After ✔

14

Turns out, fate doesnt care if Dani is ready or not.

Or maybe its just a coincidence.

Either way, on Sunday morning, its barely ten when Amelia calls.

I'm sitting on the couch with a book, trying to ignore Dani's questions.

"Woah, iPhone7 already came out?"

"What?! He's the new president?"

"Chocolate isn't extinct, is it?"

He's just trying to get to me.

"That's the one thing you have in common with the old Dani." I tell him. "You both love annoying me."

His mouth quirks up. "Can't say I don't enjoy it."

Meanwhile I feel like ripping my hair out.

Especially when he turns the music on his phone to extra loud.

"Please, Dani." I groan. "It's my last exam tomorrow. I don't wanna fail cuz of your stupid Spanish songs."

His mouth hangs open. "You did not just call Bailando stupid!"

"Now you sound like a thirteen year old girl."

When he doesn't turn the music any lower, I get up myself after setting the books aside and race to the counter before he can realize what I'm doing.

He doesn't. I grab his phone and he's too late.

I raise my arm in the air - obvious mistake, since he's taller than me - but I'm fast.

I take two steps back. "If you come any closer, the phone gets it!"

He furrows his brows in concentration and his eyes fix on my hand,no doubt trying to form a plan.

"Give me the phone back and I promise not to feed you to sewer rats." He smiles.

I snort. Really?

"Better hurry up, le muñeca. My offer 's off the table in five seconds."

I take another step back. His phone was annoying and so was he. "You shouldn't have put on those god-awful songs."

"You should have studied somewhere else."

Then he lunges towards me, and I squeal and turn on my ankle, ready to run.

I jump above the couch and towards the kitchen with Dani hot on my heels.

Bingo. The balcony door is open.

I run towards it as fast as I can and stop only after my right hand is held away from the grill, out into the open air and the road below.

"Don't you dare come closer." I tell him, trying hard not to laugh. The look on his face is priceless.

"Fine." He says, raising his arms in surrender.

Before I can call truce and give it back to him, the phone starts ringing.

I press answer and hold the phone to me ear.

"Hola." I say with a smile when I see the caller ID.

"Valencia?"

"Yours truly." I reply. Dani watches me, provably wondering who's on the phone. "What's up?"

"Is my son around? I need him to do something for me."

"Sure. He's right here." I hand the phone to Dani who takes it grudgingly.

I follow him out of the balcony. "Hey 'ma." I hear him say.

Amelia says something to him, and I  can tell it doesn't sit well.

He asks his mom to hold on, and turns to me. "You know where Amelia kept my paintings?"

Why was he even asking about those? I thought he wasn't ready.

"In the studio." I tell him. "But I don't know exactly where. I didn't pry around your stuff."

Dani casts a glance towards his room, the same one I had occupied before and mutters something under his breath.

"Sorry 'ma." He says into the phone. "Can't help you there."

Daniel Price. I hear her yell from the phone. I'm going to call back in ten minutes... better find those details or else!

Dani ends the call.

"What did Amelia want?" I ask him.

"She wants the details of some stupid painting I did." He crosses his arms. "Apparently your dad loved it."

"My dad?" I splutter. Then memories start coming back to me, and I understand why. "Oh, he must be talking about the ones you did for the expedition."

"You know where they are?" He uncrosses his arms. His face is hard like he's being forced to do something he doesn't want to, but also like it doesn't really matter.

"Um, no." I say. "I never really meddled with your paintings. They were special." My shoulders rise and fall, and an unexpected smile starts to crawl up my lips before I realize how stupid I'm being.

"Did I write the date behind each one like I always do?"

"I guess so."

"Okay, then. Go in there and find my painting and send the details to my mother."

I open my mouth to agree, but then discover this is the perfect opportunity to get Dani to see some of his work.

"But...I don't know where they are." I feign innocence. They were probably just sitting on their aisles like they always were, all you had to do was goddamn look.

"Oh, you're evil." Says Dani. He knows what I'm doing and wants me to know that he does. With a glance at his phone, he turns towards me. "Better get this over with."

He makes his way to the spare room that was used as the studio and taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

I watched his expression change from hard to absolutely mesmerized as his eyes went over the paintings.

"I forgot how good my mother was." He breathes.

And he's right. Amelia is pretty amazing when it comes to all this. Her paintings sit on their own little aisles, all of them complete except her latest.

On an adjacent wall, a portrait hangs of Dani's father, smiling. Opposite, there's a scene of a beach with two little boys playing in the sand. Dani and Nate.

In the far corner stands all of Dani's recent work that he completed in America.

He pulls his lower lip into his mouth between his teeth.

I don't know whether he's going to take his time, or do it quick, like like a band-aid.

But first, surprisingly, his hands reaches up to my arm and rests there.

"Ready?" I ask.

"Not the least bit." He answers. "But let's do it anyways."

In four quick steps, he's next to his paintings. 

The look on his face makes me want to stop and admire him for a lifetime. He's staring at them in complete wonder, before his eyes fix on one.

The one he painted of me.