Page 48 of The Grump Next Door

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POPPY:That’s… actually really sexy.

I stop breathing.

Did she just—

My phone rings. Gideon’s name is on the screen.

I answer on the second ring, my voice rougher than it should be.

“What?”

“Feldstein wants to see you. Again. Now.”

I clear my throat. “On my way.”

I hang up, shove the phone back in the drawer, and head for the conference room.

But I can’t stop thinking about that word.

Sexy.

She thinks I’m sexy.

And that’s exactly the kind of personal shit that’s going to ruin everything.

Chapter Eleven

Reinforcements

Poppy

CeCe’s laugh carries across Gloria’s flower shop like wind chimes in a hurricane—bright, chaotic, and completely unstoppable. She flew in this morning, and I’m so glad she’s here.

“So let me get this straight,” she says, perched on a stool between buckets of peonies and what I’m pretty sure is artisanal moss. “You accidentally manifested a goat, the grumpy lawyer gave you his phone number, and you texted him about piano playing being sexy?”

I bury my face in my hands. “When you say it like that—”

“It sounds like you’re halfway to jumping his bones.”

“CeCe.”

Gloria snorts from across the room, where she’s arranging what looks like controlled chaos in a vase. “Jumping whose bones?”

“The emotionally constipated lawyer,” CeCe supplies helpfully.

“Dean,” I correct.

“Same thing,” they say in unison.

I grab a stem of lavender and twirl it between my fingers. The smell is calming. I need calming. Because ever since I sent that text yesterday, my brain has been running a constant loop of what if he thinks I’m hitting on him, what if he doesn’t think I’mhitting on him, and what if I was hitting on him without realizing it?

Spoiler alert: I was totally hitting on him.

“He hasn’t texted back,” I say.

CeCe raises an eyebrow. “Since when?”

“Since… yesterday afternoon.”

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