The sun had fully dipped by the time we left the neighborhood, casting a deep gold haze over the rooftops, the sky streaked with warm purple and bruised pink. No one said much for a while. Maybe out of respect. Maybe because they didn't need to.

Cam whistled low as we turned the corner back toward the main street. "Okay. That was... definitely not what I thought we were doing today."

"You mean emotionally bonding with Sofía's childhood neighbor?" Jaxon offered. "Top ten plot twists of this trip."

"I wasn't ready to cry in a stranger's kitchen," Cam added. "But the tea slapped."

"She liked you," Beckett said. "That should worry all of us."

I snorted softly, shifting the bag on my shoulder as we passed a bakery that was still open, the smell of warm pão de queijo drifting through the open window. My chest still felt a little tight—but lighter than before. Like someone had unknotted a string I didn't know was pulling inside me.

We reached a plaza near the edge of the old district, a wide space with dim string lights looped from post to post, casting a soft, golden glow over the cobblestones. There were street musicians gathered near the edge, people scattered on benches with drinks in hand, and in the center... a small outdoor dance floor. Nothing too official. Just music playing from a speaker, and couples swaying barefoot on the tile as kids ran in circles around them.

It was simple.

Alive.

Perfect.

Cam stopped walking. "Wait. Do you guys see what I see?"

"Dancing?" Jaxon said.

"Chaos. Romance. Sweaty strangers and zero expectations," Cam grinned. "Exactly my scene."

"I don't dance," Beckett muttered.

"You will tonight."

"I won't."

"You will," Cam repeated, already dragging him forward by the elbow.

I laughed, stepping closer to the edge of the plaza. The music was soft and rhythmic, something local, slow and steady with a little drumbeat underneath. It tugged at something deep in my chest. Something warm.

"You gonna join them?" Luka asked beside me, his voice low.

I looked at him.

He stood a little too close, hands in his pockets, his shirt clung to his chest in places, damp from the heat, and the way he watched me made my stomach twist again.

"Depends," I said softly. "You gonna ask me?"

He held my gaze for a moment longer, then smirked slightly, tilting his head. "You're not scared of a little music, are you?"

"I'm not scared of anything," I said. "Remember? Fogo no coração."

He smiled—actually smiled, teeth and all—and held out his hand.

I didn't even hesitate.

We stepped onto the edge of the tiles, and the music wrapped around us like smoke. I placed my hand in his, let his other settle lightly at my waist. We moved slowly, more swaying than dancing, but it didn't matter. It felt natural. Steady. Like the kind of rhythm we didn't have to force.

Around us, the rest of the group joined in, awkward at first, then ridiculous. Cam spun Jaxon like they were in a telenovela. Beckett stood perfectly still while a girl from the crowd tried to teach him the beat. Nikolai handed out churros from somewhere no one saw him go.

But all I saw was Luka.

His eyes on mine.

His thumb brushing back and forth at my waist.

And the way the world blurred when I leaned into his chest and let the music carry us.

Because the day had been heavy.

But the night?

The night was ours.

At some point, I forgot the steps.

Not that there were any real ones to begin with. But whatever rhythm I was half following melted away somewhere between Luka's hand sliding down to the small of my back and the quiet press of his chest against mine. I didn't even notice how close we'd gotten until the heat of his skin became the only thing I could feel, the low beat of the music fading behind the thrum in my ears.

I didn't look up.

I didn't need to.

The plaza spun gently around us, laughter, soft footsteps, the hiss of churros frying somewhere down the alley. Cam shouted something dramatic in the background, followed by Jaxon yelling "Put me down!" and a crash of laughter.

Luka leaned down slightly, voice low enough that I felt it more than heard it. "You've been quiet."

"I've had a long day," I whispered back.

"You smiled more than I've ever seen you smile," he said.

I shrugged, keeping my cheek against his shoulder. "It felt like the kind of day my mom would've loved. I didn't want to mess that up."

