Two summers earlier, Poppy and Alex travel to Croatia for an R+R assignment with Bernard, an older staff photographer who talks constantly and accidentally assumes he will share Alex’s apartment. Because Bernard is lonely, recently widowed, and impossible to shake, he joins nearly every activity. Poppy has expected the trip to be their best vacation, especially because she and Alex have both recently become single, but Bernard’s constant presence keeps them from having the private conversation she has been waiting for.

Poppy reflects on how things changed after Tuscany. She and Alex deliberately stepped back from their friendship while Poppy kept dating Trey, and she threw herself into travel work. Her relationship with Trey eventually deteriorated into irritation and constant arguing, and they broke up amicably in New Zealand. Soon after, Alex tells Poppy that he and Sarah have also broken up, and both of them agree it will be easier to explain in person, which makes the Croatia trip feel charged with possibility.

Instead of intimacy, Poppy and Alex spend the trip trapped with Bernard on ferries, winery tours, kayak outings, and dinners. Poppy jokes about how impossible Bernard is to escape, but she also feels the frustration of being unable to reconnect honestly with Alex. On their final night, the three of them get very drunk at a seaside restaurant, and once Bernard passes out, Alex finally sneaks into Poppy’s room.

Alone at last, Poppy and Alex laugh together, admit they have missed each other, and fall into an easy physical closeness that turns into kissing. The kiss quickly becomes intense, and both of them clearly want more. When Poppy reaches to keep going, however, Alex stops and says they should not do this because they are drunk and not thinking clearly. Humiliated and desperate to save the friendship, Poppy immediately reframes the moment as meaningless and proposes that they pretend it never happened.

The next morning, Poppy tries to act normal, but at the airport Alex apologizes again and suggests he should not have started anything because Poppy is not over Trey. Poppy doubles down, telling Alex the kiss does not have to mean anything and reducing it to one drunken mistake between friends. Alex accepts that on the surface, but the exchange leaves both of them wounded. After they return home, Alex barely responds to her texts, and their communication fades, confirming for Poppy that crossing that boundary damaged the friendship they had spent years protecting.