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It was the 57th anniversary of the Madrigal miracle. A celebration the town took part in every year to show their gratitude towards the family that swore to always help those around them.
You, of course, we're going. Your best friend Mirabel had made sure that you wouldn’t dare get sick on the night, coming over every day to give you a bite of her mother’s cooking to keep you healthy and ready for an endless night of dancing and fun.
You picked out your nicest dress and made sure you looked your best before you joined the moving crowd of people who were making their way to the casita found on top of the moonlit hill.
As soon as you made it up the path you were almost tackled to the ground by the eccentric friend of yours coming in for a hug.
“Mirabel! Get off!” You laugh at the short-haired Madrigal, her arms tightly around you in a warm welcome.
“Never!” She snickers back.
“Come on! Don’t we have a celebration to get to?” You ask, trying to loosen her grip on you.
“Right, right, right. Vamos, come on!” Mirabel took your hand and led you into the casa Madrigal, the casita giving you a wave with the window shutters as you entered the green door.
You had been to the casita many times before, but usually only to hang out with Mirabel mostly. You had met a few of the other Madrigals, but most you only knew from seeing them help around town. You could remember them all by name, but other than that you weren’t super familiar with the rest of the Madrigals personally, other than Mirabel.
As Mirabel pulled you along into the house, you noticed how crowded the place was. There were a lot of people talking and celebrating outside, but on the inside seemed to be where the real party was at.
The whole casita was decorated in bright and beautiful colors. Unique plants and flowers were found everywhere, probably thanks to Isabela. Children were weaving through the crowd with party sparklers in their hands, running around with a contagious look of joy on their faces.
There was also music throughout the whole house, people dancing in the middle of the casita. Even the tiles and floor beneath your feet seemed to be moving to the beat.
All of it brought an excited smile to your face.
“I’m gonna go get us some drinks, no se mueva,” Mirabel says as she skips over to the kitchen, greeting and smiling at a few people along the way.
You stood in the shadows of the party, under the shade of the second-story floorboards. Too afraid to step into the light of the dance floor. Your chances of dancing were very slim. Instead, you just watched.
Your pupils darted around as you watched the colored lights flicker around the people on the dance floor. Their confidence was far superior to yours. You spotted some of the Madrigals making their presence known in the center of the casita, mostly Pepa and Félix with their swaying moves that were continuously unmatched every year.
You spotted young 13-year-old Antonio dancing amongst the crowd, birds seeming to join in around him. His older sister Dolores preferred to sit away from the music, her ears probably wouldn’t be able to take it, their mysterious yet seemingly harmless uncle Bruno joining them on the sidelines.
That was about all the Madrigals you could see out in the crowd at the moment. You guessed the others were probably in the kitchen or socializing outside of the house.
You told yourself that you wanted to socialize more tonight at this anniversary, get to know some of your best friend’s family. But starting conversations wasn’t exactly your strong spot, you kind of just hoped that Mirabel would introduce you or that one of them would recognize you and they would start the conversation.
So now all you were really doing was just waiting around for Mirabel to get back and hope you would actually meet some people.
And that’s when he walked in.
Camilo Madrigal.
The snarky cousin of Mirabel. A trickster some would call him.
You’d never properly met the guy, but you’d seen him around town plenty of times.
Mirabel herself said jokingly to stay away from him since he had become known as somewhat of a troublemaker over the past few years. But that somehow made you more interested in him, he was the one Madrigal you were most curious about meeting.
Your eyes followed him as he walked around the room, trying to catch his eyes from the sidelines as the music seemed to get louder along with your heartbeat that had synched to the rhythm of the music.
He had gotten a lot taller than you remembered, yet he mostly appeared the same. Even his clothes seemed almost identical to the ones he’d wear around back in his teen years. Still the same handsome Camilo. You couldn’t deny it even if you wanted to, he was very attractive.
“Here ya go,” Mirabel says at your side, handing you your drink as you took it in hand, hoping she ignored how you jumped a little at her unexpected presence. “Soooo what’s up?”
“Eh, nothing much. Or at least nothing as interesting as whatever you guys do up here in your magical house,” You reply, your eyes guiding away from Mirabel’s smiling expression. “How about you?”
As Mirabel started to go on a rant about how Isabela had blocked her window with flowers or something else she was mad about as your attention slipped away into the crowd, taking small sips of your drink as you pretended to pay attention to whatever she was saying.
Your eyes didn’t take long until they were back on the tall and handsome Camilo. You couldn’t help it; he was very eye-catching. He was talking with what seemed to be family friends off near the edge of the dance floor.
