Chapter 5
Chapter five
The captain’s voice slices through me. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll begin our descent into Barcelona shortly.”
My eyes fly open. Neck kinked, mouth dry, blanket twisted around my waist. For a breath I don’t know where I am. Then the cabin sharpens: low light, the faint hiss of vents, a row of screens gone black.
Santiago’s seat is mostly upright. His eyes are half-lidded and the man’s hair is rumpled in a way no grooming product could fake.
Memory rolls back slow and thick. His voice in the dark hours. Vinedo rising from wreckage. Rain in Seattle slowing a man who didn’t know how to stop. An intimate conversation usually saved for trusted friends.
Somehow he gave it to me.
Heat climbs my cheeks when I remember: I fell asleep while he was in the middle of a story.
I thumb the seat controls. The back slides up with a soft whir. My reflection glares from the dead screen in front of me. Wild hair. Mascara smudges. Not to mention, poo breath.
A glamorous morning, Delgado. Perfect.
“Buenos días.” His words are soft, sanded by sleep.
“Morning.” I rake fingers through my hair, trying to tame the chaos. “Please tell me I didn’t snore.”
He smiles without answering my question and I notice the lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes. “You drifted off quickly. I took it as a compliment.”
My cheeks heat. “Passing out during your life story is a compliment?”
“Of course.” He leans toward me. “You trusted me enough to finally get some rest.”
I have no words. Santiago is perfection. Too wonderful to be true.
The world around us comes into focus, unfortunately.
The cabin brightens as window shades lift.
A flight attendant glides past with a cart, her ponytail sharp enough to cut glass.
Coffee steams in paper cups. Small white trays land on our tables—eggs, a grilled tomato slice, fruit arranged in an unnatural rainbow, a croissant so symmetrical it looks 3D printed.
I stare down, appetite flatlining. The eggs are unappetizing. The croissant’s layers read like plastic. My stomach tightens in revolt.
“You’re not eating?” He quirks a brow.
“I can’t.” I nudge the tray away with one finger. “Not when I can grab breakfast in town later.”
He lifts his fork, anyway, cuts a neat bite. “Travel has trained me to accept a placeholder. Real meals happen after wheels touch down.”
“I vote real meal.” I inch my coffee toward me. It’s thin and bitter but still warm enough to anchor me. I take a sip and glance past the aisle, where light spills through another passenger’s window. Dawn filters across the cabin in soft gold streaks.
Even without seeing the city, I can feel it. Barcelona waking somewhere below. It tugs at something deep inside me.
“You look like you’re already out there.”
“Maybe I am.” I glance back at him.
He studies my face like it’s a map. Says nothing, yet somehow I know he understands.
With breakfast cleared away, overhead bins thud open. Seatbelts click. Noise replaces hush. Passengers around us prepare for landing and the night we shared folds itself tight, tucked into a place where I keep impossible things.
I’m sad, I realize. I don’t connect with people often. Especially men. I wish I’d made more effort to stay awake.
“Did I really poop out last night?” I lean toward him. “Before you were finished?”
“It’s okay.” There is no judgment in his words.
Guilt loosens its hold, replaced by a warmer ache of the probability I’ll never see Santiago again. I rest a palm over the blanket, smoothing a nonexistent crease.
“Where are you staying?” He lowers his voice so I can hear him.
“El Born.” I swallow. “From the pictures, it’s a quaint little apartment above a shop. Narrow stairs, old tiles. Close to the Gothic Quarter.”
The corners of his mouth lift. “Good choice.”
“Why?”
“It suits you. No pretense. Practical. Slightly unpredictable.” His boyish grin makes me swoon a bit.
Another chime. The seatbelt light pops on. The plane veers to the left. My fingers clamp around the armrest on instinct. I haven’t been on an adventure like this since culinary school.
“You’ll be fine.” He leans in another inch, enough to steady my heart.
I let out air I didn’t know I was holding. “Confident, aren’t you?”
“About some things.”
“Oh?”
“I believe the best things are worth the wait.” His reply lands between us, soft as cotton.
Heavy as iron.
Wheels extend. The plane groans. Barcelona spreads beneath us. I picture a geometry of red roofs and crooked streets.
Santiago’s hand is millimeters from mine, but he doesn’t reach for me. Our eyes are locked on each other, connecting us more intimately than a touch.
Tires kiss the runway with a breathy shudder. As we pull into the gate, the usual chorus begins: zippers, texts, grievances, foreign languages colliding in one echoing hall of human impatience.
We unbuckle. He slips into his jacket gracefully as I anxiously gather my tote, tuck my phone into the side pocket of my backpack, and pat the passport I checked three times already.
We stand when our row empties into the aisle. Shoulder to shoulder in a human river with no patience. He turns, speaks low enough so the words skim my skin.
“Rosa.”
I look up.
“There’s a small place in El Born.” His mouth curves into a quirk. “Can Cisa. It’s a quaint wine bar with delicious bites. Meet me there, Wednesday night.”
Breath sticks halfway to my lungs. Not an assumption. Not an order.
An opening.
“You’re inviting me on a date?”
“If you’re up for it. Good wine. Conversation we didn’t finish.”
I search his face for performance, find none. Only calm certainty, not entitlement.
“Two nights from now,” I state the obvious.
“Yes. Two nights.” He echoes it like a promise. “My business should be concluded by then.”
We move again. The line funnels toward the jet bridge. At the top of the ramp he steps aside, lets me pass. His hand hovers near my back. Not touching. Warm all the same.
