Chapter 2 #3
He’s quiet for a moment, his thumb still moving across my knuckles in that slow, mesmerizing way. The world around me turns to white noise as I watch his eyes sweep over our hands, the blue churning.
“I have this dread,” he says finally, his voice low. “That I’m going to end up like my father. That I’ll spend my whole life trying to be someone I’m not. That I’ll wake up one day and realize I’ve been performing for so long that I don’t know who I actually am anymore.”
I swear I stop breathing. That was not what I expected. His thumb stills against my fingers, and I give his hand a gentle squeeze. “Do you feel like you’re performing right now?”
He looks at me, and something changes in his expression—something raw and unguarded. “Not tonight.”
And now my heart is absolutely thundering in my chest. I’m pretty sure you could hear it if not for the music in this place—and I’m pretty sure my hand is sweating in his, but I don’t pull away. Because if I pull away, this moment ends, and I don’t want it to end.
The waiter clears our plates, asks if we want dessert. Brody looks at me, and I shake my head because I’m too full and too nervous and too aware of his hand holding mine to think about food.
“Just the check,” Brody tells him. He turns that intense gaze on me, and my pulse flutters. “We should probably head toward your hotel. Wouldn’t want to get you home too late. Where are you staying?”
I pull out my phone, swiping the screen to my hotel confirmation and the little map below with that red pushpin. Brody takes a glance and nods. “That’s not far. Come on, the night’s still young.”
And then it’s just us and the candlelight and the distant sound of guitar music drifting from the plaza.
The music gets louder—or maybe I’m just paying attention to it now—something slow and romantic, the notes floating through the warm evening air like they’re made of honey.
“Do you hear that?” I ask.
“The music?”
“Yeah.” I glance toward the archway, where I can see the edge of Placa Reial—the twinkling lights of those gorgeous Gaudí lampposts, the fountain lit from below, people moving in the glow. And couples. Dancing couples, swaying to the music.
I watch them for a moment. An elderly couple moving in perfect synchronization, a younger couple laughing and stumbling, a middle-aged pair holding each other close. And something in my chest aches.
I want that.
I want to dance with Brody under those twinkling lights and pretend for just a little longer that this is real, that tomorrow isn’t coming, that this isn’t going to end.
But I can’t ask. That’s too much. Too forward. Too—
“Want to dance?”
I turn back to him, startled. “What?”
“Dance.” He’s smiling, but there’s something nervous in his expression, like he’s not sure what I’ll say. “With me. Out there.”
My brain short-circuits for a second. “You want to dance? With me?”
“That’s generally how dancing works.”
“Oh…no, I’m terrible at dancing. Like, catastrophically bad. I once stepped on my prom date’s foot so hard he had to go to urgent care.”
I’m still babbling about broken toes and lifelong limps when Brody stands, pulling out his wallet to pay the check. He tosses some cash on the table and turns back to me. “I’ll risk it.”
I take his offered hand and stand, my legs slightly wobbly.
The wine, probably. Or the handholding. Or the way he’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the entire city.
Brody—mysterious, guarded, ridiculously attractive Brody, with his storm-cloud eyes and the way his T-shirt stretches across his shoulders when he moves—wants to dance with me.
In Barcelona.
Under twinkling lights.
Best coma ever.
He leads me through the archway, into Placa Reial, and my breath catches.
It’s even more beautiful than it looked from the restaurant.
The fountain in the center sparkles, water catching the light and sending tiny rainbows dancing across the cobblestones.
And those lampposts—those gorgeous, ornate Gaudí lampposts with their twisted iron and multiple glowing lanterns—cast everything in warm, golden light that looks like captured fireflies.
A street musician is sitting near the fountain, his guitar resting on his knee, fingers moving over the strings with the ease of someone who’s played for years.
He’s older, weathered, his shirt wrinkled and sleeves rolled up, and his case is open at his feet with a few coins and bills inside.
He’s got his eyes closed like he’s lost in the music, and the notes he’s playing are so beautiful they make my throat tight.
