119. Two Steps

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"There she is!"

"Finally!"

"Man, you're soaking wet!"

"Here, have a drink to warm up."

Silvia spotted him right away. All the way across the bar with Miyen, hands in his pockets, his black cap down to his eyes, keeping his face in the shadows. She paused to say hi to those closer to her, giving her heart a chance to stop hammering her chest. As if. He was watching her, completely still, like a ghost of himself.

Sean and Jo were sitting at a table with her cousin Leandro, Karim and some more. Jo jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Silvia's neck with one of her bright grins. They hugged tightly. When Jo stepped back, Silvia nodded hi at Sean. He nodded back without the slightest trace of a smile, for a change.

"Silvia! Listen!"

It was AC/DC's Back in Black. Some of her friends pushed her to the middle of the bar, and she headbanged with them for a moment. She managed to retreat from the dancing group and resumed her way to the end of the bar, feeling Sean's eyes drilling the back of her neck and Jim staring at her from under the shadow of his cap. Stubborn target of that crossed fire, she wasn't willing to let the brothers win that battle. So she blinked all she wanted, saying hi, hugging and kissing friends on her way. Miyen stood by Jim, looking ready and willing to play the double part of judge and executioner.

"Let me help you, Mother Superior," said Karim, coming to her when she stopped by the heap of jackets on the last table, only three or four steps away from Jim.

Silvia thanked her friend for helping her out of her dripping jacket and let Karim hang it from the coat rack on the wall. She breathed deep and turned around, finally face to face with Jim.

She saw the tight smile pursing his thin lips and realized, utterly puzzled, he didn't expect to be welcome. Miyen stepped up to kiss her cheek.

"Call me if you need me," he said.

She nodded and waited for him to walk away with Karim toward Sean's table.

Silvia and Jim looked at each other with a deceiving lack of hurry, studying each other, reading a world of bittersweet truths and answers waiting for questions that would never be asked.

There he was, hands still in his pockets, those dreadful eyes hardly outlined under the cap, his lips pursed in that little smile, halfway between sad and daring. He'd come fifteen thousand miles to see if she was willing to take the two steps left between them. And he looked like he could wait the rest of his life until she did.

Silvia was struggling to not jump into his arms and hug him and laugh and cry and scream out of joy and frustration and surprise. It was so upsetting, that only by being there he made everything spin around her like that. She tried another deep breath, annoyed because he was just standing there, all of his light suddenly gone. She would've punched him and pushed him and shouted in his face, until she got at least a spark from him. She hated that shadowy cloak he'd wrapped himself in, never asking for her permission to stop shining like she always wanted him to.

Still processing so many mixed emotions pumping in her blood, Silvia just stepped up and locked her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his chest, eyes tightly shut. A chill made her shiver from head to toes when his arms circled her back and she felt his heart race like hers.

She didn't move, shaken to the bone. How could've she forgotten what it felt like, having him near? It was a voltaic charge, everything he'd ever made her feel swelling upon her, making her feel so alive. It was him, there, flesh and bones, not just another dream she would force herself to forget the moment she opened her eyes.

Jim held her tight and kissed her hair without a word. He felt her shiver and could only hold her tighter, biting his tongue to keep from saying anything that would make her step away from him. Having her in his arms again was the most intense and soothing thing he'd felt in ages. Something he'd never expected to feel, so he wanted to keep feeling it to overcome his surprise and get used to it.

But soon she tried to step away and looked up at him, showing him one finger.

"I really need a beer," she said, dead serious.

Jim just nodded, letting her step back and studying her, trying to guess what she would do next. She nodded too and disappeared among the people toward the counter.

Jim sank his hands in his pockets again, waiting. Her hug, her chill, her racing heart was much more than he'd dared to expect. However, he knew all that actually meant nothing. It'd been the rush of the surprise, nothing more.

But Silvia was soon back by his side. She offered him beer and stayed with him, facing the room. She told him about the birthday get-together and commented it was about to snow, surely the last off-season snowfall of the year. She waved Claudia over to give her the candle and traded some joke with her.

She behaved as if she'd known he would be there, as if it was natural that they would be together at that party. And everybody did the same. All them metal heads that didn't know who he was. For them, he was their friend's friend, and that was enough to welcome him to the gang for the night.

Jim had no idea what she was doing or why, so he just went with the flow to try to find out where it led. He was surprised to see her interactions with her friends were full of physical affectionate gestures. The opposite to the way she'd always been around him, which had convinced him that she didn't like that kind of physical contact.

That got him to think maybe she was trying to show him things he didn't have any other way to know, but being with her in her own turf. And since it was an encouraging idea, he held on to it.

All of a sudden, a long-haired blond boy came to grab Silvia's hand and dragged her to dance a furious rockanroll in Spanish that had everybody singing along on top of their lungs.

Jim tilted his head. Yeah, he recognized the boy. He was wearing a heavy chain mail at Silvia's birthday party, and he'd danced the second waltz with her. Many of the faces around rang a bell from her pictures.

Most of the group stood up to dance, Claudia among them, taking Jo with her. Jim saw his brother had been left alone at the table and went to sit opposite him in no hurry. Sean pushed his beer toward Jim.

"So? What now?" he asked, watching Jo dance

Jim shrugged. "You tell me. You brought me here." He chuckled when he saw Sean's face. "Kidding, bro. I know exactly what I'm gonna do."

Sean shot a suspicious look at him. "Which is?"

"Whatever she wants, of course."

"Pathetic corny asshole," grunted his brother.

Everybody danced their butts off for three more songs, until the music changed. Sean sat up when he heard the next song. Silvia came to the table with her cousin Leandro, Claudia, Jo, Miyen and Karim.

"Good thing Miyen had some Eminem in his phone," said Jo to Sean with a wink.

"Silvia told me you like him," said Miyen, shrugging. "I like him too."

Silvia missed Sean's appreciative look at her, too busy pushing Jim against the wall to make room for her and Claudia on the bench.

Jim raised his arm and let it come down to rest around Silvia's shoulders. Soon he had a growing feeling of déjà vu. It took him a moment to realize why. It was just like back in Buenos Aires, hanging out with his friends, no formalities, no pretending, no need to be isolated from the others to feel they were together.

An hour and a river of homebrew later, the bar manager turned off the music and lowered the lights, for them to sing the happy birthday while Claudia brought the cake with the candle on. They put their drinks aside for about five minutes to wolf down the cake and the party went on.

Jo saw Jim steal a bite from Silvia's slice of cake and felt what she'd already experienced in Buenos Aires. They'd been apart for six months, yet they behaved like they'd last seen each other a couple of days earlier. Like being together was their natural state, no matter the situation. She turned to tell Sean about it and noticed the raindrops outside the window looked thicker and sort of white, blown in slanted sheets by the wind.

"Did you notice there's a storm every time they meet?" she said instead.

Sean glanced out and shook his head slightly. "Don't say," he grunted.

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