AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, his new name is Dipshit. If we call him Trevor, he’ll feel like he won, and we can’t have that for at least a year into his employment. The power will go to his head.”
The sound of Poppy’s laugh was like fucking bells or wind chimes or something light and pleasant and magical. Irrationally, I wanted to slam something over my ears to block it out because hearing it made me want to tear something down with my bare hands. It was that electricity again, a writhing pulse straight from her that sent a jolt of energy through my whole body.
She was a force, and she had no idea.
Had it always been like this? Had I just so effectively blocked myself off from it that it didn’t even register? Suddenly, I wished for the ability to travel back in time. One year or two or three, to watch Poppy and myself from a distance. The times where she was clearly watching me and I ignored it, leaving the room or pretending I didn’t feel her eyes on me.
Even then, I felt it, but it was muted. Blocked behind the forbidden nature of who she was, the impossibility of anything happening between us.
It wasn’t muted now.
On her front porch.
In my truck.
At her mom’s.
Every little snippet of time we spent together felt vivid andrich and deep, in a way that I couldn’t even make sense of except for how powerful it was.
Friends.
Friends.
Friends.
I reminded myself.
She reached into her purse—a giant bag with hidden depths—and pulled out a manila folder, handing it to me with an expectant smile on her face. “I made a list of things we should really start discussing.”
“How did that fit in there?” I asked, eyeing her bag.
“Oh, I can run the world with what I have in this purse.”
“Uh-huh.” Exhaling quietly, I flipped open the folder, my eyebrows climbing sky high. The list was long. “Holy shit, Poppy. How long did this take you?”
She tilted her head. “About an hour.”
“All of this was just … ready to go in your head?”
“Yes?”
There was a blue section and a green section, orange and red, with timelines for each and an inexplicable pros and cons list on the side discussing different parenting styles.
“Wh-what do all the colors mean?”
“Oh, umm, that’s priority level. Blue is lowest level of priority, then green, then orange. Red is highest level of importance. You know, sort of angry and pressing and needs to get taken care of soon.”
“Like my fucking aura,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s unschooling?” I asked, my head spinning a thousand miles a minute. Was I supposed to be thinking about all these things? God, I was so behind already.
Why didn’t I read that fucking book from Sheila when I got home from dinner last night? I should have.
The section on discipline styles made me slightly nauseous.
