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“Where?” I need a plan. Coordinates. A rescue beacon.

“Valle de los gigantes.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

He slams Berta’s door shut, then leans in the window he didn’t bother to close. “Two words, Panda. Giant. Cactus.”

He’s as excited as Christmas morning. All he’s ever wanted are spiny, flowering succulents. I roll my eyes, cross my arms over my chest, and say, “Nope.”

“It’ll be fun.”

The label I would use is certain death. A sign warns in the direst of terms that we must abandon Berta in order to enjoy the “miracle” (the sign’s words, not mine) that is this cactus-opia because only 4x4 vehicles can handle the terrain.

To call the dusty track a road is optimistic.

It is a trough of beige-colored sand crisscrossed with tire tracks.

There are no humans in sight. No bathrooms. No water. We will die out here, stuck in a wash.

“Your loss.” Ozzy shrugs and turns. Strides away. He’s not looking back. Or waiting. He belongs here. His body is made to conquer mountains.

“I’m leaving you here!” I bellow after him.

He laughs and raises his hand. Which is holding my phone .

I award him a point in this game we’re playing. He’s taken my pawn. Sunk my battleship. If I abandon him here, I’ll lose our social media war. I doubt there’s an Apple Store within two hundred miles of here—and I can’t google it because he. Has. My. Phone.

“Sure. I’ll just follow you.” I roll up the windows, grab a bottle of water, double-check that Berta is locked. There’s at least one thief in the area.

I trudge after him. It’s too hot to run and I can’t be bothered. Plus, I’ve used up my worry quota for the day, what with worrying about our hookup, the kissing, the sex. Knowing what he looks like naked. He’s seen my O-face. We know things about each other.

Ozzy, on the other hand, is supremely un worried. He’s dismissed it. Or compartmentalized it. Gotten over it. Over me. I can’t move on so gracefully. I think about it constantly, about his big body moving over me. How he held me close, made me feel safe, and then made me… I wanted… We did so…

Some things can’t be forgotten.

Like the man waiting for me in the shade of what has to be the world’s biggest cactus. It towers over him.

He frowns. “Where’s your hat?”

I point, hopefully in Berta’s direction. Giant cacti are interchangeable. “Someone hijacked me.”

“This will be better,” he offers.

Right.

“Panda.”

I make finger frames. I pretend I know what I’m doing. Snap an imaginary picture that will never go viral.

“Panda Bear.”

“You know my name.”

He holds out a phone-shaped olive branch. “Fine. You win.”

We contemplate a cactus.

“Are you having fun?” His face is so close to mine. Dappled with sunshine, striped with cactus shadows.

I wipe sweat away from my hairline. Why didn’t my algorithm pick Iceland or Antarctica? I would kill for thirty minutes in the ice cream aisle at the grocery store. “This is a job. We’re not really on vacation.”

“Fake travel dating,” he says mock-solemnly. “Fake relationshipping.”

“For a ridiculous reason,” I add.

“Because TripFriendz needs some fake PR.”

“Completely harmless.” I shake my head, fake sadly. “It’s temporary, of course.”

“Just until we reach Cabo.” He nods gravely. “But.”

“There is no but.” I give in and snatch my phone from his outstretched hand. I take his picture. I’m too close, his face is all nostrils and dusty cheekbones. It’s a Salvador Dali Ozzy. I’ll post it as soon we’re in San Felipe. He deserves it.

“But you know how the story goes.”

“Tell me all about it.” I wander past cacti. The sky is impossibly, blazingly blue. There’s nothing but sun and sand.

“I shouldn’t spoil it.”

I snort. “You started it.”

The light in his eye is warm. There’s a spark of something there that I can’t quite put a name to.

I want to lick him, I think. Taste that patch of skin beneath his ear where he’s tender, salty-sweet, vulnerable.

I didn’t kiss him there during our night, and I have kiss regrets. Missed opportunities.

“In the story, we catch feelings. Real ones.”

I run a cautious hand over the base of a cactus. It’s hard and smooth, the skin pebbly against my fingertips. “Totally against the rules.”

“What are we going to doooooo?” He flails dramatically, but that spark in his eyes is bigger.

“We’ve lied.” I take another picture of him. His arms take up the entire frame. “Misled people. We’re master manipulators.”

“There must be consequences,” he agrees.

“Of course. Even if we did it for the right reason. The best of reasons.” While I don’t endorse lying, my algorithm is the lifeline TripFriendz needs.

I don’t fail to recognize the importance of my technological contributions, even if I’m floundering on this job interview from hell.

Our lies—that we are happy trip buddies, that my algorithm did a bang-up job when it paired us together—will keep us all employed.

My coworkers like getting paid and not sending out a thousand résumés to get just one stupid phone-screen interview where you’re trying to guess what a disembodied voice wants you to say, and your cell signal keeps dropping and it’s horrible. I don’t want to do that again.

“And then it’s real,” he says. “The end.”

“It’s my favorite book.”

He nods. “Mine, too.”

We wander around the forest of giant cacti for what feels like hours.

Ozzy christens them, because “you named the van so it’s my turn to name our children.

” We pose like supermodels. Ozzy catwalks as I record him.

He’s highly photogenic. Me? Not so much.

There are a few of me that aren’t awful, though.

Mostly, this is because he sneaks up on me, capturing me before I can freeze and make that weird face I wear in all the Fyffe family photos.

He hands his phone to me. “Keep or delete? Do you like these?”

I thumb through them, seeing myself through his eyes. It’s weird. “I’m not photogenic. Can we find one where I’m not imitating a dusty mouse spotting a hawk?”

I’ve been told more times than I can count that I pull strange faces in photos.

I’m always the one with her eyes shut, and I’ve definitely got a lazy eye.

It’s fortunate I never lusted after a career as a model, since I’m wearing the Mexican desert like it’s an exotic dusting powder in most of these.

The look he gives me is something, although I’m not sure what. “You want to know what I see?”

“Not particularly,” I say. “Although I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

Ah, brutal honesty. How I love thee.

“You look strong. Capable. Not afraid to get dirty or meet me head-on.” He shrugs. “It’s a good look. Pick one, please.”

Ozzy waits patiently while I flip through the pictures again. And then again. “This one,” I decide finally.

It’s the one he likes.

I hand him back his phone, and just like that the moment is over. He flashes a thumbs-up in the shade of a cardón that must be sixty, a hundred, a thousand feet tall. There’s a hazy shimmer to the air now. When I inhale, every breath is superheated.

I follow along behind Ozzy, kicking up dust and small rocks with my feet.

Thirsty-looking brush makes walking in a straight line impossible.

They make me stagger just a little, and I’m glad when we’re safely back in Berta.

When Ozzy announces it’s his turn to drive, I just rest my forehead against the passenger-side window.

I think I might be allergic to cactus. My stomach roils.

It’s just overexposure to Ozzy. Sleeping with my irritating neighbor isn’t something to feel good about.

It’s not part of my plan to get my life back on track.

I don’t have time for detours. If Ozzy wins this competition—assuming he hasn’t already—he’ll be my boss, and we’ll never, ever be able to have consensual sex again.

Plus, I’d have to quit and never speak to him again.

I’d end up living in a box on a sidewalk.

I’m in this to win this, I remind myself.