Lovely Sad

A week and a half later and Poppy was still living in her lovely consequence-free bubble. John had extended his California vacation to head north up the coast to go camping at Big Sur, signalling to Poppy that he was in no rush to come home to her. Why would he be, though? They weren’t dating and he was catching up with old friends he hadn’t seen in awhile. Poppy must have been the furthest thing from John’s mind. He wasn’t serious about Poppy. At least that was what she had convinced herself throughout the week as she would sit at home staring at her phone and wait for texts from him that never came.

Candice was now back in town, though, and Poppy had a meeting with her first thing in the morning at her office. Her nerves were on edge that she somehow had found out about her and Adrian hooking up in the kitchen that weekend and she was about to be fired. It had only happened once, but Poppy was naively under the impression it was just going to get swept under the rug and never spoken about again. She had bigger things to worry about at the moment, like why John didn’t care enough to send her a simple text to let her know he was thinking of her. Or just to let her know he was still alive at the very least.

But now Candice had to have known and the jig was up. Why else would Candice have called her frantically and insisted on the first possible meeting time? How could she have been so stupid?

Adrian was getting married. He had clearly moved on from Poppy and now she was just sabotaging her future for no reason at all. Her entire career was in jeopardy as a result of her selfish actions. She was being an idiot. No wonder John didn’t want to date her. He deserved better and he probably already knew that.

In an effort to try and seem more professional, maybe to impress Candice and have her change her mind about destroying her entire life, Poppy dressed up for the meeting. Even though it was so early in the morning the sun had barely rose, she took a few extra minutes to actually curl her hair, rather than the messy beach waves she ended up wearing everyday. Deciding on a black skirt and blazer, rather than the ripped skinny jeans she had worn every day so far that week, she finished her outfit off with a pink crop top and a pair of nude heels. She skipped her usual stop for coffee on the way to the office, not willing to risk the possibility of being late to this meeting. Punctuality and professionalism were all Poppy could cling to. Candice didn’t seem the type to show mercy, but maybe Poppy could charm her into forgetting she had fooled around with her fiancee.

I mean, it wasn’t like it was the first time for either Poppy or Adrian, they had done far worse things together throughout their relationship. Although, Candice still didn’t know about that fun fact. Maybe she did now, though?

This was all enough to make Poppy want to vomit as she pulled her car into the parking lot of her office. She had to take a few deep breaths to psych herself up enough to get out of the car and head inside. Her heart sank when she arrived at the office, seeing that Candice and Adrian were already there. She looked at the time on her phone in an attempt to ignore the burning sensation in her eyes as they began to well up with anxious tears, noticing that she was 20 minutes early still. Candice was impossibly early. This couldn’t end well for Poppy.

Taking a second to blink hard a few times to hide any sign of her watering eyes, Poppy pushed open the glass door to her personal office. Poppy smiled to greet the couple as they turned around to look at her.

“Sorry I’m late!” She forced out the most convincing smile she could muster, quickly moving to take a seat at her desk.

“Oh no we’re just really early!” Candice spoke, waving her hand to signal that it was okay. “I was just so excited to see the progress on the house I made Adrian drive me out there this morning, and then I wanted to come straight over here as soon as I saw it.”

This was it.

She hated it.

She knew everything.

She was about to murder Poppy.

“I love it, Poppy!” Candice cheered, clasping her hands in front of her chest as Poppy stared at her dumbfounded. “All of the recommendations I had heard about you are completely true. It’s not even done yet, but I saw all the plans and it’s just so amazing!”

Poppy looked over to Adrian to confirm what she was hearing was real. Maybe Poppy was hallucinating and Candice was really ranting about her breaking up her perfect marriage. But as Adrian sent a knowing smirk across the desk to Poppy, she got her answer. Poppy had just dodged a major bullet.

“We’re thrilled! We just can’t thank you enough, Poppy.” Candice continued to gush, as Poppy allowed herself to breathe for the first time since entering the office.

Was this real?

Candice was so much calmer than she had been during any other meeting. Adrian was also relaxed, no more awkward or uncomfortable silences between the three of them. Candice didn’t seem as hostile as she had been during every other meeting as well. It was almost as if fooling around with Adrian had released any tension in the room. Maybe that meant it wasn’t such a bad slip up after all?

****

It was almost 7:00 in the evening when Poppy’s last meeting of the day ended. A hectic schedule, but now that she had Candice’s full confidence in her designs Poppy was moving forward with the design scheme at full speed, desperate to finish the project as quickly as possible. Her last meeting had been with the contractor she had outsourced to bring the walk-in closet she had designed to life. It had run much longer than she had wanted and she was now the last person in the office that night. She shut the door to her office after the contractor left, drawing all of the blinds shut as she prepared to leave.

Today had been a roller coaster of emotions, and at the moment Poppy just wanted to get home, put her feet up and relax with a nice glass of wine. Or four.

She took a quick seat at her desk to gather her things to leave, when her phone began to buzz. Worrying it might be an important work message she quickly scooped up the phone and unlocked it. But she was caught off guard for a moment when she noticed it was John’s name on the screen of her phone, as she had barely heard from him throughout his trip.

