Two days later, I emerge from my blanket igloo and stumble over to the refrigerator. I’ve watched reruns of Supernatural all weekend, fallen down the rabbit hole of Dean and Cas fanfiction, eaten my weight in Ben and Jerry’s, and ignored the pleas for attention from my cats. I decide the only way I’m going to feel even somewhat normal again is through the divine intervention that only a Magnolia cupcake can provide. Also, I’m out of liquor and surprisingly, getting so schnockered on peach schnapps that I can barely stand is still not drunk enough for Poppy Porter right now.

The liquor I could get delivered, but sadly, the bakery doesn’t make house calls. Besides, there is nothing on this Earth better than stepping foot inside that door, hearing the little bell jingle and dying a mini death by olfactory overload. Not to mention the visual porn of professional bakers frosting cupcakes, and the cakes, pies, and slices in their little domed display cases. My mouth waters, and I grab my keys, not bothering to change out of my sweats or brush my hair. I hit Magnolia first, since it’s right around the corner and I’m starving. The line is far longer than I’m happy with, but it’s not unusual after ten pm. Thanks to Carrie Bradshaw, it’s still one hell of a tourist trap.

Once inside, I take a deep inhalation. This place is better for your wellbeing than yoga. If you happen to be a lover of all things cake. If you’re not, then I’m sorry, but I just don’t have room for that kind of negativity in my life. I step up to the counter after perusing it for so long I’m making the other patrons nervous, and possibly annoyed, and I order a coconut cupcake topped with meringue icing and coconut flakes, two vanilla with mint green vanilla buttercream and confetti sprinkles, and a red velvet with cream cheese frosting that I know I’m going to regret in the morning, or on Monday morning—because no way in hell am I hitting the gym with a hangover. I pay the cashier and take my box of goodies outside, then I proceed to inhale one of the vanilla cupcakes. I’m sure my drunk ass is getting sprinkles all over my face, but I’m okay with that. The half block to Imperial Vintner doesn’t take long, and before I know it I’m pulling several bottles of my favorite wine from the shelves and juggling them all the way to the counter.

The cashier gives me a thorough once-over with his gaze. “Rough night?”

“Rough life.”

“Don’t listen to her; she’s full of shit. This little Park Avenue princess is worth more than Rockefeller.”

I freeze. My spine prickles with unease, and though all I want to do is run and hide from the man behind me, I straighten, turn, and hiss, “Leo Nass.”

“Hey, Pop Tart.” He winks, his messy golden hair creating a halo on the crown of his head, which is all lies. All lies. This man is the devil. He’s also Chase’s best friend. “Nice to see you again.”

“First of all, no one is richer than Rockefeller, and secondly, I’m not rich. My father is.” I turn back to the cashier. “I live in a teeny-tiny apartment right here in the village, bought with my own money, I might add.” Or at least, I bought it with the inheritance my grandmother left me and a good portion of money from the bank, but they don’t need to know that, and neither does my father.

“Still as feisty as ever, I see.” Leo gives me that Nass the Ass smile. I sigh, which turns into a hiccup. “Uh-oh, has someone been drinking a little too much of the Jesus juice?”

“Screw you.” I hand the cashier my card and he swipes it.

“Well, I would, but stuck up trust-fund babies clutching their pearls aren’t really my thing. I like my women wild in the sack, and something tells me everything about you is vanilla.” He reaches up and swipes his thumb over my lip, it’s green with frosting.

I scowl and bat him away. “Do not touch me. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“It’s declined,” the cashier says.

“Yes, it most certainly is ... wait, what?”

“Your card. It’s declined.”

“Swipe it again.” I glare at him.

He glares back but does as he’s ordered. “Declined.”

I heave a frustrated sigh. Leo places his bottle of whiskey on the counter and hands over a wad of cash. “I got this, Pop Tart.”  

“I don’t need your help.” I narrow my eyes at him.

“I don’t doubt that but since you’re wandering around the village with frosting and sprinkles on your face, and you look like a homeless person . . .” Leo’s azure eyes roll over me. Boy, do I hate those eyes, and that smug, all-American face. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you definitely need my help.”

I stab my perfectly manicured finger at his chest. “I wouldn’t accept your help if you were the last man on the planet and . . . and aliens were coming to eat my face.”

He laughs. “To eat your face?”

