by Kendall Ryan
I grinned, momentarily surprised and charmed by her candor. "I mean, I'm open to whips and chains. To be honest, I'm open to most things. I never say never. Pleasure is all too fleeting in this world.”
"I'll be sure to add all that to your Okay Cupid profile," Poppy said, pressing a palm to one of her rosy cheeks. "Anyway, I should probably be getting to this damned paper."
"Right." I nodded, ignoring the twinge of disappointment. This conversation was just heating up.
She got up to leave, then turned on her heel and walked back toward me. "Oh, shoot, before I go."
"What's up?"
She zipped open her backpack and pulled out an all-too-familiar looking sheet of paper, now soft and worn at the edges from her fingers. My stomach kicked up into my throat, and sweat dotted my palms.
"I have some homework for you, too," she said.
"That's not how this arrangement works," I countered. “I give the homework. I don’t get the homework.” It wasn’t entirely accurate, I only mentored her work, but it got my point across.
She rolled her eyes but handed the paper to me all the same. I looked at it, momentarily studying my own words, my own handwriting, wondering if she knew. If now was the moment she was going to call me out, to put a stop to this.
"What's this?" I asked casually, though my blood thundered in my ears.
“A poem,” she responded. “Handwritten. I found it in my backpack the other day. I think I have a secret admirer.” She looked at me with the innocence of a fucking baby deer. “Do you have any idea who it could be? He writes so beautifully.”
“There’s any number of talented poets in the program. How do you know it’s a man?”
“The language is male.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but luckily Poppy continued.
“When you're going over assignments, do you think you could keep your eyes peeled for that handwriting? I don't want to lead anyone on but it’s…I don’t know. I just want to know who it is.”
"Right." I nodded. "Of course, I can do that."
I took a look down at the words I’d written and stuffed into her bag during our sushi date. I wondered when she had found this one. I also wondered how she could possibly be so clueless about the fact it was from me.
"Thanks, Zach." She beamed again. "Talk to you soon."
And just like that, she swiveled back around and headed out across campus.
Still, as she walked away?
As I thought about all the things I'd listed about the kind of woman I wanted to fall in love with?
I was coming to realize, there was a lot more between us than the possibility of swapping bodily fluids, and that made this game incredibly dangerous and twice as stupid.
Poppy, sweet Poppy. Dangerous Poppy. She was pure fire. And I could not have been any more willing to throw myself into the flames.
Chapter Ten
Poppy
“You guys are coming with us,” Kody informed me and Connor, leaning on the doorframe to our dining room. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a purple sweater with a large apple printed on the front. Two apple earrings dangled from his ears and sparkled in the sunlight as he walked across the room to the table where Connor and I were camped out—me with a textbook and him a worksheet containing that week’s spelling words.
“Where to?” I asked, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I had three loads of laundry to fold, and dinner to make, and I was supposed to read forty pages of this book before class tomorrow and come prepared to discuss it. Right now, the only thing I felt prepared to discuss was how horribly dry it was.
“Jodee and I are going apple picking and you two have to come.” Kody crossed his arms and looked at me. “All you do is mom, work, and write.” For emphasis, he gestured around the room to the piles of books, stacks of papers, and Connor’s half-assembled science project.
I pushed back my chair and rose to my feet. “First, mom is not a verb. Second, that’s kind of my life.” Hard work was in my genes. It’d been bred into me from the time I was born. Call me crazy, but I never wanted to feel unprepared for my next class, or like I hadn’t done my best work. I had a child to provide for—I wasn’t allowed to half-ass it.
Kody leaned against the side of the table.
“I need to finish the assigned reading,” I told him as I opened the window to gauge the temperature outside.
“I’ll fill you in on the basics on the way,” he offered.
“You read it?”
He shook his head. “No one does the assigned reading. I skimmed.”
I shut the window with a little shiver, there was a chill in the air, wrapping my arms around myself. The truth was, I could sit here for the next hour and read every word, but I knew I’d never absorb it.
“Please Mom, can we go? Please?” Connor’s sweet honey-colored gaze looked up at mine, and it was all the reassurance that I needed. A little break and some afternoon sunshine might do us some good.
“Okay, you win, we’ll go apple picking with you.”
Kody grinned and strode from the room. His spirit was infectious, and he had a point, debating the topics in the assigned reading wasn't part of our grade—the papers were.
I volunteered to drive because it always helped me relax. Plus, Connor’s booster seat was a pain to move, and then I could control the radio too, so that nothing inappropriate got played for little ears. Not that Kody and Jodee would do that. They were very sweet and respectful of Connor. We sat in the car waiting for Jodee, who always took forever to get ready. She finally ran out to meet us at the car. She was also wearing a sweater with an apple pattern.
“Why didn’t I get the memo about these apple sweaters?” I asked, looking down at my plain black cable knit.
Kody shrugged.
