by Lulu Pratt
“Of course.”
After a quick traipse to the bar, manned by an equally small old woman who looked to be welded to the bar, I returned with a margarita and a Jack and Coke.
“Here you go,” I said, setting down the glass in front of Poppy. “I’d say cheers, but that hardly seems appropriate.”
That made her laugh, and she took the drink in hand and threw it back with unexpected gusto.
“Okay, so little Ms. Poppy Reeve isn’t such a saint,” I joked.
She rolled her eyes. “Alcohol is legal in the US for people twenty-one and older, and I’m twenty-three. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“You’re twenty-three?” I asked, surprised. “I’m twenty-seven.”
“I’m an old soul,” she replied with a small smile.
I took a sip of my drink. “I figured as much.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, the red dissipating from Poppy’s eyes. At last, I said, “I’m sorry about what happened back there, with Chrissy. It was fucking awful.”
Poppy waved me off. “No, no it’s fine, I should – I need to have a tougher skin. I know I get too upset by little things.”
“Little things?” I scoffed. “Lass, I’m surprised you didn’t deck her. Those words were cruel and unjust.”
“Right,” Poppy murmured unconvincingly, eyes staring deep into the depths of her margarita.
This, I won’t stand for. I laid a hand on Poppy’s upper arm. Her eyes glanced at it, and I said, “You’re gorgeous. Chrissy doesn’t know shit.”
I thought Poppy was going to move my hand, but she allowed it to remain affixed to her bare skin.
“I’ve never lacked confidence in myself,” she explained. “Ever. I always thought fat was beautiful, that my body was powerful. Even being online, people say hateful stuff, but I took it in stride. But then, since entering the fashion world proper with BeYou and its magazines and this shoot, I’ve felt constantly judged, like I will never be good enough.”
“You’re good enough for me,” I replied.
“That’s nice, Finn, but–”
“And society is wrong. Don’t let outdated bullshit, spewed by people who hate themselves more than you could possibly imagine, influence how you see yourself.”
She shook her head, vehement. “It’s not just how I see myself, though. It’s about my future, my career. How can I work with everyone when all they see, when they look at me, is a lazy fat girl?”
I squeezed her arm, her skin turning pink to my touch. “Poppy, you’re good at changing society. I’ve seen how you do all this charity work, how you engage with your followers. If anybody can make this world a better place, it’s you.”
She turned to me. “And it’s you. Shoot fat girls for Regency.”
I looked askance, not ready for this conversation again.
Poppy pressed. “Seriously. That would make a huge difference. If I have to make an effort, then so do you.”
God, she was right, wasn’t she? At last, I replied, “I’ll see what I can do about it, okay? They’ll probably fire me, but hell, worth a shot.”
Her face lit up. “Trying is next to godliness. Thanks, Finn.”
I sat back, delighted just to have brought a smile to Poppy’s face.
“Okay, that’s settled,” I said. “Now, how do we cheer you up?”
She thought about this for a moment, and then her eyes moved to the stage. She grinned, and replied, “Oh, I’ve got an idea.”
Poppy got up from her stool and strutted over to the band. Where was this going? They exchanged a few words, then she whirled back around to me.
“Finn, come on, they’re gonna play for us.”
“What?”
She rolled her blue eyes. “A song, dummy. You asked how you could cheer me up. Well, sir, I love me a dance.”
Bullocks. Of all the things she could’ve picked, why’d it have to be dancing?
“I’m a terrible dancer,” I called back.
“Then lucky for you I’m an excellent one.”
With those hips? Yeah, I believed it.
I weighed the options in my head. Pros: I could improve Poppy’s day, and get close to her red-hot body. Cons: I will make a fool out of myself.
The pros had it. I was increasingly desperate, in a surprising, physical way to get near her. I wanted to feel the sweat on her back, the swivel of her waist, her breasts against my chest. Besides, there was no one in here to mock me. I’d make a fool out of myself if I didn’t dance with the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.
“All right,” I groaned, getting out of my chair and moving to the small dance floor. “Please lower your expectations.”
“Aw, come on,” she said, a smile already on her face. “I’ll show you the tricks.”
She’d gone from weeping in my arms to smiling beatifically, as if nothing had ever happened. I was impressed by how she managed to feel happiness, even when in the same circumstances, I’d have resorted to intense anger or depression. Resilient, I thought. That’s the word.
Poppy approached me on the floor with confidence. She stopped in front of me.
“Here’s where you put your hands,” she explained, before looping my hands around her waist and settling them on the small of her back.
For some reason, I’d expected Poppy to go in for formal ballroom dancing, the kind with stiff backs and clasped hands. Instead, she appeared to be leading me closer to a rumba. As I nestled my hands on her back, I could feel the beginning of the slope to her ass. Oh, how I longed to grab her thick, juicy cheeks in my palms and squeeze hard.
“Great,” she continued, thankfully unaware of my naughty thoughts.
She put her hands on my shoulders, and took a step closer to me. We were close, maybe closer than we ought to be for this dance, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“Perfect,” she murmured, her voice a bit lower than before.
“Now what?” I asked, leaning my head down, unsure what I myself was suggesting. Was I building up to a kiss?