‘Guess who’s back in town???’

Poppy felt a pang of guilt hit her as she looked down at her phone. She had stopped noticing the lack of text messages, and had barely even thought of John recently. She had been so preoccupied with Adrian, and daydreaming about what could have been that John had almost completely slipped her mind.

‘Welcome back, bub’

She stared blankly at her phone, analyzing the words she had typed out and prematurely hit the send button on. What a dumb message to send. Not even an ‘I’ve missed you’? No wonder John didn’t want to date her, she thought. She quickly typed out another message, hoping to sound a little more friendly the second time around.

‘I hope you brought me back a present from Cali’

Just as Poppy’s phone buzzed again the door to her office opened. She looked up, expecting to see the contractor, Michael, returning to pick up some papers or something that he had forgotten on her desk. Instead, Adrian stood in front of her. He didn’t say anything as he stood there, dressed in a much more casual grey v-neck t-shirt and dark wash jeans than the suit he had been wearing in their meeting this morning. They held eye contact for a few moments, but Poppy needed to look away from his intense stare so she focused her eyes back on her phone, reading her new message from John.

‘I guess you’ll just have to see me to find out ;)’

Adrian took a few steps forward, sinking into the seat across her desk from her where he had been seated a few hours earlier.

“What are you doing here?” Poppy questioned, being the first one to break the silence between them.

He shrugged lamely, still staring directly at Poppy. She couldn’t help but squirm under his gaze as he spoke. “I didn’t tell you how beautiful you looked earlier today when I was here. I felt bad about that so I had to come back and let you know.”

“You came all the way back here to tell me I was pretty?” Poppy repeated, placing her phone gently down onto her desk.

Adrian shrugged his shoulders once more, leaning back in the chair. “It would appear that way.”

Her phone buzzed once more, offering Poppy an excuse to look away from the man seated across from her.

‘What are you up to at the moment?’

She figured explaining that she was currently having an awkward stare off with her ex-husband was probably not the best idea, so she ignored the text. Looking back up at Adrian, he was now glancing around her office, taking in the decor.

‘Dinner?’ Came another text from John.

“Are you going to answer him?” Adrian asked. She didn’t know how he knew she was texting John, but part of her hoped it was just a lucky guess. She had mentioned not long ago that she was seeing someone else when Adrian had so unprofessionally showed up at her office unannounced over lunch that one day. She didn’t give any specifics, but Poppy couldn’t help but notice how similar this encounter was to his last unannounced visit.

“Y-yeah.” She stuttered in reply, picking her phone up to type back a message.

But her thumbs froze as they hovered over her phone, unsure of what to say back. He clearly was keen to see her. Not keen enough to date her, though.

She couldn’t hold that against him, that had been Poppy’s idea too.

She really did want to see him, but at the same time she was intrigued as to what Adrian had show up to her office for. You didn’t drive across an entire city this late in the evening just to tell your ex-wife she looked beautiful without some sort of ulterior motive. She had a pretty good feeling she knew what it was, and she knew she was supposed to say no. She was supposed to refuse, and leave her office immediately and go meet up with John for dinner. She knew that was the right thing to do, especially since she had promised herself the other weekend had been a one time thing.

Adrian was marrying Candice. Poppy was not supposed to be in that equation anymore.

Adrian reached up to scratch his neck, Poppy’s eyes following his hand. She couldn’t stop herself as she let her eyes take in the perfect stubble that lined his jaw.

Rather than listen to her gut, she typed out a quick message to John in response to his series of texts before silencing her phone and dropping it back onto her desk.

‘Sorry, swamped with work tonight!!’

He had made her wait around for him for the last two weeks, so Poppy reasoned to herself that she was allowed to do the same. John didn’t want to date her, so she didn’t need to drop everything in her life to go see him whenever he called.

Plus, the meeting with Candice had gone so well this morning after her last encounter with Adrian, so this would surely only make it all even more bearable, right?

As if Adrian knew exactly what she had said to John, he grinned triumphantly at Poppy. He had won once again in the battle between him and John. Poppy was picking him.

She momentarily wondered if John would be one to fight for her if he knew he was in this competition. Maybe it was a little unfair that he didn’t know he was losing. But the thoughts immediately left her mind as Adrian spoke up once more.

“I like this office.” He commented as Poppy stood up from her seat. “It’s nicer than your other one.”

“I like it too.” She replied as she headed towards the door, her hand lingering on the doorknob for a second.

“Although, I remember we used to have quite a bit of fun in your old office.”

Poppy locked the office door on the off chance there would be any late night visitors. She wasn’t expecting any, but she also had not been expecting Adrian to show up unannounced at her office, either so it seemed like the smartest thing to do. Not that any of this was actually a smart choice.

At the sound of the lock clicking, Adrian slowly rose from his chair to approach Poppy.

“Just this once.” Poppy warned as he connected his lips with her neck, his hands finding their way to her hips. “Just once and then we’re done.”

Maybe this time if she said that promise out loud it would be true.