As Lost as I Get by Lisa Nicholas Page A

Four
    Even with the extra supplies, the following days were grueling. Zoe went home exhausted, not sure she could manage for another day.
    Everyone on staff was feeling the stress and dealt with it in their own ways. Susan, who previously had smoked one or two cigarettes a day, had to be going through a pack each day. Maria was taking part in some epic drinking contests with some of the locals, and Zoe was pretty sure there were some furtive off-hours hook-ups happening between staff members.
    Zoe understood the impulse. After a day of life and death—and lately, more death than life—sex made you feel alive and whole. She wished she wasn’t thinking about Lee quite so much. She couldn’t stop remembering his smile, or way his touch, so comforting in Oaxaca, left her discombobulated and tingling.
    Some nights she came home exhausted and wishing for nothing more than the touch of another human hand. On those nights, thinking of him was the only way she could get to sleep. Lying in her narrow bed, she’d silently touch herself, thinking of his mouth on hers, wondering how it would feel to press against his body, thinking about having him inside her until she made herself come with her fingers twice, three times.
    It got so bad that she started having embarrassingly detailed, erotic dreams about him. After one night of especially vivid dreams, she resolved to find a one-night stand. Something with no strings. How exactly she’d go about it, she wasn’t sure.
    As she sat at the kitchen table, drinking her coffee, she heard Susan talking in her bedroom. The door opened and out came Susan in her usual state of morning dishabille. Behind her, fully dressed, was Ana.
    “Mornin’,” Susan said, and Ana waved. Before Zoe could say anything, Susan and Ana kissed and murmured good-byes, then Susan came to the breakfast table alone, stopping to grab her own coffee.
    “Wow. Good morning.” Zoe tried to hide her smile.
    “Yes, yes it is.” Susan didn’t spare the grin, and stretched like a cat. “You’re surprised.”
    “Maybe a little.”
    “Oh, honey, please. We have lesbians in Texas.”
    Zoe nearly choked on her coffee. “And clearly they’re bigger there too, just like everything else.”
    “You really didn’t know?”
    “No idea.” Zoe shook her head with a grin. “Is that serious, or shouldn’t I ask?”
    Susan waved her hand and gulped some coffee. “It’s for fun. We both know it.” She fixed Zoe with a look. “And if you ask me, you could use some more fun in your life too, boss.”
    “I know, I know.” Zoe stared glumly at the table. “I’m not exactly having much luck meeting people that aren’t, you know, too complicated to deal with.”
    “You come with me tonight, we’ll find you someone. Guy, girl, whatever. If you go home alone, it won’t be my fault.”
    “You’re absolutely terrifying.”
    “Maybe,” Susan said, “but you know I’m right.”
    That was how Zoe wound up in one of Inírida’s few bars. The clientele was largely foreign, aside from a few locals in military uniform. Zoe had let Susan dress her, which might have been a mistake. She wound up wearing a snug-fitting black tank top that she normally wore under other shirts, and the best pair of jeans she’d brought with her. Makeup, though, Zoe drew the line at. She did her own, with the little she’d packed. She was lucky the rain hadn’t washed it off, anyway. Her hair she’d taken to wearing in twists against the humidity, and so she just pulled the strands back and pinned them loosely at the nape of her neck. At Susan’s insistence, she wore a pair of strappy sandals she’d worn to a consulate dinner in Bogotá—she’d never expected to wear them out here. As they were getting ready to go, Susan handed her a strip of condoms. Zoe had blushed but tucked them in her purse.
    She had to admit, she felt attractive, but it still took two drinks before she could actually look at the men around her to see if anyone