For the whole trip.
The flight attendant offered Eli a mimosa.
“She’ll take another as well,” he said.
I made to protest, but Eli already had two flutes in hand. He shot back the first drink in two gulps as I reached for mine.
“Uh-uh,” he said, batting me away, then chugged the other one.
“I thought you grew up rich,” I said. “Surely free booze in first class is not a novelty for you.”
“Where do I start? Technically, this is domestic business class and not first class. Rich people love free shit. And the only way my feet go higher than ten feet off the ground is if I am just sloshed enough to fall asleep.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
Eli held up our empty glasses for the flight attendant, who seemed eager to fawn over him. “Any chance you could sneak me one more before takeoff?” he asked with a wink.
She giggled and whispered, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You smarmy motherfucker.”
He sucked in a deep breath, his hands gripping the armrests. “I didn’t have time to get a refill on my Xanax, and I’d rather be smarmy than think too much about the fact that we’re about to fly through the air in a glorified tuna can.”
I didn’t realize he had a fear of heights. It was hard to imagine him being scared of anything at all. “So does you crashing my trip with Ruby mean we can be friends?”
He turned to me, his head resting against the plush leather seat and a charming, almost mischievous smile curling at his lips. “You think I’m rawdogging this flight on two watered-down mimosas so that you and I can be just friends?” His fixed gaze relented only long enough to linger on my mouth as his teeth dragged across his lower lip. “I think not, Vera Stein.”
Well, shit.
INT. ART MUSEUM—NIGHT
He made a short film. It’s bad. She claps first anyway.
POPPY
It was brave.
ARLO
It was garbage.
POPPY
Brave garbage.
ELIAS BUCKLEY
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
THE HONEYMOON PHASE
“I didn’t even know hotel rooms with two bathrooms existed,” Vera said as she kicked off her boots and threw her small overnight bag onto the coffee table of our suite at the Bellagio. “This had to be so expensive, Eli.”
“My dad probably has enough points here to buy out his own floor.”
Brody hurled into the toilet bowl loud enough for us to hear from the other side of the door.
Vera grimaced as we continued to explore the corner suite.
