Page 11 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

UNDER-EXAGGERATING

Hazel

As I zip up my suitcase on Thursday morning, I sniffle. Then, I sniffle a few more times for emphasis.

“Did you hear that? I think I’m coming down with something,” I call out to TJ, who’s toasting bagels in my kitchen. Since bagels are good any time of day, we’re having a send-off lunch before my trip. The flight’s at seven, but I’m leaving for the airport a little after three, just in case.

“You sound just fine,” he says.

I touch my throat then sniffle again. “Gosh, I hope I don’t have a cold. I’d hate to give anyone a cold.”

TJ’s shoes slap against the hardwood floorboards as he strides toward my bedroom, filling up the doorway with his redwood-tree-size frame, holding a mug of coffee.

He stares down at me, one eyebrow arched.

“Then don’t kiss anyone,” he says, ominously.

He doesn’t have to say Axel’s name for me to know who he means.

I wrinkle my nose at that preposterous suggestion, then pop up from my now-closed luggage, stroking my throat again. I force out another cough. “I’m dying. Doesn’t it sound like I’m dying?”

“Dying of pathetic attempts to get out of a trip,” he says.

I sneer at him, then shake a finger. “This is all your fault.”

He cracks up, lifts his cup, takes a drink. “How is this my fault?”

“It’s not! I’m just freaking out,” I blurt out, then I let my shoulders sag. My stomach twists with nerves. “I don’t know how to handle being with Axel for a week. Help.”

My friend closes the distance between us, wraps his free arm around me, and squeezes. “Let’s get you a bagel, and we’ll come up with a game plan.”

I nod, feeling a little better for the moral support. We head to my tiny kitchen, where I blow out a heavy breath. Try to shake off the past. “Sorry. It’s just that seeing him is tougher than I’d thought.”

For so many reasons.

“You miss him,” he says gently, and it’s not a question. It’s just the truth.

I desperately miss the friendship, the camaraderie, the way we understood each other.

“I do,” I say, sad and wistful. Then I shake out my shoulders, like I can shimmy away the emotions. “But I’m just going to…adult my way through this trip. I’ll focus on the readers and the agenda, and then I’ll snag some girl time with Rachel in Paris.”

“Good idea. Make that your reward for adulting with Axel,” he says. “Tell yourself you only get to see her if you’ve been good.”

“Oh, I do like rewards,” I say, excited now.

“I know, Hazel. I know.”

“All right, Rachel is my reward and adulting is the plan. I can do this.”

TJ slugs my arm. “You’ve got this. And for the record, you’ve always adulted with him.”

Have I, though? That day in Chelsea when Axel blindsided me was not my finest moment. Yes, I was surprised, but I didn’t handle the news well that he was leaving the book, the country, and me.

I said some things.

Things I wish I could un-say.

Maybe this trip is a do-over. A chance to adult well . “I need a bagel for strength and sustenance,” I say.

The toaster answers my prayer, popping up with a nicely browned sesame bagel.

I grab some butter from the fridge, then smear it on.

“I hate cream cheese,” I explain, though TJ knows this, because we wrote cream cheese on my whiteboard shitlist the day he learned of my dislike for it. It was listed under Axel, and also me .

“How do you hate cream cheese again?” he asks.

“Have you tried cream cheese?” I counter, then shudder.

“Yes. It’s too good. Which is why my bagel is naked.” He pats his flat stomach.

I pat his belly too. “Because you like giving Jude your abs.”

His knowing smile says I understand him perfectly. Then he adds, “I like abs.”

I laugh, then an image flashes before me from the other day at the coffee shop. When Axel leaned back in his chair and his shirt rode up the slightest bit, giving me a peek of his stomach, lean and toned.

A tiny shiver has the audacity to slide down my spine.

But that’s the last thing I need as I head to the airport to meet him at the gate when boarding begins.

Because of course we’re sitting together.

Since our publishers think we’re former writing partners who simply split amicably over creative differences but managed to stay friends.

That’s the true fiction.

I’m nearly at the airline counter to check my suitcase when my phone buzzes with a text.

Axel: File this under ‘only in New York.’ A delivery truck just jackknifed by the access road. Boxes spilled out. There are satin Yankees jackets strewn all over the street. I got out of the Lyft. I’m walking the last mile.

He’s sent a photo of the spillage. Holy mountain of shiny pin-striped blue. That’s very New York.

Hazel: Or just order another Lyft on the other side of the exit?

Axel: I considered that. But it’s a bit of a free-for-all. I’m taking my chances walking.

Hazel: TO JFK? YOU’RE WALKING ALONG THE ROAD TO JFK? It’s practically a highway.

