner hot plate, microwave, and coffee maker.

It was, at least on paper, her own private apartment where she could live her own private life.

And now, it was going to give her the privacy to assess just how fucked she and her mom were until the next time she got paid.

After a quick stop at her bedroom to put on pajamas and set her shoes out to dry, she took a deep breath and gingerly unpacked the contents of the bags onto her kitchen counter, trying to keep the calm she’d generated for her mother as she did so.

The drenched toilet paper was a huge blow, but…

maybe salvageable? God, she hoped so. She dragged out a rack from the cupboards and carefully set the rolls out to air dry.

They weren’t going to be pretty, but if she took the half-roll in her bathroom to the main house for her mother and then kept a stack of napkins out here, she could make it till they dried, at least. Maybe.

As for the food… Well, the veggies were okay, and the frozen food would probably be fine, but the sugar was a dead loss, and a quick check on the boxes of pasta showed they were stuck together in a way that wouldn’t come unstuck, each one a gloopy gluteny mass.

She should have gotten the stuff wrapped in plastic, but these had been on sale.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That was two meals effectively ruined, though at least when she could afford more pasta the sauce would still be good.

She sorted the rest quickly into piles, trying not to cry when the trash pile was twice the size of the keep pile.

It was like one of those demented decluttering TV shows, except instead of getting rid of junk, Poppy and her mom were going on an unplanned, incredibly unhealthy diet.

But… Well, they could do it. They could make it to Friday evening, at least, and her deposit usually made it through the system by seven, so if it wasn’t raining, she could leave the house at six…

Poppy ignored the small voice in her head that said it was almost certainly going to rain on Friday, and probably Saturday, too, because that was exactly how her luck worked.

She’d just have to bring an umbrella, and a big trash bag so if it started raining, she’d be prepared to protect her purchases.

Gritting her teeth, she transferred the ruined food to the trash can, stuck the perishables in the mini-fridge, and set the rest out to finish drying overnight. She’d rebag and take them to the main house when she went to help with breakfast.

In any case, she should start that job she’d extended. She really should. She’d pushed the deadline as far as they’d allow but it was still due early enough in the morning that she needed to finish it before she slept, and she couldn’t afford to return it for someone else to do.

Instead, her feet took her back to the sunroom that her dad had used as a studio.

He’d painted mostly in oils, gentle Sonoran landscapes and desert botanicals in a smooth neo-classical style that had sold moderately at various local galleries, but his paintings were all long gone now, leaving only splashes and spatters of greens and browns on the concrete floor.

There was a sink for washing brushes, a worktable for stretching canvases and cutting mats, and a drafting table; his easels were stacked in the corner, except for the one where Poppy had hopefully set up her own canvas, the one she hadn’t gotten to touch in weeks.

She didn’t touch it now, either, but she did grab a sketchbook and plop it on the drafting table, stuffing down her immediate sense of guilt.

Ten minutes, she told herself fiercely. You can have ten minutes. And she started to sketch.

She told herself she was going to try and work out the problems with her painting composition, figure a placement of the prickly pear paddles and blossoms that didn’t look like a kindergartener had designed it, maybe use the golden ratio like her dad had.

But she secretly knew that was a lie, and just a few pencil strokes in, she had to admit it consciously, because of course she was drawing Rai, getting his face onto paper before she lost it from her mind.

He might not be interested in further acquaintance, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take down her impressions of him, remember the evening fondly as a pleasant, if isolated, chance meeting.

Hell, it was more of a social life than she usually got; she hadn’t talked to anyone but her mother for weeks, other than impersonal conversations with store clerks.

Despite the disaster of the rain, the way everything had gone wrong at once, Rai had made her feel human for a while, like she had something in her life besides struggle.

Of course she had to draw him.

When she was done—or as done as she was going to get in the time she allowed herself—she frowned at her sketchpad in dismay.

It wasn’t right. There was something about his eyes that she just couldn’t capture, the shape or the spacing or the way they were balanced by his winged eyebrows.

The smile was closer, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t been quite that wide or toothy in reality, just felt that way because it was so uninhibited.

She remembered his teeth as perfectly straight, but they didn’t look right drawn that way, either.

And pencil was not at all the right medium for the way his shirt had clung to him. It needed to be watercolor or oils, or—

Poppy glanced at the clock and froze. Shit.

She’d been indulging herself for almost an hour!

She hastily scribbled a date at the top of the page and dashed out into her tiny living area, grabbed her laptop and headphones, and settled at her work desk.

It didn’t matter that she could think of nothing more soul-sucking than—she logged in and checked the title of her transcript job, trying not to groan—yet another group of talking heads discussing the upcoming elections.

It was paid work, and they needed the money more than ever.

Especially if she ever wanted to get her Kia back in driving condition.

She didn’t have time to draw a cute, funny guy who she was never going to see again because he didn’t even want her number. No matter how joyful his smile was.

Poppy shut Rai out of her mind and got to work.