My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(25)

“Why?” she asks suspiciously.

“Because then I’ll be left holding the bag,” I say as we weave through the airport crowds, with Italian accents and phrases floating past us as we pass signs flashing in foreign languages. “While you faceplant in the sleeper car or, worse, on the streets of Nice, I’ll have to play tour guide all by myself.”

“And that would be unconscionable?” she counters.

“Yes. Yes, it would,” I say, sternly, holding my ground. Don’t want her to know that jet lag sucks, I don’t want her to feel it, and I don’t want her to miss a single second of what I suspect will be a trip she loves.

Better for both of us if she thinks I’m still a cold-hearted jerk. If I let down my guard around her more than I already have, I’m bound to let it down more. To reveal secrets that ought to stay locked up.

This descent into friendship with her is decidedly dangerous to my mental health.

“Well, far be it from me to make you suffer unconscionably,” she retorts as we near the immigrations checkpoint.

She’s yawning less. She’s walking faster. Good. My boot camp technique is working.

“Exactly. And that means you’re going to jet lag school today,” I say, the drill sergeant in me strong.

She starts to yawn, but she shakes her head vigorously, like she’s exorcizing the demon of yawns from her very soul, wrestling it to the ground, and defeating it.

“There. I’m better,” she says.

“Good,” I say. “That’s all that matters.”

“Since this way no one will know your secret—that you need me as your co-tour-guide,” she says, with a deliberately haughty lift of her chin.

“Yep. That’s exactly what I need.”



An hour later we make it past the checkpoint, then head down to baggage claim. Once I find my bag and grab it, she spots hers bumping along the conveyor belt. She heads its way, but I catch up, reaching for it.

Fine, I may not be a nice guy. But I’m still going to grab her luggage.

“Thanks, Axel,” she says, then in a whisper, she adds, “And don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you were nice enough to grab my bag.”

It’s scary how easily she can read me.

Let that be a reminder. “It was there,” I say, gruff. Deliberately gruff.

She gives me a long, overdone nod as she says, “Right.”

“Don’t make a thing of it, Valentine,” I say as I pop up the handle on her bag so she can wheel it.

“I won’t, Huxley. Or should I call you Mr. Alexander Hendrix-Blythe when we travel?” she asks, using my legal name, the one I changed to when I went to college, ditching Dad’s surname at last, and taking on a new last name—my stepdad’s and my mom’s.

“Not all of us were born with pen names,” I counter, handing her the checked bag.

“I’ll be sure to send Daddy a thank you note for mine,” she fires back as she takes the handle. “And hey, you scored a pretty decent writer’s name too, even though you don’t use it. Hendrix is cool. Rugged. Mysterious. Tough.”

“Aww, you think I’m rugged, mysterious, and tough,” I tease.

She adopts an evil grin as we wheel our bags past the other carousels, heading toward the exit. “Did I say you were those things?”

I sigh heavily. “Why did I help you with the bag?” It’s a rhetorical question.

But she jumps on it, the speed demon. “Aha! So you admit you did help with the bag? It was deliberate? Not just because”—she stops to sketch air quotes as she deepens her voice—“the bag was there.”

Damn. She sounded just like me when she said that. That’s scary, how well she can imitate me, intonation and all.

What’s scarier though is that she’s too damn good at turning my words all the way around and against me. Note to self: watch the fuck out with Hazel. She’s a virtuoso villain when wielding your favorite weapons—words. “You should have been an attorney,” I say, begrudgingly.

“Thanks. That’s high praise from you,” she says with a proud lift of her chin. Then, she stage-whispers, “And fine. You’re a little rugged.” She holds up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Like, a tidge.”

“I’ll have Dunbar and Loraine put that on my next dust jacket. He’s a tidge rugged.”

We leave the baggage carousel, pass through customs for the bag check, then enter the zoo of any airport—the waiting area where drivers and runners and handlers and friends and relatives wait for travelers.

I scan the sea of people holding placards or brandishing tablets, looking for Huxley and Valentine. But I blink when I spot a screen reading: Mr. and Mrs. Huxley.

Oh, fuck.

Hazel’s going to flip a table. Maybe I can get in front of the screen while she’s fighting off the latest yawn attack.

No such luck.

Hazel spots the curly-haired woman holding the offending sign, then points at the names.

“Why doesn’t it say Mr. and Mrs. Valentine?”

This woman. She kills me. “That’s my feminist,” I say, laughing.

Fueled by her righteous rage, she marches to the woman. I’m not worried she’ll make a scene—that’s not her style. Instead, she says, warm and kind, “Hi. I’m Hazel Valentine.” She pats my shoulder when I catch up a second later. “He’s Axel Huxley. We’re not married, but if we were, he’d take my name.”