Chapter 5 Do You Have A Nickname?
Do I throw the dice, or do I let her take the lead?
Do I even have a choice in the matter? If yes, then what is that choice?
I righted the pile of catalogs next to me – again. Was it the seventh or the eighth time? I genuinely couldn’t remember.
I was nervous, if I was being honest with myself.
I guess it was natural for me, given the circumstance, because I was terrified of what I might say, or do, or not say, perhaps.
I’ve never conversed with someone who couldn’t speak, especially one who’d left me speechless, and had so effortlessly pulled at the most vulnerable string of my very being just by looking at me.
I didn’t wanna offend or hurt her, or make her feel uncomfortable.
I shifted on the couch as I waited for her, and felt a lump forming in my throat, which I quickly pushed down by swallowing a few times.
I’d spent the day fixing some minor issues that Mr. Ribeiro had pointed out while showing me around. Pro bono, of course. He’d insisted on adding the charges to my final payment, but Taron and I ended up refusing the offer.
I think Mr. Ribeiro mainly let us off the hook easy over the small charges because Taron kept pissing him off every two seconds, and he prolly just wanted him to shut up and get busy with work so he’d stop annoying him.
Relatable.
The relief on his face when my brother left two hours ago had been utterly comical. Not that I blamed him, given Taron’s eccentric nature and talent for random word-vomit.
I tapped my bare feet on the carpet, one after the other, and fought the urge to move the catalog pile again. I was sitting in front of the massive living-room fireplace, and as the ember flames crackled and rose higher, so did the rate of my heartbeats.
I stretched my fingers and tried to distract myself by thinking of the storeroom.
When I’d seen it earlier, it’d become clear, by the cluster of dirt and boxes in it, that it’d take Taron and our guys at least 2 days just to get everything out so we could clear out the space for further assessment.
Mr. Ribeiro had told us that him and Carina had already gone through everything in there, and that there wasn’t anything in the room they wanted to keep. At least there was that, huh?
I turned my head in the direction of the door when it opened, and in walked – more like waddled – Carina. She was shivering as she put the locks in, took off her shoes at the threshold, and then padded over to me.
I stood and grabbed the blanket Mr. Ribeiro had given me before retiring to his room an hour ago, and as Carina set her purse on the small wooden table next to the sofa before stopping in front of me, I completely lost my train of thought.
Fantastic.
She waved at me with a wide grin on her face, and so, I did the same. Just…wow; I’d really lost it.
“Uh…hi,” I then said, like the dumb sloth that I was, and unfolded the blanket before offering it to her.
Something in Carina’s eyes flared, like the fire in front of us, and she stepped closer to me instead of taking the blanket from me.
So, I guess it was her who’d made the first move, then.
Should I be relieved, or should I be frustrated?
The answer was a gamble on my mind.
I moved even closer to her, and when she blinked up at me with wet, snow-sprinkled lashes, I smiled and wrapped the golden cashmere around her.
She hastily grabbed the hems and pulled the blanket snug against her body, and then plopped – actually plopped – onto the sofa. She canted her head, silently asking me to join her.
I did, obviously.
“Hi,” I said again, then scratched the back of my head when Carina chuckled softly.
“Sorry,” I muttered, and grabbed the catalogs from next to me before placing them on my lap. “So, what do you wanna start with? We can pick a basic theme first, and I can then coordinate it with appropriate shades, materials, any special item or style request, etc.”
She brought a hand up, asking me to wait, and then grabbed her purse before pulling out her phone, a notebook, and a pen from inside it. She then tapped around on her phone, and after a few seconds, turned it so that I could see the screen.
I looked down at the picture, at the rustic library.
The floor was most definitely Elm – sanded and polished to give it a textured feel.
There were wide shelves on either side of the library, with the center bare, save for a dark, wooden study table at the very end – right above a tiny, namesake window.
There were period frames on either side of the window, and the roof was an upside-down V – with a tainted glass in the middle and Oakwood plies on either of its side. It was simple, yet intricate. It was…
“Gorgeous,” I whispered, and then looked at Carina. “You want it exactly like this?”
She nodded excitedly, and I don’t think she did it on purpose, but she shifted closer to me, and our knees bumped.
“Can you send me this picture?” I asked her. “I’ll need it for reference.”
She nodded again, pointed at me, and then pinched the fingers of both her hands before touching them together and twisting them once.
I shook my head, and my brows furrowed. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
She gave me a thumbs up, then picked up her pen and notebook, and it’s the first time I actually saw the two items properly. Her pen was shaped in the form of a watermelon slice, and her notebook…
It took me a moment to realize what it meant.
Both the front and back of the book had Makkari from Marvel’s Eternals, the movie, on them.
Makkari was portrayed as a deaf character in it, and I’d seen her signing her words in the movie’s multiple trailers.
