Читать книгу October Kiss - Kristen Ethridge - Страница 7

Chapter Three

Poppy stopped on the Larsons’ front step to collect her thoughts.

Committed.

Committed.

Committed.

She could do this.

She needed to do this.

She needed to prove to Megan—and to herself—that she had it in her. Whatever it actually was.

Poppy turned her key in the lock and opened the door, then heard exactly what she’d expected to hear—Ryan Larson, the workaholic-in-chief, on a business call.

“Yeah, that’s the big final…” he paused briefly, listening to the other person on the line. “All right, see what you can do and get back to me. Hey, and tell Higashimoto how excited we are. I’ve gotta run. My breakfast meeting is here. Bye.”

Ryan disconnected the call, narrowly missing wiping a swipe of peanut butter on his prized smartphone.

“Breakfast meeting, huh?” At least that sounded like he had time made in his schedule for her—even if it did sound like her presence in the house was just another box to check, another cog in the wheel.

“Ah—I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” He laid his phone down on the counter, an action which shocked Poppy a bit. She didn’t think she’d seen him before without it attached to his hand.

“Temporarily for You,” she said, reminding herself almost as much as him. “Plus, I said I would.”

“Coffee?”

Japanese business transactions were completely foreign to Poppy. But this—coffee—now Ryan was speaking her language.

“Sure. Cream, two sugars.” She stepped into the kitchen and inspected his handiwork on the counter. “Hope your coffee making is better than your sandwich making—you really know how to butcher a PB&J.”

“You should see my grilled cheese.” Ryan took Poppy’s critique in stride as he poured two mugs of steaming caffeine.

“Oh, I think I peeled one of those off my shoe last night.”

Poppy picked up a knife and a slice of bread and jumped in to help finish the kids’ lunches. Even though they hated her, she couldn’t let them go to school with wonky PB&Js.

Ryan placed a mug right in front of her work zone. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Poppy meant it. She could smell the dark roast and the anticipation of taking a sip brought some joy to the morning.

“Yeah…uh…” Ryan sat down in front of some paperwork, clearly looking for the right words. The collar of his light blue button down peeked from beneath a dark blue sweater. It had twisted slightly askew.

Poppy understood exactly how the collar felt this morning. It seemed everyone was a bit off today.

As Ryan stuttered, Poppy realized he might need the coffee even more than she did. And it had taken everything she had to get out of bed this morning and come back to face the Larson kids.

But she’d committed. Now, she was counting on the coffee to help her keep that commitment. “Rough night?” she asked.

“Uh, crowded night. Both kids ended up sleeping in my bed.”

“Impromptu slumber party—love it!”

“More like ‘Nightmare Patrol.’ Spiders.” Ryan flipped through the pages that filled the folder in front of him.

Suddenly, Poppy felt low. Coffee couldn’t fix this guilt. Would she ever be able to do and say the right thing around here? “My fault.”

Ryan casually dismissed her assessment of the situation. “No. Standard operating procedure.” He closed the folder and slipped it in his briefcase. “So, you’re living with Megan and the boys?”

“Temporarily.” Poppy spread jelly on the last sandwich.

There was no mistaking the grin on Ryan’s face. “Temporarily for Them?”

“My brother-in-law’s in the military. When he shipped out, I moved in to help with the kids.”

“That’s really nice,” Ryan said.

Poppy nodded in agreement. “It’s nice for me too. A little break from living alone.”

“So, you normally live alone?”

First Megan, now Ryan. Why was everyone so vicariously interested in her love life—or rather, her un-love life? “Normally.”

“So, you’re single…temporarily.”

Did every guy she worked for have to start hitting on her? Weren’t there any attached guys to work for in Seattle? Someone safe who wouldn’t make her feel inadequate about her inability to commit to anyone or anything?

But she was working on that by sticking with this very job, she reminded herself.

“That would be correct.” Poppy didn’t mean to sound short, she just didn’t know what else to say. She barely knew Ryan. And he was still her boss, even if it was for a short time. Her rules still applied.

“Sorry, I—I don’t mean to pry. It’s just you’d fit well into our test group.”

“What?” Test group? Now that was one she hadn’t heard before.

“My app. Food with Friends.” Ryan pointed to his smartphone. “So, say you’re dining alone, and you log into our app. You can find other people nearby that are dining alone and don’t want to. Boom. You’re having food with friends.”

Relief washed over Poppy. He wasn’t hitting on her. He was just talking about his job again. For once, she was grateful that Ryan was a workaholic. “Sounds kind of amazing. Better than Food with Enemies.”

“Oh, that’s my next app.” They both laughed at the same time. “Anyway, this company, Yamoharo Global, is considering buying us, which would expand us into foreign markets.”

Poppy grabbed a marker and began to label the lunch bags. She could almost feel Ryan’s enthusiasm for his product. “So, it’s kind of huge?”

“Yeah, my big presentation for it is next Friday night.”

“Halloween?”

“Yeah…” A frown crossed Ryan’s face and he suddenly lost all traces of the confidence in his product that had been there only moments before. “I forgot about that. I don’t think the Japanese celebrate it.”

“Well, we do celebrate it here.” Poppy felt that, for the kids’ sake, she needed to remind Ryan. Without any decorations anywhere in the Larson home, it seemed like fall and Halloween didn’t even make it on the calendar.

Ryan’s phone beeped. He looked at the phone and swiped. His eyes scanned whatever had popped up on the slick screen. “I’ve gotta run.”

“Here!” Poppy handed him a brown paper bag labeled “Ryan.”