“Fine,” I say to no one as I push the silly button that looks like a tiny stick figure orgy. “The more the freaking merrier.”
I wait as the little car widget spins and spins. So help me, if this doesn’t yield any results, I’ll be forced to take the bus, which on the unpleasantness meter is somewhere between pubic lice and talking to my father for an entire car ride without a drink.
“Your friendly Dryver will be at your location in three minutes,” my phone announces robotically.
Three minutes? Geez! It’s going to take me twice as many minutes just to get all my stuff together.
I force Ozzie back into his crate and am met with one of his old-man growls. I apologize as I plop my luggage on top of his crate and start booking it toward the ground transportation pickup terminal. Running is the sort of thing I don’t enjoy, for two reasons. One, it’s running, and two, it’s not walking.
“Your friendly Dryver is approaching,” says my phone. “Please be ready at the designated Dryver pickup location.”
“That’s the fastest three minutes I’ve ever seen,” I mutter under my breath.
The sliding terminal doors are in sight when I realize I’m not sure what the car that is picking me up looks like. I struggle to keep one eye on my phone and one on the sea of people in front of me. A beige minivan. Oh, lovely. Room for an entire polka band from Sheboygan. I spot the van as soon as I’m outside.
“Penelope Banks?” the driver asks. He looks younger than the majority of my lingerie collection, which is concerning for multiple reasons. “Traveling to Coronado Island?”
“That’s me,” I say. “Should I put my bag in the back or is that where you’re keeping the band?”
“Band?”
“Never mind.”
“If you say so. My name is Aidan, and I’ll be your friendly Dryver.” Aidan takes my bag. “The other passenger should be arriving shortly. Please, take a seat.”
A clap of thunder breaks overhead, followed by a light sprinkle. Ozzie yips in his crate. He hates thunder and lightning and wind. He actually hates all weather that isn’t sun, which I think is the reason he has epic meltdowns whenever it rains in California. He feels betrayed.
“Hush.” I lift him into the van and place him on the floor between the two middle-row captain’s seats. “If you get us kicked off this van, I’m shipping you to Sheboygan.” Ozzie turns away from me and stares out the open door to scream at the rain. “Good talk.”
I riffle through my oversize purse to find his doggy cannabis treats. His barking escalates, which doesn’t help things, considering my purse is more like a giant garbage disposal wrapped in faux leather. It contains everything from a few advance reader copies my publisher sent me to my traveling collection of crystals and lethal hand sanitizer.
“Where the hell are you?” I grumble under my breath.
“Right here.”
I whip my head away from my purse so fast I smack it on the driver’s seat in front of me. I know that voice. I know that voice the way I know my own. I look up, and there he is. Smith Mackenzie.
My ex-husband.
Chapter 2
I’m in the upside down.
That’s the only thing that can possibly explain my current predicament. I, Penny Elsbeth Banks, have somehow managed to be sucked into a cruel alternate universe where kind and spicy romance authors are not only forced to attend Thanksgiving dinner as spinsters begging their family for money, but also forced to ride in cars with their ex-husbands. I’m basically one janky string of Christmas lights away from going full-on Winona Ryder.
“Smith?” My mouth goes dry. “Why are you standing in front of my rideshare?”
“Your rideshare?” He smirks in a way that I’m pretty sure most people would describe as charming. “I thought it was mine.”
He taps on the leather mailbox-shaped carrier slung over his arm. A graying fuzzball of a Pomeranian pops her head out of the carrier and starts to pant. Instantly, my heart melts.
“Harriet!” I squeal. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you still have her. Let her out. I need to hold her.”
Harriet is Ozzie’s littermate. We adopted them in what I now realize was a Hail Mary to distract ourselves from the fact that we had no business being married. We filed for divorce a few weeks later. Thankfully, the dogs lasted longer.
Smith slides into the captain’s seat next to me and carefully pulls Harriet out of her carrier. Her little butt starts to wiggle a hundred miles an hour as he places her in my lap.