Hi there, welcome to my second bonus chapter. This one sits between Chapters 5 & 6. It is a portion of Nadia's rumination as she sits on Huanchaco beach in Chapter 6.1.

Please tell me if it is keep-worthy or not!

Quito, Ecuador—July

It was a mild-weathered morning in Quito. After a particularly unpleasant night bus, they'd settled into their hostel the morning before, and, somehow, they managed to stay awake throughout the day. This was unsurprising. The cobblestone streets lined with plastered and white-washed colonial buildings mesmerised her. Of course, she'd seen similar before, but Quito had a unique majesty to it. As a result, they were here bright and early—minus a hangover.

They sat in an old town coffee shop, almost on the street. A warm line of sunlight brushed across Nadia's back. Across the table, in the shadows, Khai typed away, drafting an update for the next Khaipod blog post. The low-beamed ceiling, brown tiles, and dark-wood furniture gave the establishment a cosy vibe. The steaming coffee in her hands completed the moment.

Taking a sip, Nadia resumed reading the group chat with her best friends.

Lisa: So, now we've heard all about your crazy adventures. How is Khai going? Is he still doing that blog? Is he treating you well?

Nadia's forehead creased. The tapping on Khai's keyboard had sped up to a new intensity. Focused and driven. They were two words for Khai. When he wanted something, he went for it one hundred per cent. Now, he wanted to make a career travelling. After limited success on Instagram, this business venture received his all. She admired this. Was envious even. That little tug she felt in her chest when she saw him open his laptop and get that stupid smile on his face told her so. Unfortunately, this had taken from the time he gave her.

She chewed the side of her lip, fingers hovering above the screen a moment, and wrote.

Nadia: He is driven, and some business is coming in.

She sipped her drink and broke off some omelette, nibbling absently on it. Her iPad pinged, and she read the next message.

Steph: You forgot the bit about how he is treating you.

"Babe," said Khai, "do you think you could keep that down, I'm trying to work here, and it's distracting."

"Um, I guess."

Outside, a horse-drawn cart rumbled past, drowning out the noise of passing waiting staff and the latin music playing on the stereo.

Khai gave her a grin. "Thanks, babe."

Her heart warmed, and she smiled back, reaching out her hand to take his. His attention had already gone back to his work, though, and when he belatedly recognised what she was doing, his eyes momentarily lifted to the sky.

Her stomach dropped, but he took her hand and squeezed it.

"You know I love you, babe?"

His skin was cold and dry and once again familiar.

"I know. I love you too."

One last squeeze and he was typing again.

Ping.

"Babe."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She pulled her earbuds out of her handbag and plugged them in, then set them in her ears. Each letter she typed made a muted popping sound.

Nadia: Like a princess.

Lisa: You're full of shit. But if you love him, I guess we have to.

Steph: Ignore her, Nad's, she's just jealous.

Lisa: Well, der. She's in South America with a cute guy...

Nadia giggled to herself. Lisa would love it here, but she was glad she had held back on asking her to join them. Backpacking with one stubborn person was enough. Who knew what would happen if Khai and Lisa were stuck together all day on a bus? Nothing pretty.

Steph: Sorry guys, I'm gonna have to go now. It's bloody late, and I have uni first thing tomorrow.

Lisa: Yeah, me too. Some of us have to work. Tell Khai to watch that head of his. The way he's going, it might not fit through the neck of his shirt soon.

Steph: Lisa!

Lisa: What? We all know it's true. You know I love you, Nads. Cause of that, I tell it how it is.

Unable to help herself, she let out a giggle. Lisa was harmless. Just like Khai. One day, the two of them would get each other. Hopefully.

Nadia: Night, night, chicas. I'll be thinking of you as I drink this amazeballs coffee and check out the view behind me.

Steph: FU

Lisa: Fuck off.

Nadia: Bye, kids.

She hung up and twisted behind her to look at the bustle of Plaza de Independencia. Tourists and locals moved through the thoroughfare, and beyond, palm trees rose from the manicured green gardens patterning the square. A couple were lounging on a wooden bench, the man's long legs straight out as he lazed, the woman's head on his lap, a novel held above her head.

"Shall we hang out in the park after, Khai?" she asked.

He glanced up at her. "Huh?"

"The park looks lovely. I wouldn't mind reading some of my book in there."

"Babe, you can see I'm busy here. Plus, someone would gank my laptop for sure if I worked out there."

She let out a sigh. Khai was right. That was why they had come into this café: the safety factor. Located in an upmarket area, so less likely for them to be robbed in, but still a reasonable price. Thank you, Lonely Planet.

Standing, Nadia moved around the table, resting her hands on the wood and peered over Khai's shoulder, her chin close to his neck.

He slammed the lid down before she could see anything clearly. "What are you doing?"

