Early the next morning, Paula Rouco was mercilessly plucked from her dreamland by Severo Laris.
“Let me sleep a little longer.”
A little woman fell back down with tousled hair.
Severo Laris looked at someone who had fallen asleep in bed and said, “If you don’t make the eight o’clock train, your family will find out you lied, so if you’re not afraid of the consequences, you can go back to sleep.”
“…”
The little bedfellow stands up startled, disheveled and half-sitting up, his hair disheveled like a little lunatic.
Severo Laris hooked his thin lips and reached over to her, reaching out to rub her even more disheveled hair.
“Get up, I’ve made breakfast.”
Paula Rouco washed, ate breakfast and greeted Modeste.
Modeste stood in the doorway and motioned to them, “Paulita, come play more often!”.
“Auntie, I will definitely come back more often.”
After Severo Laris dropped Paula Rouco off at the station, Severo Laris went to the queue to buy a ticket and returned handing it to her.
Outside the station plaza, there are strawberry vendors for sale.
Paula Rouco looked at the beautiful and delicious colorful strawberries and tugged Severo Laris’ sleeve with her little hand.
“Severo, I want to eat strawberries. ”
Severo Laris turned his head to look at her and frowned a little, “That’s not clean, what if you eat them and get diarrhea?”
“How can strawberries be unclean, I ate them all the time when I was a kid.”
Severo Laris didn’t mind that she looked at her with such expectation and went to buy her some strawberries.
Paula Rouco took the bunch of strawberries and ate them with relish and popped them into Severo Laris’ mouth, “Do you want to try one?”
“You eat.” Naturally, Severo Laris reached out and touched the back of her neck.
Severo Laris looked at his watch and saw that it was 7. 30, not early enough to go inside to wait for the bus.
“Come in.”
Severo Laris escorted Paula Rouco to the queue and stood outside the railing as she came to the door to check tickets.
Paula Rouco entered and ran back to this side of the railing, tiptoed across the short railing and gave Severo Laris a quick kiss on the lips.
The kiss, sticky, seemed to taste like strawberries, tart and sweet.
Severo Laris looked at the small figure walking away with her little red-haired school bag, her eyes gentle and her gaze full of affection.
…
Paula Rouco, who had returned to La Ciudad Santa, was able to hide her from Adam Rouco and Estrella Berrocal thanks to Susana’s collaboration.
She had just entered her bedroom and had crawled into bed to catch up on sleep when Lucio Rouco knocked on the door.
“Sister, Brother Angelo asked you to come out tonight.”
Paula Rouco pulled the blanket over her head, drowsy and moaning under the covers, “No va no va, I’m dying of sleep.”
Lucio Rouco arrived and said, “How can it be, Brother Angelo asked me to convey to you that he had something important to tell you tonight.”
“What can’t we talk about on the phone?”
“Brother Angelo can’t invite you to dinner over the phone, can he? 7 p. m., revolving restaurant, you must go ah.”
Paula Rouco wrapped herself in the sheets and covered her ears, “That’s it, out, I want to sleep!”.
Lucio Rouco exits the bedroom, closes the door and bumps into Estrella Berrocal.
Estrella Berrocal looked towards the door and asked, “What is your sister doing?”.
“Say you are sleepy and go to sleep.”
“What are you doing so sleepy at Susana’s house?”
Lucio Rouco threw out a comment, “These two sexes. I’m sure they’re hiding under the sheets, reading porn. Books.”
The corner of Estrella Berrocal’s mouth twitched as she stifled a laugh and raised her hand to smack her son’s arm. “Your sister doesn’t want to lose face if you’re pounding her behind her back like that.”
Lucio Rouco raised his eyebrows in disbelief, “My sister is like that, she wants to save face, she beats me in bed all the time, if it wasn’t because she is a woman, I would have beaten her to a pulp.”
“If you dare to hit your sister on the head of a pig, your father will cripple you, believe it or not.”
Lucio Rouco shook his shoulders, “I can’t afford to screw up.”
Does he still have a place in this family?
…
Paula Rouco arrived at the revolving restaurant shortly after seven in the evening.
When she reached the top floor, Angelo was already seated at the table waiting for her and hurried over to her.
“I overslept, and there was an afternoon rush hour traffic jam on the way, how long did you wait for me?”
Angelo got up and walked behind her to help her pull up a chair as he said, “It didn’t take long, I just got here too.
How could he possibly be such an idiot as to say he had been sitting here for a whole hour waiting.
“By the way, why did you suddenly invite me to dinner today, and to such a fancy restaurant?”
Paula Rouco looked around the room and suddenly realized that on the top floor, on this level, they were the only table.
Paula Rouco’s eyes twitched at the corners, “Angelo, you’re not packing your bags, are you?”
Angelo looked at her fondly, “What do you think, do you like it?”.
Paula Rouco took one more look at the candle flame burning on the western table and almost gagged, “What kind of candlelight dinner are you inviting me to on a fine day, with a private table, and frankly, you’re asking me for something?”
“I can’t invite you to a candlelight dinner because I’m begging you for nothing?”
Angelo pushed the menu, “See what you want to eat and order what you want.”
