Paula Rouco half slumped over the bar, her fingers sliding unsteadily toward Severo Laris.
When she picked up the phone, Paula Rouco, in a drunken tone, asked in a loud, arrogant voice, “Hello, Severo?”
Severo Laris, on the other end of the phone, didn’t sound quite right to Paula Rouco, and there was a lot of noise on the other end of the phone reaching the ears, which, combined with her drunken tone, was immediately reminiscent of a bar.
“Where are you?” asked Severo Laris with a frown.
“Humph! What do you care where I am! I’m telling you Severo! As of today! I don’t like you anymore, Severo! As of today! I hate you! I’ll never like you again!”
He’s full of nonsense.
Susana laughed as she listened to her, giving her a thumbs up and admiring, “Good job Goddess Paulita! Let’s get Severo out of the way!”.
“OK, out!”
Paula Rouco was so drunk and dizzy that she lost control of her phone and dropped it on the bar.
She too collapsed completely onto the bar, her eyes closed, her little mouth chanting, “Severo … I don’t want to like you anymore … …”
But why is it that even when I’m drunk, I still feel so sad, so sad that my heart feels like it’s been covered with an airtight plastic bag, so stuffy.
On the other end of the phone, there was no sound, and Severo Laris’ frown deepened.
“Paula Rouco? Paulita?”
All I got was a drunken grunt from the girl, “Severo… don’t call me that! You can’t call me … no… you don’t like me…. leave me alone!”
“…”
Severo Laris’ face darkened.
“Paula, where the hell are you?”
At this point Paula Rouco was not half conscious and incredibly willful, “Hmph, I won’t tell you! I won’t tell you … who made you not like me … I don’t want to talk to you … go away!”
The little girl’s little hand shook a little and she touched the hang up button on the phone screen.
She called and hung up.
Severo Laris grabbed his phone, not wanting to disturb, but the act had slowed his sanity.
The mind is full of her a girl in a drunk bar, if she is bullied …
Suddenly she remembered the Milagros case and her eyes glazed over.
In a place like a bar, where people are mixed, it is not uncommon for drugs to be put in the drinks.
The more Severo Laris thought about it, the more frightened he became, and for a moment a cold sweat broke out on the palms of his hands.
Just as he was about to leave the house, the phone rang again and it was Rufio calling.
“Hey Severo, I saw Paulita and her friend at the bar my family owns, both girls were very drunk.”
Severo Laris’ eyes fluttered, “Which bar, I’m going to now.”
“Bar Extremo, hurry up and come here, these two girls were almost stripped a moment ago, luckily I saw it.”
…
Severo Laris took a cab straight to Bar Extremo.
It’s almost autumn and it’s already getting a little cooler in Imperial, but Severo Laris arrives at the bar with a layer of sweat on his forehead.
When he entered the bar and saw her sleeping peacefully on her back, the dust finally settled in his tumultuous heart.
Under Severo Laris’ gaze, calm and serenity returned.
He reached out and caught up with a drunken Paula Rouco, calling to her, “Paula, wake up!”
“And don’t you dare yell, I just heard from the waiter that these two girls have had about ten cups of Long Island Iced Coffee and probably won’t wake up from their sleep until tomorrow night!”.
Severo Laris blushed coldly and said, “You’re coming with me to take them both back to my place.”
Rufio took one look at Susana in his arms and said, “How are they going to sleep together at your house? Take Paulita back, I’ll get her a room at the hotel.”
Severo Laris warns, “Susana is Paula’s best friend, so you better not come up with anything weird.”
Rufio blurts out, “I’m such an asshole, Severo, am I your brother, do I have to be?”.
Severo Laris is a man who trusts Rufio’s character, otherwise he would not have been such a good friend, and he would have opened a law firm together and become a brother in arms.
After the parting of the ways.
Severo Laris carries a drunken Paula Rouco on his back through the streets of Imperial in early autumn.
It’s just after 10 p. m. in Imperial and the streets are still buzzing with activity.
The person on her back suddenly cried, sobbing, speaking in words that I don’t know if they were wine or sleep, “Severo … why don’t you like me … I am not pretty? I think I am more handsome than Engracia … but why can’t you see me…”
Severo Laris’ heart ached as he listened to the little girl’s sobbing voice and looked sideways at the small, flushed face resting against the back of his neck.
“It’s me who doesn’t deserve it.
He has to work very, very, very hard not to have to look up to the circle she is in. Maybe, struggling and striving and working all his life, he won’t be able to keep up with the circumstances she has.
How can a bird of prey, flying freely through the sky, look down on a lowly, weak fish in a pond?
The girl, with her back turned, sniffled and choked, “Severo … you asked me how long I could like you …. what if I told you … that I could like you all the time? I mean it… I mean it…”
But he was only eighteen, he had just begun to shine, his exciting life hadn’t even begun, and what he now said he liked, would he look back on this affection he felt for him in another five, seven or ten years and think it wasn’t worth it, as if it were a joke.
He lived in a world where there were so many good people from good families who were good in their own right, and he must not be the best he had ever known, he was so good, so good that Severo Laris dared not blaspheme.
“Paulita,” Severo Laris lowered his voice and called to the man at his back.
I thought he wouldn’t hear me, but instead he gave a confused “mmm.”
“You deserve better than that.”
The small hand around his neck, tightened, and the girl on his back mumbled, “But I just like you. stern, I just like you…”
In love, there is no such thing as a better person, let alone a worthy one, and to hell with that, she likes him now and wants nothing more than him!
…
Paula Rouco was restless all the way, fidgeting in Severo Laris’ arms.
He struggled to carry her home, put her on his bed and coaxed her in a low voice: “Stay still, I’m going to get a basin of hot water.”
Paula Rouco lies on her back on all fours, feeling uncomfortable in any way she can sleep.
Waiting for Severo Laris to fetch a basin of hot water from the bathroom, only to discover that the person on the bed was gone.
“Paula?”
Severo Laris walked over to see that the little sister had rolled to the floor, but was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands on her knees, looking up at him in amazement.
Severo Laris put down the basin of hot water in his hand, knelt down, bent down to look at her, and asked patiently, “What’s wrong?”
The girl mumbled with a small mouth, reached out her hand and pointed to her forehead, her dark eyes were misty and she said in a brittle voice: “I fell on my head, it hurts!”.
Severo Laris froze and hurried to check, reaching out and touching him.
Paula Rouco, drunk and more like a toddler, squirmed in his arms, rubbed her little face against him and said, “Ouch, hoo hoo hoo.”