His fingers pressed a little more firmly at my back. "You didn't. You were perfect."

The word made my breath catch. I didn't reply.

Instead, I pulled back slightly and looked up at him.

Luka looked right back. Steady. Serious. His brows drawn just a little like he was trying to memorize something.

I meant to say something, anything, but he beat me to it.

"Come on," he said, voice low.

He didn't explain.

Just took my hand and guided me away from the dance floor, threading us through the crowd until we were back in the dark, quiet edges of the plaza. The lights were dimmer here. The buzz of people faded behind us, replaced by the soft hum of the city at night.

Luka slowed near a short stone wall and leaned against it, arms crossed loosely over his chest. I stopped next to him, still holding my bag like I didn't want to let go of anything just yet.

"You didn't shut up all day tho," he said after a minute, not even looking at me.

I smirked. "Wow. Compliment me more."

"No, I mean..." He shifted a little, eyes still ahead. "You were glowing or whatever. Talking to everyone. Explaining stuff. It was... cool to watch."

I blinked. "Okay. That might've actually been a compliment."

He glanced at me, lips tugging at the corner. "Don't get used to it."

I laughed softly, then looked down at the sidewalk. "It was a good day."

He didn't say anything for a second. Then, like it was nothing: "Last night kind of messed with my head."

I looked up.

He wasn't looking at me when he said it. His voice was low, steady, like he was just stating a fact.

Not a confession. Not a big deal.

But it landed anyway.

"I don't know what I expected," he went on, "but it wasn't... that."

I stayed quiet, heart thudding in my chest.

Then I said, just as quiet, "Yeah. Same."

We stood there like that for a beat, close, but not touching. The kind of silence that didn't feel empty. Just full of things neither of us was ready to say yet.

Then Luka cleared his throat, like he suddenly remembered who he was. "Cam's gonna write poetry about us dancing. We should probably leave the country."

I smiled, letting out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Too late. He's already emotionally invested."

"He's gonna want to be in the wedding party."

I bumped his shoulder. "You wish."

He finally looked at me again, eyes sharp, unreadable, but softer than they were this morning. "Not the worst fake girlfriend I've ever had."

"I'm the only fake girlfriend you've ever had."

"Still counts."

I rolled my eyes, but I didn't step back. And neither did he.

We weren't really trying to leave the group behind, but somehow we did.

Back at the hotel, the room felt heavier than it had when we left it this morning.

Not in a bad way, just full. Lived in. The floor was littered with kicked-off shoes and wrinkled clothes, the air still warm and thick with the last of the day's heat. From the bathroom, I could hear the water running, the low, muffled sounds of Luka moving behind the closed door.

I slipped out to the balcony, easing the glass door shut behind me, and sank into the low chair by the railing. The city buzzed below, cars crawling through the streets, people laughing down the block, music playing somewhere distant, the same beat carrying through the humid air like it had been dancing along behind us all day.

The photo album sat on my lap, soft and heavy against my thighs.

I hadn't really had a chance to look at it earlier, not properly. We'd been surrounded by jokes and noise and warm hands brushing my shoulders, a constant stream of distractions I hadn't wanted to push away. But now, it was just me. The album. And the quiet.

I opened the cover slowly.

The pages crackled faintly with age, the plastic covers over each photo just starting to bubble at the corners. There were so many faces I didn't recognize—uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends of my mom's I'd probably met once at a barbecue when I was three. But her face appeared over and over. Laughing. Cooking. Wearing sunglasses too big for her face. Holding me as a baby with one arm while stirring something with the other. In each photo, she looked alive in a way that hurt to look at for too long.

My fingertips hovered over one picture of the two of us in a hammock, me curled against her chest, my hair a messy puff at the top of my head. She was smiling, mid-sentence, eyes soft, skin golden in the sun.

I swallowed hard.

Then something shifted beneath my hand.

A soft flutter, barely noticeable—like a breath.

