Page 48 of See You Next Tuesday

“Oh, hi,” Anya sputtered, hating how stupid she sounded. “Um, are you coming to the fundraiser?”

Gabe peered at her. “Did Preethi not mention about LAX?”

“What about it?” Anya frowned.

“Lu has a flight at eight,” Gabe explained. “Preethi and I were going to drop her off at the airport and then grab In-N-Out on the way to Rooney’s.”

“Right.” Anya swallowed. “That makes sense.”

“Is it a problem? I can get an Uber.” Tallulah touched Gabe’s arm. Her Australian accent was absolutely adorable—of course.

“It’s fine!” Anya forced a smile. “We don’t have to be at Rooney’s for another two hours, so if I didn’t take you, we’d just be sitting here.”

Anya hit the button for the trunk on the key fob—ugh, that’s where it was—and it popped right open.

“Thanks, Anya,” Gabe said as he loaded in their luggage.

“No way!” Tallulah broke into a wide smile. “You’re the Anya?”

Anya felt suddenly nervous. “Why, what have you heard about me?”

“You’re like Gabe’s nemesis!” Tallulah laughed—this bright, happy laugh—and reached out to shake Anya’s hand. “I’m Tallulah. It’s an honor.”

“Nemesis? Not sure what I did to earn that dubious distinction.”

“Please, he’s so intimidated by you. And you’re so tiny! It’s perfect, I’m obsessed.”

“Is he really?” Anya glanced over at Gabe, who seemed very focused on loading the bags into the trunk. “You know, he did say something like that to me once. But that was years ago.”

Gabe looked up and caught Anya’s eye, but she couldn’t read his expression. It wasn’t quite anger; there was something else there too. Tallulah didn’t seem to notice.

“Babe, you okay if I take the front?” she asked.

“Of course,” Gabe said warmly.

“I get carsick,” Tallulah explained to Anya. “Plus, this way us birds get to gab.”

“A travel blogger with motion sickness?” Anya smiled.

“Right?! As if being someone who takes holidays for money weren’t ridiculous enough.” Tallulah chuckled again. It was charming, Anya had to admit, how readily she laughed, how obviously fun she was. It was easy to see why Gabe liked her, even aside from her startling beauty. Well, good. Like he’d said in his stupid text, she was happy, he was happy. They were both happy.

“Which terminal is it?” Anya asked Tallulah as she plugged in directions to the car’s GPS.

“I can tell you how to go. It’s like three turns from here,” Gabe said from the back seat. He sounded slightly on edge, which gave Anya a small twist of pleasure.

“I prefer to see it on the map,” Anya replied. “If that’s okay.”

“It’s Bradley terminal. I’ll put it in,” Tallulah said kindly.

Anya flicked her gaze to the rearview mirror. Gabe was wearing a black suit with a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He looked utterly perfect yet strategically rumpled, like he was Indiana Jones rushing back from a hidden temple to be on time for the party. He was typing furiously on his phone, as usual.

“Beginning route to Los Angeles International Airport,” the GPS chirped, and Anya started driving.

“So, Tallulah, how did you get into travel blogging?” Anya asked.

“Oh, bit lucky really—I was early on it. I was doing a big Europe trip after uni in ’07, and my dad got me a handheld video camera, this little Sony? My dad loves movies, total film geek, so I started filming things and uploading them to YouTube for him, my mum, my sisters. And they’re all jerks, so any time I’d film like, Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower, they’d be like, ‘Boo, you boring tourist.’ Totally right, by the way.” Tallulah grinned. “Anyway, I started looking for more interesting things to film, little markets and cafés, out-of-the-way places, and people started sharing the videos. Never really meant to make a career of it, but I love it. It is a bit nonstop though—be nice to have a break if I go to Maryland with Gabe.”

“Maryland?” Anya asked. “For what?”