There are maybe a dozen couples dancing, and Brody pulls me into the fray, wrapping an arm around my waist as he takes my other hand in his warm, steady palm.
I feel completely safe. Like even though we’ve only known each other a few hours, there’s something starting here today.
Like this is the first dance of many. And I want to melt into it, memorize it.
We start to move.
And for .2 seconds, I manage not to hurt anybody, and then—
“Sorry!” I gasp.
“Oof, you weren’t kidding.”
“I warned you!”
“I thought you were exaggerating.”
“I never exaggerate about my complete lack of coordination.”
He’s laughing now, and so am I, and we’re still moving even though I’m pretty sure we’re not exactly dancing so much as shuffling in a vague circle while I assault his feet.
But then, somehow, we find a rhythm. His hand tightens slightly on my waist, steadying me. My hand on his shoulder relaxes. We stop thinking about it and just…move.
The music swells, something slow and romantic, and suddenly we’re not stumbling anymore. We’re dancing. Actually dancing.
The candlelight from the nearby café tables flickers across his features, catching on the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, those eyes that are suddenly looking at me like I’m something worth looking at.
He pulls me closer, leaning in until his breath grazes my ear.
“See?” he says softly. “Not catastrophic.”
“Yet. The night is young.”
“Ever the optimist.”
“It’s one of my many charms.”
He pulls back, laughing again, and his smile fades slightly.
His eyes drop to my mouth for just a second before coming back to my eyes.
My stomach does that swooping thing again, and I’m suddenly very aware of how close we are, how his hand is splayed across my waist, how I can smell whatever soap or cologne he uses—something clean and slightly woodsy.
I can feel the warmth of him through our clothes, can feel his heartbeat against my palm where my hand rests on his chest.
Or maybe that’s mine. It’s hard to tell when they’re both racing.
“Chloe,” he says, and his voice has this rough edge to it that I haven’t heard before.
“Yeah?”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me for a long moment, like he’s trying to decide something.
And then he glances around—at the couples dancing, at the people sitting at café tables, at the general publicness of where we are—and makes a decision.
He takes my hand and leads me away from the dancing area, toward a quieter corner of the plaza, where string lights drape between orange trees. We pause beneath the branches, the trees creating the illusion of privacy, just far enough from the crowd that the music feels like a distant dream.
Brody’s still holding my hand, and he’s looking at me with this intensity that makes my knees weak.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all evening,” he says, his voice low. “Can I—”
“Yes,” I say before he can finish, because I know what he’s asking, and the answer is absolutely, definitely, yes.
And then he kisses me.
And—
Oh.
Oh, this is what all those romance novels were talking about.
His mouth is warm and soft and sure, and his hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb brushing my cheek, and I make this embarrassing sound—half sigh, half something else—because this is happening, this is real, Brody is kissing me and it’s perfect and overwhelming and—
He pulls back suddenly, his eyes wide.
“Sorry,” he says, breathing hard. “I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m not sorry.”
He blinks. “What?”
“I’m not sorry.” And before I can talk myself out of it, before my brain can catch up with what my heart is doing, I grab the front of his T-shirt, the fabric soft and warm under my fingers, and kiss him back.
And this time, when he makes a sound, it’s not an apology.
His arms go around me, pulling me closer, one hand sliding into my hair, the other pressed against the small of my back. I can taste wine on his lips, and his stubble is rough against my skin in the best way, and—
He pulls back again, but this time he doesn’t apologize. He just looks at me, his forehead resting against mine, both of us breathing hard. His hand is still in my hair, fingers tangled in the strands.
“I have to tell you something,” he says, his voice rough. He lifts his head off mine and the cold rushes in.
“Okay.”
“I—”
But then he goes still. His whole body just…stops. He’s looking over my shoulder at something, and his expression changes—from open and vulnerable to closed and tense in the space of a heartbeat.
His hand falls away from my hair. The arm around my waist loosens.
“What—” I start, but he’s already stepping back.
