Page 32 of People We Meet on Vacation

“I know,” Alex agrees. “Tough but fair.”

“Maybe Ryan Gosling looks likeyouif he was left outside to dehydrate, did you ever think of that?”

“Yeah. Take that, Jessica McIntosh,” he says.

“You bitch,” I say, then immediately shake my head. “Nope. Did not feel good to call a child a bitch. Bad joke.”

Alex grimaces again. “If it makes you feel any better, Jessicais... not my favorite. But she’ll grow out of a lot of it, I think.”

“Yeah, I mean, for all you know she might be working against a lifetime of postgum bowl cuts. It’s nice of you to give her a chance.”

“You were never a Jessica,” he says confidently.

I arch an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“Because.” His eyes hold fast to the sun-bleached road. “You’ve always been Poppy.”

•••

THE DESERT ROSEapartment complex is a stucco building painted bubblegum pink, its name embossed in curling midcentury letters. A garden full of scrubby cacti and massive succulents winds around it, and through a white picket fence, we spot a sparkling teal pool, dotted with sun-browned bodies and ringed in palm trees and chaise lounges.

Alex turns the car off. “Looks nice,” he says, sounding relieved.

I step out of the car, and the asphalt’s hot even through my sandals.

I thought from summers in New York, trapped between skyscrapers with the sun pinballing back and forth ad infinitum—and all those earlier ones in the Ohio River Valley’s natural humidity trap—that I knew what hot was.

I did not.

My skin tingles under the merciless desert sun, my feet burning just from standing still.

“Shit,” Alex pants, sweeping his hair off his forehead.

“I guess this is why it’s the off-season.”

“How do David and Tham live here?” he says, sounding disgusted.

“The same way you live in Ohio,” I say. “Sadly, and with heavy drinking.”

I mean it as a joke, but Alex’s expression flattens out, and he heads to the back of the car without acknowledging what I said.

I clear my throat. “Kidding. Plus, they mostly live in L.A., right? It was nowhere near this hot back there.”

“Here.” He passes me the first bag, and I take it, feeling chastened.

Note to self: no more shitting on Ohio.

By the time we get out our luggage—and the two paper bags of groceries we grabbed during a CVS pit stop—and wrestle it up three flights of stairs to our unit, we’re sweat drenched.

“I feel like I’m melting,” Alex says as I punch the code into the key box beside the door. “I need a shower.”

The box pops open, and I stick the key into the doorknob, jiggling and twisting it per the very specific instructions the host sent me.

“As soon as we go outside, we’re gonna be melting again,” Ipoint out. “You might want to save the showering for right before bed.”

The key finally catches, and I bump the door open, shuffling inside, stopping short as two simultaneous warning bells start shrieking through my body.

Alex walks into me, a solid wall of sweat-dampened heat. “What’s—”

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