Page 49 of People We Meet on Vacation

“I want the chair,” Alex says. “How often does a grown man get to sleep on a fuzzy foldout chair, Poppy?”

I sit beside him and make a big show of trying to push him off, but he’s too solid for me to budge him. I twist around, bracing myfeet against the floor, my knees against the edge of the bed thing, and my hands against his right hip, as I grit my teeth and try to push him off of it.

“Stop it, you weirdo,” he says.

“I’m not the weirdo.” I turn sideways, try to use my hip and side body to force him off. “You’re the one who’s trying to steal my one joy in life, this weird bed.”

In that moment, when all my weight is pretty much focused in my hip, he stops resisting and scoots sideways a little, and somehow I tumble halfway onto the chair bed and halfway onto his chest, forcefully knocking his book onto the floor in the process. He laughs, and I laugh too, but I’m also feeling kind of tingly and heavy and, frankly, turned on, lying on him like this.

Worst of all, I can’t seem to make myself move. His arm has come around my back, loose over the curve at its base, and when his laughter settles, I look up into his eyes, my chin resting on his chest. “You tricked me,” I hum. “I bet you didn’t evenhaveemails to respond to.”

“For all you know, I don’t even have an emailaccount,” he teases. “Are you mad?”

“Furious.”

His laugh shivers through me, goose bumps chasing it down my spine, and the heat of the apartment sinks into my skin, gathers between my legs.

“I’d forgive you eventually,” I say. “I’m very forgiving.”

“You are,” he agrees. “I’ve always liked that about you.”

His hand just barely brushes the skin between the bottom of my tank top and the top of my shorts, and I shift against him, feeling as if we could melt into each other.

What am I doing?

I sit up suddenly and take my hair down just to put it back up.“You’re sure you’re cool to sleep on the chair bed?” My voice comes out too high.

“Of course. Yeah.”

I stand and pad over to the bed. “Okay, cool, then... good night.”

I turn off the light and climb onto bed. Onto, not into, because it’s way too hot for blankets.

14

This Summer

WHEN I STARTLEawake, it’s still dark out, and I’m sure we’re being robbed.

“Shit, shit, shit,” the robber is saying for some reason, and it sounds like he’s in pain.

“The police are on their way!” I yelp—which is neither a true statement nor a premeditated one—and scramble to the edge of the bed to snap on the light.

“What?” Alex hisses, eyes squinting against the sudden brightness.

He’s standing in the dark in the same black shorts he went to sleep in and no shirt. He’s bent slightly at the waist and gripping his lower back with both hands, and as the sleep clears from my brain, I realize he’snotjust squinting against the light.

He’s gasping for breath like he’s in pain.

“What happened?” I cry, half tumbling off the bed toward him. “Are you okay?”

“Back spasm,” he says.

“What?”

“I’m having a back spasm,” he gets out.

I’m still not sure what he’s talking about, but I can tell he’s in horrible pain, so I don’t press for more information aside from asking, “Do you need to sit down?”

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