Clarice had offered to bring me food, but I needed to get out of that room and explore the dessert table myself. I had to shake the feeling that my body was still weak.
I grabbed my jacket, put my headphones on, and hit play on the first song I saw—which ended up being one by ENHYPEN.
I opened the door to leave the room, and to my surprise, the first thing I saw wasn’t that horrible painting.
Quite the opposite.
Something uniquely beautiful stood in front of me, stealing the air from my lungs and sending a small chill through my stomach from the surprise.
“Ah… hi…” David said, stretching the word a little.
He looked surprised to see me. The way his hand was raised made it seem like he’d been about to knock.
I took one earbud out and let it hang from my hoodie.
He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and light chinos. His hair was loose, like he’d just gotten out of the shower and had been too lazy to comb it. David laughed when he saw my expression, and I stepped out of the room.
“What are you doing here?”
“I, uh… came to see how you’re doing. I figured after yesterday you might not be feeling great, so I thought I’d check.”
“I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried, I just… I just…” he continued. “Um… fuck. Okay, I was slightly worried. But anyway—are you actually feeling better?”
“A little nauseous, but it’ll pass… Sorry about earlier. I was pretty stupid.”
“Don’t worry about it. I understood your side,” he said simply, like it didn’t matter that I’d closed the door in his face.
Twice.
“So, want to grab something to eat? Eating usually helps with a hangover.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Really?”
He lifted his eyebrows slightly and pressed his lips together.
“Not that I get drunk often, but the few times I’ve overdone it, food helped… along with drinking water. Have you had any water? If you want—”
“I think I’ll take you up on the food,” I said, finally closing my door. “What about the others?” I asked, looking back at him. “Anyone else hungover, or was I the only one who went too far last night?”
“No, you weren’t the only one. Phillip’s still asleep, but I know his hangover’s going to be terrible when he wakes up. Aly will probably just wake up annoyed when she realizes she didn’t sleep alone.”
My mouth opened in surprise, though I tried to hide it as we walked down the hallway.
“What do you mean she didn’t sleep alone?”
His expression carried a hint of hesitation. He looked around before leaning a little closer, bringing his warmth with him.
“Let’s just say she found some company last night,” he whispered before straightening again. “She doesn’t like sleeping with strangers, but she always does it when she drinks. So she’ll wake up annoyed at herself for doing it again.”
David pressed the elevator button when we reached it. I glanced at my reflection in the metal doors.
“I think I get her,” I said.
David let out an awkward little laugh.
“You do?”
“A little. Honestly, I’m not someone who goes out with strangers. Actually… I’m not really someone who goes out with people in general. But I wouldn’t like finding out I hooked up with a stranger after drinking too much either.”
“Yeah… it’s not good.”
The elevator had already arrived when I remembered I needed to go back to the room to grab the things I’d used to clean the mud stain on the carpet and tidy up.
When I came back, David had grabbed the mop and was pretending to perform karate attacks with it.
The face he made when he almost hit the hallway chandelier was priceless. I burst out laughing.
When we finally went downstairs, the restaurant was almost empty. It was already past 2 p.m., and besides David and me, there were only two other tables being used.
Despite the time, I went with a simple snack.
I bit into my grilled cheese sandwich and took a sip of soda afterward. David ordered fried eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, and grape juice.
Watching him devour all of it was… honestly a little shocking.
I glanced over his shoulder and noticed a girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen staring at our table.
Or, more specifically, staring at David with a fascinated expression—the same one I was pretty sure I’d had the morning before when I first saw him in that very place.
“That girl knows you,” I said quietly.
“Who?” he asked, turning around.
Zero subtlety.
The girl startled and immediately looked down. David kept looking at her for a moment.
“Her?” he nodded.
“Yeah.”
He looked at her again, raised his hand in a small wave, and gave her a charming closed-lip smile.
If I were her, I would’ve lost my mind right there.
“Ten seconds,” David said, turning back and taking a bite of his toast.
“Ten seconds?”
“9, 8, 7, 6…” he began counting under his breath. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”
Right as he finished, the girl was already walking toward our table with her phone in hand in a frighteningly perfect sync with his countdown.
“Hi!” The excitement in her voice was impossible to miss as she smiled. “Oh my God—” Her eyes widened like she was talking to herself. “Holy shit, how am I supposed to talk to him…”
I chuckled softly while David kept smiling politely, having no idea what she was saying.
“Can you translate what she said?” he asked me.
Who would’ve thought I’d one day become David Connor’s personal translator?
“Do you want to take a picture?” I asked her.
“Oh—you’re Brazilian,” she said, surprised. “That’s great. Can you ask if I can take a picture with him?”
“She said she wants a photo,” I translated, taking the phone she handed me.
David stood up and said with a smile,
“I figured that’s what it was… She didn’t insult me, did she?”
The girl stepped closer and hugged him from the side.
“Ah… I didn’t want to say it, but she said you look terrible in person.”
Click.
“Really? The way you complimented me yesterday, I thought I looked better in person.”
Click.
My cheek burned. What the hell had I told him?
“I—I didn’t—”
“Can you ask if I can hug him?” the girl asked.
