Page 23

Being Ozzy, he rebounds quickly. He perks up and nods his head enthusiastically. “You like German opera. Do you speak German?”

I cannot let him win this game. “A few phrases.”

Two words: biergarten and schadenfreude .

He launches into an animated conversation. He and Isolde must be BFFs.

I blink. My choices are limited. “ Schadenfreude ?”

“You don’t speak German.” He pouts briefly.

Whatever. “I have a proposal for you.”

“Is it indecent? I’m not sure how I would feel about that.”

I give him a look. “Strictly work related.”

“Pandora.” He sighs dramatically. We are no longer on a nickname basis. “I am not a sex worker.”

Super.

“Do you remember that questionnaire you filled out for my work?”

Now it’s his turn to give me a very Ozzy look. “There were one hundred questions. On a scale of one to invasive, I give it a seven.”

Life may come too easily to him. “Data points are important.”

“I was asked what I like to do with my hotel room towels. My breakfast preferences. My evening activity of choice.”

Why is he so difficult? I am so frustrated. “Data. Points.”

His forehead crinkles. “Did you look at my answers? I feel like my privacy may have been violated.”

I ignore him, although my face is definitely, almost certainly ladybug red. I just need to ask him my question and convince him to agree, and yet our conversation is derailing. “The database knows.”

He wanders past me and throws himself on my sofa. Clutches a pink throw pillow to his chest.

“Come in.” Unable to help myself, I ask, “What’s wrong with you?” Remember the plan, Pandora. “Let me rephrase. May I proposition you now?”

He shoves the pillow over his face with a groan. Mutters something I decide to take as an affirmative.

“You’re invited on an all-expenses-paid Mexican road trip.” I carefully slide the invitation I’ve created into the palm of his hand. “Here is the itinerary.”

He is silent for a moment. Then he shifts the pillow off his face and holds up the invitation.

It’s a scroll tied with a red ribbon. Rosie suggested this would read as classy but fun, although I’m now rethinking that choice.

He pulls the ribbon free. Sets it gently on the sofa. Unfurls the paper. Reads.

The itinerary the algorithm proposed based on our questionnaires starts outside of Tijuana and follows the highway down the Mexican coastline.

It meanders past tiny fishing villages, makes pit stops at not-so-hidden surf spots where Ozzy has won various surfing championships.

There is something called the Sea of Cortez.

It ends in Cabo San Lucas, that dramatic spit of land with the famous rock arches where Mexico gives up and falls into the ocean.

We are supposed to exhaust ourselves at the wilder party bars and then throw ourselves into the bone-crushing summer surf in dramatic fashion at Cabo San Lucas.

As I hate traveling, I suspect the algorithm was forced to work overtime, has become sentient, and decided to punish me for its long hours.

Because it has proposed we do the road trip from hell in a romantically cozy camper van.

“No, thank you,” he says.

For once, we are in agreement.

This is bad. I regroup. Think fast. Come up with nothing. My job promotion slips through my fingers.

“Why not?”

Somehow, I’ve gravitated to the couch. Since standing over Ozzy seems rude, I sink down beside him.

“It’s like a victory lap. You get to go back to all the spots you conquered on your surfboard.

Revisit your glory days. Take a bow.” I stab my finger at the last line on the scroll.

“And then you get to star in a spectacular charity surfing demonstration in Los Cabos. There will be applause, Ozzy, and people giving money to worthy charities.”

I make a note to ask the TripFriendz executive team to find a nice NGO to sponsor.

“I’m not surfing,” he says.

“Well, it’s not like I can step in for you there.”

He turns. He’s a shark smelling delicious, vulnerable tuna in the water. “Are you coming with me on this hypothetical road trip?”

“Sort of?”

“Are you inviting me on a really complex date, Panda?”

“Not…exactly?”

The fingers of the hand not holding the scroll tap on his chest. “Explain it to me, please.”

“I’ve told you about my work.” He nods. Pinches his thumb and forefinger together and then eases them apart a miniscule amount.

I interpret this as an invitation to expand on the information I’ve shared.

“Well, I coded an algorithm that matches two people as travel buddies and then algorithmically picks their best itinerary. It uses the data points from those questionnaires to pair people up. When I demoed the algorithm for TripFriendz’s executive team, it paired you and me together, and now my bosses want to send us on a Mexican road trip. Together.”

Mentioning the camper van seems unwise. Baby steps.

He reexamines the scroll. Perhaps I should have gone with the slide deck that Rosie talked me out of.

She claimed presentation software didn’t scream authentic or approachable.