She frowned. "Um, looking at what you're writing."

"It's not done."

Something niggled inside her, and she crossed her arms, hoping to quash the sensation. He was trustworthy.

"Since when are you this modest?"

An exaggerated exhale. "Babe, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm kinda baring my heart in this entry, and..." he gazed up at her with his chocolate eyes, "its a little embarrassing."

Nadia cupped his cheek with her hand and kissed the tip of his nose, then his mouth. He returned it, teasing her a moment with his tongue, then placed his hands on her upper arms and pushed her away.

"They'll kick us out, babe."

She let out a chuckle that she didn't feel one bit.

"Would you read some of it to me at least? Maybe I could help."

Khai's brows furrowed a moment. "Well, you are my muse."

The words made her heart sing. His muse. A long-time had passed since he said those words. Maybe he was nervous because the article was about her. That would be a lot of pressure on him. She could reassure him.

A clearing of the throat brought her out of her thoughts.

"You gonna sit down?"

"Um, sure."

She walked back to her seat, adjusting her shoulder bag, so it rested in her lap and picked up her coffee, holding it under her nostrils and breathing in the scent of freshly ground beans. While she waited, Khai fumbled around on his computer, until he said, "Alright, got it."

After a series of small coughs, he spoke: "Agua Azul is a place where you become lost—lost in the majestic blue water of Mexico's most beautiful waterfalls. This is exactly what happened to Khai Sanderson when he took a leap of faith and decided to explore the world once again. This time, escaping the mundanity of Western culture. He wasn't taking a Contiki tour around Europe. He was travelling and..."

"Ahem."

"Yeah, babe."

"I just wondered about the word, mundanity."

"It's a word. I Googled it."

"K, but... it's not precisely a common one."

His lips pursed. "Well, I'm not in the market of appealing to common readers."

Nadia shrugged. "If that's the case." She rolled her cup between her palms. "I'm listening."

"He was travelling. And in Agua Azul, as he stood with a likeminded soul, he had his revelation. He wasn't cattle. He wasn't going to live his life working nine to five in some soulless office full of chattels, tied to their careers, crunching numbers for other people. No. Khai chose to crunch the numbers for himself."

The sound of her cup clunking dragged Khai's reluctant eyes from his task. He shook his head and mouthed, What?

"A likeminded soul?"

He let out a long breath. "Don't be jealous. You know how I feel about jealousy. There've been plenty of like-minded souls come my way on this trip."

A thin pain sliced inside of Nadia. Like a hairline fracture. Her eyes burned, and her vision wavered as tiny drops bloomed at her periphery.

"I thought I was your soulmate."

"Babeeeee! Don't be stupid. You know you are." Another sigh. "There are soulmates, and then there are ..." he waved his hand, "like-minded souls. " His eyebrows moved together. "You do trust me, don't you?"

Sniffing, and feeling like a moron, she forced herself to maintain eye contact. "Yeah, I do. Don't mind me."

A grin spread across his face again. "So here he now sits in Ipales, Colombia, staring mesmerised at a cathedral crouching over an immense gorge, having braved the dangers of guerrilla ridden jungles, with the most beautiful thing in the world at his side."

Nadia thought her heart would explode. Pop! Like an overfilled balloon. He was writing about her. Finally, he was mentioning her. She leaned on her elbows, toes curling.

Khai's eyes moved from the monitor to something behind her for a moment, a quizzical expression on his face, then they came back to her, his large teeth prominent against his sunburned face and beard.

"Purpose," he said.

"Huh?"

Ignoring her, he spoke on. "Purpose, his backpack, and his trusty SLR." Carefully, he closed the display and made a face at something behind her. "What do you think?"

When something preoccupied Khai, Nadia usually found herself following the direction of his eyes. She told herself it was because he had an eye for a good picture—and she sure as hell didn't. If she was, to be honest, it was to make sure it wasn't some hot woman. He'd a knack of attracting them.

This morning, she couldn't give a rats about whether he was checking someone out. This morning, she wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt her. She didn't care if he hadn't meant anything. So she took a dig.

"I don't think you should write about yourself in third person. You sound full of yourself and—"

A hand appeared from behind. There was a flash of her iPad, then rapidly moving footsteps.

"What the fuck?!"

Nadia was on her feet, her chair clanging to the tiled floor and the table shoving into Khai's diaphragm with an Oof!

Her bag thumped against her thigh as she ran, chest burning, weaving around pedestrians, into the plaza and past the centre monument, a blur of green and confused faces swishing past her as she fixed on the tall, slim adolescent.

The boy turned back, the whites around his black eyes wide, his mouth an O. His pace increased; his bent arms were pistons that propelled him forward. He exited the plaza. Nadia followed. He turned down a side street. She turned too.