I looked down and saw the edge of something poking out from between two thick pages. Carefully, I reached for it and tugged gently. It came loose with the faintest sound of paper brushing paper.

A folded piece of stationery.

The corners were worn and a little curled, the paper yellowed just slightly with time. My name was written on the front in familiar handwriting. Slanted. Neat. Warm.

For Sofía.

My breath caught.

The sounds of the city faded. The breeze stilled. The album slid off my lap as I brought the letter closer, holding it with both hands like it might dissolve if I touched it the wrong way.

It was hers.

There was no doubt.

My mother's handwriting. Her ink. Her words.

And for a long minute, I couldn't open it.

I just sat there with it pressed between my fingers, letting the weight of it settle in my chest. I blinked hard, then slowly unfolded it, careful, reverent.

The paper crackled slightly, and I read the first few words with my heart already in my throat.

Meu amor,

If you're reading this, then Teresa kept her promise. I'm not sure how old you are, or what version of yourself is holding this letter, but I hope you're sitting somewhere warm. Maybe in the sun, maybe with this album open on your lap and your heart wide open, the way it's always been.

I wanted you to have this one day, not because I think I won't get to tell you these things myself, but because I know how fast life moves. Sometimes we forget to say what matters until it's late and the moment's gone. So I'm saying it now.

This album is pieces of us. You, me, the people who came before, the streets that raised me, the hands that held me. I want you to know where you come from. I want you to see my smile before it ever knew yours. I want you to see yourself in all of it.

I hope you're seeing the Brazil I'm dreaming of showing you. The one I told you about when you were little; full of loud voices and street music and colors that don't make sense but still belong together. The smell of pão de queijo and grilled corn. The old ladies who call you meu bem before they even know your name. The heat that sticks to your skin but makes you feel alive.

I want to take you to all of it. I want to walk beside you, hand in hand, and tell you what every building meant, what every corner reminds me of. I want to hear your laugh echo in the places mine used to.

But just in case time gets away from us, just in case the years move faster than I expect, I want you to carry this with you. So when you're older, you'll have it. You'll feel it.

You've always been a curious girl. Sharp-eyed. Soft-hearted. Too clever for your own good. Sometimes I think you see the world too deeply for someone so young. It's a gift, but also a heavy one. That's why I'm writing this now. In case someday, somewhere, you need to feel steady again.

Because here's the truth, minha menina. You are not alone.

Even when you feel like you are. Even if you don't feel brave. Even if you don't feel strong. You are. I've seen it in you since the beginning. In the way you looked at me like you already knew everything I hadn't said yet.

You have that kind of heart. The kind that remembers.

If life ever feels confusing, or unfair, or if you ever feel like you don't belong anywhere... I hope you'll remember this: you belong to love. To a family who came before you. To laughter in kitchens and music in the streets. To warmth. To joy. To me.

You belong to every version of me who ever held you.

And you always, always will.

I don't know when you'll read this. I just know I believe in the woman you're becoming. And I'll wait for the day we walk these streets together, side by side. Until then, take this letter like a hug that waited patiently for you.

I love you more than anything I've ever been or will be.

Always,
Mamãe

By the time I reached the last line, my hands were trembling.

The paper lay open across my lap like something holy. The words swam slightly on the page, my tears blurring the ink even though I wasn't fully crying. Not yet. It was more like something had expanded inside me, slow, aching in a way that didn't hurt exactly, just reminded me that love, real love, never leaves quietly.

I sat there with her voice echoing through me, her handwriting curling in soft ink across the page like she'd written it yesterday, like she'd somehow known exactly what I'd need to hear years later, in a hotel in a city she'd once called home, with the streetlights flickering and my chest cracked wide open.

She'd called me minha menina. My girl.

And I could still hear it, not in my head, but in her voice. The way she used to say it when I was small, brushing the hair from my face after a nap, or scolding me gently for stealing mango slices off the cutting board too early, or singing quietly under her breath with me asleep on her shoulder.

