Page 30 of The Disasters of Dating (Love Connections #6)

She looks at me like I’m being silly. “I’m happy you met a girl, Keat. You’ve been focused on school and work for so long. I was worried you might have forgotten how to date.”

I raise a brow. “It’s like riding a bike.” It really isn’t. But Shay doesn’t need to know my struggles. She shouldn’t even know about Poppy. Shay isn’t my fiancée, and I’m under no obligation to share ‘everything’ with her.

“So tell me about her.” She sits back and crosses one knee over another, her purse tucked in her lap.

“There isn’t much to tell yet. We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

Shay’s eyes widen, and her lips flatten out. “Come on, Keat, throw me a bone here. Just give me a little information. Like—” She looks up at the ceiling, before piercing me with her gaze. “What’s her name?”

I give her a slow blink. So there were some things Evan kept to himself.

“Fine.” If giving Poppy’s name to Shay gets her to leave my office, I can surrender that info.

“Her name is Poppy, and she works at the airport.” I’m not sure why I felt inclined to add that last bit.

But maybe it will be enough to get Shay off my case.

A huge smile slides across Shay’s face, and I get a sense of unease. “No. Way.” She says each word like it’s its own sentence. Grabbing her phone from her purse, she starts texting.

Okay, that’s kind of rude. I can see why my dad gets irritated when one of us kids do it.

“I’m sorry my story is so boring, Shay.” But maybe that means she’ll leave and let me work. “But you’re the one who asked.”

She glances up at me. “No, it’s not that. I just need to ask my sister a quick question. Hold on.”

Evan appears in the doorway and leans against the door frame.

“Did you find the key fob?” I ask.

Evan holds it up before stuffing it in his pocket.

I fold my arms and lean back in my chair. “Thanks for breaking your promise, dude.”

He looks confused. “What promise did I break?”

I let out a huff. As if he doesn’t know. I thought his Stanford education was better than that. “Keeping my dating life to yourself?” Ring a bell ? I add silently.

He frowns. “I haven’t mentioned a word of it.”

I tip my head to the side. “Then why is Shay in here grilling me about the girl I met?”

Evan folds his arms. “I told her that last week. After that text with all the exclamations came through while we were talking.”

My face heats. Then this is more my fault than his. Crap.

“What’s she doing, anyway?” Evan nods toward his fiancée.

I lift a shoulder. “Texting her sister a question.”

Shay lets out a giggle. Yes, a giggle. It’s a noise she seems way too old to be making. “So…” She looks at me with far too knowing eyes. My stomach twists uncomfortably. “Does Poppy work at The Wandering Reader?”

A cold bead of sweat forms on my temple. How in the crap does she know that? “Yyyeeeessss,” I say slowly, making the word seem like it has three syllables.

Shay bounces in her seat. “This is literally the best thing ever!”

“What is?” Both Evan and I ask at the same time.

Evan takes the chair next to Shay. He’s staring at her like she has lost her mind. And I don’t think he’s far off base.

“It’s Poppy Ashcombe, right? Oh, my heck. You guys must look adorable together!”

My mouth drops open. I kind of wish I’d majored in statistics, because the chance that I would meet someone that Shay knows in the whole state of Utah feels astronomical. Like lottery winning kind of odds.

I nod. “Yeah. How do you know Poppy?”

She leans forward and grabs my hand. “She is perfect for you, Keat. I’m so excited right now.”

“But how do you know her?”

“She and my sister, Paisleigh, have been best friends since they were, like, four years old.” She laughs. “Has she guessed your sign yet?”

Oh, my heck, it’s the same Poppy. I was holding out hope that there might be two Poppy Ashcombes who work at The Wandering Reader and have a best friend named Paisleigh.

But she even knows about Poppy’s horoscope proclivities.

There can only be one of those Poppy Ashcombes.

I smile, but I’m not feeling easy in the least. My worlds are colliding! “Yeah, but she was wrong. Four times.”

Shay’s eyes widen. “No way. Poppy’s never wrong about that kind of thing.”

I shrug, feeling a little proud that I’d thrown her off. “We may have gotten off on the wrong foot at our first meeting. It gave her some false assumptions that she factored in.”

Evan clears his throat. “As much as I’d like to hear more about this—” He looks at his fiancée. “Shay, if we are going to make our reservation on time, we need to get going.”

She glances over at Evan. “Yeah, okay.” Then stares me down, pointing her finger at me. “But this isn’t over. When we get back from Montreal, you’re coming to dinner at Evan’s and we’re going to chat.”

Normally, such an invitation would thrill me. But Shay has a gleam in her eye that makes me a little frightened. “Okay. But, hey, can you tell your sister not to mention this to Poppy? I don’t want her to be weirded out.”

Shay waves a hand at me. “It won’t weird her out. If anything, knowing me will give you more street cred with her.”

I laugh. “I’m sure it will. No one who knows you can do anything but love you. But I would like to be the one who tells her. Okay?”

Shay nods. “Okay. I didn’t tell Pais. I just asked her the question. I’ll make up an excuse about why I wanted to know where Poppy worked. Maybe I’ll say I want to ask her if I can sell some books in her store.”

“Thanks, Shay.” I relax back into my chair. “I’ll look forward to my debriefing.”

Shay smiles, her head shaking. “I love this whole thing so much!” She’s downright giddy!

Evan gives me wide eyes as he grabs Shay’s hand.

“Come on, Princess. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for months.

Let’s not miss it because of Keaton’s love life.

” He gives me a serious face. “Hey, you can’t miss the board meeting on Friday—I don’t care how cute she is.

I need you here in person. Nathan, Greg, and Lawrence will all be here, and I need you here too. ”

I give him a firm salute. “Yes, sir.”

He motions to the papers. “Now go home. You put in enough hours every week. You don’t need to come in on a Saturday.”

I smile. “I wanted to read over these. Then I’ll head home. I promised Lowell we could go play basketball this afternoon and then go for pizza.”

Shay sticks her head back in the door. “One thing you should keep in mind is that you’ll probably have to move to Utah if you marry her. I can’t imagine she’ll move away from Utah. Not with everything that happened.”

Evan gives me a goodbye nod, and they both disappear. Shay already has us married? And what was everything that happened?

I watch them as they wait for the elevator. She must be talking about Poppy’s dad dying. But I already knew that moving out of state was likely a no-go for Poppy.

I settle back and look out my office window.

We are not in a high-rise in downtown Boston.

We’re on the top floor of a low-rise building in Charlestown.

But I can still see downtown in the distance.

Am I willing to let this go? I don’t think I’ve seriously considered it before.

I mean, I’ve only known Poppy for a few weeks.

I open my phone and pull up Poppy’s contact info.

What are you up to today?

I know texting her won’t give me answers. It may take years for me to know if I’m willing to leave the East Coast.

I set my phone down, thinking it will be a while before she answers. But my phone vibrates immediately.

Poppy

Just getting stuff put together for work today. I got some new oils for the diffuser! You?

I smile. New oils. Poppy’s the only person I know who’d exclamation point that. I look down at her face on my screen and then out at the view of Boston. My gaze immediately drops back to my phone.

Woah. I never thought it possible, but I think I can leave Boston if it means being with Poppy. I drop my phone onto my desk, as if it’s on fire. That realization scares me.