You couldn’t take your eyes off him as Mirabel’s rambling faded in the distance of your mind.
At one point he had spotted you staring, your face starting to go a bit red as he looked at you. But instead of giving you an odd stare as anyone would when they caught a stranger looking at them, he instead just gave you a polite nod and charming smile.
You didn’t even know if he was looking at you at that point, but it seemed so once he gave you a small wave.
And you didn’t want to seem rude, so you gave him a small awkward wave back.
He gave another small smile before turning his attention back to whatever conversation he was engaging in. Your hand is still stuck in the air from where it was waving a few seconds ago.
“Are you even listening?” Mirabel’s voice made itself present as you jumped.
“Ah er yes!” You awkwardly fumble over your words as you look at your now annoyed friend.
“Nuh-uh! No, you weren’t,” She accused, “You were busy making bug eyes at Camilo!”
Your face grew warmer, “I was not!”
Mirabel shook her head; she could always tell when you were lying. Sometimes you thought her real gift was being a human lie detector, she just knew whenever something was up.
“What’s so much more interesting about my troublesome cousin that you had to ignore my very interesting conversation to catch a glimpse of him? Hm?” She dramatically asked, “What, do you have a crush on him or something?”
“What? No no no! Don’t be ridiculous!” You say, your face still managing to grow warmer and redder. You knew that denying it was no use, she would know.
“You do!” Mirabel’s face turns into an almost evil grin as she points an accusatory finger at you. “You like Camilo!” she tries to whisper, but her excitement seems to betray her. You hoped that Dolores couldn’t hear all this over the music and crowd.
You look away, trying to hide your embarrassed face. You awkwardly sip at your drink, almost choking as you swallow. Yes, you liked Camilo. Just a little bit though, since you never really knew the guy, even if you really wanted to. It was just a silly little crush.
Surprisingly you don’t get a snarky response to this news from Mirabel, no laughing in your face, no trying to embarrass you more, no nothing.
In fact, when you turned your head back to where she was standing you found that she was not there. Instead, she had managed to make her way across the dance floor and was now talking to Camilo, her hand cupped next to her mouth as if she was telling him a secret, her other hand pointing in your direction.
You had never felt more mortified than that very moment. Your face felt as if you were in the middle of a burning firepit.
Camilo looks back at you, you felt as if your body had the worst sunburn all over. His green eyes were the most mesmerizing shade of moss green, though at this moment you wished he was looking anywhere else but you.
You turned to Mirabel who was simply just giving you a thumbs up with a smug grin. Realizing that Camilo was now making his way over to you from the other side of the dance floor.
Your heartbeat sounded deafening; it was louder than the music. You were going to kill Mirabel after this.
“Hey.”
He was talking to you.
“I er uh...Hi,” You couldn’t even seem to greet him correctly.
You needed to pull yourself together, act like a normal person. You didn’t even know the guy, there was nothing to be afraid of.
“So, my cousin over there, Mirabel, said that you wanted to talk to me?” Camilo was a lot taller up close. You knew he was tall before, but now he was basically towering over you, which just made you more nervous.
“She did?” You ask, not sure what to say.
“Yep, why?” Camilo replies, giving you an unsure glance, “Did you not want to talk to me?”
“Oh no no! I um-” Your words just kept falling out of your mouth. Maybe you would’ve been better prepared if Mirabel had introduced you or had at least given you a warning beforehand.
“Look, let’s start over,” he says, noticing how stressed you have become. “I am Camilo Madrigal. You’re Mirabel’s friend, right?”
“Yeah,” You say, trying to keep the conversation going, “Uh Thank you for your service, you know, around town.”
“Trust me, you should be thanking anyone but me. Shapeshifting is a lot easier than you think,” Camilo explains, demonstrating his gift by swiftly turning into you.
“Hey! Don’t you need permission to do that or something?” You stared at his accurate copy of you.
He ignores your questions and focuses more at look at himself, or well yourself. “Not bad, not bad,” he says.
“Not bad?” You scoff, crossing your arms as you look at him. Seriously, did this guy know how to talk to women?
He shifts back into his normal self and gives a look of confusion before his eyes widen a little in realization. “Calm down, I was talking about the dress,” He explains.
You roll your eyes, taking another sip of your drink as you look away.
“So, uhm…You want to dance?” he asks, his voice sounding hopeful. Him being a Madrigal meant that dancing was in his bloodline, but even hearing him ask sounded strange. He was asking you if you wanted to dance with him?
“Oh no no no, I’m not much of a dancer,” you say, shaking your head.
“Nonsense!” He replies, almost laughing at your response, “Everyone can dance!”
“Not me!” You reply, “Or at least not in public.”