I scowl. “I’d gladly let them anal probe me if it meant getting away from you.”

“I’m sorry, what? You lost me at anal.”

“You’re a pig.”

“Yes, and you’re adorable when you’re angry. An adorable, delicate little flower.”

The cashier holds out a bag with my wine and another for Leo’s whiskey. I snatch mine and stalk out the door. Leo, of course, is hot on my heels. “What, no thank you?”

“Thank you? Thank you?” I spin on my heel and stalk toward him. “I hate you. You talked him out of marrying me.”

Silence. The words hang heavy in the space between us. I cover my mouth, and then hiccup. I turn, but Leo’s hand reaches out to stop me.

“Word to the wise, Pop Tart. If a man can be talked out of marrying you after a couple of brewskies and a handful of stripper dollars, he’s not the man for you.”

I yank my arm out of his grasp and turn around, only my head swims, the world tilts on its axis, and the ground rushes up to meet me, but not before I come face-to-face with a bright yellow cab.

***

I wake to my worst nightmare. Literally. Nass the Ass hovers over me as I lie on a dirty New York street while my addled brain attempts to figure out what the hell is going on. The only way this moment could get worse is if he were naked and people were documenting this incident to upload on YouTube.

“Hey. Welcome back, Pop Tart.”

I groan and put my hand to my forehead. It comes away slick with blood. “Did you push me into oncoming traffic?”

Leo’s eyes go wide, and he glances between me and the other man hovering over me. He’s wearing a dark blue uniform. The red and blue lights from the ambulance make my stomach twist. Ambulance? I can’t afford an ambulance, or a bill from the hospital. I’m two seconds away from having to sell my Supernatural collectables. All of them.

This wedding planning gig is great. I make a decent wage, enough to support myself and buy all the pretty things I want—or I did until I purchased my apartment. Making partner will change all that, but right now? I can’t afford a hospital bill.

“You seriously think I pushed you?” He gets that deep furrow between his brows, as if Leo pushing me isn’t even remotely a possibility. I glare back, because it totally is. “I saved your life. That cab could have killed you.”

“You ruin everything; you can’t save anyone. You may as well have been driving that cab.”

Leo shakes his head. “Okay, Pop Tart.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Ma’am, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two, but they should be turned the other way, and directed at him. I’m fine. I need to get up. My cupcakes are probably smooshed.”

“Sweetheart, your cupcakes are plastered all over the pavement ... ten yards away.” Leo points, and sure enough there, among the wreckage of my wine, is a little white box flattened on the sidewalk, with the prettiest mint green frosting smeared all over the dirty ground.

“Oh,” I whine, and tears spill over my cheeks and down the sides of my face. “I need to get up.”

“Ma’am, I need you to stay still. You could have a serious injury.”

“No, I’m fine. I have to go.”

“Poppy, lie the hell down,” Leo says.

“Don’t tell me what to do. You are not the boss of me.” That was childish. I’m fully aware, and while I’m not proud of it, it’s out now and I can’t take it back. This man turns me into a five-year-old. At least that would make us the same age, because Leo Nass is the most immature human being I’ve ever met.

“We’re gonna need you to lie perfectly still while we move you to a gurney.”

“No, I’m fine. Really, I am,” I say, shoving Leo’s hand away from my shoulder and sitting up.

“Ma’am. You need to lie down.”

“Poppy, just do as the man says for once.”

“Screw you, Nass,” I slur, and push to my feet. My head swims, and I grab onto the nearest possible thing for support. Which, of course, just happens to be Leo. He grins down at me like it means something, and I scowl. “I’m only touching you because I’d fall on my ass otherwise, and it’s far too pretty to be sprawled across the dirty New York street.”

“You’ll get no arguments here, Pop Tart.”

“Ma’am, I really must advise against this,” the ambulance officer says, and I wave him off.

“I fine you, I’m told,” I say, and then frown and squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m fine, I told you that.”

“I don’t recommend that she goes home. She needs medical attention.”

“Well, short of kidnapping, there isn’t a whole lot either one of us can do about it, doc.” Leo shrugs. “New York women, huh?”

New York women? What about New York men? They’re the real problem here.

The guy nods. “See that she stays conscious and wake her every few hours just to be on the safe side. If there’s any change at all, you need to bring her to the hospital.”

“I will,” Leo says.

