“If you make me lose it again before we get to this car, I’m going to tell Mom about this.”

Ben stopped again.

“You wouldn’t!”

Maddie poked him with her shoulder and he kept walking.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Theo said. “But still.” He looked from Ben down to the suitcase and back again. Yes, yes, message received, they had to get Anna into the car and out of the suitcase.

It wasn’t his fault that this situation was hilarious. It wasn’t Theo’s fault, either. Come to think of it, it was . . .

“Ben? Isn’t this your car?” Maddie asked.

Oh right, that was his car.

Not without some difficulty, he pulled his car key out of his pocket while he kept a grip on the suitcase with Anna inside. Why didn’t he have one of those cars where it automatically unlocked when the key was in your pocket? Maybe he’d have one next time he had to carry an Oscar-nominated actress to his car in a suitcase.

Maddie opened the back door, and he and Theo carefully slid the Anna suitcase into the back seat. She pulled the seat belt out as far as it could go and buckled it around the suitcase.

Ben pulled out of the parking spot while Theo was still putting his own seat belt on.

“Unzip her, Maddie!” Ben said as soon as they were at the corner.

“Already done,” Maddie said.

The lid of the suitcase flipped up, and Anna’s head popped out.

“Just how many pairs of sneakers do you have?” she asked Ben.

Theo started laughing. Then Maddie. Then Anna. Then Ben. They all laughed so hard and for so long that someone honked at him to keep driving.

“I can’t believe . . .” Ben said as soon as he could talk again, “that I just walked down the street with my brother, carrying Anna Fucking Gardiner in a suitcase.”

“You two did a very good job,” Anna said. “Really. Professional suitcase actress carriers couldn’t have done it better. I felt extremely secure.”

Ben turned to Theo and gave him a nod. That’s right.

“Except for when you were both giggling so hard you almost dropped me.”

Ben and Theo both started talking at once.

“We wouldn’t have!”

“We stopped walking! To make sure we didn’t!”

“We weren’t giggling, we were laughing!”

Ben saw Anna and Maddie exchange glances in the back seat, and glared at them.

“Mmm,” Anna said. “One question, Ben—when you compared me to a sneaker . . . was that supposed to be a compliment?”

See, he knew she wouldn’t get it.

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t compare you to a sneaker, I was just trying to make some fake conversation about what would be in my suitcase. You know, to throw people off the scent! But also, I treat my sneakers very well!”

Theo turned around to face Anna.

“He really does. He always has, actually.”

At least his brother came through for him when it counted.

“He actually does,” Maddie chimed in from the back seat. “A whole little shelf set up in his closet for them. Weird, but true.”

Wow, Maddie defended him, too.

Wait a minute.

“Why is that weird?”

Maddie and Theo both laughed.

“I mean, Ben,” Theo finally said. “You’re not exactly Mr. Responsible.”

He couldn’t believe Theo was saying this with Anna right there.

“I am so!” Why did he sound like he’d reverted to childhood? “I mean, I’m perfectly responsible.”

“Do you remember that time when you took a stranger’s suitcase when you left the airport, and you didn’t realize it for hours, well after the poor woman was freaking out?”

“First of all, that was not my fault! All black suitcases look alike. Second, that was ten years ago!”

“What about the time you left the key in the driver’s-side door of your car on the street overnight?”

Ben had to laugh. That had been something of a miracle.

“And it wasn’t even touched! I think everyone who walked by it must have thought it was a setup or something.”

Maddie piped up from the back seat.

“What about when you helped me transport those dresses for that benefit and managed to spill coffee all over the valet when we got to the hotel?”

He couldn’t believe Maddie was joining in on this. Though, what she didn’t say, thank goodness, was that he’d been so busy flirting with the makeup artist that he hadn’t been looking where he was going.

“The dresses themselves were all pristine, weren’t they? Plus, I tipped that guy very well!”

Theo laughed again. Ben didn’t trust that glint in his eye.

“Oh, and there was the time . . .”

He should have pushed his brother into traffic when he’d had the chance.

 

* * *

 

—

Anna laughed as she listened to Theo and Maddie making fun of Ben in the way only family can. Ben and Theo were so different—you could see that even in their posture in the front seat, with Theo’s back ramrod straight, and Ben relaxed—but anyone would still be able to tell they were brothers from a mile away.

Ben seemed so outraged by all of the stories that Theo and Maddie were telling about him, but they all made her like him even more. She liked how they all obviously jumped to help one another in an emergency, and how Maddie treated Ben like a little brother. And now that she knew Maddie was a stylist, another mystery was cleared up. She was pretty sure she had Maddie to thank for her new Palm Springs dresses.

Maddie turned to her as they got close to the hotel.

“How do you want to do this?” she asked. “Are we going in through the front and then up to your room from there, or through the back so you don’t have to get in the suitcase again?”

Anna thought about that. It had been cramped and uncomfortable in the suitcase, obviously. And she was tempted to call the hotel manager and tell her she was on her way so she could go in through the kitchen. But . . . the idea of being carried in a suitcase through that staid, elegant hotel lobby cracked her up. Maybe it was the diva in her, maybe it was the devil on her shoulder, but she grinned at Maddie after she thought about it for a few seconds.

“We’ve come so far, why take the easy way out?”