AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I brought you out here to cook you dinner.” Alex smiled, pulling Lily down for a kiss before she walked away. “Not talk your ear off about my job.”
Lily leaned down to Alex in the chair, holding her eyes for a moment before she kissed her again. “Alex, I like you.” She brushed Alex’s lower lip gently with the tip of her tongue as she pulled away. “Like, for real. So I want to know all the things.” Lily stood and returned to the grill, sliding out the attached pan for the veggies. “And it’s about time, so hit me. Tell me everything.”
Alex smiled, balancing the wineglass on two fingers as she watched Lily check the rice and drizzle olive oil onto the grill pan with a scatter of salt. “That might be the most romantic thing a woman has ever said to me.”
“Well,” Lily said, tossing a wink in Alex’s direction, “it sounds like the bar is low, in that case. Excellent. I like those odds.”
Lily tossed the sliced onions and peppers onto the sizzling grill pan, inhaling the steam as they started to soften and char. She pulled the shrimp from the marinade with tongs one by one, placing them carefully on the grill, where the heat instantly lifted the lime rich mojo spices to her nose.
“So tell me.” Lily placed the last shrimp on the grill, looking over her shoulder at Alex. “You know what you’re wanting to shift away from professionally. What are you going toward?”
“That’s a good question.” Alex got up and reached for the stack of tortillas, wrapped them in a damp cloth and foil, then stuck them on the far corner of the grill to steam. She leaned against the cool edge of the grill, laced her fingers behind her head, and thought for a second before she answered. “I guess I want to get back to the basics of counseling, you know? I want to equip kids in tough situations to navigate the world more successfully through talk therapy and behavioral science.”
Lily nodded, flipping the first shrimp to the other side. “You want to get back to teaching them to build their own toolkit.”
“Exactly.” Alex smiled. “Ideally, in private practice.”
Alex waited for Lily to set down the tongs, then slipped her hand around the back of Lily’s neck and kissed her. She brushed her tongue lightly down the slope of her neck, stopping just before she reached the center of her chest to graze Lily’s nipple through the thin gauze of her shirt with the back of her hand, closing her eyes as it tensed under her touch.
“Goddamn, Lily. I love your mind.” Alex circled Lily’s hips with her hands and pulled them hard into hers. “But this body drives me crazy.”
Lily suddenly noticed the shrimp were burning, and Alex used the tongs to sweep them all off the grill and onto a plate she placed to the side.
“I thought these might be overcooked, but they’re actually perfect,” Alex said, biting into a test shrimp, then putting the other half into Lily’s mouth. “I don’t know how we managed that. I seem to lose track of time when I’m touching you.”
Lily laughed as they finished up the other components of the tacos together and fried the plantains for the tostones on the grill pan. The rice was fragrant and fluffy, peppered with raisins and layered with spicy black beans. Alex arranged the shrimp, crisscrossed with grill marks, in the center of the wooden serving board and placed the grilled peppers and onions around them. The tortillas fit perfectly along the side with some spicy mango slaw and sliced avocado to wrap up inside.
Lily pulled a linen blanket she found behind the bar to spread out on the AstroTurf, and they settled with the food between them, along with a few plates and napkins and a fresh bottle of Spanish rosé.
“Oh God, this seriously smells exactly like Havana!” Lily drew in the salty sweet scent of Cuba deep into her lungs and plucked the first tortilla off the top of the stack. “I’d like to be polite and hold back here, but this is just too good not to start on.”
Alex laughed and handed her a plate, feeding her a bite of mango slaw
as she loaded her taco. “So what kind of women do you date in LA?” She paused, looking as if she were biting back a comment. “And I’m not even going to play like I haven’t been dying to ask you this question.”
“More importantly,” Lily deflected smoothly, pressing two slices of ripe avocado into her taco and layering the grilled veggies over the savory shrimp, “these tortillas look homemade. Did you make them?”
“I might have gotten Sara to let me make them at her house today.” Alex leaned over to kiss her cheek as she popped a tostone into her mouth. “It’s not like I’m going to make you homemade food from my country and serve it with store-bought tortillas. Like, I think I might go to Cuban jail or something for that.”
“As you should.” Lily laughed, then paused before she continued. “Okay, about the women I date in LA.” She savored the first crispy, decadent bite before she reluctantly returned to Alex’s question. “I’ve been out with a few, but…I don’t know how to describe it. They’re just too damn pretty for me, I guess.”
Alex sputtered, then laughed so hard she had to set down her wineglass.
“I mean,” Lily went on, “it’s not like they’re all supermodels or anything, but there’s a look they all have, you know? They all look airbrushed, even the masculine of center ones. I call it the Cali Filter.”
“Um, no. I have no idea what the hell a Cali Filter is,” Alex said, putting the finishing touches on her own taco. “Enlighten me. This is fantastic, by the way, getting the scoop from inside the LA trenches. Totally not what I was expecting.”
“I don’t know how to put words to it, really. It’s just too polished for me. I like some edge to my women, and I’m not usually attracted to femmes. I like a masculine-presenting butch who looks like she can handle me. It totally kills the vibe if she’s wearing a skirt shorter than mine.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I’m fresh out of skirts.” Alex laughed, deftly catching a shrimp that escaped her taco. “But I’ll keep that in mind.” She took a bite and set it back on her plate, reaching for one of the napkins and glancing over at Lily. “You’ve been here awhile now. What do you miss about LA?”
Lily didn’t answer for a moment. She’d expected to miss LA; she’d lived there for five years, and everyone seemed to be dying to move to Southern California. But the only things she came up with were the smell of the sea and her little hidden cottage, and most of what she loved about the cottage she could recreate somewhere else, truthfully. “I guess not much, once I think about it.” She finished the last bite of her taco and sat back on her hands, staring at the stars as if the answer were written in code across the night sky. “Most of LA stresses me out.”
“And how do you feel here?”
Alex’s voice dropped, and Lily followed her gaze. A boat was approaching the end of the dock not far from the yacht, but the top deck was so high, it was unlikely whoever was in the boat could see them. It’s common knowledge in a lake town that running lights are required after sundown, but as this one approached, it cut every light, even the illumination for the instrument panel, and glided silently into place at the end of the dock. There were two people on the boat, both tall enough to suggest they’d be men, but it was hard to make out much else in the darkness.
“Not that I’m an expert on boats or anything.” Lily softened her voice and glanced at Alex, who was still watching every move they made. “But doesn’t something seem off about that?”