“Welcome back,” he gestures.
Two words, and the hall expands, then narrows to a single point dead center in my chest.
“I’d walk with you,” he explains as we step inside the airport, “but I have to dash. My flat’s not far, and I’ve got a meeting across town. If I don’t shower and change first, they may not want to be in a room with me.”
A small laugh escapes me. “Go, then. I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want to ruin your schedule.”
“Rosa,” he chuckles. “You couldn’t ruin anything.”
He steps back to let another passenger pass, eyes lingering on mine for one last beat. “Wednesday,” he reminds me. “Can Cisa.”
“Wednesday,” I echo.
And then, he’s gone.
The airport swallows me. Fluorescent glare, polished floors, a river of people dragging their lives behind them on four wheels. Spanish spills over English, Catalan threads between both. Signs point in every direction at once.
I follow the stream toward passport control. The line snakes under an oversize photograph of a beach. Inching forward, I study the faces around me. I’m oddly invisible here on my own. The immigration officer barely glances up before thumping a stamp on my passport.
Baggage claim blooms into a mishmash of carousels. Belts clank to life. Screens flash flight numbers in bold blue. A toddler wails. A woman argues with no one, or everyone, about a missing bag.
As I wait for my suitcase, my phone buzzes with messages in the family text sent during the flight.
Mamí: Mija, send a text when you land. Eat. Sleep. No work.
Marcella: Did you meet a poet on the plane yet? If he quotes Neruda, run.
Papá: Find the good anchovies. Bring home.
I smile without meaning to. Type quick answers.
Me: Safe. Will sleep. No poets yet. Anchovies noted.
Three dots blink, then vanish, then blink again.
Marcella: Proud of you. Remember fun is not illegal.
I tuck the phone away. The belt coughs up a stream of luggage. All the bags look like mine. Black, black, navy, a neon monstrosity with flamingos, another black. I lose track, snap back, stare harder. My eyes burn. My feet ache inside boots I wore for competence, not airport sprints.
Santiago’s words replay on a loop I didn’t authorize. Two nights. Can Cisa.
My case rolls by, half-hidden under a duffel. I lunge, grab the handle, wrestle the weight onto the ground with a grunt earning sympathy from a stranger. Once I clear customs, I wheel my bag toward the taxi stand in the cool morning, my hair lifting in a flirt of wind.
While I wait in line, I open maps on my phone. Type Can Cisa. A red pin blossoms and there it is…two doors from my rental.
A sign?
My laugh startles me. A single, disbelieving sound, quickly swallowed by the hustle and bustle of passengers trying to get to their destinations.
Coincidence, I tell myself. Barcelona is dense.
Streets knot together like veins. Proximity is relative on a phone map, the place could be farther than it looks.
Except none of this seems random. The universe is giggling at me and saying, “Rosa, go live your life for fuck’s sake.”
A taxi idles in front of me. The driver leans across the seat, flips a hand toward the trunk. “?Dónde, guapa?”
“El Born, por favor.” I give the street, the number, the landmarks locals use. He nods, pulls into the stream.
Concrete ramps give way to a sliver of highway. Industrial buildings blur into billboards, then flats with laundry strung from narrow balconies like prayers. Graffiti rises and falls in bright bursts. A man on a scooter weaves between lanes. The city unfurls ribbon by ribbon.
Breath loosens inside my ribs.
The driver whistles along to a song on the radio I don’t recognize.
We slide into streets so narrow I’m afraid the buildings will swipe the sides of the car.
The taxi turns twice, then once more, then stops.
The building wears its years with a kind of swagger.
A wooden door dark with history, carved stone lintel frowning over a knocker shaped like a lion’s mouth.
I pay, tip too much, haul my case from the trunk. The driver points up with his chin, a universal gesture I assume means “Good luck with those stairs, I’m not hauling your bag up there.” I grin, because yes, those stairs look like a dare.
One flight at a time. Colorful green and yellow tiles underfoot. A landing with a cracked mirror framed in gilt. Another flight. A window exposing a slice of sky so blue it borders on absurd. At the top, my rental. A room with tall windows and a view of a street already teeming with life.
From my window I spot a barista pulling shots across the way, a cyclist balancing a crate of oranges, and a woman shaking out a tablecloth from a balcony so close I could catch it.
Then I look left. There, within spitting distance, is a pale-green facade with black letters I know now without needing to look: Can Cisa.
I can’t help it. I laugh again, softer this time, a private sound loosening the knot in my chest by another millimeter.
I open my phone. My thumb hovers over messages I could send. Instead, I cross the room, unzip my case, pull out the worn T-shirt I sleep in when no one sees me. I toss it on the bed, then stop.
If I close my eyes, I can conjure up the heat of his hand hovering near my back at the jet bridge. Hear the low promise of meeting again. Feel the light press of his lips as I drifted off to sleep on the plane.
Two nights.
I swallow a grin I don’t know how to wear yet.
“Okay,” I tell the window. “I’m here. I’m gonna sleep until I wake up, for once.”
When I manage to crawl beneath the soft cotton sheets, the room smells of soap and orange peel left in a bowl by the sink. Exhaustion edges in. I don’t fight it.
Right before I go under, I picture a pale-green door, a narrow bar crowded with bottles. Wine poured with care, not performance.
A handsome man waits for me.
My mouth curves before I can stop it.
Two nights.
I can’t wait.