I scowl. “No, he won’t. He’s not allowed in my house. It’s shiny and new, and free of strays, and I don’t want him touching things with his man whore cooties.”

Leo sighs and says, “I’ll take care of her.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll likely push me into oncoming traffic again.”

He growls. A God’s honest growl. “I won’t lie, Pop Tart. I’m thinking about it.”

With nothing more to do, the ambulance officer packs up his equipment, and I head for my apartment before I can fall flat on my face on the pavement. Again. Three blocks away, I turn and scowl at my stalker. “Stop following me.”

“No can do. Doc’s orders.”

“He’s not a doctor, he’s a paramedic. And I meant what I said—you’re not coming in.”

“Whatever you say, Poppykins.”

Poppykins was Chase’s nickname for me. I whirl around and jab my finger at Leo’s chest. “Don’t you dare call me that.”

“Shall we settle for Antichrist then?”

“Shut up. Just stop talking.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I glare at him and turn my back, fumbling in my bag for my keys. He snatches them off me and wedges himself into the space between me and the door. I scoff and stumble back, only my footing isn’t so great. My arms pinwheel and I feel myself falling, but Leo catches me.

“Hey, come on now. There’s no need to start falling for me so soon. We have all night.”

“Shut—”

“Up. I know.” He rolls his eyes and kicks open the front door to my building. I step across the threshold and attempt to slam the door in his face, but I’m clumsy and drunk—and I’ve more than likely suffered some kind of brain damage—so this works about as well as one would expect.

The stairs leading up to my fourth-floor apartment aren’t usually a problem, but by the time we reach the top I’m puffing, and panting, and Leo has to place his hands on my lower back to push me so I don’t fall right back down. I sway as he fumbles with my keys in the door, and then my vision blurs, the lights flicker, and Leo scoops me up in a honeymoon hold. “Come on, Pop Tart, let’s get you inside.”

“I’m fine.”

He chuckles. “Sure. If by fine you mean you almost blacked out again and fell down the stairs, then yeah, you’re fine.”

I glance at his face, his bright twinkling blue eyes. He might be a man whore with cooties, and I’m likely going to need a shower after this to rid myself of any venereal diseases that I may have contracted whilst touching him, but he sure does have pretty eyes. Stupidly pretty eyes.

No, Poppy! Do not fall for his man whoring ways. This is how they get you, with twinkling gazes and megawatt smiles and then . . . KABOOM. Pregnant from a single glance. I will not fall prey to the man whore. This vagina will stay closed to the likes of him . . . forever.

Leo sets me down on the couch and I make a show of shuddering so he doesn’t clue into the fact that I maybe enjoyed his touch a little too much. I blame my ex, and my ex-best friend, I guess, for ruining what had been a perfectly good week.

“You know, you’re heavy as shit. You might want to lay off the cupcakes for a bit . . .” Leo glances around my messy apartment. Takeout containers litter the coffee table, along with a few candy bar wrappers and several Doritos packets—one of which Dean has his head buried in. Sam and Cas sit on the couch and windowsill respectively, glaring at Leo. “And the Doritos. Jesus, Pop Tart, it’s like a crazy cat lady threw up in here. No wonder you’re single.”

That rat bastard. I make a shocked face, though I don’t have to try too hard at being offended. “Hey, I spend hours at the gym. You think any woman looks like this naturally? I’m just having an off day, is all.”

“An off day or an off year?”

“You know, you can go now.”

“Sorry, rug rat, no can do. Doc said you need someone to wake you every few hours, and since you live here alone like an old spinster with no one but your cats to keep you company, I can’t trust that you won’t die and be mistaken for kibble when they get hungry after staring at your corpse for a few days.”

“I am not old.”

“No, but now I know your weakness, huh?”

“I hate you.” I toss a pillow at him and hiccup. It goes wide, and I frown. I have several more I can throw, but what would be the point? I may as well just lie down and use them to rest my head on because I’m suddenly so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

“Uh-oh, is it nap time for the little princess? Don’t mind me, sweetheart. I’ll just be going through your panty drawer while you sleep, see if I can find your vibrator stash.”

My eyes widen, but I can’t keep them open long enough to protest. “Don’t . . .” I murmur, but I’m not sure it comes out as more than a moan.

“Nighty-night, sweet Poppy.”