Photographic evidence lands once more. A five-second video of his motorcycle boots as he’s walking along the access road to the terminal.

Hazel: That’s a death trap.

Axel: You won’t get rid of me that easily, sweetheart.

Hazel: That’s not what I’m saying.

Axel: Sure it is. You sent that truck to foil me.

Hazel: Give me more credit. If I’d sent that truck to foil you, it wouldn’t have contained Yankees jackets.

Axel: Fair point. I guess you’re not the culprit. But Brooks Dean wouldn’t give up, and I won’t either. I’ll be there to vex you. Anyway, I’m closing in on the terminal. But if you’re still in line, can I piggyback and join you?

I glance up. There are five people in front of me. I might as well help out. That’s adulting, after all.

Hazel: Yes, but you’d better move fast.

Axel: Be there in three minutes.

How the hell will he be here so soon? But as promised, three minutes later, the man in glasses, motorcycle boots, and a tight gray T-shirt wedges past the sea of travelers in the snaking line, saying excuse me and thank you as he goes.

He might not be nice to me, but at least he’s nice to strangers. I’ll give him a decency point.

He arrives at my side when I’m one person away from the counter. Axel hardly looks worse for the wear. I half wonder if he made it all up, but he offers me a dark blue shiny piece of fabric from the messenger bag slung across his chest. “As a thank you,” he says.

“You stole a Yankees jacket from a delivery truck accident?”

“Spoils of war,” he says, like it’s no big deal.

“Seriously?” Thievery is not his style.

He huffs, relenting. “I hitched the final mile with a cabby. He had some. Gave me one.”

I scoff. “So this is a regifted Yankees jacket that had spilled out of the truck onto the road that your cabby absconded with and you’re giving me?”

“And you thought I wasn’t a nice guy,” he says with a too-big grin.

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t suffering from that delusion,” I say as the counter agent calls out, “Next.”

Without taking the jacket, I stride up to the counter. “Hello. I’m flying to Rome,” I say to the woman with the cinched-back, blonde ponytail.

“Wonderful. And you’re here with…” She looks to Axel in question.

“My nemesis,” I say plainly.

The woman blinks in confusion.

Axel snorts, then holds up a thumb and forefinger. “She under-exaggerated. Tell the truth, Hazel,” he says to me.

“Fine. Archnemesis,” I correct.

The agent pulls a face. “Should be a lovely flight then.”

The flight is only the beginning.

Twenty minutes later, we make it through the first lava pit of travel—security. I grab my red backpack from the other side of the conveyor belt while Axel snags his messenger bag and slings it across his chest.

We head down the concourse toward our gate.

I’ve survived a half hour with him. I only have six days and…

I don’t want to go there. I simply want to get through this trip without any bloodshed. While we weave through the throngs of travelers, I swallow past the discomfort in my throat, then say, “I had this wild idea for how to make it through the trip,” I offer.

“Headphones the whole time?”

Why does he make it so hard to be nice? “No, Axel,” I say.

“Pretend we don’t know each other,” he offers.

“You make it so easy to want to throttle you,” I say dryly.

He smiles, the cocky kind. “It’s my special skill.”

I take a deep breath and try again. “My idea is—why don’t we just behave like adults?”

His brow creases. Perhaps I’ve made the strangest suggestion in the world. “Like, just move on?” he asks carefully, but hopefully too.

But I’m not sure if we can just move on. I think for now we just need to deal. I try to work out the best way to phrase that when I spot a far-too-familiar profile. A square jaw. Slicked-back hair. A tailored shirt.

The most confident grin I’ve ever seen.

Why, universe, why?

I wish it were anyone but him.

“Ex alert,” I mutter, like I’d say to TJ, or Veronica, or any of my friends.

“Sarah? Is it Sarah?” Axel asks, tightly.

I shake my head at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. That witch broke his heart nearly two years ago.

I swallow uncomfortably, and say, “My ex.”

Axel looks to the right, then straightens his shoulders, saying nothing when he spots the guy I was once in love with.

My ex is walking toward us, smiling like he’s so goddamn happy to see me. “Hazel,” he says when he’s ten feet away, as if nothing’s better than running into the woman he screwed over.

By screwing others.

Axel tenses. His shoulders bunch up. His jaw clenches. His eyes narrow.

That’s a strange reaction—this level of loathing.

My ex then deals a smile to the guy next to me, followed by a chin nod. “Hey, Axel.”

Axel doesn’t soften. He just nods, his lips tight as a drum.

Maybe this is a good time to practice adulting. “Hello, Max,” I say, coolly, biting back all the things I want to say to my ex.