Her condition was different from Carina’s, yet their manner of communication was exactly the same.
“Nice notebook,” I remarked.
She smiled and signed, Thank you.
I knew how that was done; I wasn’t completely stupid.
She flipped open said notebook and wrote something in it before showing it to me.
Give me your number so that I can send you the photo.
“Oh yeah, of course,” I said.
We quickly exchanged numbers, and a few seconds later, my phone pinged back-to-back with two new messages from her.
Carina: Hi :’)
Carina: sent a photo
I saved the picture on my camera roll, and then showed her the layout and color scheme Mr. Ribeiro had decided on for the kitchen. Carina consented to everything, and once we were done, I jerked my head at her notebook.
“You going to watch the movie?” I asked her. I told myself that I was curious, but the truth was: I didn’t wanna go home. Not yet.
Carina nodded, and then started writing something in her book.
I’m going to watch it with my best friend, Ashleigh. You?
“I’m going with my family,” I said. “What about your grandfather?”
What about him? she wrote.
“Isn’t he going with you?”
She shook her head, and then wrote, Shop.
“Ah, gotcha.” I nodded. Mr. Ribeiro had told me all about the shop’s popularity and origin over a delicious spread of homemade Farofa and Arroz Carreteiro at lunch earlier.
It was a surprise that I’d never visited, or even heard of, Vila do Acaí before.
When I’d asked Taron about it, he’d told me that he ordered their baked stuff to his apartment every other day, but he didn’t know about the shop being owned by Carina and her grandfather until I’d told him so.
It’s weird how the world can be such a small place, and then not so small at the same time.
Carina patted me on the arm to get my attention. When I looked at her, she showed me her open notebook. She’d written something new.
Do you have a nickname?
I raised a brow at her, to which she shrugged.
“I don’t know if it’s a nickname, to be exact, but my elder brother calls me Beauty,” I told her. “He says I’m the face, and he’s the muscle of the family.”
Carina laughed, an action so airy and breathless that I just couldn’t look away from her. Her face was partially illuminated by the raging fire before us, accentuating her mellow features drastically, and her eyes – they seemed to glow like orbs of timber under the warm ambience around us.
“God, you’re stunning.” The words escaped me before I even realized I’d spoken them out loud.
Carina inhaled sharply, and I reached out – I dared, more like – to push the curtain of her soft hair behind her right ear.
Fuck, was that too much, too forward?
Had I crossed the line?
She smiled that magnetic smile at me then, and gently wrapped her fingers around my wrist before erasing a little more of the distance between us.
“Rina…” I whispered, and then swallowed. “Can I call you that?”
She nodded, still smiling, and our noses brushed.
She smelled so good – like lilacs and almonds and vanilla, all mixed together. I wanted to pull her to me, feel every inch of her pressed against me, but I also didn’t wanna push my luck too hard.
“I wanna kiss you so bad right now,” I confessed. My heart was thrashing in my chest – literally – and as our breaths mingled, I tilted my head to the side.
Rina fisted the collar of my t-shirt and leaned in further, an indication that she wanted a taste just as eagerly as I did.
I sighed, and our lips brushed. Fuck, I was going to lose it. I was hard; I was burning up.
“Rina.” I parted my lips slightly, just as she did hers, but sucked in a breath and moved back when I heard the sound of Mr. Ribeiro’s cane against the stairs behind me.
Shit.
Rina clicked her tongue and frowned, but then pulled me to her before pressing a sound kiss on the left side of my mouth.
Damn tease.
I chuckled, and nuzzled my nose against her cheek for a lingering moment before getting to my feet.
She followed suit, and then began shoving her things inside her purse just as Mr. Ribeiro reached the last of the stairs.
“I thought I heard you two down here,” he said with a grin, and then looked at Rina. “Had a good day, hon?”
She gave him a thumbs up, and I pursed my lips to hide a smile when I noticed her flushed face and neck.
Mr. Ribeiro nodded, and Rina glanced at me. When our eyes met, she gave me a subtle wink, followed by a wave, and then jogged up to her room, but not before kissing Mr. Ribeiro on the cheek.
That woman was an apocalypse waiting to happen.
I gently cleared my throat, put on my coat, grabbed the catalogs from the sofa, and pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “I should go. I’ll, uh, see you in the morning. I can start with the kitchen walls tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” Mr. Ribeiro stated.
“Great, then. Well, good night, sir.” I turned and made my way to the door. I’d only just touched its knob, though, when I halted, my heart in my throat, after I heard a sharp tap of Mr. Ribeiro’s cane against the wooden railing.
“Myles?”
I didn’t face him; I couldn’t. The steel in his voice was enough to turn me immobile, for a bout of shame and guilt to wash over my pathetic conscience. “Yeah?”
“You’ve disappointed me, son,” he said stoically, right before he headed back upstairs.
I gritted my teeth as I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the door.
Fuck.