It was another little reminder that my life was about working, school, and raising my son. I didn’t have time for their bar-hopping or the thrift-store hunting excursions they favored. And that was perfectly fine with me. I’d made my peace a long time ago that there were things I was going to miss out on. Okay, that was a lie—but it was mostly fine with me. There were only a handful of times when my desires for something I couldn’t have actually bothered me. Zach was one of those instances.
But I refused to let this afternoon be about Zach—the academic adviser I wanted to ride like a rodeo bull. He didn’t even know about Connor, and even though that bothered me, on another strange level—part of me liked that too. I liked that to him I was just a normal grad student, a girl he was attracted to. It was nice not to feel like a mom for five seconds. I knew I would tell him eventually, but I wasn’t sure when that might be. We didn’t have to share every intimate, personal thing with each other, did we?
We pulled up to the little farm stand, and followed the gravel road around to the parking lot. Connor excitedly led the way, bounding up the trails and pointing out the giant bounce house at the other end of the farm.
We took our time, picking apples and then selected four huge pumpkins. After we paid, we sat on stumps drinking cider from plastic cups, while Connor jumped inside the bounce house.
“It seems so far away but I know it’s going to go so quickly,” Jodee said, sipping her cider. “What do you think you want to do after graduation?”
“I want to write, but I also want to keep doing content creation on the side for extra money,” I told her, wrapping my wool scarf tighter around my neck. “If I work hard at my part-time job now, I could get hired full-time later.”
Kody was nodding. “It’s so hard to make a living as a writer. I think I want to teach.”
I pictured Kody strutting around the front of a classroom, using a pointer for dramatic effect. Jodee and I grinned at each other, and I could tell she was picturing a similar scenario.
“I think you’d be good at that,” she laughed.
“I’m also hoping to publish a book of poems within a year of graduat
ion,” I said. I’d been working feverishly trying to finish enough poems to have a collection by the time I graduated. Even then, I’d still need to worry about finding an agent.
Growing up, some of my favorite moments were reading from Shel Silverstein’s book of poems, A Light in the Attic. It would be a dream come true to hold a book of my own poetry in my hands, to know that people around the world were reading my words.
“Always the overachiever,” Jodee smiled.
“You should talk,” I said, playfully poking her arm. She already knew she wanted to work in publishing when she graduated. She was the Assistant Editor of our school’s literary journal, on track to becoming Editor in her second year.
When Connor was finished inside the bounce house, out he slid, running over to me excitedly.
“Thanks Mom.”
I ruffled his sweaty hair and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Love you buddy.”
As we headed back to my car, hauling our apples and pumpkins into my trunk, my phone vibrated. My heart sped up. It was Zach.
I found the perfect woman for you.
I grinned, remembering our conversation from the other day.
Interesting. Double date?
He texted back immediately.
Just tell me when and where.
On the ride home I was quiet, distracted by thoughts of Zach. I needed to keep my focus, especially if I wanted to maintain my sanity. But he always found a way to sneak into my head. He was so incredibly distracting, and it didn’t help that every time I thought of him my body started to tingle and I got all hot and bothered between my legs. I shook my head, hoping I could shake out the memory of Zach with his shirt sleeves rolled up, tattoos and muscular forearms revealed. Fuck. This was ridiculous. I seriously needed to get a vibrator before I totally lost my mind over this guy.
* * *
"There's my brown-eyed girl," Christopher sang, strutting toward me at the front of the salon.
As much as I loved getting my hair done—what girl didn't? Someone else to shampoo and blow dry your hair was worth its weight in gold. I loved spending time with my stylist too. "Hey Chris," I greeted him, returning his air kisses.
Today he was dressed in a pair of skin-tight black jeans, combat boots, and a Hello Kitty t-shirt. A little ironic, the writer in me noted.
"You changed your hair," I commented following him back to his station.
After placing my purse on the shelf, I took a seat in the black leather styling chair, and admired his new look.
Christopher changed his hair as often as I changed my outfits. Okay, not really, but every time I came in, it was different.
It was grown out on top and dyed pink with the underneath shaved this time.
"You like it?" He looked straight ahead into the mirror, ruffling it with his fingers.
"It's super cute on you."
"José likes it too." He laughed like it was some inside joke between them.
José was his boyfriend of three years. I was here at the salon one day when José came and dropped off Christopher's lunch. I wasn't sure why it surprised me that his other half was so masculine—a ruggedly handsome, in an unkempt sort of way, construction worker no less. Maybe because Christopher wore makeup and was just as comfortable in leggings and a tunic as he was in jeans. But they made such an odd couple, it was endearing. What they had was clearly true love and acceptance, and I wasn't about to knock it. We should all be so lucky.
"So, what are you thinking? The usual?" he asked.
I nodded. My tastes were boring compared to his, but Christopher never made me feel that way. Instead he was encouraging, using words like classic and timeless to describe my sense of style.
"The usual," I confirmed. We kept my long tresses shaped with a few simple layers to allow for some movement, and added a color gloss to the whole thing since my dark brown hair tended to go dull.
While we washed and trimmed and blow-dried, I brought him up to speed on my life, like my break-up with Jason, and all the latest with Connor. Christopher was supportive of the breakup, and admitted that I never seemed quite happy when I was with Jason.
