bedroom, she’d just pulled the bedroom door closed behind her when the front door opened. Turner started to come in, but paused when he saw her, probably surprised and a little confused why she was just standing there in front of her bedroom door.
Scrambling for anything that may make her position seem normal, Poppy came up blank.
“Babe?” he said, coming all the way inside and closing the door.
“Do you want to go out for breakfast?” she asked before realizing she hadn’t even said good morning. “Good morning…” Stepping away from the door, she went over to raise her hands to his shoulders. “How are you today?”
The suspicion in his narrow eyes betrayed she wasn’t getting away with casual. It was nice that he seemed more amused than mad.
Though when he started to descend like maybe he intended to kiss her, he paused and pulled back. “Geez, babe, did you consume the entire brewery?”
“Maybe,” she said, hazarding a laugh and dropping both hands to link their fingers together. “So, breakfast? You owe me a meal.”
“You want to have a shower first?” he asked, moving her backwards as he swaggered deeper into the room. “Maybe, you know, put some clothes on?”
Right. Yeah. Damnit. They stopped just a few feet from the workbench. Once again, Poppy was racking her brain trying to come up with a way she could get him out of there. She couldn’t seduce him while she was a mess and it wouldn’t be fair to break his rules just to distract him from the condition of his sister.
“You broke something, didn’t you?”
“Hmm?” she asked, only just noticing that she’d been standing there against him, their fingers still threaded together, completely ignoring him.
He snickered. “It’s okay, babe. So long as you didn’t hurt yourself… What is it? In the bathroom?”
Poppy tried to keep his fingers, but they slid loose from hers in spite of her attempts. As he went toward the bedroom door, she kicked herself into gear and ran over, sliding between him and the wood.
“Why don’t we shower in the other bathroom?”
“We?” he asked, a frown descending over his expression.
“Mm hmm,” she said, curling a leg around his, drawing it up and down as her fingertip did the same on his tee-shirt.
Looking him in the eye was impossible. Usually staring into his gorgeous brown eyes was one of her favorite things to do… unless they were in a fight. Anger wasn’t in her then, but there was guilt. Poppy was older than Charley, she should’ve known better than to let the twenty-two-year-old go wild. Getting drunk, just out of her face drunk, wasn’t something Granger Girls did. Poppy hadn’t valued her father’s influence in that area. His girls didn’t get drunk… well, they hadn’t until last night.
“Ritchie didn’t call me last night,” Turner said, his voice a little deeper. “He didn’t pick up this morning either.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing her fingertip across the curve of his jeans pocket. “So you were worried about me?” Hope infused her. Maybe just showing him she was alive was enough. Opening her arms, she turned her smile up to him. “I’m okay. I’m a million percent fine.”
“A million percent,” he mumbled. Nothing about him suggested he believed her. His frown was becoming something else too, something much more… resentful. “I’ll just check it out for myself then.”
When he reached past her for the bedroom door handle, Poppy planted both hands on his chest. “Check what out? I’m right here.” She tried another smile. “See.”
“Poppy,” he said, though his lips didn’t budge. “Move.”
She just shook her head, which seemed to shake the smile from her face. They stared at each other for a score of seconds, just standing there, his hand still on the door handle, her hands on his chest. She was sorry. Oh, so sorry about so much.
“Baby,” she whispered, sliding a hand onto his cheek.
In a flash, he shoved away. “Fucking hell!”
Startled, she came up against the door behind her hard. “Tu—”
“You think you can just fuck around on a guy?” he asked, whirling around to face her. “With his best friend and you can just—”
“What?” Leaping away from the door, Poppy wanted to immediately reject the notion. Just the idea that he could… “How dare you!”
“What the fuck did you think would happen?” he asked, marching over. “Did you think I’d just be okay with it? Chalk it up to experience?” Smacking the side of his fist against the wall behind her shoulder, he vented his rage. “This was