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Preventative measures.
Then the bastard’s eyes dropped to my lips.
Preventative measures be damned.
“Antonio,”—I said slowly, savoring the rare moment of friendliness between us,—“reading a proposal during a Flamenco performance is still reading. It was tasteless.”
Feeling attracted to him was a mistake, but there were no cameras, no soul to witness my secret smile.
His smile vanished. “You see how busy I am? I am the sole inheritor of my father’s estates, which doubled after I won the tournament. At least four people recommended Las Patrias. I had wanted to come, but they cut my time short after requesting I went straight to the Gobernador’s house to eat dinner and turn in those very documents.” Antonio spoke about himself strangely. When I’d first heard him try to explain himself, I originally thought he was a master at dismissing everyone else’s feelings.
But now, there was an earnestness in his voice. It called to memory a child I’d helped the niñeras raise who had been neglected. He was always shouting over other children, and getting in fights.
He had longed to be heard.
Antonio was defending himself because no one else did. What must the weight of his life be like to bear? I softened.
He studied my face. “That’s why you were so awkward when we first met.”
I winced as I remembered how I’d told him to give any future tickets to someone who would actually enjoy the show. “I’m always like that.”
He shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’ve seen you meet many people. You treated me so tersely because you thought I had ignored you the entire night.” He tilted his head to the side. “I understand why you were mad. It was like standing in front of an original Velázquez painting with one’s back turned.” He paused. “I like efficiency, but I am also an appreciator of effort.”
I nodded slowly. Technically, weighing the parts of himself that he chose to show, his reasons for reading made sense. Suddenly, I felt tiny.
“Carmen, I watched you dance. And you were mesmerizing,” Antonio cut through my thoughts, making me realize how long it had taken me to respond. The sun was already crawling up toward the sky, bathing both of us in a golden light that made my stomach uneasy.
My mouth had gone dry as he moved closer to me. Emotions were crawling up my throat. I was mesmerizing. “Thank you,” I said breathlessly. Then I felt compelled to add, “I believe you.”
Every time I’d thought Antonio was a block of uncut, coarse, unrefined stone, I’d been wrong. He was ice—cold, to be sure—but the smallest amount of warmth softened him—melted him, was more like it—into something soft and gentle. Like a pond.
I smiled, appreciating my metaphor for this mercurial man. Water could kill, destroy, and wear down, but it could also heal, clean, and give life. The thrill of realizing that I could drown in him with one wrong move had minor shocks of warmth sparking in my hands, feet, and core.
What a strange contradiction.
My closed-mouth smile turned to a grin. “You are not what I expected.”
He looked at me warily, the sunlight gilding the planes of his face. “I think you are exactly what I expected.”
Reviewing the entire time we had known each other, I wondered what he had expected. Our meeting had been rocky, and that audition had been terrifying. A part of me had looked back on these memories like weapons, used to tear down my self-confidence.
However, now, those memories felt different. Kinder. I could’ve sworn, in that moment, my spirit lifted from my body and watched us standing there, amicable. Talking like two regular people. An airy bubbly sensation came to life in my stomach, further liberating me from the cold which had already sunk deep into my bones.
I wondered what we would look like as friends. A girl thrown into this life with no warning, and a boy who was born to have this life placed upon his wide shoulders.
It was then, at the prospect of having one real friend in my corner, that I resolved I could keep my new fluttery feelings in a box without burning them.
What we had was secret, and only for me.
I blinked, and then Antonio blinked, ultimately looking away first.
“We should head back. I have things to attend to before we go to dinner,” he blurted.
I nodded. “Pues, vamos,” I said, and held out my arm for him to go first.
He mirrored my gesture with a sly smile. “Adelante, señorita.”
That same fluttery feeling filled my stomach. I welcomed it, my first exercise in squashing my feelings, and then accepted his offer.
