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After ordering a sandwich, Carmen sat at a little table near the front window and watched people walk around while she eat. Redpine was so unlike Miami. It was hard to believe they were in the same country. There was such a gentle rhythm to this town. No traffic or lunatics with road rage, just people going about their day.
Everyone in Redpine seemed to make intentional eye contact and smile. Even at a perfect stranger like Carmen. At first, it had been unnerving. If someone made that much eye contact with her in Miami, she’d prepare herself to be harassed in some way. Only old school grandparents said hello to strangers back home.
Carmen’s mind turned to Lola. She imagined her reaction to the unexpected friendliness and smiled to herself. If someone had the nerve to toss agood morningat her, she might throw them up against a wall and accuse them of terroristic threats.
Taking a sip of lemonade and a bite of her turkey and Swiss, Carmen couldn’t help the flutter of curiosity dancing in her chest. Despite their combative history, she couldn’t stop thinking about the surprising tenderness of that kiss with Lola in her office.
There was clearly an intense physical and sexual chemistry between them — all their hookups had proven that. But Carmen hadn’t been able to stop wondering what else there might be. What else might be hiding beneath the nonstop bickering if she could tap into the person behind Lola’s prickly facade?
Carmen had initiated things with Lola in the first place because it was new, daring, something she chose for herself outside expectations. And while Lola drove her insane, she also made her feel alive in ways no one else did. Lola experienced everything so intensely, and it was almost contagious in some way.
Carmen sat back in her seat to watch a man stop two lanes of traffic to help a kid and her grandma cross the street. Instead of honking and cursing, the stopped drivers waved and smiled.
Being away together on this alien planet felt like the perfect opportunity to try shifting their dynamic. If they could call a real truce, maybe they’d discover they were capable of more than explosive hate sex. At the very least, maybe she could get a glimpse of another side of Lola. To understandheras well as she understood her body.
It was optimistic, probably unrealistically so, but she wanted to unravel the mystery of who Lola was beneath the snark and defensiveness. Wanted to know if they could transform all that heat between them into something else.
She just had to tread carefully — one wrong move and they could slip right back into old habits. Carmen sighed, crumpling her sandwich wrapper. Taming dragons might be less daunting. She smiled again. But no less thrilling.
After her late lunch, Carmen peeked into the windows of the old-fashioned shops, display cases filled with handmade quilts, antiquated mining equipment, and kitschy souvenirs playing up the Gold Rush history. She passed a rack of postcards outside the general store — grainy images of pioneers panning for gold alongside glossy photos of the town’s scenic waterfalls and rivers.
A bright blue shop called Mountain View Gifts advertised locally made jams and old-fashioned candies. Carmen stepped inside and perused the novelty t-shirts at the front of the store. She decided to get something to commemorate her visit.
A teenage girl with bright pink hair and a piercing through her septum smiled at her from behind an antique cash register. “Let me know if I can help you find anything!”
Caught off guard, Carmen’s firstthankswasn’t loud enough and had to be followed by a secondthank youafter she cleared her throat. Even teenagers were nice here. Maybe they put something in the water.
Souvenir t-shirt and mug in hand, Carmen made her way to the girl who wasn’t even looking down at her phone.
“Where are you visiting from?” the girl asked with a smile.
Carmen smiled, adding a few hand-wrapped candies to her haul. “Is it that obvious I’m not from here?”
“Everyone in Redpine knows everyone else,” she said with a shrug before smiling again. “Plus, your accent is really cool.”
Carmen chuckled instead of being disappointed that her attempts to obliterate her nasally, sing-song Miami rhythm had failed. “I’m from Miami.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Like South Beach?”
“Not too many natives live there,” she replied.
“I’ve always wanted to go clubbing on the beach,” she continued, as if Carmen had told her it was a constant party in the streets full of sexy dancing people. “You’re so lucky. There is literally nothing to do here. Only place to go after seven o’clock is drinking beer in the woods.”
Carmen laughed. “Well, the humidity in Miami might make you change your mind about that.”
As the girl peppered her with questions about Miami, Carmen discreetly checked the time on her phone. Lola’s flight — the only one coming into the regional airport that evening — left LAX late. She’d stop and grab her a sandwich on her way back to the hotel.
Carmen shifted the conversation to her purpose for being there. “Have you heard of a retreat place nearby? The Institute of the Open Mind?”
“Oh, that makes sense.” She leaned back and returned to ringing her up on a tablet next to the ornate, antique register.
The shift in her energy was impossible to miss. “Makes sense?”
“That you’re just stopping here on your way there. The only tourists we get are history buffs and parents dragging their kids to something educational over the summer. Like any of them care about Black Bart. Likeanybodycares.”
“And everyone else?”
She shifted her weight. “Listen, I’m not one to judge—”
