Page 42 of Wicked Love

“Please stay with me,” Becca says. She looks at me and I have a hard time resisting. “See my pictures.”

“Becca, if Poppy needs to go, you should let her go.”

“See my mommy pictures,” she says, starting to cry.

I look at Bowie helplessly and am surprised to see the look of devastation cross his face. It makes me hesitate.

“I can stay for a few minutes if that’s helpful,” I tell him quietly. “I don’t want to override what you’re saying in any way, but I can stay long enough to see what she wants to show me.”

He gives a terse nod. “Thank you. That’s nice of you.”

To Becca he says, “Poppy can stay for a few minutes, but let’s not fuss when it’s time for her to go, okay, Becca?”

Becca sniffs. “Okay. Come on, Poppy.” She holds out her hand and I take it, and she hurries us through the house.

Now that I’m inside, I want to take my time and look at their house. It’s not as massive as Elle’s, but it’s still larger than I’m used to. The decorating is more modern than I like, but it’s beautiful and clean. The kitchen has open cabinetry, where there are minimal dishes, and there are unique materials used for the walls and flooring; however, Becca is pulling me forward too fast for me to see what it is exactly.

The house is long and when we reach one side, I can see that the turret is full of windows and leads to the pool. The pool is both indoor and outdoor, with a glass solarium on the indoor part and a place to swim through to the outdoor. It’s the most spectacular pool I’ve ever seen.

“That is wicked stellar,” I say, exactly the way my granddad would say it, stellar sounding more like stella.

I hear Bowie snort behind me and turn around. He’s looking down and trying to hide the smile on his face. When he feels my eyes on him, he lifts his head and the half-smile is still there.

“What do you have against the word wicked?” I ask.

“Nothing.” His face is pure innocence now, but I think ofwhat the hair sites would be saying about him if they were witnessing this. His hair is like the poster child of dream hair. One wave is perfectly outlining his face and just lightly curves against his chin…which makes me stare at his neck. A memory of gliding my tongue across his neck and the gasp it elicited from him comes back in vivid color.

I must stare at him too long because his head tilts.

“Do I have toothpaste in my hair or something?” he asks.

“No, I was just thinking it should be illegal for a man to have hair as pretty as yours. I bet you don’t even appreciate it.”

His face crinkles up into a frown, but I think he’s trying not to laugh. There’s more than a hint of amusement in his eyes and it emboldens me.

I lift my hand up and drop it, unable to form a coherent thought. “BHOTD,” I mutter.

“Pardon me?”

I wave him off and Becca whisks me away, leading me down the hall. I hear Bowie on our heels and since he doesn’t stop us, I keep going. Becca opens her door and her room is pretty. She has white walls and a pink bedspread.

“I love pink,” she says happily.

There are three stuffed animals on her bed and I’m about to comment on them, when I notice the pictures. I’mbeyondcurious about Becca’s mom and what she looks like. On one side of the room, picture frames line her desk and several shelves. I look at them closer and am surprised to see that they’re mostly the pictures that come with a frame when you buy it, not personal pictures at all. Besides a couple pictures with Bowie and maybe Bowie’s parents, each picture has a different woman and a girl. She holds up one where the woman has long blonde hair and points at it.

“You and me,” she says.

The full impact of what she’s saying hits me hard. This little girl craves—if not a mother’s love, at the least, a woman’s presence in her life so deeply that she’s built this imaginary world where it’s true.

I smile at her, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat. My eyes meet Bowie’s and the heartache in them is staggering. I turn away, blinking away tears and clear my throat.

“I have an idea,” I say. I pull my phone out of my pocket and hand it to Bowie. “Would you take our picture?”

He’s surprised at first and it takes him a moment to snap out of it, but he does.

“Sure,” he says finally. “Where would you like it?”

“Let’s do one in here and one where all those windows were…near the pool. I liked the light in there.”