"Branch."
The sun was warm on his face, and Poppy was warm against his side. He didn't want to open his eyes for fear it was a dream and she would vanish if he looked.
"Branch."
The teal troll squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Had they really been out frolicking in a field for the whole afternoon, or was it just his imagination? Had he really won the heart of the love of his life, or was that something he told himself to feel better about his miserable life?
"Branch, wake up or I'm leaving you here in the grass and taking the dune huggy home with me."
Branch couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. Opening his eyes to her disapproving scowl, he chuckled softly and sat up to nuzzle into her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist. "I'm up."
"Pushy Pants." He smiled into her hair, laying kisses against her jawline.
"If I'm such an pushy pants, why'd you bother falling in love with me?"
The Pop Queen leaned back to look in his eyes, hands linked behind his neck. "Maybe I have pitifully low standards." But she was smiling, and even the picturesque pink-and-orange horizon behind her was nowhere close to comparing with the look on her face when she looked at him.
Reluctantly, they stood to head home, Branch tasked with rolling up and packing the red checkered picnic blanket into the Dune Huggy old and Poppy stowing the picnic basket on the floor in the back. Branch drove the truck down the dusty country road, golden flowers bobbing outside the open windows. It felt like they had spent a lifetime rolling around in the grass before lying on the blanket, warmed by the sun, and falling asleep in each other's arms, all responsibility defeated by a perfect summer day.
Poppy's feet were propped up on the dashboard, and if it had been anyone else, Floyd or John Dory even, Branch would be giving them an earful, but stealing glances at her from the road, he couldn't bring himself to deliver a reprimand. Besides, if they were going to get married someday, they were going to have to learn to compromise on annoying personal habits. Not that Branch had been thinking about it or anything.
"You know what that does to me, right? You need to stop looking like a supermodel all the time, 'Poppy." The teal troll looked over to see her throw her head back with a laugh, and he wanted to let the steering wheel go, damn the consequences, and whisk her away in his arms to a place where he could hear that laugh every day and see Poppy smile every night.
"I can't help it if I look amazing," The Pop Queen replied, flipping a lock of pink hair over her shoulder. Poppy knew exactly what she did to him, he could see it in her eyes.
Oh, shuck it, Branch was down so bad.
The teal troll brought the truck to a stop, got out of his seat and walked around to open her door, then pulled her into a deep kiss. Poppy kissed him back with just as much fervour and stumbled out of the dune huggy, pushing him backwards into the tall grass. His hands were on her hips, and her fingers were tangled in his hair, pulling him deeper into her arms. The press of her lips moved from his to travel down his neck, across his collarbone, back up to his jaw.
One of his hands went up to cradle her head, the other straying to the small of her back, pulling her closer, and she let out a soft, blissful sigh against his skin — a knife to the chest would have been more merciful. Poppy was anything and nothing he had ever known and everything, and her touch became his whole world.
The Pop Queen burned like a star in the slowly fading light, her heart thumping a steady, quick beat against his, and he could have sworn the summer warmth had supercharged her to glow like something celestial, the moon itself fallen from the sky into his arms. Branch held her for what felt like hours, feeling her fingers trace circles against the back of his hand, and he could only conclude that she had some kind of temporal power that made seconds feel like days. They lay among the yellow-topped flowers as the sun slipped away to rest, chests rising and falling in unison.
Poppy's face was tucked against his neck, and Branch felt the soft puffs of her breath as she said, "Oh, I made you miss the sunset."
"Well, technically you could argue that I instigated it, so actually I made myself miss the sunset." Branch shifted so his head rested against hers. "Besides, I'd rather be with you anyway. You're more beautiful." Her cheeks pinking, Poppy smiled then, a true smile, a supernova with no one to bear witness but him, and he whispered, "You're my golden hour."
The Pop Queen kissed him again, and he couldn't imagine being loved by her and not thinking he was the luckiest person in the entire galaxy.
Eventually she stood and dragged him back to the abandoned vehicle — still blasting the latest top pops hits from its radio — and they set out back home. "For real this time. No getting distracted by my shining beauty," Poppy said, and he laughed.
"It's your fault for being purposely distracting," Branch retorted.
"Guilty as charged." She grinned slyly across at him. "But it paid off."
The teal troll watched her change the channel and sing along to the songs she recognised on the radio and making up lyrics to the ones she didn't, joining in as the stars started to peek out from the dark folds of the night sky.
"How are we gonna explain to my dad where we were and why we're home so late?" Poppy asked at the start of the road to her house.
"Hmmm." Branch leaned back in his seat, slowing the vehicle to a crawl slower than a mail snail. "We'll tell them I had an encounter with an angel who led me into fields of gold. It's mostly true," he added lightly when she scoffed.
Poppy rolled her eyes but smiled fondly, leaning across to put her head on his shoulder, and Branch found he wouldn't mind if he spent the rest of his life devoting it to seeing that smile as often as he could.