I pushed aside the possible embarrassment from the night before—another one for the list—and took another picture.
“S-She wants a hug…”
As expected, David accepted the hug. The girl walked back to her table smiling like she’d just won the lottery.
When I sat back down, my stomach twisted with embarrassment.
This was always one of the reasons I hated drinking: embarrassing moments while I was drunk.
Unfortunately, I had the terrible habit of saying exactly what I thought when I was drunk—and that often landed me in situations where I wanted to disappear from the planet.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I looked at David.
His eyes were fixed on me while he took a sip of juice. He ran his tongue lightly across his lips, leaving a faint trace of grape juice behind.
“It’s nothing. I just got a little dizzy,” I said, swirling the ice in my glass before taking a sip of soda. “You seem pretty used to this.”
He stayed silent for a moment.
“Yeah… a little,” he said. “I love the way fans get. Like, it’s just me, you know? I don’t think I’m anything special, but for them it’s like I represent something they can’t really explain. And that’s nice, because I love my fans the same way they love me… though there are those more intense fans.”
“Intense?”
“Yeah. Some ‘fans’—” he made air quotes “—only know how to criticize, like they’re perfect gods created to point out everyone else’s flaws. And they always want to know personal things too. That part makes me uncomfortable.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand firmly, feeling the warmth coming from it while trying to show I understood exactly what he meant.
What the hell am I—
My eyes widened when I realized what I was doing. I pulled my hand away. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t react.
Still, I felt like an idiot.
“That was weird, right? Sorry. I just thought…”
“David!”
I turned when I heard Aly’s voice approaching.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she said, sounding… stressed?
“It’s in the room. What happened?”
I could see Aly’s eyes roll at the calm way David answered her.
“My God, sometimes I forget you’re an old man,” she muttered. “Come on, Elisa said to meet her outside.”
“Why?”
“A photographer came to take some pictures of us. We shouldn’t have forgotten today’s shoot.” Aly glanced at our table and rubbed her forehead. “I’m going to need something for my head later.”
David shifted in his chair.
“Can’t we reschedule? I haven’t even finished eating yet,” he lied.
“Your invisible food? Because all I see are empty plates and a glass with a little juice.” She grabbed the glass from his hand and drank the rest. “There. Finished.”
“Fuck" he muttered.
Aly shot him a threatening look.
“Sorry…” he sighed before standing. “Okay, I’m coming.”
My chest tightened with frustration.
In my head we would’ve spent more time together, but the look David gave me felt like a silent goodbye.
“Don’t you want to come?” he asked.
My attention moved between the two of them.
“Maybe not. I don’t want to interrupt your work—”
“Let’s go already,” Aly said, hooking her arm through mine and dragging me across the restaurant.
She stopped suddenly.
“You don’t have any plans right now, do you?”
“N-No…”
“Great. Now you do. Let’s gossip.”
We met Elisa and the photographer in the garden.
With him were a woman and a younger guy. They had already walked around the hotel and decided it would be best to take pictures in the garden and the lobby.
The garden was easily one of my favorite places.
Its calm and quiet made me forget we were in São Paulo and imagine we were somewhere far away, surrounded by peace, greenery, and the smell of grass and damp earth.
Phillip arrived soon after, looking exhausted and not at all happy. He joined David in conversation while the photographer’s wife touched up their makeup and fixed their hair.
While she worked on his hair, Phillip told me things I didn’t remember from the night before—like the fact that he’d completely stolen the show at the BlueHouse karaoke.
He promised to send me a video later.
Near the garden fountain, Aly started posing.
In one pose, her braids were tossed back again and again while they tried to capture the perfect moment. She took some photos with serious expressions, others showing off her beauty with dramatic poses like a professional model.
After LoveHeart, Aly had appeared in several magazines, just like David and the others. The difference was that Aly seemed to be on a new cover every month.
She’d already been on the cover of British Magazine seven times.
They were all beautiful in their own way, but Aly’s Black beauty made her even more striking. Almost every photo she took made her look like some kind of African goddess.
Soon it was Phillip’s turn to take pictures.
That’s when David walked back over to me.
Even though he’d already looked great during our “lunch,” he looked even better now with the styled quiff they’d given him.
The warmth in my chest felt like it was burning through my shirt when his perfume made me inhale slowly through my nose, the scent triggering that same feeling again.
I turned my attention to Phillip, forcing myself to ignore whatever was trying to grow inside me.
“He’s a great model,” I commented.
“Him?” David watched for a moment. “Yeah, he is. But better than him? Only me.”
I had to laugh.
“I know,” he continued. “I’m so good it’s actually funny.”
I laughed again, glancing at Aly and Elisa talking on a bench nearby, though I didn’t pay much attention.
Whenever David was around, I felt this strange need to look at him like he was a magnet.
Other times—like now—I simply let myself notice how hypnotizing the eyes of someone I admired could be.
Then, like a flash, I remembered when David touched my cheek with his fingers, drawing on my skin.
That same warmth spread through my body again.
The feeling was so peculiar.
It felt unreal—like at any moment I might wake up in my bed and realize the last twenty-four hours had just been some dream-induced hallucination.
How could this possibly be real?
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