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Instead of making fun of her, Lola looked up, long, elegant neck on display… collarbones as sharp and lethal as her tongue.

“What the hell are stars going to do for me?” she asked after a beat, dark eyes alive with something new… something playful.

Carmen chuckled. “You’ve seriously never thought about starting completely over somewhere new?”

Lola quirked a brow, glancing over. “To do what? Live off the land?”

Carmen rolled her eyes, but left her lips in a little smirk. “No, I mean to get away from expectations. Go some place where nobody knows you and just… see what kind of life you can build.”

Lola crossed her stretched out legs, her arms folded across her chest in a way that made Carmen wonder if she actually was cold. She resisted the urge to go inside and grab her something warm, not wanting to risk Lola slipping away in her momentary absence.

“Is this like a poor little rich girl moment?” Lola cocked her head to the side, long, black hair spilling over her chest. “Don’t want to go to your mom’s party and deal with some crowd of elite lawyers bragging and jockeying for status?”

Carmen raised a brow, aiming for flirtatious. “You didn’t have to spy on me, Dolores. You could have come over here if you wanted to hear what I was saying.”

Lola stiffened, but only until Carmen shrugged. “I’m lucky to have options and security, I know. But sometimes... It’s like I’m on a treadmill, running and running and getting nowhere. Never able to just make a choice for myself, you know?”

Lola was quiet for so long, Carmen was sure she was going to mock her for complaining. “Never being able to stop striving,” she finally said. “If you stop running, it will crash down on you.”

A glimmer of relief crackled in Carmen’s chest. Lola understood what she meant. Even if it had different sources, the pressure of excellence was the same.

Carmen nodded. “And in the middle of it, I’m like… do I even want this or was I just kind of… I don’t… trained or brainwashed or something?”

Lola turned her full attention onto her, eyes so dark and deep and enthralling. Without a hint of sarcasm, Lola asked, “So you think you don’t want to be a lawyer?”

It was a simple question, and Carmen had no idea how to answer it. “I loved law school,” she decided. “I love the challenge of practicing, even if I don’t always love the subject matter,” she admitted to herself. “But there’s such a rush when you’ve outsmarted opposing counsel. When they underestimated you and you ate their lunch in front of everybody.” She grinned.

“You like to win,” Lola said with open approval. “The courtroom isn’t the only place to do that.”

Carmen agreed, but replied with a confident smile. “Yeah, but it’s the place I know I’m going to kill.”

Lola chuckled. “Fair.”

“What about you?” Carmen continued the flow, not wanting the tempo between them to drop. “Did you always want to be a talent agent?”

With a shrug that spoke volumes, Lola made it clear it hadn’t been her childhood dream.

“Oh, come on. You have to tell me. What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Lola’s olive skin flushed, but her mouth didn’t move.

“I promise, I’m not going to laugh no matter what you say,” she swore. “A chemist? A marine biologist? A vet? A singer in a rock band?”

Lola’s eyes widened at the last option.

“Get the fuck outta here! You can sing?”

Lola’s flush deepened to an alarming shade of red. “Yeah, well. I make a better agent than singer.”

“Would you sing for me?”

Lola furrowed her brow. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on—”

“No,” she added firmly.

“Okay, okay.” Carmen put her hands up in surrender. “With a dream like that, you never wonder what it would have been like? If you’d ended up on stage instead of behind it?” She looked up at the stars again to give Lola time to recover.