SWNOVELS Pucking Sweet: Chapter 49
“Poppy, where are we going?” I ask for a third time.
She’s in the driver’s seat, smiling as she bops her head to the music. “Honey, what part of ‘it’s a surprise’ do you not understand?”
“Yeah, come on,” Cole teases from the front seat. “Live a little.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” I challenge.
“Nope.”
She laughs, glancing over her shoulder to switch lanes. “I promise you’re both gonna love it.”
She picked us up from the apartment thirty minutes ago, looking like a dream in a yellow sundress and black cat-eye sunglasses. We only just got back in town from our away game this afternoon. We barely had time to set our stuff down before she was knocking on the door.
Now I’m wedged in the backseat of her little sports car. We flipped a coin and Cole won, so he gets to hold her hand like a greedy asshole. God, he’s so needy for affection. Any moment spent not touching Poppy makes him irritable. It’s obnoxious.
Okay, fine. Any moment I’m not touching Poppy makes me irritable too. Resigned, I reach out my hand and set it on her shoulder, my thumb brushing down the insanely soft fabric of her little white cardigan. “What fabric is this?” I say, enthralled by how soft it is.
“Cashmere,” she replies, flashing me a smile in the rearview mirror.
Fuck, I want more of this. I want this on pillows, blankets. I want to wrap her in this. I lean through the seats. “Hey Cole, tell Janice—”
“Already did,” he says, holding up his phone. I can see on the screen an open text thread he has going with my interior decorator.
She’s been hassling me all week, asking me endless questions about fabrics and wood stains and if I’m comfortable with “fashion over function.” I was feeling so overwhelmed, I shoved the phone in Cole’s face, demanding that he talk to her before I set the house on fire. He’s been dealing with her ever since. I don’t care what goes in the house, I just want it done.
And now I want a cashmere blanket to wrap Poppy in.
She drives us another twenty minutes south on the A1A until we’re back in St. Augustine. But she doesn’t head downtown. She drives us over to a marina, parking in a lot by a little fish camp restaurant.
“Are we going to dinner?” I say, ready to pull up the restaurant on my phone and check reviews. I’m a religious Yelper.
“We can,” she says, slipping out of the car. “If you’re both still hungry after.”
“After what?” I say, unfolding my massive body from this tiny backseat. It was sweet of her to drive, but in future, I think I’m gonna have to insist we take my truck or Cole’s SUV.
Cole steps around the car, taking her hand. “Babe, you didn’t.”
She smiles up at him, looking radiant as the setting sun shines in the reflection of her glasses. “Of course I did.”
“It was for two people.”
She shrugs. “I changed the reservation to three.”
Smiling, he cups her face and kisses her, his free hand snaking around to grab her ass, making her giggle and swat at his hand.
I roll my eyes. “And while this is charming to watch. Clearly, you both know something I don’t. One of you better fill me in before I walk off the edge of the pier and get eaten by a manatee.”
They break apart, Poppy laughing. “Manatees are herbivores.”
“Yeah, they eat mostly seagrass,” Cole adds.
Oh, that’s another thing about them that drives me fucking crazy. They love watching animal documentaries. Do you know how many hours of bug shows I’ve watched this week? Okay, it was, like, one…but one is a lot. We could’ve been having sex instead.
Poppy tips up on her toes, kissing Colton’s cheek again, holding his hand in both of hers. With the row of sailboats behind them, they look like a damn Nautica ad. Unable to help myself, I slip my phone from my pocket and snap a picture of them.
“Lukas, honey, will you get the cooler from the trunk while I get us checked in?” Poppy calls.
I open the trunk to find a striped soft-sided beach cooler. I zip it open. She’s packed fruit, meats, cheeses, sliced bread—everything you need for a picnic. Two bottles of wine stick out from a side compartment.
“Come on,” Cole calls, waving me over. He’s standing at the edge of the dock.
Slinging the picnic bag on my shoulder, I close the trunk and head over to where he’s waiting. “What the hell are we doing?”
He smiles. “Remember that sunset cruise I had you bid on at the silent auction?” He gestures down the row of boats. There at the end, a big white one sits waiting for us. Poppy is standing on the dock, laughing and talking with her hands at a pair of shirtless guys in board shorts and sunnies.
I smile too, feeling a lightness growing in my chest. Of course I fucking remember. I felt like a saint standing there bidding on it for him, knowing I was shipping them off on a love boat without me. “But that was for two people.”
He wraps an arm around my shoulders, leading the way down the dock. “Now, it’s for three.”