Lovely Sad

Probably Poppy’s favourite perk about being her own boss was that there was no one looking over her shoulder monitoring her clock in time at the office. This meant extended lunch breaks, extra afternoon coffee runs, and being able to skip out of the office a little bit earlier at the end of the day. Granted, she usually made up these breaks in overtime hours most evenings and weekends as Poppy was truly addicted to her job. In fact, there wasn’t much she did outside of working. Reasoning that she had spent enough time at the office for one day, especially since arriving earlier than usual for her meeting with Candice and Adrian, she gathered her things and bid farewell to her coworkers before heading to her car in the parking lot.

Entering the name of the restaurant John had given her into her GPS, the screen read out that it was only about 20 minutes away. This would give her ample time to go home and make herself look a little bit more presentable before heading over to meet John as it was only approaching 5 o’clock at the moment. While Poppy’s office was located in downtown Phoenix, her apartment was a little further west in neighbouring Tempe. Arriving at the two bedroom condo she had been renting out, she headed inside to get ready.

It didn’t take Poppy long to pick out an outfit, reapply her makeup, and fix a few of the pieces of her shoulder length blonde hair that had lost their curl throughout the day. Staring at the outfit she had laid out in front of her on her bed, she chewed nervously on her bottom lip while contemplating the decision. She grabbed her phone from its spot on her bedside table, dialing Bridget’s number without even looking.

“Is he tall?” Poppy greeted as soon as she heard the line connect.

“Pardon me?”

“Is John tall?” Poppy clarified. “I’m trying to decide on what to wear and I don’t know if I should wear heels or not. My outfit seems too casual, but if heels are going to make me taller than him than I can’t wear them on a first date.”

Poppy’s concerns were met with laughter, “I don’t know, Pops.”

“That doesn’t help me, Bridget.”

“I think he’s pretty tall, but I don’t know specifics.”

At 5’7 already in her bare feet, Poppy was fairly tall on her own. Too high of a pair of shoes and men suddenly felt emasculated around her.

“I can compromise and wear a fairly low heel.” Poppy reasoned, balancing her phone between her shoulder and cheek as she dug through the bottom of her closet for the pair of shoes she was thinking of. Taking the black leather pumps and dropping them onto the bedspread next to the black leather jacket she had already picked out to wear.

“Sounds reasonable.” Bridget agreed, “Sorry I can’t be there to help you get ready.”

“I’ll be fine.” Poppy replied, eyeing the white crop top and light wash ripped boyfriend jeans she had set aside for tonight. “I’m just a little rusty in the first date department, that’s all.”

“You know the drill, though.” Came Bridget’s warning, “Even the slightest red flag that something’s off, text me and I’ll be there in 10 to come get you.”

“Thanks, bub.”

“I’ll call you at 9:30 on the dot to make sure everything’s okay. And if you need me to fake an emergency so you can politely leave, I’ve got you.”

“Bring Daymon with you too to beat him up just in case.” Poppy added, referring to Bridget’s longterm boyfriend.

“You’ll be fine. Call me when you’re home so you can finally fill me in about this crazy meeting you mentioned to me this morning.”

For a brief moment in time Poppy had forgotten about her morning with Candice and Adrian, a morning she had yet to fill Bridget in on any of the details of. Agreeing to call her post-date, the pair exchanged goodbyes before hanging up. Her bedside clock informed her it was just after 7pm, signalling it was time to get dressed and head to this bar to meet John. It was now or never for Poppy.

****

Arriving early, in typical Poppy fashion, John was nowhere to be seen. The quaint restaurant and bar was fairly empty, as most people didn’t exactly consider Monday night to be much of a drinking night. Deciding on a table on the patio, she slid her sunglasses up to rest on the top of her head, doubling as a headband to keep her hair pushed back out of her face. She felt awkward just blatantly people watching, deciding to use this opportunity to do that google search she kept putting off. Typing in John’s name she pressed search, staring intently down at her phone waiting for the page to load. She was torn from her daze before the page could load by the sound of someone calling her name.

Looking up from her phone, she was met with John’s green eyes staring back at her.

“Hi!” She exclaimed, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He replied, slipping into the chair opposite her.

Dropping her phone into her purse that rested on the ground by her feet, she took the moment of brief silence to fully take in John’s appearance as he shrugged off his own jacket to make himself comfortable. His dark brown hair was short and the slightest bit pushed back as if he had just ran his hands through it. The slightest bit of scruff lined his chin, and a loose white t-shirt hung off his tanned body, exposing tattoo covered arms. He was definitely better looking than his Instagram had led Poppy to believe. But wasn’t that usually supposed to be the other way around?

“Ashley told me you were pretty, but if I had known you were this beautiful I would have tried to dress up a little more.” He laughed, gesturing to his fairly worn out shirt. He leaned back in his chair as he chuckled to himself, exposing a set of perfect teeth. Oh, those had to be fake.

“Stop, you look fine.” Poppy countered, rolling her eyes. “But thank you.”

A waiter came to take their drink order, before disappearing back into the restaurant. Poppy racked her brain for a conversation topic, suddenly unsure of where to start. It had been awhile since Poppy had been on a date, let alone a first date, and she was at a loss of what she was supposed to talk about. At this point, Poppy didn’t really have much of a social life outside of the office besides Bridget.

“So I was told you’re in a band?” Poppy tried, unsure of where she was even taking that sentence.

John smiled, looking almost relieved that Poppy had come up with something to say. “Yeah! We actually just finished up our fifth album not too long ago and we’re getting ready to release that soon. End of next month, I believe.”

