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The next day, Kia sat at a picnic table a few yards from the Diva. At the window, Deja sang out orders and compliments. Superfans could be annoying, but right now Kia was glad to have someone who was willing to play head chef in her food truck.

“Slay, girl! Looking fly.” Deja tapped an order into the Square. “Two double-bacon-wrapped fig omelets with extra gravy coming up.”

The two cooks Kia had hired in addition to Deja repeated the order, interrupting their rendition of “We Are Family” but singing the orders to the melody.

The line to the Kia Gourmazing Experience was as long as ever, even though Kia was sitting by herself.

It was possible the line of white Portlanders thought Deja was Kia.

If only Deja could take over her whole life, and Kia and Sullivan could just escape to a chalet in the woods.

(They were not camping in her escape fantasy.)

Kia’s phone chimed and Lillian appeared on the screen, her tiny Paris apartment visible in the background.

Kia wandered in between two other food trucks.

Today she was parked at the Hawthorne Asylum.

The food pod reminded her of some Lewis and Clark fort, the trucks circled to prevent intruders except those that came through the large wooden gate propped open with the word ASYLUM fashioned in wrought iron above it.

“How are things going?” Lillian asked.

“We’re still gearing up for a lawsuit against a multibillion-dollar company. Sullivan’s friend Nina says we shouldn’t be too worried. It’s just business. But I don’t know.”

Kia walked over to a truck selling microbrew. It was rude to order while talking on the phone, but Kia handed a twenty to a man working and motioned to the taps.

“Which one?” he asked, looking annoyed.

“Any one.”

She waved away the change and tasted the beer. Portland brewers were in competition for the bitterest IPA. When she built Taste the Love Land, it would need a michelada truck. One that served the classic Mexican drink with gummy worms and Doritos. If she got to build Taste the Love Land.

“Does she have a strategy? Do you want me to talk to my mother about it, get her lawyer friends involved?”

“No. Nina is the best according to Gretchen, and you know how Gretchen likes to do background checks. I don’t know. It’ll be fine. Or it won’t. No, it won’t be fine.”

“Are you talking about the lawsuit?”

“We kissed!” Kia blurted out. “Twice.”

“Oh?” Lillian’s voice filled with curiosity.

“It was… fuck. It was everything I ever wanted.”

It had left Kia trembling because she wanted more. Kia gulped a mouthful of beer and sat down at a damp picnic table in between the beer truck and a Mexican food truck.

“Tell me.” Lillian drew out the words.

And it all came rushing out like Kia was a talkative tween swooning over her Love Tunnel crush. She told Lillian about the Tennis Skort and the kiss in the Love Tunnel.

“Sullivan hates social media, but she pulled out her phone while we were kissing and took a picture, and was like, This is going to make an awesome post . I mean… of all the times to get on board! But I don’t know if any of it means anything.

There was literally a crowd of ruggers waiting for us to kiss, and then it was for a post.”

Lillian chuckled.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to stop being an idiot?” Kia asked with a sigh.

“Aren’t I going to be rigid, judgmental, preachy?” Lillian filled in the blanks without a hint of resentment.

“Maybe?”

“I went on reality TV and then quit ballet at the height of my career to be a teacher. I ran off to Paris with my lover. Love changes you, Kia. You see the world differently when you have someone who’s standing next to you forever.”

“You’re supposed to tell me not to do this. How am I going to make good life choices if you don’t tell me to act right?”

“Love blossoms in weird places.”

Love blossoms in weird places?! This was the same woman who’d told the dancers in her company that emotion was an unforgivable distraction.

“I saw that picture of you in the Love Tunnel,” Lillian said. “She didn’t need to kiss you to get that picture. I thought you two were just looking at each other. She kissed you because she wanted to kiss you.”

Kia’s heart thrummed with hope. If prima ballerina Lillian Jackson could leave a life of brutal, lonely discipline, maybe Sullivan would fall desperately in love with Kia… until Mega Eats took everything she had or until Kia’s loggers felled the first tree.

“Do you want to sleep with her?” Lillian asked.

Kia should be thinking about the injunction, or her deposition responses, or her testimony. If not that, she should at least be inventing a tursnicken redux. She wasn’t.

“Yes!” Kia took a sip of beer and lowered her voice.

