24/7 (2 page)

“Nice choice.” Luisa openly looked her up and down. “You would look great wearing her breast plate, boots, and arm guards, but I would ditch the headpiece if I were you.”

“Point taken.”

Finn took a sip of her beer to hide her smile. Luisa not only got her slightly off-kilter sense of humor, she shared it as well. Finn couldn’t remember the last time she had felt such an immediate kinship with someone. A coupling that felt right in every way.

Try never.

“Thanks for the picture,” she said. “One more to add to my growing collection.”

“No problem. You made it seem as if you and Porky travel a lot.”

“We do.”

“That could be good or bad, depending on your perspective. Where are you two headed this time?”

Finn was hesitant to reveal details of her personal life to anyone, let alone a stranger, but something about Luisa made her want to reveal herself inside and out. There was a word for it in Hungarian. A word that didn’t have an English translation.
Szimpatikus
. When you met someone for the first time and your gut told you they were a good person. Finn’s instincts told her Luisa was worthy of trust. And a whole lot more.

“Cancún,” she said. “What about you?”

“Mexico City.”

“The first time I traveled there, the altitude gave me a nosebleed.”

Despite the ominous beginning, the trip had turned out to be a pleasant one. Finn had always longed to go back but hadn’t been able to find the time. But if Luisa would be waiting for her when she arrived, she would definitely try to fit a flight to Mexico City into her busy travel schedule.

“That happens sometimes,” Luisa said, “but the body learns to adjust. Are you headed to Mexico for business or pleasure?”

“A bit of both, actually.” Luisa arched her eyebrows in a silent request for more information so Finn tried to fill in some of the blanks without making a fool out of herself in the process. “I’m a writer for
Bon Voyage
, a travel magazine based out of San Francisco, where I live. The editors give contributors twenty-four hours’ notice before sending them on a seven-day, all-expenses-paid trip to their next destination.”

“And your current assignment is Cancún?”

Finn took another sip of her beer to calm the familiar stirrings of
resfeber
, the Swedish word for the restless beat of a traveler’s heart before a journey began.

“Not so much the city itself. That story has been told more times than I can count. There’s only so many times you can write about drunk college students puking outside Carlos’n Charlie’s or getting into fights in Señor Frog’s and make it seem fresh. I’ve been tasked with writing an article on SOS Tours, a travel agency geared for lesbians. The company’s only been in business for about three years and they cater to a niche market, but their footprint is getting bigger every year. They’ve done cruises until now. Cancún is their first resort trip. Based on the rave reviews they receive from their clientele, it won’t be the last. Their first trip was rather inauspicious, though. It was a cruise to the Caribbean, and their first stop on shore was greeted by a horde of anti-gay protesters. After the women poured a shit ton of money into the local economy—I’ve heard estimates as high as a million dollars—the protests evaporated into pleas for a return visit.”

“Money has a way of changing people’s minds, if not their hearts,” Luisa said cryptically. Her clouded expression cleared almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Have you done something like this before?”

“Embedding myself with five hundred partying lesbians in various stages of undress, as well as sobriety? No, not even close. My column is called ‘Flying Solo.’ I focus on what life is like for single travelers, so I’m not used to being part of a group.”

And that was just the way she liked it.

In the six years she had been working for
Bon Voyage
, Finn had visited all seven continents at least once, and had more passport stamps than she could count. Not bad for someone who an amateur fortune-teller had once predicted wouldn’t travel much.

But her current assignment was the first of its kind. On her previous outings, she had explored her destination on her own, organically and with no predetermined agenda in mind. The perfect gig for someone who preferred being left to her own devices instead of forced to travel in a pack. This time was different. This time, she wasn’t being asked to unearth some previously unknown factoid about a selected city but to write a review on one of the fastest-growing companies in the travel business. She was pleased to see a lesbian-owned business thriving in troubled economic times, but she wasn’t planning on giving the company a gushing review just because she and the owners shared similar interests. If the women at SOS Tours wanted positive publicity, they would have to earn it.