Every sentence in that letter was stitched to something. A memory I didn't know I still carried. A smell. A rhythm. The sound of her laugh wrapped around syllables I hadn't heard in years. And somehow, reading it didn't make me feel like she was gone.

It made me feel like she was right there. Sitting beside me. Her leg brushing mine, her chin on my shoulder, whispering the words in my ear just as the city whispered under us.

I pressed the letter gently to my chest, not caring if my tears touched the paper now. My eyes were full. My throat burned. But it wasn't grief exactly. It was... the kind of sadness that felt warm at the edges. That let in air.

I stayed there like that for a long time. Long enough for the breeze to lift my hair off my neck. Long enough for the sound of the water in the bathroom to stop.

I didn't even realize Luka was out until the balcony door slid open.

He stepped out barefoot, a plain black T-shirt clinging to his chest, the fabric of his sweatpants low on his hips. His eyes found me instantly.

And something in his face shifted.

Not dramatically. But enough.

Enough to tell me I probably looked like I'd just lived a lifetime out here alone.

He didn't say anything right away.

Just stepped closer, slowly, carefully, like the air around me was fragile.

"What is it?" he asked, voice quiet, rough from the steam and the quiet.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn't come. So instead, I held the letter out toward him, my fingers hesitant but steady. He took it gently, his brow furrowed as he looked at the name on the front. Then he looked back at me. And something passed between us, an understanding, silent and full of weight.

I didn't need him to read it. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

I just needed him to know.

That something had broken and mended inside me at the same time.

That for the first time in so long, I didn't feel like I was searching for something anymore.

Because I'd found it.

Folded in a letter.

Waiting quietly in the past for me to arrive.

And when I looked up at him again, blinking past the tightness in my chest, Luka didn't fill the silence. He just sat down beside me, close enough that our knees brushed.

He didn't reach for my hand.

He didn't say I'm sorry or are you okay.

He just stayed.

And that, somehow, was everything.

Luka hadn't said anything since he sat down. He didn't fidget, didn't rush to fill the silence with small talk or jokes. He just sat next to me, quiet in a way that didn't feel distant. It felt... patient. Like he knew I needed space to breathe before anything else.

And when I finally spoke, it wasn't something deep or poetic.

"I forgot what her voice sounded like," I said softly, still looking out at the city, not him. "Not when she was singing or telling stories. Just... regular. Just asking me to come to the kitchen. Or telling me to put on sunscreen."

Luka didn't interrupt.

"I remembered everything around her," I said. "The way she stirred her coffee. The way she always wore two different earrings without noticing. But I couldn't hear her voice anymore, and I didn't realize how much that scared me until just now."

I turned slightly, just enough to look at him out of the corner of my eye.

"That letter brought it back. Just... all of it. The way she used to speak to me like I was older than I was. Like I could handle anything."

Luka was watching me, but not with pity. Just... attentiveness. The kind you don't realize you need until someone gives it.

"She really knew you," he said quietly.

I nodded, smiling faintly, even though my throat was still tight. "Yeah. Sometimes more than I did."

The breeze shifted again, brushing between us. The letter rested in his hands now, still folded. He hadn't asked to read it. I hadn't offered. But the weight of it was there, understood.

"Do you think it ever stops feeling like something's missing?" I asked, not even sure where the question came from. "Or do you just get used to carrying the empty parts?"

Luka leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. His voice was low, thoughtful. "I think maybe you just learn how to make space around it. Like... it doesn't stop being there, but eventually, it doesn't take up everything."

We didn't push that further. Not yet. But something about the way he said it made me wonder how many conversations we'd never had that were waiting quietly in the spaces between moments like this.

After a while, I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes briefly against the weight in my chest. Not heavy in a bad way. Just... full.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to leave without coming back again," I said.

"You shouldn't," he replied without hesitation. "This place... it fits you."