The two women gossiping at the next table looked like they’d enjoy hearing about her romantic predicament, but Kia didn’t need to broadcast that part of her life.

“But I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean about sex. Sullivan’s good at everything, and she’s slept with men and women. She’s going to have standards.”

Before meeting Izzy, Lillian was queen of one-night stands, and she’d had a lot of nights.

When Kia was with Gretchen, Kia had never asked for advice.

Lillian could have handed her the secret to mind-blowing sapphic sex and Gretchen would have said, Did you see what Wired magazine said about AI-based algorithms?

“What do I do, Lillian?”

“You be honest and you communicate.”

Kia could not just pour Sullivan a cup of coffee and say, I’ve been thinking about our rules, and I wondered if you’d like to break them and have sex with me .

No. Their relationship was already too much like a business deal.

Sullivan deserved romance. Kia could sprinkle rose petals on Sullivan’s bed.

No, she’d better use an invasive flower that looked beautiful on your lover’s bed but was bad for the forest ecosystem.

Then even if Sullivan didn’t appreciate the romantic gesture, she’d appreciate that Kia had cleared a few feet of destructive flora.

“You let her know that you like her. You could tell her you’re nervous about having sex.”

“That’s very emotionally intelligent, but what do I do ? Her last girlfriend was all about their image and not their real relationship. I want her to know I’m not like that. I want her to feel special.” I want her to feel loved.

“Plan a date for her, something you know she’ll like.”

“But we already have to go on dates for social media and this lawsuit.”

“Turn off your phone and relax,” Lillian said.

“Isn’t relaxation the gateway to failure ?”

Lillian was so mellowed by love she just smiled. Kia was pretty sure aliens had abducted her cousin and reprogrammed her brain. At least alien Lillian was happy.

“If you think she’s special, she’ll feel that. If she likes you, she’ll like whatever you do for her.”

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

“Does the way she’s acting say she doesn’t like you?”

“No.”

But just because things were looking good today didn’t mean that disaster wasn’t around the corner.

“Just let her know how you feel. And, Kia?” Lillian hesitated. “Make sure you do really like her. If she likes you, and you leave… you’ll have put her through a lot. But if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Look at your dad’s boat. Believe in serendipity.”

Sullivan sat on her bed and slipped off her work shoes. It was late. It had been a long night but a good one. Mirepoix was bustling, and absolutely everyone loved their meals. Blake had forgotten half the garnishes, but at least he hadn’t been on his phone.

She hadn’t seen much of Kia since their kiss.

It wasn’t unusual. Kia was often out of the house before Sullivan woke up and in her bedroom when Sullivan got back from work.

The past week, Kia had been on a late-night street food kick, eating from every food truck she could find at two in the morning and live streaming mini interviews with the food truck owners.

Still, it felt deliberate. And Sullivan wasn’t sure if she minded.

They both knew the kiss didn’t—couldn’t—mean anything.

The next time they passed in the kitchen, Sullivan making coffee, Kia bent over her laptop, her spine curved like a shrimp, they’d have to recognize the truth.

It was a sweet kiss, and nothing more could happen, no matter how much they both wanted it.

She hadn’t told Opal or Nina she and Kia had actually kissed in the Love Tunnel.

She wanted to keep that detail to herself for a little while.

Before Opal’s reflexive attempt to set her up reminded her ironically of how impossible it would be to be with Kia.

Before Nina said something sarcastic about love.

She just wanted a day or two to savor the memory as though she were sixteen and Kia was her first girlfriend, and they actually thought the Love Tunnel was romantic.

Sullivan closed her bedroom door and drew the blinds. She got into bed, but she felt restless. The house was too quiet. The light coming from under the door was too bright. She rolled over. Her body longed to be touched. She loved sex, the way she could be fully in her body.

Now the only thing she could think about was Kia.

The way she’d absentmindedly rest her hand on the side of her neck and tilt her head when she was thinking, appreciating something, or pondering a problem.

The way she kicked her hip out when she stood at the kitchen counter, her curves unmistakable.

Now she grabbed the extra-firm body pillow she never used when she was sleeping.

She lay on her side and tucked the pillow between her legs, clamping her knees together.

Sullivan loved being touched. She stroked her clavicle and down her chest, savoring the sharp angles and softness of her skin and the way her body responded.

If only she could touch Kia like this. If only Kia could touch her.