Page 11 of Backslide
“You’re right. I am. ’Cause for some reason I’m still standing here!”
The airport employee is looking between us like he’s watching the most un-fun tennis volley. Like he’s unsure whether it’s safe to leave or if, since we’re acting like children, he should send us to our rooms.
“Miss,” he says, tilting his head and eyeing Nell meaningfully. “Are you alright?”
Oh, that’s just fucking great. Now I’m a predator.
Thirty minutes ago, I was sitting in a quilted cream leather seat on a private jet eating a legitimately decent steak, feeling pretty damn good about my life. That’s what Nell does to me—in five minutes flat.
“I’m fine,” she says with resignation, her shoulders dropping. “It’s okay.”
The man nods and heads off, glancing over his epauletted shoulder twice to shoot me a warning look. Like he knows where I live.
I groan, everything in me deflating at the prospect of the coming days. I’m doing this for Ben, I remind myself. For Cara. They deserve a week without the stress of… us.
“Listen,” I start.
“No, thanks,” Nell says, avoiding eye contact. “Pass!” Like I’ve just offered her a piece of gum instead of begun a sentence.
I look to the bleached-out sky for strength. Why does she insist on picking up where we left off, so many years ago? Has nothing changed?
That’s when, across the street, I spot a silver-haired driver in his mid-sixties wearing a tailored suit and holding a rectangular sign that reads NELLIEHURWITZ.
I catch the guy’s eye and wave. He throws his hands up likethere you areand hurries over.
“Your driver is right here,” I grumble.
She chances a look up at me from beneath her dark lashes but doesn’t speak.
“Listen, we need to find a way to be okay this week,” I force myself to say, my throat tight. “Forthem.”
She sighs, big. Tips her head back, then rights it, her hair falling over her face. Everything in me wants to brush the rogue strands aside, but I don’t.
“Fine,” she nods. “But this would have been a lot easier with you in a coma.”
“Excuse me?”
But the driver has hustled up and is taking that insane bag from her. And she is at least letting him.
“Hi!” he says. “Apologies. I thought pickup was at baggage claim, but the bags took so long I got worried you’d carried on and I’d missed you! And then I checked over there, but then you were here and now… well, now let’s get you to Sonoma for a glass of vino before the traffic gets the better of us.”
“Sounds great,” Nell says.
The driver examines her behemoth luggage. “Wow. This is a big one. But it’ll fit.”
“That’s what she said,” Nell and I mumble in unison under our breath. We look up at each other in surprise. I see her almost start to laugh, but then she presses her lips together to suppress the smile.
There were reasons why we liked each other. Reasons we made sense. Even though we seemed different on paper.
And they weren’t all raunchy jokes.
“Are you coming too?” asks the driver.
“No!” Nell yelps before I can answer. “No,” she repeats, turning to me. “We arenotsharing a car.”
I shake my head.What the hell.
“I’m not trying to take the ride with you, Eleanor. I rented a car.”
