“We’re leaving.” Santi decided, leading her though the lobby, squishy wet shoes and all, out to his car, shielding them from the rain with an umbrella. His manager followed him out with a question, and Santi gave them instructions to make sure his family was alright, to comp anything they ordered, if they did. But he didn’t want to see them when he came back to the hotel.
“Santi,” Kira said, pulling his jacket closer around her, grateful he didn’t turn on the air-conditioning. “Are you—”
“No,” he said, exhaling a lungful of air. The car pulled to a stop in front of a traffic light. He dropped his head, and she saw his shoulders sag. “That wasn’t how our afternoon was supposed to go.”
“It couldn’t be helped.” Kira shrugged.
“I’m sorry they were rude.”
“I’m sorry he talked to you that way,” Kira said as they continued their short drive back to his house. “You really love your grandfather, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Santi shrugged. “I’m not even sure I know how to properly love anything.”
“Yes, you do,” Kira insisted, because that was the silliest thing he’d ever said. He loved Villa so much that he pretty much rebuilt it and made it successful. He loved his experience of Italy so much he recreated it for strangers every night. He wanted so much to be a part of the Laneways that he financed Sunday Bakery. And those were the big things. There were so many other little things she could have spent a whole evening listing down. She chose to believe he did them out of love. “You know exactly how to love someone.”
They made it to his house. She wasn’t sure that he believed her.
“You should shower. I don’t want you to get sick,” Santi said, taking off his shoes by the door and changing into tsinelas. Kira did the same, because she now had a pair here, of course.
“I’m not going to get sick because of rain—!” Her sentence was cut off by her own loud, weirdly violent sneeze. Which was followed by another. Then a teeny-tiny one, which made a bone in her chest pop. “Aray.”
“You were saying,” Santi said, and aha, was that him trying not to laugh? She could see that little quirk of a smile on his lips.
“I’ll get more towels,” Santi continued, heading toward the bedroom. “I’ll run the bath.”
Kira nodded as she made it to the living room, Santi’s jacket still around her shoulders. She sighed and sat on a butaca chair, staring at the cat that was sitting on the arm of the couch and staring back at her.
Wait.
What.
“What the,” she said out loud, narrowing her eyes in case her eyes were deceiving her, but nope. That was a cat with orange, black and white fur staring back at her, a tail swishing in dissatisfaction as it clearly found Kira lacking. Kira was sitting on a butaca chair that definitely wasn’t here before either, the kind with long arms and a rattan back that made it perfect for naps.
“Santi?” she asked, turning her head toward the hallway for a second, but when Kira looked at the couch again, the cat was gone. The chair was still here though, the extra-long arms a perfect place for Santi to stack three towels in front to her. “When did you get a—”
“The chair? It’s a belated Christmas gift from...someone.” He shrugged. “She has excellent taste.”
“She...?” Kira echoed.
“My Tita Ria,” he said, smiling before he picked up one of the towels and dropped it over Kira’s head. “I should introduce you sometime.”
Kira took off Santi’s jacket and rubbed the towel in her hair, so soft that it was hard to believe that they weren’t using one from Villa.
“I’ll get snacks,” Santi said, immediately getting up from the couch. “I should make you tea. I found Lady Grey at South Supermarket.”
“Santi, you—” Kira sighed and left the towel draped over her shoulders, and placed another over her lap. “Do you want to talk about what just happened?”
“Definitely not.” He sat back down, but crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re here to talk about business, and I need to not think about what just happened. I would much rather do that.”
She stared at him for a minute, wondering if she should push, if she should try. Processing things needed to happen, because feelings tended to bottle up and fester in one’s body. And Kira had the feeling that Santi wasn’t in the mood to go into affirmations and meditations right now, so they would do this. Working was a coping mechanism, too.
Kira nodded and sat up straight, although she kept her cross-legged stance on the chair. She straightened her back and adopted a serious mien. If they were going to do this, then they were going to do this right.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Did you read my summary of everything?”
“Yes,” Santi said, crossing one leg over the other and releasing his crossed arms to thread his hands over his knee. “I have a few questions about specific things, but I’d like to hear you say it first. Give me your point of view. Then we can go from there.” Santi got up suddenly and disappeared into the bedroom again before he came back out and produced a soft, cream-colored bathrobe. “Change into this, then start talking.”
Then he walked toward the kitchen.