I don’t see what that has to do with anything.

Especially with convincing Ozzy to go with me on what amounts to an extended date from hell.

He jams the scroll into his back pocket. Paper crinkles. “Do you want to go on a romantic road trip with me?”

“It’s not romantic.”

“Will the camper van have an adorable miniature Jacuzzi? Twinkle lights?”

Okay. So, the camper van secret is out of the bag. He can clearly read.

“No.”

He looks disappointed.

“Ten days in a tiny van and not an ounce of romance?”

My mad internet skills assure me that the toilet is a pull-out pot that lives under the kitchen counter (unsanitary and exposed) and showering relies on solar heating (thus bound to be short and unsatisfying).

Spectacular Mexican scenery and really fabulous Instagram pictures cannot possibly compensate for these dire living conditions.

“Romance free,” I assure him. “Also comfort free, likely hot, and going absolutely nowhere I would choose to go.”

He looks at me. Oops. There’s probably no walking that back.

“I hate traveling,” I confess.

To my surprise, Ozzy nods. “I’m not currently a fan, either.”

Isn’t he a jet-setting international athlete? I mean, he probably gets to stay in five-star luxury hotels, the kind with butlers and minibars that charge you a hundred bucks for a tiny can of Pringles, but still. I’m bewildered by his lack of enthusiasm.

He, on the other hand, may be bewildered by my traveling plans, but he also smells an opportunity to torture me. “But you want to do this anyhow?”

Want is a strong word. “Need.”

My word choice is a tactical mistake. Ozzy’s dimples come out to play. He knows he has the upper hand.

“Tell me why, Panda. Convince me. Sell me.”

“You get a free vacation,” I lie. I’m 99.

99 percent certain TripFriendz’s marketing team plans to work Ozzy to the bone.

What he saves in cash, he’ll make up for in sweat equity.

“You’ll get to go to the beach. Surf. Eat tacos.

In exchange, you put up with me as your roommate and we take a few happy pictures for TripFriendz’s social media.

When we’re not promoting the app, we can go our separate ways. You’ll barely notice me.”

Let’s hope he has no idea just how small a camper van is.

Ten days locked in a closet on wheels. For my dream job.

Assuming that we don’t kill each other, our lack of murderous intent will show that the algorithm must be true.

If I prove the algorithm is accurate, I get to be the new chief play officer.

It’s a mathematical proof. Oh, the new leaf I could turn over.

I could be the fun boss. I could work with a team that actually knows my name.

Stay in one place for a year. Two years.

Until I’m sixty-two and take early Social Security.

Tell work stories at family Thanksgiving and Sunday dinners that make people laugh with me and not at me.

High school reunion bragging rights. Reserved scooter parking.

My name on a cute little business card. Health insurance .

I want this more than anything, and that is therefore the one thing I cannot tell Ozzy. It’s his job as my arch-nemesis to thwart me, and he’s very, very good at…thwarting.

“But we’ll be travel buddies,” he says. “Paired up by your algorithmic matchmaker.”

“ Fake travel dating,” I emphasize. Oh God. I’m losing him. I shouldn’t force him to road trip with me. I’ll be cranky. Miserable. Hot. I will not smell pretty or share my space well. I hate leaving my house. “In a cute camper van.”

“Uh-huh.” His voice is low and rough. “It’s okay to admit that you just want to have me to yourself, Panda.”

“You’re delusional. And my name is Pandora.”

“And yet you want to spend ten days sleeping with me.”

“Think about it.”

He lobs a throw pillow gently at my head. “You would hate it.”

I shake my head. I’m not sure if it’s a yes shake or a no . Or just convulsions at the thought of so. Much. Travel.

When I say nothing, he says enough for both of us. “What’s in it for me? Still not sold. Let’s whiteboard it!”

He bounces up, ab muscles flexing (thank you, God) and bounds into my kitchen. Grabs the whiteboard from my fridge and inspects my dick artwork. “You’ve underestimated me, Panda bear.”

I have and we both know it.

He uncaps a marker. “Reason number one?”

“Excellent publicity for your brand.”

He writes it down. Adds a doodle of a palm tree. “But I’m out of the surfing business. Washed up. Revisiting surf spots will hurt my delicate sensibilities. I’ll be tormented by what I can’t have.”

My eyes narrow to semi-slits because the last time I checked his social media—approximately twenty minutes ago—there were zero statements about the end of his athletic career. I don’t believe him.

“Free travel,” I try. “All the ocean you could want. Way better surf sites than what’s outside our window.”