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Page 48.
26. Luxembourg City Walk
 It was still bright daylight in late afternoon when Hannah and Rick strolled up the Avenue de la Liberté toward the Ville Haute (high city, in practice also upper city, old city). They passed expensive and stylish stores on either side of the street, with the finest name brand watches, clothes, shoes, and other accessories from the world's leading capitals.
Rick stopped in a corner convenience store and bought another cheap burner phone, which he slipped into his backpack. He bought Hannah a lollypop. "Purple grape, the color of your hair."
"Grape is great." She sucked on it and got purple lips. She let him lick it, laughing. "Now you have grape lips too."
He held her close, enjoying the rhythm of her body, and the way her clothes slid easily over her firm, smooth waist under his touch, and the sway of her long, slender body against his.
"Thank you," she said (post-lollypop) as they swung clasped hands between them. The raggedly cut purplish hair did not diminish her youth and beauty. Or am I just falling like a ton of bricks? Rick thought.
"For what?"
"I need this."
"So do I."
"I know. We are good for each other."
"Can I do this?" He stopped, swung her around, and held her in both arms so that she arched back and looked up into his eyes. Her figure felt slender and smooth to his touch.
"You can do what you want."
"I would like to…"
"What?" She coyly kneaded his jacket in both hands, looking down at his chest, awaiting what clever he thing was going to say that would thrill her to the core.
He struggled to find the exact way of expressing that he wanted to make love to her, right then and there, on the street, without going so far as to say so.
"Well?"
"I wish you were ice cream."
She giggled. "That's original."
"Yes."
"What flavor?"
"Doesn't matter. Vanilla, the color of your skin. Blueberry, the color of your eyes. Pink bubblegum, the color of your lips. Then I would lick you."
"But then nothing would be left."
"We'd start all over again."
"I will give you all my ice cream," she said. She threw herself at him in an explosive hug. "You can lick my ice cream, and I'll lick yours."
"All over."
"Yes, all over." She pulled away and took him by the hand. "Come on, we have places to go."
"Of course we do. That's been the story of my life since I left K-Town."
"Aren't you exhausted? I am."
They'd been on the run in a carousel of death, danger, and love. Sounded like a bad joke, but unfortunately it was a grim reality for both of them.
"Yeah, I'm exhausted. Who wouldn't be? Actually, I am so used to being wrung out that this is sort of like being on drugs or something. You know. Pleasant, dreamy—can this be for real?"
"Am I your dream?"
He laughed. "You're not my nightmare."
She pretended ouch. "That's not a very romantic thing to say."
"Oh, so you want me to be romantic."
"Yes. You already are romantic, in your rough way. I'd like you to keep on the gentle side, just hold me and whisper nice things in my ear, make me feel all mushy inside, and hold me like you'll never let me go."
Like in the song. Coming from a woman, that kind of honesty and directness meant all her defenses were down. All of her systems were down, like in the Pointer Sisters song Automatic that his mom used to like to listen to on the back patio in California while she was still alive.
They strolled up the avenue, and soon came to a smallish, oddly shaped square with trees and benches. He pulled her down with him to sit on a park bench. She willingly sat by him as he put his arm around her back. The little square was called Place de Paris. Like everything in Luxembourg, it had a miniature quality about it. Several major streets raced around the square, suggesting a circle without being one—where over a century ago had been some of Europe's mightiest fortifications. Place de Paris was an oddly situated pair of round-cornered triangles with bands of differently shaded concrete radiating from a central feature on each side of the street—on one side, a tiny garden with flowers and bushes; on the other side, an odd little reddish fountain.
They had eyes only for each other. She rested her cheek on his shoulder. "Please, let this dream not end too soon."
"You don't need to ask me. I am having the time of my life."
"Are you?"
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Thank you for reading the first half (free, what I call the Bookstore Metaphor). If you love it, you can (easily and safely at Amazon) buy the whole e-book for the painless price of a cup of coffee—also known as Read-a-Latte (hours of reading enjoyment; the coffee is gone in minutes, but the book stays with you forever). You can also get those many hours of happy reading from the print edition for the price of a sandwich (no, I don't have a metaphor for that, like a 'sandwich metaphor?'). To help the author, please recommend this book your friends, and also post a favorable (five star!) review at Amazon, Good Reads, and similar online reader resources. Thank you (JTC).
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