Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Not all of us were born with pen names,” I counter, handing her the checked bag.
“I’ll be sure to send Daddy a thank you note for mine,” she fires back as she takes the handle. “And hey, you scored a pretty decent writer’s name too, even though you don’t use it. Hendrix is cool. Rugged. Mysterious. Tough.”
“Aww, you think I’m rugged, mysterious, and tough,” I tease.
She adopts an evil grin as we wheel our bags past the other carousels, heading toward the exit. “Did I say you were those things?”
I sigh heavily. “Why did I help you with the bag?” It’s a rhetorical question.
But she jumps on it, the speed demon. “Aha! So you admit you did help with the bag? It was deliberate? Not just because”—she stops to sketch air quotes as she deepens her voice—“the bag was there.”
Damn. She sounded just like me when she said that. That’s scary, how well she can imitate me, intonation and all.
What’s scarier though is that she’s too damn good at turning my words all the way around and against me. Note to self: watch the fuck out with Hazel. She’s a virtuoso villain when wielding your favorite weapons—words. “You should have been an attorney,” I say, begrudgingly.
“Thanks. That’s high praise from you,” she says with a proud lift of her chin. Then, she stage-whispers, “And fine. You’re a little rugged.” She holds up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Like, a tidge.”
“I’ll have Dunbar and Loraine put that on my next dust jacket. He’s a tidge rugged.”
We leave the baggage carousel, pass through customs for the bag check, then enter the zoo of any airport—the waiting area where drivers and runners and handlers and friends and relatives wait for travelers.
I scan the sea of people holding placards or brandishing tablets, looking for Huxley and Valentine. But I blink when I spot a screen reading: Mr. and Mrs. Huxley.
Oh, fuck.
Hazel’s going to flip a table. Maybe I can get in front of the screen while she’s fighting off the latest yawn attack.
No such luck.
Hazel spots the curly-haired woman holding the offending sign, then points at the names.
“Why doesn’t it say Mr. and Mrs. Valentine?”
This woman. She kills me. “That’s my feminist,” I say, laughing.
Fueled by her righteous rage, she marches to the woman. I’m not worried she’ll make a scene—that’s not her style. Instead, she says, warm and kind, “Hi. I’m Hazel Valentine.” She pats my shoulder when I catch up a second later. “He’s Axel Huxley. We’re not married, but if we were, he’d take my name.”
I stifle a laugh, then say dryly, “She’s marrying a bed anyway.”
Hazel laughs.
The woman stares at us like we’re bananas.
Well, we’re writers, so…Yeah, that shoe fits.
On the drive to the hotel, I point out a few sights as we pass. She’s never been to Rome, so she stares with wide, eager eyes, taking it all in. But somewhere around Vatican City, her eyelids start to flutter and her head begins to bob. Then, she’s drifting off, her cheek introducing itself to my shoulder.
I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, balling my fists. I should say something. I should do something. Move her. Gently wake her.
But I don’t.
Instead, when she slides further and further into the land of nod and closer and closer to my lap, I just let her.
Jet lag be damned.
She’s asleep, her head in my lap, her red hair spilled across my legs. I’m careful not to rouse her as I take out my phone to text my brother, telling him I’m going to win an award for being nice.
Carter: What did you do? Hold the door for a little old lady? That’s baseline nice, dude.
Axel: O ye of little faith. I am next-leveling it. I am being nice to Hazel.
Carter: I don’t believe this is you. Say something Axel would say.
Axel: I hate people.
Carter: It’s you, brother! It’s really you!
We text some more as Hazel sleeps. It’s only another fifteen minutes to the hotel. Letting her doze is the nice thing to do.
Except, I’m not doing it to be nice.
When we reach the hotel, she wakes up with a jolt. Straightens. Blinks. Then mutters a thanks when we step out of the car, like her face wasn’t just in my lap.
12
GRAB LIFE BY THE MEATBALLS
Axel
After dropping off our luggage, Hazel and I trek to the Piazza Navona and snag a table at a sunny sidewalk café with a view of La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. The afternoon sun paints the fountain with a rosy hue.
Hazel breathes it all in with a blissful expression.
“No wonder you have fountains in your books,” she says, appreciatively. “They’re gorgeous.”
Aesthetics aren’t the reason, but no need to unpack the real motivation. I’d rather eat, then eat up the rest of the day so we’re ready for tomorrow.