We’d almost had one, earlier, or so I thought – back on the beach, when I was shooting Poppy – prior to the Chrissy bullshit. Our faces had been so close, my hand in her hair… but I had decided it was in my head. Why would a good girl like her want to kiss a rascal like me? Just because romance moved fast in my world didn’t mean Poppy could be wooed overnight, especially not after we’d been butting heads since the jump.
So I held back, much as I wanted to kiss her. And though I might want to again on the dance floor, my earlier logic still held – I couldn’t get presumptuous, couldn’t forget about her background and her beliefs. To move fast would be a cardinal sin. So I kept my lips to myself and focused on the dance.
Poppy signaled the band, who picked up their instruments and began to tune.
“Follow my lead,” she whispered.
And then, all of a sudden, the music started up, loud and brash, too grand for this tiny tiki bar, and we were dancing.
Well, Poppy was dancing. I was following. My feet moved after hers, my hips following her circles.
“Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” she shouted over the music.
“Only because you’re teaching me,” I replied in earnest.
She laughed, tilting her head back and throwing her blonde curls over her shoulder. My heart raced far faster than the beat of the music.
Chapter 15
POPPY
FINN AND I fell into a rhythm, one that seemed to belong to us and us alone.
Despite all his moaning, he really was an excellent dancer. His body was strong, taut but pliable. He was a natural.
We got lost in the music, so lost that we didn’t even notice, at first, that a small crowd had begun to gather within the bar. Later, I’d realize that they were probably drawn in by the music blaring from the shack, but at the time, I was preoccupied with Finn’s piercing eyes and lascivious lips, which were just beggin’ to get kissed.
Before long, people were joining u
s on the dance floor, and energy and bodies were moving like a tornado around us, the music getting more frenetic, Finn getting more confident. He was spinning me, dipping me, doing all sorts of stuff for a boy who ‘couldn’t dance.’ And this, more than anything else, cheered me up.
As a fat girl, I’ve always been afraid to get to physical with someone, for fear that my weight will be an issue. I don’t wanna get swung around the room, in case I pull their arm out. I’d been nervous getting in the rickshaw earlier, concerned that the driver wouldn’t be able to handle our weight, but even that wasn’t an issue. My confidence was returning, thanks in large part to Finn’s valiant efforts.
The band’s last song trailed off, and the bassist loudly announced – there were no mics, of course – that the bar was closing for the night. We all clapped them off, and the crowd dispersed.
Finn wiped some errant sweat from his brow.
“That was wild,” he admitted. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had that much fun.”
“Really?”
He nodded, then with a cheeky grin, added, “Doing anything with you is fun.”
I blushed – as if my face wasn’t already crimson enough from dancing – and forced myself to hold his gaze.
“You’re not half bad yourself,” I said.
Did I say that?! I screamed in my head.
Finn’s smile was growing more devious by the second, when a nearby bar patron shouted in our general direction:
“You two are a beautiful couple!”
“Oh no,” I began, “we’re not–”
But another tourist cut me off, saying, “Let’s have a kiss, kids, come on!”
Finn waved them away. “It’s not like that–”
And then, as if through a surge of telepathy, the entire bar was shouting, “KISS, KISS, KISS.”
The noise boomed around us as I looked at Finn, hesitating. He bit his lip.
“I don’t think they’ll shut up until we kiss,” he acknowledged. “Or we can just get out of here, your call.”
Thoughts receded to the back of my mind, the air thick around me. I knew what I wanted, I just couldn’t say the words.
What I managed was, “Well, I am a people pleaser.”
Finn’s eyes went wide, the chants of ‘kiss, kiss, kiss,’ still filling the room. He didn’t need another signal.
His hands went to my lower back, where they’d been resting only moments ago as we danced about the room, and he pulled me in close. Seconds later, his mouth was on mine, and we were kissing.
The cheers of the room faded into the distance as I realized that I was kissing Finn back, my lips moving around his, my hands grabbing for his face, desperate for more of him. His breath was heavy, and through my fingers, I could feel his pulse racing. We both wanted this. Maybe we’d both wanted this for longer than we really knew.
The chanting around us died, and I pulled away, shocked at my own immodesty. Had I just kissed a guy at the urging of a room of strangers? I’d kissed boys before, of course, but usually pecks, and more often than not, in the middle of a field somewhere and never in front of anybody. Even that had felt brazen. And when I’d kissed them, there hadn’t been the same urgency there’d been with Finn, the feeling that if we took our lips to their natural conclusion, we’d end up in bed.
Finn, for the first time since I’d known him, didn’t have some clever remark.
In fact, he nearly stuttered as he asked, “Shall I call us a rickshaw home?”
I nodded, relieved that he appeared as taken aback by our kiss as I was. “Yes, please.”
He clasped my hand in his, and led me out of the bar, into the quiet night. Though we’d been in there with a sizable crowd, they’d all vanished. Finn and I were alone.
“That was…” he began, but broke off.
“Yeah.”
“Poppy?”
“Yes?”
“I think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever kissed,” he said, his eyes boring into mine, his brows arched, waiting for my reply. He continued, “And, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to do it again sometime.”