There was a pause. And then he added, his voice a little rougher, "You've been smiling all day. I didn't realize how much I'd missed seeing it until I couldn't stop noticing it."

My eyes opened. Slowly.

He wasn't looking at me anymore.

And I realized, all at once, that he was letting his guard down in the only way he knew how. Piece by piece. Never all at once.

So I didn't say anything to ruin it.

I just shifted a little closer. Not touching, but close enough that the space between us didn't feel like silence anymore.

But Luka shifted beside me.

"Come on," he said softly, standing. He didn't give me time to ask where. Just held a hand out toward me, palm open.

I looked up at him, hesitant. "It's late."

He didn't answer. Just raised a brow like he was daring me to say no.

So I didn't.

I slid my hand into his, and he closed his fingers around mine without saying a word.

We left the room quietly, our footsteps soft against the hallway tile. The rest of the hotel was hushed now, hallway lights dimmed. Luka didn't speak as we made our way down to the ground floor, his grip never tightening, never pulling, just... steady. A quiet invitation.

Instead of heading out through the main doors, he took a turn through a small side corridor I hadn't noticed before, past the spa and what looked like a shuttered bar, then out a side door that led us into a softly lit courtyard. The air hit warmer here, thicker with the scent of jasmine vines climbing the outer wall. String lights crisscrossed above the open space, but most were turned off, letting the stars own the sky tonight.

At the far end of the courtyard, nestled in a quiet pocket of grass framed by low stone and sand, there was a fire pit.

Luka crouched near it, flicking something beneath the stones with practiced ease. A moment later, soft orange flames crackled to life, casting dancing light across his face, shadows licking the angles of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone. He didn't look at me as he moved, but there was something deliberate in the way he lit it. Like this wasn't just an idea he had on a whim.

I sat on one of the rounded benches surrounding the pit, tucking my legs beneath me. The fire warmed my skin almost instantly, but it was the sky that pulled me in. Above us, the stars looked closer somehow, clearer. I tilted my head back, let the weight of everything that had happened settle into my chest, and breathed.

Luka sat beside me, not touching but close enough that the edge of his knee brushed mine when we shifted. The flames flickered softly between us, casting light that caught on his lashes, his wrist, the faint curve of a smile that wasn't quite formed yet.

"This reminds me of that night," I said quietly.

He looked at me.

"The cemetery," I clarified. "When you made me get out of bed."

He exhaled through his nose, something like a laugh. "Yeah. You didn't punch me, so I figured maybe I'd earned a second round."

I smiled faintly, turning my face toward the fire. "It was cold that night."

He nodded. "You looked like you were about to break."

My chest pulled tight. Not painfully. Just... honestly.

"You didn't ask me anything," I said. "You didn't even say much. Just sat there with me."

"That's usually when people need someone most," he said, voice quiet. "When they don't know what to say."

We sat there for a while, listening to the way the fire cracked and whispered into the night air. The stars above us blinked against the deep navy sky, no city lights to dim them here. Luka leaned back slightly, bracing his hands behind him and stretching his legs out toward the flames. He looked calm. Tired in a different way than usual. Not like he was carrying something too heavy, but like he'd finally set it down, even if just for a little while.

"You always do that," I said suddenly, softly.

"Do what?"

"Show up. When I need it. Even when I don't know I do."

His head tilted toward me, and his eyes met mine in the dark. They were hard to read, always were, but something behind them flickered at the edges, something quiet and steady and warm.

"I don't always get it right," he murmured. "But I pay attention."

I looked down at the flames, and for a long moment, I didn't say anything.

Then: "You got it right tonight."

We didn't need to say anything else. The air between us was full already of what we'd seen, what we hadn't said, and what was still lingering somewhere beneath the surface, waiting for its own moment to unfold.

I leaned back beside him, stretching my legs toward the fire like his.

And we stayed like that.

Not speaking.

Just breathing beneath the stars. Together.