People We Meet on Vacation Emily Henry (unputdownable books txt) 📖

“And who’s Parker named after?”

“No one,” I answer. “They just liked the name. But again, not the point.”

“All your names start with P,” he says. “What are your parents’ names?”

“Wanda and Jimmy,” I say.

“So not P names,” Alex clarifies.

“No, not P names,” I say. “They just had Prince and then Parker, and I guess they were on a roll. But again, that’s not the point.”

“Sorry, go on,” Alex says.

“So we’d bike to the theater and we’d just each buy a ticket to something playing in the next half hour, and we’d all go see something different.”

Now his brow furrows. “Because?”

“That’s also not the point.”

“Well, I’m not going to just not ask why you’d go see a movie you didn’t even want to see, by yourself.”

I huff. “It was for a game.”

“A game?”

“Shark Jumping,” I explain hastily. “It was basically Two Truths and a Lie except we’d just take turns describing the movies we’d seen from start to finish, and if the movie jumped the shark at some point, just took a totally ridiculous turn, you were supposed to tell how it actually happened. But if it didn’t, you were supposed to lie about what happened. Then you had to guess if it was a real plot point or a made-up one, and if you guessed they were lying and you were right, you won five bucks.” It was more my brothers’ thing; they just let me tag along.

Alex stares at me for a second. My cheeks heat. I’m not sure why I told him about Shark Jumping. It’s the kind of Wright family tradition I don’t usually bother sharing with people who won’t get it, but I guess I have so little skin in this game that the idea of Alex Nilsen staring blankly at me or mocking my brothers’ favorite game doesn’t faze me.

“Anyway,” I go on, “that’s not the point. The point is, I was really bad at the game because I basically just like things. I will go anywhere a movie wants to take me, even if that is watching a spy in a fitted suit balance between two speedboats while he shoots at bad guys.”

Alex’s gaze flickers between the road and me a few more times.

“The Linfield Cineplex?” he says, either shocked or repulsed.

“Wow,” I say, “you’re really not keeping up with this story. Yes. The Linfield Cineplex.”

“The one where the theaters are always, like, mysteriously flooded?” he says, aghast. “The last time I went there, I hadn’t made it halfway down the aisle before I heard splashing.”

“Yes, but it’s cheap,” I said, “and I own rain boots.”

“We don’t even know what that liquid is, Poppy,” he says, grimacing. “You could have contracted a disease.”

I throw my arms out to my sides. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

His eyes narrow. “What else?”

“What else . . .”

“. . . do you like?” he clarifies. “Besides seeing any movie, alone, in the swamp theater.”

“You don’t believe me?” I say.

“It’s not that,” he answers. “I’m just fascinated. Scientifically curious.”

“Fine. Lemme think.” I look out the window just as we’re passing an exit with a P.F. Chang’s. “Chain restaurants. Love the familiarity. Love that they’re the same everywhere, and that a lot of them have bottomless breadsticks—ooh!” I interrupt myself as it dawns on me. The thing I hate. “Running! I hate running. I got a C in gym class in high school because I ‘forgot’ my gym clothes at home so often.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth curves discreetly, and my cheeks heat.

“Go ahead. Mock me for getting a C in gym. I can tell you’re dying to.”

“It’s not that,” he says.

“Then what?”

His faint smile inches higher. “It’s just funny. I love running.”

“Seriously?” I cry. “You hate the very concept of cover songs yet love the feeling of your feet pounding against pavement and rattling your whole skeleton while your heart jackhammers in your chest and your lungs fight for breath?”

“If it’s any consolation,” he says quietly, his smile still mostly hidden in the corner of his mouth, “I hate when people call boats ‘she.’”

A laugh of surprise bursts out of me. “You know what,” I say, “I think I hate that too.”

“So it’s settled,” he says.

I nod. “It’s settled. The feminization of boats is hereby overturned.”

“Glad we got that taken care of,” he says.

“Yeah, it’s a load off. What should we eradicate next?”

“I have some ideas,” he says. “But tell me some of the other things you love.”

“Why, are you studying me?” I joke.

His ears tinge pink. “I’m fascinated to have met someone who’d wade through sewage to see a movie they’ve never heard of, so sue me.”

For the next two hours we trade our interests and disinterests like kids swapping baseball cards, all while my driving playlist cycles through on shuffle in the background. If there are any other saxophone-heavy songs, neither of us notices.

I tell him that I love watching videos of mismatched animal friendships.

He tells me he hates seeing both flip-flops and displays of affection in public. “Feet should be private,” he insists.

“You need help,” I tell him, but I can’t stop laughing, and even as he mines his strangely specific tastes for my amusement, that shade of humor keeps hiding in the corner of his mouth.

Like he knows he’s ridiculous.

Like he doesn’t mind at all that I’m delighted by his strangeness.

I admit that I hate both Linfield and khakis, because why not? We both already know the measure of things: we’re two people with no business spending any time together, let alone spending an extended amount of it crammed into a tiny car. We are two fundamentally incompatible people with absolutely no need to impress each other.

So I have no problem saying, “Khakis just make a person look like they’re both pantsless and void of a personality.”

“They’re durable, and they match everything,” Alex argues.

“You know, sometimes with clothes, it’s not a matter of whether something can be worn but whether it should be worn.”

Alex waves the thought away. “And as for Linfield,” he says,