He stares at you as if you were insane like you were the weird one for not wanting to dance in front of a bunch of people. But his face soon changes back to his charming smile.
“Here, I know a place,” he says, holding out a hand for you to take.
At first, you felt like rejecting his offer, not wanting to embarrass yourself more than you already had. But then you remember that you were trying to make friends when coming to this party, and this was a pretty good opportunity to get to know the person who you had had a small crush on for a while now.
So, you take his hand.
He smiles before pulling you through the crowd and out of the house, weaving through different people he seemed to know as he gave them all polite acknowledging nods as he leads you to the back of the house.
“Who’s the tallest person in this town?” He asks you abruptly.
“Uhh Diego, I suppose?” You reply, very confused why he’d ask such a question.
Before you knew it, Camilo was no longer leading you to the back of the house but instead was the very tall Diego. Camilo had turned into him. His hand slips away from yours as he turns to pull himself onto the roof of the casita with ease.
You peered up at him, his face changing back from Diego to Camilo as he holds out his hand again to help you up. This just made you more and more curious as you took his hand and climbed onto the roof next to him.
“Come on,” He whispers, his voice almost snickering.
You follow him up to the top of the roof, watching how the stars seem to shine a little brighter up here. You noticed all the candles and lanterns that shone dimly throughout the town, it was quite beautiful. You could even still hear the music from in the house very clearly.
The only problem is that you almost fell off the roof by not paying attention to where you were stepping.
You’re lucky to find that Camilo caught you before you fell to your death but noticing how red you were turning again by simply being in his arms made you wish you fell to avoid this embarrassing situation. But he didn’t seem to mind.
“Now, I’ll ask you again. Do you want to dance?” Camilo offers his hand.
“Are you crazy? Up here?” You say, looking to see if he was joking or not.
“I might be,” He replies, shrugging his shoulders, “Come on! It’ll be fun. No one will notice us.”
“Are you sure? There are a lot of people down there,” You gesture to the crowd celebrating and chattering outside of the Madrigal home.
“I’m sure they won’t mind,” Camilo had enough of holding his hand out and took matters into his own hands by grabbing yours, quickly spinning you around into a dancing sway as you yelped.
At first, his dance moves were just wild and almost brash; he was just doing his own thing as he carefully moved along the top of the roof, letting go of your hand. But as soon as he noticed you weren’t moving along with him and instead were just sort of watching, he decided that was no good.
He placed his hands on your waist as your hands instantly shot up to his shoulders, in a slow-dance sort of position. He carefully moved around, trying to get you to dance along with him as he decided to distract you with conversation.
“You strike me as someone who doesn’t really get out much,” he says, his feet moving to the rhythm.
“Is it really that obvious?” You reply with an awkward smile, trying to match his rhythm.
He lets out a small laugh, his smug smile staying on his face. “it’s alright, just means you need someone around here to get you out of your comfort zone. Show you how to live a little.”
“Oh?” You say, knowing full well he’s referring to himself.
“You know, maybe some ruggedly handsome, tall, gifted person who also happens to know everything about living your life to the fullest,” Camilo says smugly, seeming to tower over you more than beforehand.
“If you find him, tell me. I’d love to meet them,” You reply, returning his smug grin.
He snickers before wiping that dumb grin off your face by swiftly spinning and dipping you off the edge of the roof, his hands securely on your back to stop you from falling. Your face was nothing but shock as your arms hold onto his back for dear life.
So, this is what Mirabel meant by ‘troublesome’.
“Are you crazy?!” You almost yell, still clinging onto him for dear life.
“As I said before, maybe,” He chuckles, pulling you up and letting you back on your feet.
Instead of standing up, you just topple onto him. Your legs shaking way too much to stand as you hold onto him. He catches you as you fall onto him and looks down at you.
“Maybe you aren’t ready to step outside of your comfort zone just yet,” He says, “Come on, let’s get you down from up here.”
Camilo helps you off the roof, your legs still shaking quite a bit. Although, part of you actually enjoyed that. It was exhilarating, sort of like how you felt around Camilo.
“You should probably go find Mirabel, she’s probably more ‘normal’ company to be around,” he explains, gesturing you in the direction of his cousin.
“Uh thanks for that,” You say to him, “that was…fun.”
He smiles, looking down at you from his tall frame, “If you ever want to do it again, you know where to find me.”
You nod, feeling your face flush once again.
“See you around señora,” He chuckles before taking your hand and placing a soft kiss on it, your skin heating up at his touch. And then he was off, disappearing into the party.
“See you…” You mumble back before you make your way back into the casita to find Mirabel.