“Oh, wow.” Came Poppy’s lame response.

“It’s a real band, I promise. We’re not just playing garages and college house parties anymore.”

Poppy smiled at his joke, but was still a little weary. At nearly 26 years old, she wasn’t really into the idea of dating anyone who didn’t have a full-time job. She wasn’t looking to have to support another grown adult financially.

“What, like, record label are you guys signed to?”

“Yeah, we’re actually unsigned at the moment.” John answered as Poppy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “We were with Warner, but decided to go independent. Creative differences, really. We have much more freedom to make the music we actually want to make now.”

“Oh, I get that.” Poppy nodded her head in acknowledgement. “I did kind of the same thing when I left my design firm to open up one of my own.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.” John answered rather quietly.

Caught a little bit off guard, Poppy paused for a moment. That seemed like a rather weird detail for Bridget to have shared with Ashley and Melissa when setting the pair up. “Ashley told you about that?” She questioned.

“Uh, no.” John scratched the back of his neck awkwardly as the waiter finally returned, placing the pairs drinks down onto the table. She recognized the look on John’s face as one of panic, similar to the way she must have looked all morning while seated across from Adrian. “I may have done a pre-date google search? I’m sorry, that’s creepy, I shouldn’t have mentioned anything.”

Poppy placed the glass she had previously raised to take a drink from back onto the table as she let out a hearty laugh. “I’m sorry, that’s not funny.” She tried to say, covering her mouth in a futile attempt to suppress her giggles.

“I guess I just thought this would be easier if I found out a little bit more about you. Found, like, a few common interests so I’d know where to steer the conversation.” Poppy watched in amusement as John took a rather large gulp of his beer, undoubtedly wishing the ground would swallow him up at that moment.

“How’d the google search go? Find out any other interesting info about me?” She teased, enjoying watching the tall boy squirm under pressure.

“That’s all, I swear.” He pleaded, raising his hands in defence. “Ashley caught me and told me off.”

Poppy nodded, finally taking a sip of the mixed drink in front of her. “I did the same. A bit of a social media background check.”

An obvious wave of relief washed over John, who finally leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. “Oh thank God.”

“I didn’t get as far as google, though. Bridget caught me inspecting your Twitter and made me call it a day on the background check.”

“I hope you didn’t take that account into too much consideration when deciding whether you were going to come or not tonight.”

“Why’s that?” She questioned, watching as he took another sip from his beer.

“It's all nonsense. It’s mainly for the fans. Management insists I have one, but I’m not really a big Internet guy, honestly. I guess I just like my privacy.” He reasoned.

Poppy opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing loudly from within her purse. “Sorry about that,” She said as she fished the gold iPhone out of her bag, silencing the ringing phone. “It’s probably just Bridget checking in to make sure everything’s okay.”

“It’s alright.”

“She’s a little early with her emergency exit call, though.” Poppy commented as the phone began to ring again. She immediately silenced it once more.

“Emergency exit? Is she calling with some fake crisis so you can skip out early without making me feel bad?”

“No.” Poppy insisted, noticing the annoyed tone in John’s voice. “She’s just calling with the option of a fake crisis. I’m not taking it, I promise.”

John mumbled what sounded to Poppy like an okay as the phone began to ring again. “You should probably answer that.” He said, folding his arms across his chest.

Poppy offered another apology as she brought the phone to her ear, not even getting a word out before she was met with the sound of a frantic Candice. “Where are you?”

“I’m out for drinks-“

“Get back to your office, I’m on my way.”

“But-“ Poppy tried to interrupt, but Candice was having none of this.

“It’s an emergency!” Candice yelled, loud enough that she was fairly certain John could hear it from across the table as well. “Meet me at your office in 10!” Candice abruptly hung up, leaving Poppy dumbfounded for a second as she slowly lowered the phone from her ear.

“Sounds like your fake crisis is pretty serious.” John commented, reaching behind him to slip his jacket back on.

“It’s not what it seems, I promise.” This date had quickly turned itself into a disaster. An ending Poppy should have seen coming based on the way her day had begun.

“Do you have to leave for some sort of work emergency or not?” It was obvious to Poppy that John didn’t buy this excuse at all.

“I do, but-“

“Well then, it was nice to meet you.” John cut her off, standing up from the table and fishing a pair of car keys out of the front pocket of his jeans. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime or something.”

Poppy stood up as well, franticly gathering up her own purse and jacket. She noticed he was still significantly taller than her, even with her heels on. If they ever went out again she made a mental note that she could thankfully wear whatever shoes she wanted. “I’m sure we can rain check and try this again another night!”

John tossed a couple bills onto the table to cover the pairs drinks. “Yeah, whatever.” He mumbled, before turning and walking away from the table. Annoyed that he had passed up an invitation to a guys night at the bassist of his band’s house for this bust of a date, he headed straight to his car wanting nothing more than to just head home and forget this had even happened.

Arriving back to his house in Chandler, he was relieved to discover none of his housemates were home at the moment. Dropping his keys onto the coffee table, John collapsed onto the living room couch, not even bothering to shrug off his jacket as he kicked his feet up onto the table. One of the house’s dogs, Ruby, soon joined him on the couch, resting her head in his lap as he scratched her ear. He was sure Ashley would be arriving home soon with a million and one questions about John’s night, a thought which made John audibly groan.

Looking down at the adorable pup resting in his lap, he couldn’t resist taking a quick picture on his phone, posting the snap onto his Instagram feed.

“Don’t worry, Ruby,” He spoke to the dog as he resumed scratching her, “You’re still my only girl.”