“I’ll walk you to your hotel,” he says, and his voice is different. Distant. Polite.
“What? Why? Did I—is something wrong?”
“No, it’s just—” He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at whatever he saw, and his jaw is tight, a muscle jumping there. “It’s late. You should get back.”
“Brody—”
“Come on.” He takes my hand—but it’s different now, perfunctory instead of intimate—and starts walking.
And just like that, the evening is over.
We leave the plaza, stepping into one of the narrow streets that branch off into the Gothic Quarter.
The street is darker here, lit only by occasional streetlamps that cast pools of yellow light with long shadows between them.
The buildings press close on either side, their balconies overhead creating a tunnel effect.
Laundry still hangs from some windows, ghostly white in the darkness.
The air is cooler, almost cold now, away from the plaza—the stone walls holding on to the chill. It smells like old stone and dampness and faint cigarette smoke from somewhere nearby.
Our footsteps echo on the uneven cobblestones—my sandals making soft scuffing sounds, his sneakers a dull thud. The rhythm is wrong, out of sync.
And it’s silent.
Painfully, awkwardly silent.
I don’t know what happened. One second we were kissing and everything was perfect, and the next, he saw something and shut down completely.
“Brody,” I try again, my voice small in the quiet street. “What just happened back there?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
“It’s clearly not fine. You just—you went from kissing me to looking like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
Tired. Right. Yes. Me too…No, I’m not. I’m so unbelievably awake, there’s no way he’s tired.
“If I did something—”
“You didn’t do anything.” His voice is still polite, still distant. Like we’re strangers. Like we didn’t just spend the entire evening together. Like he didn’t just kiss me like I mattered. “I just think we should call it a night.”
We keep walking. Past a couple speaking softly in French, holding hands, looking at each other the way Brody was looking at me five minutes ago.
Past a group of loud British tourists heading to the bars, their laughter echoing off the stone walls.
Past a cat sitting on a doorstep, watching us with unblinking yellow eyes.
Every step feels wrong. Like I’m walking toward an ending I don’t want, and I can’t figure out how to stop it.
My sunflower bobs sadly from my purse, the bloom drooping now, petals soft and curling inward.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, trying to keep my voice light even though my throat feels tight, “I had a really good evening.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
But he doesn’t sound like he means it.
We turn a corner, and suddenly we’re at my hotel—a small boutique place with a weathered yellow facade and wrought-iron balconies.
I’d called earlier to extend my stay for another night, told the receptionist I’d missed my cruise.
(Left out the part about wandering the city with a stranger who makes my heart do stupid things.)
There’s a small plaza in front of the hotel—more like a widening of the street, really—with a tree in the center casting shadows across the cobblestones. The air here smells like the potted geraniums on someone’s balcony, mixing with the musty scent of old stone.
We stop under the tree, and Brody finally looks at me.
Really looks at me.
And there’s something in his eyes—conflict, longing, pain—that makes my chest ache.
“Do you want to come up?” I ask, even though I know the answer. “I mean—not like that—just to talk or—”
“I can’t.”
“Okay.” I’m trying not to cry. I’m trying so hard not to cry. “Can I at least get your number? Your last name? Some way to…”
My words drift off at the look on his face. Anguished—that’s the only way to describe it.
“I know this is a bad idea,” he says, and his voice is rough again, raw.
“What is?”
And instead of answering, he steps closer and kisses me.
One more time.
This kiss is different from the others—desperate, almost frantic, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of my mouth against his. His hand cups my face, and I can feel him shaking slightly, and I’m kissing him back just as desperately because I know—I know—this is goodbye.
When he pulls away, his forehead rests against mine for just a second. I can feel his breath on my lips, warm in the cool night air.
“Take care of yourself, Chloe,” he whispers.
And then he’s gone.
Just—gone.
And I’m standing on a cobblestone street in Barcelona with a wilting sunflower in my purse and absolutely no answers.
Story of my life, honestly. I knew it was too good to be true.