Four Day Fling(31)

Well, well, well.

I just got the approval from her mom—one I didn’t need.

But, strangely, I was fucking happy to have it.

***

“That was torture,” Poppy said, dropping onto the sand. “And you! You traitor.” She shoved me the second my ass hit the sand. “You enjoyed yourself!”

I reached behind my head and pulled my shirt off with one tug. “What?”

“You enjoyed yourself!” she said.

To my stomach.

“Do you want a picture of me?” I pulled out her line from lunch.

“Ugh! You’re insufferable!” Following my movement, she pulled her tank top off and tossed it over me to join my shirt.

Her bikini top was white, showing off a weird pink-golden color to her skin, and she swept her hair around to one side, exposing the side of her neck.

She jerked to look at me. “Now who needs another fucking picture?”

I held up my hands. “Just because I got along with your mom…”

“This is not because she now adores you!”

“Adores me, eh?”

“She hugged you longer than she hugged me!”

“That’s because I was nice to her,” I reminded her. “You were, well, a human cactus.”

Poppy rolled her eyes and lay down, pulling her sunglasses from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “And you’re the worst fake boyfriend ever.”

“Hey, you know that isn’t true.” I knocked my foot against hers. “If I was a bad one, I wouldn’t be friends with your mom.”

“That’s the point, dumbass.” She rolled onto her side, propping herself up on her elbow, and pulled down her glasses to look me in the eye. “She likes you. Now, when this weekend is done, I’m going to have to field questions about you until I can come up with a viable reason for why the hell I’d break up with someone like you.”

“Someone like me? Want to elaborate?”

“No.” She dropped her glasses back in place and herself back onto her back.

I rolled onto my stomach. “Oh, come on. Even I know you’re gonna field her calls and avoid her when this weekend is done. You’ll avoid it until you absolutely have to, then tell her you didn’t want to tell her we’d broken up.”

“Oh yeah? And what excuse am I going to give her, Einstein?”

“I dunno, Red. Make me out to be an asshole. Say I cheated on you or something.”

She snorted. “Please. Look at your damn abs. You couldn’t cheat on a diet. You don’t get abs like that from cheating on a diet.”

“Actually, I’m great at that. There’s a reason I’m at the gym before you even wake up. It’s because I have a minor addiction to sugar.”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, you look it. I’ve never seen you not eating sugar.”

Laughing, I rested back on my elbows. “You laugh. When my eldest sister was pregnant, she craved Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes. One day, when her husband was away working, I went to get her one to take her the next day. I had to go back the following day to get another because I ate the entire thing by myself.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Poppy muttered.

“Believe it or not, Red, it’s the truth.”

“Sure. It’s the truth.” She made air quotes.

I shook my head and turned my face into the sun. She wasn’t going to believe me, and I wasn’t going to fight her for it. She was stubborn and headstrong—I’d learned that much.

Yet, in a weird way, it made her attractive. She wasn’t afraid to say what she thought, and she wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed in.

And let me tell you—groupies were a thing. They weren’t just for rock stars. They were for everyone with a bit of money and media star, and I’d come across more than a few of them who were interested in me for what I was, not who I was.

I hadn’t lied when I’d told Poppy that.

When she’d waltzed into my life at that bar, she’d been a breath of fresh air. I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t been attractive to me. It had been. It was a rarity and something I’d relished.

Not that I’d ever expected to find her at the end of my bed, staring at me the next morning. And I sure as hell hadn’t expected her to explain that she needed a date for this wedding.

But she had, and I was here, and I was starting to get uncomfortable.

Not because of her stern mother. Not because everyone here knew who I was when she hadn’t. Not because of the crazy grandfather I had yet to meet.

But because I knew one thing to be very fucking true.

Poppy Dunn, with her red hair and her brown eyes and her smartass mouth, was someone I could see myself falling for.

“So. What are you not telling me?” she asked.

“Not telling you?”

“Earlier. When you spoke about the media. There was something you never said to me.” She raised one arm above her head, bending it at the elbow, calm as you fuckin’ please.

Dropping my head back, I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t. I’ll believe that when, oh, that’s right. I won’t.”

“You’ve got such a mouth on you.”