Luisa’s full lips puckered in appreciation. “Your job sounds like fun.”

“Except for the occasional travel nightmares, it usually is.” Finn felt herself begin to relax and open up the way it was only possible to do with a stranger—or a new friend. “I get a thrill each time my cell phone chirps. Because each incoming email could mean the start of a brand-new adventure.”

Luisa shifted in her seat and turned toward Finn. “This might sound like a stupid question, but given such short notice, how do you know what to take with you?”

“That’s actually a very good question, not a stupid one.” Score one for practicality. “I never know when the call might come, so I keep two bags packed at all times. One for cold climates and another for warm. But all I really need when I travel are a camera and my passport.”

“Don’t forget about Porky.” Luisa grinned mischievously. “And a change of underwear might be nice.”

Finn nodded in agreement. “I keep two days’ worth in my backpack just in case. I learned that the hard way when I went to Sri Lanka last year and my luggage ended up in Singapore. I wound up going commando, which in certain climates is not as much fun as you might think.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Luisa shook her head at the bartender’s invitation to see a menu. “Since you travel so much, you must have a lot of souvenirs.”

Finn shrugged. “Not really. I like to travel light. I don’t feel the need to collect trinkets. I collect memories instead. Experiences.” Things that wouldn’t tie her down and make it difficult to embark on a new journey—or impossible to leave the latest behind. Her nomadic career made relationships difficult, to say the least. It was hard for her to form a lasting connection with someone when she didn’t know which city she’d be waking up in from one day to the next. “The only thing I try to bring back from a trip is a word deeply ingrained in the culture I’ve just visited but has no counterpart in English.”

Luisa’s smooth brow furrowed in confusion. “Such as?”

“In Japan, for example, there’s a word for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. In Brazil, there’s a word for the act of running your fingers through your lover’s hair. In Norway, there’s a word for the euphoria you feel as you begin to fall in love.”

“Leave it to the Norwegians to try to describe the indescribable.” Finn’s heart skipped a beat when Luisa focused her beautiful brown eyes squarely on her. “Tell me more.”

Finn took a sip of beer to alleviate a sudden case of dry mouth, then paused to clear her throat.

“In Yaghan, a language indigenous to Tierra del Fuego, Chile, there’s a word that’s hard to pronounce and even harder to spell—
mamihlapinatapai
.”

“What does it mean?” Luisa asked eagerly.

Finn met her expectant gaze. “It’s the silent acknowledgment and understanding between two people who are wishing or thinking the same thing but are both unwilling to initiate.”

Luisa smiled as if to acknowledge the unspoken fact that the word could be applied to them. “I hate when that happens.”

Finn lowered her eyes to watch the slow movement of Luisa’s tongue as it curled toward her upper lip to capture a stray bead of beer that hung there. Finn was tempted to lean over and have a taste.

“Yeah, me, too.”

Finn tore her eyes away from Luisa and the distracting drop of Corona to give herself time to regain her bearings. She felt at odds. She usually felt like she was walking on air before a trip. Being with Luisa made her feel grounded. She didn’t know which surprised her more—that she could feel that way about someone she had just met or that she liked it.

“And on the other end of the spectrum,” she said, “there’s
ya’aburnee
, an Arabic word that means ‘you bury me.’ It’s a declaration of your desire to die before someone else because it would be too difficult to live without them.”

“That describes my parents perfectly. They’re like two halves of a whole. They would be lost without each other. Have you ever loved someone that much, Finn?”

Finn didn’t have the heart to tell Luisa she had never been in love and didn’t have the time or inclination to start now. There were still too many countries she hadn’t seen. Too many stories she hadn’t written. Too many adventures yet to be taken.

“No. Have you?”

“Not yet.”

Finn heard the hopefulness in Luisa’s tone and tried to ignore its effect on her. Her relationships, partly by necessity and mostly by design, had always been fleeting. Luisa made her long for something more enduring. Something that lasted longer than a week-long fling in an exotic locale. But that wasn’t going to happen. No matter how enticing the bait dangling in front of her—or, in this case, sitting right next to her.

