My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(18)

Photographic evidence lands once more. A five-second video of his motorcycle boots as he’s walking along the access road to the terminal.

Hazel: That’s a death trap.



Axel: You won’t get rid of me that easily, sweetheart.





Hazel: That’s not what I’m saying.



Axel: Sure it is. You sent that truck to foil me.





Hazel: Give me more credit. If I’d sent that truck to foil you, it wouldn’t have contained Yankees jackets.



Axel: Fair point. I guess you’re not the culprit. But Brooks Dean wouldn’t give up, and I won’t either. I’ll be there to vex you. Anyway, I’m closing in on the terminal. But if you’re still in line, can I piggyback and join you?





I glance up. There are five people in front of me. I might as well help out. That’s adulting, after all.

Hazel: Yes, but you’d better move fast.



Axel: Be there in three minutes.





How the hell will he be here so soon? But as promised, three minutes later, the man in glasses, motorcycle boots, and a tight gray T-shirt wedges past the sea of travelers in the snaking line, saying excuse me and thank you as he goes.

He might not be nice to me, but at least he’s nice to strangers. I’ll give him a decency point.

He arrives at my side when I’m one person away from the counter. Axel hardly looks worse for the wear. I half wonder if he made it all up, but he offers me a dark blue shiny piece of fabric from the messenger bag slung across his chest. “As a thank you,” he says.

“You stole a Yankees jacket from a delivery truck accident?”

“Spoils of war,” he says, like it’s no big deal.

“Seriously?” Thievery is not his style.

He huffs, relenting. “I hitched the final mile with a cabby. He had some. Gave me one.”

I scoff. “So this is a regifted Yankees jacket that had spilled out of the truck onto the road that your cabby absconded with and you’re giving me?”

“And you thought I wasn’t a nice guy,” he says with a too-big grin.

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t suffering from that delusion,” I say as the counter agent calls out, “Next.”

Without taking the jacket, I stride up to the counter. “Hello. I’m flying to Rome,” I say to the woman with the cinched-back, blonde ponytail.

“Wonderful. And you’re here with…” She looks to Axel in question.

“My nemesis,” I say plainly.

The woman blinks in confusion.

Axel snorts, then holds up a thumb and forefinger. “She under-exaggerated. Tell the truth, Hazel,” he says to me.

“Fine. Archnemesis,” I correct.

The agent pulls a face. “Should be a lovely flight then.”

The flight is only the beginning.



Twenty minutes later, we make it through the first lava pit of travel—security. I grab my red backpack from the other side of the conveyor belt while Axel snags his messenger bag and slings it across his chest.

We head down the concourse toward our gate.

I’ve survived a half hour with him. I only have six days and…

I don’t want to go there. I simply want to get through this trip without any bloodshed. While we weave through the throngs of travelers, I swallow past the discomfort in my throat, then say, “I had this wild idea for how to make it through the trip,” I offer.

“Headphones the whole time?”

Why does he make it so hard to be nice? “No, Axel,” I say.

“Pretend we don’t know each other,” he offers.

“You make it so easy to want to throttle you,” I say dryly.

He smiles, the cocky kind. “It’s my special skill.”

I take a deep breath and try again. “My idea is—why don’t we just behave like adults?”

His brow creases. Perhaps I’ve made the strangest suggestion in the world. “Like, just move on?” he asks carefully, but hopefully too.

But I’m not sure if we can just move on. I think for now we just need to deal. I try to work out the best way to phrase that when I spot a far-too-familiar profile. A square jaw. Slicked-back hair. A tailored shirt.

The most confident grin I’ve ever seen.

Why, universe, why?

I wish it were anyone but him.

“Ex alert,” I mutter, like I’d say to TJ, or Veronica, or any of my friends.

“Sarah? Is it Sarah?” Axel asks, tightly.

I shake my head at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. That witch broke his heart nearly two years ago.

I swallow uncomfortably, and say, “My ex.”

Axel looks to the right, then straightens his shoulders, saying nothing when he spots the guy I was once in love with.

My ex is walking toward us, smiling like he’s so goddamn happy to see me. “Hazel,” he says when he’s ten feet away, as if nothing’s better than running into the woman he screwed over.

By screwing others.

Axel tenses. His shoulders bunch up. His jaw clenches. His eyes narrow.

That’s a strange reaction—this level of loathing.

My ex then deals a smile to the guy next to me, followed by a chin nod. “Hey, Axel.”