Paula Rouco ordered a lot of food.
When the starters and steaks arrived, Paula Rouco said as she ate, “The food at this restaurant, it’s pretty good, I’ll recommend it to my parents.”
“As you wish.”
Angelo took a few bites and then lost his mind, worried about the confession.
He wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin and sat up straighter, looking odd in his deliberate seriousness, “Paulita.”
“Hmm?” Paula Rouco cut her plate of steak and ate with gusto, without looking up.
Angelo pulled a diamond ring from the ice, stood up and knelt before Paula Rouco.
“Paulita, let’s get engaged.”
Paula Rouco froze, the knife and fork in her hand fell onto the plate with a crunch.
Paula Rouco looked around and saw a musician standing a short distance away with a violin.
The mood was good.
But she was stunned.
“Angelo, what are you doing, is it April Fool’s Day?”
“Paulita, I’m serious, we’ve been together since we were kids, childhood friends, and it was only a matter of time before I fell in love, got engaged and married you.”
Paula Rouco looked at him stunned, embarrassed and overwhelmed, “Angelo, do you want to get up first?”.
Angelo didn’t get up, he lifted the diamond ring and said firmly, “Paulita, I like you, I’ve liked you since I was a child. Do you want to stay with me, be my girlfriend, my fiancee?”
Or even a wife.
“…” Her brain went blank for a few seconds.
After a long moment, Paula Rouco swallowed saliva and said, “Angelo, we’ve always been good friends and I’ve always treated you like an iron magnet, I never wanted to be your girlfriend, let alone your fiancee.”
“So you don’t like me?”
She lightly curled her thick eyelashes and said, “I like you, but it’s between friends, I’ve never had any bad Thoughts, I like hanging out with you, but that’s just friendship.”
Angelo pursed his thin lips, a sharp trace of loss crossed his eyes and he took a deep breath, “It’s okay, you don’t accept me now, it’s okay, there’s plenty of time for that in the future.”
Angelo stood up, the diamond ring clenched in his hand.
“Angelo, I’m in love with someone.”
Angelo’s form stiffened for a moment, “Yes…. who is it?”
“Severo Laris, you met him at the airport the other day. But you can’t tell my parents, my parents won’t let me have a relationship right now.”
“Are you together?”
Paula Rouco wasn’t lying and nodded truthfully, “He’s my boyfriend now.”
Angelo gave a fake lighthearted smile, “It’s okay, he’s just a boyfriend, you’re not married to him, I still have a chance at a fair fight.”
“But…”
Before she could say anything, Angelo had already interrupted her, “Besides, this prince, I’m a beautiful and elegant man, dare you guarantee that you won’t really fall in love?”
“… Angelo.”
“Don’t comfort me, I’m fine.”
Paula Rouco: “I … I’m not trying to comfort you.”
“Paulita, can we remain good friends from now on?”
Paula Rouco was secretly relieved, “Of course we can, we’ve grown up with a friendship that can’t be dismissed out of hand.”
Angelo laughed easily at this.
He had never confessed, probably because he was afraid of rejection. He didn’t seem to care about anything, but his heart was sensitive and fragile, and he feared that if he confessed, he wouldn’t even be friends with her.
On the way home, Angelo was driving and Paula Rouco sat in the passenger seat.
The Holy City is a night of lights, enveloping, floating light streaming through the window and reflecting off her pretty baby face.
Angelo looked at her and finally couldn’t help but speak, “What’s so good about Severo… what’s so good about him that you like him so much?”
Paula Rouco pondered for a moment and said, “Well … he’s handsome and a school god, many girls in our school think of him as their ideal boyfriend.”
“But he’s not the only one who has reached that level, so how am I, Angelo, inferior to him?”
Angelo even thinks he is better than this Severo Laris, I don’t know how much better than the general conditions.
Severo Laris’ family background, at least, is poor enough, to be out of this world at all, in the eyes of families like Angelo and Paula Rouco.
Paula Rouco looked at him with a smile and threw out, “It is enough that he is the best in my heart; in a thing like affection, if only the best were chosen, there would not be many couples in the world, I’m afraid, because the best would have already been chosen by someone else.”
“Paulita, I’m afraid he’s approaching you with an ulterior motive, he’s so poor, in case he just wants to borrow from you…”
Before Angelo could finish his sentence, Paula Rouco grimaced and rightly said, “Angelo, I forbid you to denigrate him like that.”
“… I’m not denigrating him, I’m also thinking reasonably, he doesn’t want anything, how can he give you the same privileged life in The Rouco Family in the future, I think he probably wants to use you to get on Uncle Adam’s big boat by being with you. ”
“Angelooooo! Stop the car!”
“Paulita, come on, I’m imagining reasonable things, okay?”
Paula Rouco scowled at him, “Severo Laris is my boyfriend and I forbid you to talk about him like that! Stop the car.”
The blue Maserati, with a screech, behaved magnificently and steadily to a stop.
Paula Rouco opened the door and got out of the car, hailed a cab and got in, and Angelo got out of the car too late to chase her.
Angelo slammed the steering wheel as he sat back in the car, furious, “Grrrrr!”.