People We Meet on Vacation

The present-day trip to Palm Springs, ostensibly for Alex's brother David's wedding, becomes the setting where Poppy and Alex finally confront the tension that has kept them apart for two years. After a comedy-of-errors rental (one bed, broken air conditioner) forces them into close quarters, a sudden rainstorm breaks the tension and they sleep together, finally admitting the romantic feelings they've suppressed for a decade. They attend David's wedding together as a happy, unified pair, seemingly on the verge of resolving everything.

But at the airport heading home, things fall apart again: Poppy admits she saw the trip partly as an escape from her unsatisfying life in New York, and Alex is hurt, feeling reduced to a means of escape rather than valued for himself. This mirrors the rupture from their last trip together, in Dubrovnik two years earlier, which is revealed in flashback: they had drunkenly kissed, but each interpreted the other's reaction as rejection, leading to two years of silence.

Back in New York, Poppy begins therapy and comes to recognize her pattern of running from discomfort and difficulty instead of facing it, including in her relationship with Alex. She also realizes her career as a travel writer has become hollow because she no longer forms genuine connections on her trips. Resolved to stop running, she flies to Linfield, Ohio to find Alex and reconcile in person.

In Linfield, Alex confesses his own fears: that he and Poppy are fundamentally too different to work, and that he's terrified of losing her the way he lost his mother. Poppy reassures him and they finally, fully commit to each other. The book ends with the two of them together as a couple, no longer defined by geographic separation and missed chances, splitting their time between New York City and Linfield.