“Tell me about you, Luisa. What do you do?” She hoped the answer would be something boring so she could talk herself into losing interest, but Luisa’s response made Finn find her even more intriguing.

“On Monday morning, I officially become a member of the Federal Police.”

“You’re a
Federale
?” Finn took a longer look at her. She still felt the same sense of authority coming from Luisa, but now it was paired with an air of command. “I can see it now, but on first glance, I would have sworn you were military.”

“I used to be. I was in the army for five years before I got tired of my commanding officer’s corruption and opted out after my superiors refused to discipline him despite the mountain of evidence I provided to show he was dirty. I was told I should either learn to look the other way or put myself on the narcos’ payroll, too. I wasn’t willing to accept either solution. From what I hear, I may be in for more of the same when I report for duty on Monday since some of my fellow officers are known for taking bribes, too. I may not succeed, but I hope to change that mentality as soon as I can. If we don’t make a stand, the narcos will grow too powerful to be stopped. If we haven’t already given them too much of a head start.”

Finn could easily picture her as a crusading white knight, but she hoped Luisa wouldn’t end up falling on her sword. She wondered how Luisa’s predominantly male coworkers would respond to having a woman join their ranks. A woman who was determined to eliminate the under-the-table deals that provided them with much-needed extra income to boot.

“Why did you decide to become a cop?” she asked.

“Because of what my mother likes to call my overdeveloped sense of honor. I’ve never been able to turn a blind eye when I see someone doing something illegal or immoral. I feel compelled to do something about it. It seemed only natural for me to decide to do it for a living.”

“Even if it means putting your own life at risk?”

Finn had never been able to understand the mentality of soldiers or police officers. They routinely put other people’s needs ahead of their own, knowing full well they would receive nothing in return except for marginal support and healthy doses of both contempt and mistrust. How could anyone be that selfless? Did it come naturally or did it develop over time?

“The risk is part of the job,” Luisa said with a shrug. “I can’t separate one from the other. Nor would I want to. Why do you do what you do?”

“Because it’s the only thing I’m good at.” The real reason Finn had become a writer was something that went far deeper than her flippant response, but she didn’t make a habit out of sharing deep, dark secrets with random strangers. Not even a stranger with a killer smile, beautiful eyes, and a smoking hot body. And Luisa definitely had all three. She raised her beer bottle in a toast. “Good luck with the new gig.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.” Another dimpled grin. One more and Finn might be tempted to drop trou right there in the bar instead of finding a more discreet location. “Good luck to you, too. With the article, I mean.” Luisa drained the rest of her beer, set the empty bottle on the counter, and waved off the bartender’s offer of another round. “If you go on vacation for a living,” she said, turning back to Finn, “what do you do for fun?”

“I chat up strange women in airport bars.”

That answer, unfortunately, was closer to the truth than Finn was willing to admit. She didn’t consider herself a pick-up artist by any means, but she preferred fleeting encounters with mutually satisfying conclusions to frustrating delusions of happily ever after.

Luisa rested her elbows on the bar, and her rich alto dropped into an even lower register. Her expression was less come-hither and more come-get-me. “Then this must be my lucky day. Are you a member of the Mile High Club? You must be with so many flights under your belt.”

Was she kidding or was she serious? Finn hoped Luisa could tell the difference because she had lost track somewhere between “Is this seat taken?” and “My name’s Luisa. What’s yours?”

Finn smiled at the memory of a certain flight attendant who had spent most of a sixteen-hour flight to Australia catering to her every need.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Luisa said. “Will this be a working vacation for you, or do you plan to have some fun this week?”

Finn tried to determine if they had time to take a taxi to a nearby hotel, check into a room, and put it to use before their respective flights took off. The answer—if she wanted to make it through the long lines at security and back to her gate before it was too late to board her flight—was probably no. But the prospect of spending even a few minutes getting naked with a woman like this was worth the risk.