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Charlotte’s eyebrows stitched together. Alex guessed that the last thing she expected was for her to know this little hole in the wall.

“Yeah, okay,” Charlotte agreed.

“Vale , dos de lo especial y dos cervezas, por favor ,” she ordered in Spanish.

The waitress pulled out a glass bottle without any distinguishing label on it and poured two shots of the clear agave spirit into mismatched glasses. She set them next to the register before retrieving two beer bottles from the cool

er behind her.

“Cheers,” Alex said, lifting her shot glass.

Following her lead, Charlotte picked hers up and clinked the taller, more slender glass against Alex’s stubby blue one.

“Cheers.”

Without hesitation, they knocked back the shots. Alex enjoyed the heat dripping down her chest and into her belly.

When the waitress returned, Charlotte ordered two more shots and pulled out an American Express gold card. “I’m paying,” she insisted before Alex went for her purse.

“Thank you,” Alex said, already lighter thanks to the high-octane booze roaring through her system. “If I’d known you were paying, I’d have ordered los sesos.”

Charlotte’s confident smile disappeared as she handed her card over to the woman in blue. “Sesos?” she repeated before looking nauseated. “Brain?” she asked in horror.

Alex laughed. “It’s a delicacy.”

Instead of responding, Charlotte’s skin took on a green tinge. Maybe that was a little too far outside the box for someone born in the United States. They were so precious about what parts of an animal were okay to eat. As far as she was concerned, if an animal was going to give its life for their nourishment, they shouldn’t waste any parts.

Grabbing their baskets, they squeezed through the line of people crammed together and waiting to order. Outside, the sun had finally set, taking the worst of the heat with it.

“We can stand over there until a table opens up,”

Charlotte suggested, gesturing toward the only empty surface, a ledge built into the side of the building. A dozen people were already using it as a counter, but there was a space for them at the end.

Alex nodded. Standing wasn’t optimal given the high heels she’d chosen, but she would make do.

Before they moved more than a few feet, two men dressed in dusty jeans and bright orange t-shirts with a construction company logo stood. In Spanish, they o ered their table. In unison, Charlotte and Alex politely declined. When the men insisted that they’d already finished eating and would be leaving in a minute, Alex accepted. To repay their kindness, Alex and Charlotte o ered the beers they hadn’t yet touched.

Without missing a beat, Charlotte popped back inside to grab two new ones.

Alex couldn’t help watching her walk away. Charlotte was so much more unshakable than she’d expected. The woman’s initial reaction to Alex’s comfort level in the restaurant was surprise, but it had only lasted a moment.

Charlotte’s ability to roll with things, like jumping up and replacing the drinks they’d given away, was incredible.

When Charlotte returned, she had two cold bottles in one hand and two more shots of clear alcohol in the other. Alex almost commented on it not being wise to overindulge on a first date, but the words died in her throat. She wanted to numb her overactive nerves. It had been a long time since she’d had a first date charged with the thrill of the unknown.

The angst of possibility.

“Did mezcal earn a new fan?” Alex asked, accepting the drink before clinking her shot glass against the one Charlotte was holding.

Her face brightened as she smiled. “Ask me in the morning,” she joked.

The threat of a possible hangover reminded Alex to grab them some water soon.

“These look good,” Charlotte decided, her eyes scanning the varied tacos packed closely together. “Did you eat a lot of cow stomachs in Barcelona?”

After expertly getting the taco in her mouth without spilling anything on her white dress, Alex replied after a sip of beer. “My father was in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign A airs. He lived in a lot of places. Singapore, Latvia, Peru, Nicaragua, to name a few.” She took another sip of beer.

“We’d visit him a lot, and he was big on living like the locals.