We chatted casually as he worked on updating my hair, and we had no problem enjoying stretches of comfortable silence too. I'd been coming to Christopher for a couple of years now, and so being in his chair was relaxing for me.
"What else is new? You like your graduate program as much as you thought you would?"
I nodded, my mind immediately conjuring an image of Zach, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, looking at me over the rim of his paper coffee cup.
"Yeah." I swallowed, uneasily.
Christopher laughed, the sound light and musical. "What was that look for?"
I rolled my eyes. "It's just ... my program adviser. His name is Zach, and ..."
"And you like him." Christopher smiled devilishly. "Is he yummy?"
I cleared my throat. I was about to deny it, to lie and avoid and try and hide from the truth. But damn it, Zach was yummy. I just hated that fact.
"I sort of... kissed him."
Christopher's eyes went wide. He knew just how out of character that was for me. I was a rule-follower through and through.
"It was the weekend before classes started,” I explained. “We were at the same party. My new neighbor had dragged me there to distract me from the breakup, and Zach happened to be there, as a chaperone for a friend's younger brother." I didn't tell him the part about asking Zach to pretend to be my date, because it didn't feel relevant. Nothing between us was pretend. Even from that first night. "We just sort of clicked you know, and then he kissed me and it was... everything."
"Wow. That's awesome, girl."
I shook my head, admiring the way my hair now finished, fell in loose waves around my shoulders. "It's not that simple. I mean, I'm working with him in a professional, academic capacity." I wasn't sure who I was trying to convince, him or me.
Christopher spritzed my tresses with a bit of hairspray and shrugged his shoulders. "When you find someone you click with, don't fuck with the universe's plans. That's all I know. If you like him, you like him. I say go for it."
I rose from his chair, my stomach unsettled. Why was this such a non-issue for all the gay men in my life? Maybe they were just less-complicated, they didn't see the issue with all the same hang-ups and caution tape that I did. Was it possible that everyone was right? That I needed to throw caution to the wind and see where my attraction to Zach might lead?
Chapter Eleven
Zach
When the end of yet another long week finally arrived, I headed home with a briefcase full of half-finished outlines, and poems to review.
Not that I could focus on any of it.
With Poppy around—and even when she wasn't—I spent my time drifting between a sad attempt at concentrating on my work and fantasizing about calling her into my office just to bend her pliable body over my desk and take her in every way I'd imagined.
And so far?
I'd done a lot of imagining.
Every time I found a free moment, it felt like she was the only thing to fill my mind. When I read, I compared the prose to her own work. When I walked down the street, every woman I saw was held in contrast to her.
And even that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the constant stream of fantasies that ran through my head. No longer was she satisfied with taking over my dreams. Now the time of day didn’t matter. All I could think about was how pretty, how special, how smart she was.
Even thinking of her now, my dick twitched with the need to satisfy the ache for her, but I ignored it, focusing instead on opening my front door and making my way to my office. I'd practically rubbed myself raw just thinking about this woman, but I couldn't allow myself to go down that path tonight.
I had work to do and I was going to do it.
Striding past the foyer, I made my way to my home office and breathed in the scent of fresh paint and s
awdust that now always reminded me of home.
Lately, I hadn't had much time to work on it, but over the summer I'd spent my time renovating my house, bringing it back to the glory days of what it had looked like when it had first been built.
Every detail took time—from sanding the moldings to matching the spindles on the staircase until they were exactly like what might have been there two centuries ago.
I was proud of it all, but none so much as my office. With its wide, built-in bookshelves and its stone fireplace, it was the kind of place every literary person dreamed of writing in.
With rows upon rows of thick, leather-bound books lining the walls and a crackling fireplace as the soundtrack, it was the sort of space that was designed to make a person think brilliant thoughts.
Pulling out my rolling leather desk chair, I sat down and set my briefcase on my desk, heaving the mass of papers onto the lacquered wooden surface.
Silently, I glanced at the cold, empty fireplace, but then a paper fell onto the floor and I bent down to pick it up, seeing almost instantly that it was one of Poppy's latest pieces.
The poem was beautiful and short, describing the seasons as two lovers—summer with a fiery temper and thrilling, colorful thrushes, and fall as her lover, staid and secure. Maturing. But it's only when summer left completely that everything died away into winter's chilled, frozen grip and the lovers are reunited, fresh and new as spring blossoms.
It wasn't my genre, it wasn't even my style, but there was no denying the beauty of her work. She thought in ways I couldn't, and that—almost more than anything else—was what intrigued me about her.
I turned to my laptop and clicked to open my latest manuscript, studying the chilliness in my own work. I wondered what Poppy might think of this if she saw it—if she would wish there was more romance and movement and life in my words like there always was in her poetry.
Slowly, I re-read my opening paragraph, then deleted it, trying my best to channel the passion and longing and fierce determination that Poppy might have. And when I read it over again? There was no doubt it was more engaging than the original.