A tight, dense ball grew in Nadia's chest as the stream of air entering her slowed to a trickle.

Left. A rapping began at her temples, becoming harder with each step. Right. The taps became pounds that sent flashes of light across the buildings. Right. Her breaths came in gasps. Left.

The world spun, and Nadia stopped, hands on her knees as she spluttered, while the thief turned back, smirked, and darted out of sight on a clatter of dying footfalls.

Gasp. "Bastard!" Gasp. "Hijo de puta." Cough. "Fucking wanker. Cocktard." Gasp. "Puta madre, el coño, I'll..." Cough. "Merde. Shit, no, that's French. Oh, fuck it, this city is a load of—"

A high-pitched voice silenced her. Across the street stood a prune-faced nun, forefinger lunging at her like a fencing sword.

Nadia had no idea what the woman was saying. Until her lessons began in a few days, her Spanish was restricted to numbers, directions, ordering drinks...and profanities. Though she had her suspicions about the meaning behind the repetitive use of Diabla. She stared at the woman, the adrenaline draining from her body in a cool rush that left her cold and empty.

She held up her hands, trying to appear apologetic. "Disculpe, señora." Her hands moved to push away the wisps of hair that blew around her face in the crisp Andean air, and she realised she was lost.

"Ah, donde esta Plaza de Independencia?"

The nun glared, her face wrinkling to more epic proportions, and let out a sound somewhere between a hiss and a click of the tongue that made Nadia feel filthy. Gaping, she watched the old woman continue down the street, heels clicking on stone, shoulders erect, and despaired.

Sometime later, Nadia arrived at the cafe to find Khai gone. She did her best to work out where he was, concluded he must have gone looking for her, and treated herself to a breakfast beer while she killed time. He didn't return.

Over an hour after the shit got away with his boon, she trudged back to the hostel and heard a laugh she knew too well.

With teeth grit, she entered the common room and found Khai reclining on the couch, arm draped across the headrest, and his legs stretched out before him, chatting away to a young Swedish couple.

Three heads turned. "Are you okay?" asked the blonde man. The eyes of his white-haired girlfriend were sympathetic as she nodded.

Khai leaned forward, clasping his hands. "Get it back, babe?"

Nadia flopped beside him and let out her breath in a heavy exhale. "Didn't have a chance. Running at this altitude is an absolute bitch. I almost passed out."

The woman bobbed her head again. "I got a headache just walking—we flew in from Sweden yesterday. Do you want a coca tea?"

Letting the side of her mouth raise, Nadia thanked the woman, who said, "Anyone else?" and left for the kitchen.

"You should have seen her run, Karl! I mean, I grabbed at the kid, and almost stopped him, too." He shook his head, face grave. "But I missed, and I had our stuff to protect," he said and patted his wallet in indication.

"Your stuff," said Nadia through her teeth. "Didn't you see him coming up behind me?"

Khai tilted his head to look at her and sat up straighter, crossing his legs, "Well yeah, kind of. I mean, I see a lot of things, but I can't read minds. Hindsight is twenty-twenty."

She let herself sink further into the soft red-velvet cushions. "Not saying I blame you, but a heads-up that some random was approaching from behind would have been highly appreciated."

Across the coffee table, Karl's light eyes moved back and forth between them, his hands pressed against the chair cushion. He had the appearance of a trapped animal waiting for his moment to escape.

"I was in the middle of something," Khai said, throwing his arms in the air. "Sharing your story is vulnerable." His index finger pointed at her. "What you need to do is watch your gear better. Make sure you keep an eye out for what's going on around you and don't sit with your back to the crowd when you're holding an expensive piece of technology.

Her mouth fell open. She'd sat with her back to the street because Khai had taken the only other chair. Because he didn't want her beside him as he worked. The words froze on her tongue.

"Excuse me. I'll just go and help Freja in the kitchen." Karl sprung up, his long legs swiftly eating up the distance to the door.

The second Karl left the room, Khai's eyes narrowed. "Don't blame me for your mistakes, especially not in public. It's disrespectful, lazy and makes people uncomfortable.

"But you—"

He held up his hand. "Ah."

"That's not fair—"

"Ah!"

"I wasn't—"

"Ah."

Nadia's stomach was churning so fast, she thought she was going to be sick. Can you be so pissed off at someone, you vomit all over them? The thought of his face if she did that made her snicker. That made him look at her like she had a few screws loose. Well, she had her insurance. If she could get a police report in this blasted city, then it would compensate her—back in Australia. Better than nothing.

Deciding to choose her battles, she compressed her lips and went to find Karl and Freja to apologise for her behaviour.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

☕️   So, what did you think?

🏃🏽‍♀️   Any suggestions?

✈️   Should I make it more than a bonus chapter?

🌍   Thanks again for reading!