People We Meet on Vacation - Emily Henry Page 0,19

hair cycloning around my head as we fly over flat country roads, the wind so loud I can barely make out Alex’s pitchy rendition of Heart’s “Alone” until he gets to the soaring chorus and we belt it out together in horrendous matching falsettos, arms flying, faces contorted, and ancient station wagon speakers buzzing.

In that moment, he is so dramatic, so ardent, so absurd, it’s like I’m looking at an entirely separate person from the mild-mannered boy I met beneath the globe lights during O-Week.

Maybe, I think, Quiet Alex is like a coat that he puts on before he walks out the door.

Maybe this is Naked Alex.

Okay, I’ll think of a better name for it. The point is, I’m starting to like this one.

“What about traveling?” I ask in the lull between songs.

“What about it?” he says.

“Love or hate?”

His mouth presses into an even line as he considers. “Hard to say,” he replies. “I’ve never really been anywhere. Read about a lot of places, just haven’t seen any of them yet.”

“Me neither,” I say. “Not yet.”

He thinks for another moment. “Love,” he says. “I’m guessing love.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “Me too.”

6

This Summer

I MARCH INTO SWAPNA’S office the next morning, feeling wired despite the late night I had texting Alex. I plop her drink, an iced Americano, down on her desk and she looks up, startled, from the layout proofs she’s approving for the upcoming fall issue.

“Palm Springs,” I say.

For a second, her surprise stays fixed on her face, then the corners of her razor-edged lips curl into a smile. She sits back in her chair, folding her perfectly toned arms across her tailored black dress, the overhead light catching her engagement ring so that the behemoth ruby set at its center winks fantastically.

“Palm Springs,” she repeats. “It’s evergreen.” She thinks for a second, then waves her hand. “I mean, it’s a desert, of course, but as far as R+R, there’s hardly any place more restful or relaxing in the continental United States.”

“Exactly,” I say, as if that had been what I was thinking all along. In reality, my choice has nothing to do with what R+R might like and everything to do with David Nilsen, youngest brother of Alex and a man set to marry the love of his life this time next week.

In Palm Springs, California.

It was a hiccup I hadn’t expected—that Alex already had a trip scheduled next week: his brother’s destination wedding. I’d been crushed when he told me, but I said I understood, asked him to congratulate David, and set my phone down, expecting the conversation to end.

But it hadn’t, and after two more hours of texting, I’d taken a deep breath and pitched the idea of him stretching his three-day trip to spend a few extra days on an R+R-funded vacation with me. He’d not only agreed but invited me to stick around for the wedding after.

It was all coming together.

“Palm Springs,” Swapna says again, her eyes glossing as she slips into her mind and tries the idea out. She breaks suddenly from her reverie and reaches for her keyboard. She types for a minute, then scratches her chin as she reads something on her screen. “Of course, we’d have to wait to use that for the winter issue. The summer’s low season.”

“But that’s why it’s perfect,” I say, spitballing and a little panicked. “There’s all kinds of stuff going on in the Springs in the summer, and it’s less crowded and cheaper. This could be a good way to kind of get back to my roots—how to do this trip on the cheap, you know?”

Swapna’s lips purse thoughtfully. “But our brand is aspirational.”

“And Palm Springs is peak aspiration,” I say. “We’ll give our readers the vision—then show them how they can have it.”

Swapna’s dark eyes light up as she considers this, and my stomach lifts hopefully.

Then she blinks and turns back to her computer screen. “No.”

“What?” I say, not even on purpose, just because my brain can’t compute that this is happening. There is no way that this, my job, is where the train goes off the rails.

Swapna gives an apologetic sigh and leans over her gleaming glass desk. “Look, Poppy, I appreciate the thought that went into this, but it’s just not R+R. It will translate as brand confusion.”

“Brand confusion,” I say, apparently still too stunned to come up with my own words.

“I thought about it all weekend, and I’m sending you to Santorini.” She looks back to the layout proofs on her desk,