But that goes against our plan to never leave Tucson.
Dylan reads my mind. “The beauty of my plan is this: we fly to L.A. for the day. I’ve got a private plane, so we’ll fly back and spend tonight back here at the hotel.”
“You have a plane-?” I can’t even register this.
“Brilliant, huh?” He grabs me in a hug. “This way, I can see where you live, and we’ll visit my Malibu beach house later.”
Malibu beach house? So he has more than one home in Los Angeles.
“Well, this should make our lives seem all the more similar.” I playfully tap his chest.
“It’ll be a blast.” He picks me up and flips me over his shoulder so that I’m hanging upside-down. “I’ll carry you.”
“Dylan, put me down!”
I laugh for the first time in days.
L.A., here we come.
* * *
“Do you want to play a game?” Dylan asks me as the plane levels off. “I’ve got a bunch on my phone.”
I shake my head. Going back to L.A. with Dylan feels like a pretty dumb idea right now. I texted Rosita to warn her, but thank God today’s her day to visit her niece in Covina so she’ll be gone most of the day.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I say.
“Didn’t feel like I needed to do much convincing,” he argues.
“Once you see where I live, you’ll understand why this would never work between us long-term,” I say.
Dylan just looks back at me calmly. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he was prepared for my freak-out.
“First of all, I have cats,” I say. “Two cats! And they’re big pains—Bessie and Balaster hate almost everyone.”
Dylan’s warm brown eyes twinkle.
“Second of all,” I continue without taking the time to exhale. “My place is a mess. A big, hairy mess. The state of a living space tells a lot about a person you know. So, you can guess what my place says about me.”
Dylan raises his eyebrows.
“It says I’m a mess!” I say. “Get it? You can do so much better than me, Dylan. I promise you that.”
He stands up. “I’m going to get a drink. You want anything while I’m up?”
I shake my head. “Why are you ignoring me? I’m telling you important stuff here.”
“Oh, really? Sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself of something. Because you haven’t deterred me at all. Not in the slightest.”
I slouch down in my seat, pull my legs up to my chest, and wrap my arms around them.
* * *
“Let’s go to your place first,” Dylan says once we’ve landed safely and settled into a cab. “I want to see these cats of yours. And your sty of a home, of course.”
“Fine. If we must.”
Might as well get it over with. I never really cared about the cat hair in my apartment before, but I do now. And Rosita tends to leave chips around after she’s visited. Great.
