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“Mulholland Drive?” she asked. “I thought you knew a place.”
“I do. This is it.”
“Every Angeleno worth his salt knows about Mulholland.”
He laughed loudly and looked up past the open roof. “So much for trying to impress you.”
“If you’re trying to impress me, you’re going to have to do better than a stunning view and some orgasms.”
He made a noise and raised an eyebrow at her. “Careful or you’ll wake the beast again.”
“By saying ‘orgasm’?”
“He’s easily aroused.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I saw that,” he said.
“How?” she exclaimed. “It’s nighttime.”
“Not all of night is dark. There’s the moon, the stars.”
“Just like even dark people have light, right? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“You think everything I say has another meaning.”
She turned in her seat to face him. “I thought to make an offer like you did that you must be a monster. Now I don’t know what to think.”
“I appreciate your candor,” he said dryly.
“I’m just trying to figure this out. Figure you out. How can someone be anything other than morally bankrupt and vile to pay another man’s girlfriend for sex?”
He dropped his hands along the curves of the steering wheel. “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, Lola. I’m a man who doesn’t let anything get in the way of what I want. If my bank account had a zero balance and I wanted you badly enough…I wouldn’t let that stop me. I’d find a way to get you.”
“You make it sound so simple—like people are commodities.” She paused, waiting for a response. She supposed maybe he had thought of her that way once. “By your own logic, there’s nothing you can’t have.”
“I like to believe that.” He looked over at her. “Why?”
Deep inside her not hours ago, he’d said he wouldn’t let her go. Lola had made her own heated promises—why? To get to the finish line? Or because they were true and nothing counted in those lust-fogged moments? Beau had said if he wanted something badly enough, he’d go after it. It knotted her stomach to think of a Johnny-Beau showdown in which she’d have to choose between them. “Never mind.”
Beau glanced over his shoulder and back at her. “I’ve never been here at night, but I should’ve guessed it would be closed.”
Just behind him was a lookout point with a view of downtown Los Angeles. Lola had been going there since she was a teenager, often at night. Sometimes to drink with her friends, which seemed reckless now.
“There are ways around the gate,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “You want to sneak in?”
“Would you?”
“We drove all the way up here.” He went to open his door, but Lola put her hand on his forearm. He turned back.
“I don’t need it,” she said. “I’ve seen it. Let’s just sit together.”
He settled back into his seat. “Describe it to me.”
“The sky is black, but the lights glow. Orange, green, yellow.” She wiggled her pointer finger in the air. “Little dots. The buildings are like music bars of light and dark.” She glanced up. “More often than you’d think, you can catch a shooting star. But right now, everything is mostly…still.”
“Sounds almost perfect. But we’re missing something.” He shifted in his seat to dig in his pocket. “Vodka and Cheez-Its.”
She half smiled. “What?”
“From the minibar.” He held up a tiny bottle between two fingers and a bag in his palm. “I also brought tequila—if you’re feeling adventurous.”
“A surprise picnic under the stars? You’re really clueless when it comes to wooing women, aren’t you?”
“Take that back or you get no tequila.” He twisted off the cap, took a sip and quickly shook his head. His thick hair, relaxed for once because of their shower, took a moment to settle. He blew out a breath. “Jesus. Now I remember why I don’t drink tequila straight anymore.”
Lola grinned. “Suck it up, pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy? I take offense to that.”
“It was intended to offend.”
He laughed and passed the bottle. She finished it off as Beau watched her.
“And that’s how it’s done,” she declared right before turning her face away to cringe.
“Busted,” he said.
“I was just clearing my throat.”
“Seriously? I know what I saw.”
“I’ll prove it,” she said. “Pass the vodka.”
He surrendered it to her with one palm in the air. “Yes, ma’am.”
She opened it, downed half of it easily and offered him the rest.
He shook his head. “No more while I’m driving precious cargo.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Precious—?”
There was that laugh again, deeper this time from the bottom of his throat. She wanted to bottle that sound and save it for later. For when they’d parted ways. She had to push the thought away quickly to stay in their moment.
“God, you’re cute,” he said. “You, Lola. You’re the precious cargo.”
“Oh,” she said, warm in the face. “Got it.”
“Just don’t get sick in my car, all right?”
“It’d take a lot more than a mini-bottle to make me sick. Vodka’s like water for me.” She drained the bottle. “Been drinking it since I was thirteen.”
He opened the Cheez-Its and ate some. “I want to hear more about this rebel-teenager Lola.”
“She’s still around, so don’t provoke her,” she said.
“I know you meant that as a threat, but I’m only more intrigued.”
She turned her head toward the windshield. Everywhere she looked, there was something to see—a distant view of Los Angeles, the Big Dipper, the small one, the sandpaper mountains behind her. Beau.
“Maybe intrigued was too casual of a word,” Beau teased. “Don’t make me beg for more.”
“I’m the same person I was then, just older. And maybe a little wiser.”
“I may be older, but I don’t feel any wiser,” Beau said.
“Me neither,” she said. “That was a lie.” At the time, no matter how lost she’d been, she’d always thought she’d had it figured out. “What about you? Were you rebellious?”
“Nah. I was consumed by other things, like work, family and survival. Growing up poor really lights a fire under your ass. At least it did for me.”
