“Sleep.” I press my lips to her forehead again. “Close your eyes.”
She does. I stroke her cheek, then force myself to leave.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, processing what just happened. I made her breakfast, gave her a bath, braided her hair, and tucked her in.
This is not how I operate. I don’t do tender. I don’t do caretaking. I do charm and humor, and strategic exits.
But Jasmine is the opposite of an exit. She’s a door I keep walking through, even when it scares the shit out of me.
I head back to the kitchen to make coffee.
The machine hisses and gurgles, filling the quiet house with the rich scent of dark roast. I pull out my phone while I wait, scrolling through the avalanche of emails that accumulated overnight.
I respond to what I can, flagging the rest for later.
My phone buzzes with an incoming call. Pai.
I answer. “Alô, pai.”
“Antonio. Tudo bem?” His voice is casual. “Tiago told me you haven’t been returning his calls. I figured I’d check in myself.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy is good. Busy means the business is doing well.” He pauses. “But you always make time for your brother. What’s going on?”
The coffee finishes brewing. I pour a cup and lean against the counter.
“I’m going to be a father,” I say. “You’re going to be an avô.”
“Did I miss a wedding invitation?”
“No. But I’m working on it.”
He chuckles. “Ah, these Western women. They’re tough to crack, no? Independent. They don’t make it easy.”
“It’s not her,” I say. “It’s me.”
The laughter stops. “What do you mean?”
“I’m terrified.” I take a sip. “Of being you.”
The silence stretches between us. Then he laughs.
“You’re not me, Antonio.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when you were sixteen and spending the summer with me in Florianópolis, you were dating that girl. What was her name? Beatriz?”
Beatriz was sweet, traditional, and raised in a Catholic household. We’d held hands on the beach and she’d blushed when I kissed her cheek.
I head to my room while he talks. The sheets are rumpled from where Dani waited for me last night.
“There was another girl that summer.” His voice shifts. “She made it very clear what she was offering you. And you were sixteen, full of hormones, and she was beautiful.”
Carolina. She had cornered me at a beach party, pressed herself against me, whispered exactly what she wanted to do. Every sixteen-year-old boy’s fantasy handed to him on a silver platter.
“You stopped her,” my father responds. “Then you went straight to Beatriz and told her what happened.”