My heart was too high in my throat for me to respond like a normal human, so instead I squeaked out, “It’s a deal.”
Oh my gosh! First one kiss, after knowing the man for less than a week, and now plans for another? This island air was doing crazy things to me.
Another rickshaw came into view, and Finn hailed it for us.
We spent the ride home with our thighs pressed against one another, just like before – only this time, he placed his hand just above my knee, moving his fingers in slow, tracing circles. I didn’t want him to stop, but I also worried I’d leave a little wet patch on the seat, which would be extremely unladylike.
At last, we arrived at the villa.
“So,” Finn asked. “What now?”
I took a breath. What did I want? Did I want to go to sleep and pretend this never happened, act like I was the same chaste girl I’d been this morning?
Or did I want to see where this could go?
Against all odds, I picked the latter.
“Let’s get in the hot tub,” I suggested. We were, as it happened, still wearing our bathing suits, so we wouldn’t have to skinny dip. A feat which I didn’t think I was ready for.
He grinned. “What a wonderful suggestion.”
Hand in hand, we raced through the gate of the villa and out the back. Near the infinity pool was a small hot tub, just big enough for a couple.
I hesitated for a moment. I was comfortable with the public seeing me in a bikini – I didn’t believe there was any such thing as a “beach body,” that was some toxic nonsense – but being at least exposed in front of Finn felt somehow monumental. But then again, I ached to see him shirtless again, as he’d been in bed the night before. And if I desired that view, I was going to have to let my guard drop, just a little.
Besides, I was wearing one of Mimi’s bikinis, a high-waisted emerald green number with a tie top that pushed my breasts up and together. I’d been hiding it beneath my outfit all day, afraid. Afraid of what? I didn’t know.
I pulled my shirt over my head, and I heard Finn inhale, a small noise barely audible above the whirling tub. His eyes landed appreciatively on my chest, then immediately away, the picture of chivalry. Not that he hasn’t already seen it before, I thought. In fact, he saw me unclothed before he saw me dressed.
But this was different. This wasn’t an embarrassing run-in where I felt exposed, immodest. This was a choice, one I made, and one whose consequences I could live with.
I wiggled out of my skirt, letting it drop to the ground. Finn stared with abandon, no longer even attempting to conceal his gaze.
“Wow,” he murmured, and then, remembering himself, “that’s a beautiful bathing suit. Because it’s on you, of course. A lucky suit.”
I colored. “Your turn,” I joked, but the quivering in my voice belied the casualness of my tone.
Finn caught it, but didn’t seem to care. In fact, he looked a little delighted that he’d reduced me to such trembling.
Slowly, he unbuttoned the remaining closed buttons of his shirt. They’d been undone over the course of the day, and now there were only a few stragglers. He whipped the shirt off, tossing it aside, and then kicked off his sandals. He paused, took a breath and then unbuttoned his trousers and sent them flying as well.
He was in a pair of Speedos that, though black, congealed to his body, creating suggestive outlines. Oh, I could think about those outlines all day and frankly, had done as much.
“Shall we?” he asked, breaking the silence during which our eyes had feasted on one another’s forms.
I nodded. “It’s about time.”
I wasn’t sure what I meant by that, but by Finn’s smirk, it was a thought he’d shared.
We clambered in, and despite the thick night air, the heat felt good against my skin. Especially in my nether regions. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what kind of cra
zy, un-Poppy-like force was possessing me, but I didn’t think I much cared. It felt good to be just a little bit bad.
We sighed as our bodies melted into the heat of the fizzy water, the jets blasting into our backs, sore from plane rides and photo shoots and lots of dancing.
“So, Poppy,” he said, steam rising from around his body. Between that and the long, black hair, he looked like the image of Satan – bad to the bone and wildly tempting. Couldn’t a girl walk on the wild side just once?
“Yes?”
“Tell me about your life,” he finished. “I fear that I know very little.”
That caught me off guard. I’d expected some kind of clever innuendo, but instead, I found that Finn appeared genuinely interested in my life. I had no answer prepared for such an earnest question, so went off the cuff.
“Um, there’s not much to tell. You know about my job, obviously. Both of my parents are still around, and I love them dearly, and I have the best older sister in the world, April, who’s a pastor. Family means a lot to me, and so does my faith. I’ve been professionally vlogging for three years and love my job. And when I’m not working, I do charity work.”
He shook his head. “That’s incredible.”
I blushed, both from the heat of the water and from Finn’s praise. “It’s nothing, really,” I replied.
“That’s not true,” he argued. “You’re being unnecessarily modest. What kind of charity work do you do?”
This I had an immediate answer to. “I work with government programs for the poor and disabled, sometimes help with my church’s daycare, volunteer at the animal shelter as much as possible, and then pick up whatever extra other charitable work I can find around my town. We’re lovin’, but my area’s pretty poor. One job I loved recently was teaching a group of female veterans who were looking for new jobs how to apply make-up before a job interview, and then giving them all the free samples companies had sent me over the years. It was great to see them more confident and having a good time.”
I stopped abruptly, wondering if this was starting to sound like bragging. I certainly hadn’t intended that, I was just passionate about–
