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Everything was still spinning in her eyes, as she tried to balance out her breathing. She could not afford to have a panic attack right now. She couldn’t… 

In and out. Just breathe. Why had she been under an impression that she was able to keep her panic attacks under control? She took another shaky breath. 

The spinning started to slow down and she could not hear her racing heart so loudly anymore. The attack had started to subside and Nina was able to take a deep breath again. 

She ran her hands through her hair and tears started falling down her face. Why was this happening to her?  Why had the video gotten to her like that, she… she knew why. She just had been convincing herself that it was not true, it could have not been true anymore…

…what was so wrong with her that she was not able to get over it? Over him. She already should have, she thought she had. But just those unexpected glimpses —why had she even been caught up off guard? She knew that he had been there, she had also been there— had brough such a surge of emotions… just like when she had heard his voice again after so many months, a months ago. Everything had just come crashing back. The joy, the pain, the way she missed him… she still did, because she love—

NO! No, no no. She could not do this, she had Eric…

…Eric— What was she doing? She did not know. She didn’t know anything. More tears came from her eyes. 

How had it come to this?

“Nina?” Suddenly she heard a voice from behind her.

***

Matteo was walking around the grounds of the mansion with Luna after they had all sung happy birthday to her and the girls had showcased that video. The party was still going strong, and the energy was still being super high. Knowing Luna, the party would definitely go on until midnight if not longer. 

Matteo's own mood didn’t exactly reflect everyone else’s, but he was able to keep it to himself. It was Luna’s day after all, and he did love seeing her so happy, and Luna really was having time of her life, basically leaping on every step she took. 

“Wasn’t the video so nice?” Luna asked after trying to do a pirouette in heels on the grass, and almost falling on her face onto said grass. “I legit almost cried. We have been through so much, and so many adventures are to come, as long as we are all siempre juntos.”

“Yeah, it was nice,” Matteo agreed, lowering his head just slightly, “if only we were all together,” he said mostly to himself. Yes, it was true that the video had dampened his mood. It just brought back some memories and it was not the easiest seeing the footage of all the times with Gastón. 

They hadn’t talked that much during the past month after that call about Nina and Eric. Gastón was clearly closing himself off, even towards Matteo. Matteo knew Gastón and knew that being in denial was never good for him. He was not coming back to Buenos Aires for the summer, saying that he had gotten a coveted internship at London and could not afford to miss it… well he was the son of Isla and Marco Perida after all.

He had made sure Luna had invited Gastón to the party, but he had declined, even if it would have only been for couple days. Matteo though knew the real reason why he was keeping himself at the other side of the Atlantic. 

“What did you say?”

“Oh nothing.”

“Do you see Nina anywhere?” Luna asked looking around

“Hmmm,” Matteo said glancing around. Eric seemed to be talking to Simon and Pedro, so Nina at least was not with him. “I don’t know, maybe she went to the bathroom or something, don’t worry.”

“Oh I am not, just wondering,” Luna shrugged, “I feel like she kind of vanished after the video. I wanted to ask her opinion on it.”

“She’ll probably come back soon.”

“Hopefully. Because this party got me thinking about that we should have a graduation party…”

“Luna, grandpa wants a picture with us, right now.” Ambar suddenly sprinted in front of Luna and Matteo. Mateo still did not understand how all the girls could maneuver so smoothly with those deathtrap shoes. 

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” Luna let go of Matteo’s hand and dashed off. Matteo was about to follow her before Ambar stopped him. 

“Matteo, I left my phone to my room and Simon is too busy with the band. Can you get it for me?”

“Actually I was going to—”

“I was not asking, Matteo,” Ambar looked at Matteo with her more threatening eyes, “Go get my phone.”

“Okay, okay,” Matteo shook his head and started walking towards the door. If you were the boyfriend of the birthday girl, your job apparently was the delivery boy of the hosts. Okay, not that he really minded. He could go get Ambar her phone and be nice.

Matteo walked back to the mansion and climbed over the side staircase to Ambar‘s room. He grabbed her phone from her bed—how had she even forgotten it there?

He was checking his own phone as he came out of Ambar’s room. Matteo sighed of relief when he noticed that Gastón had actually answered to his latest message. They still needed to talk but full on phone call would need to be left to the next day. Matteo also was thinking that maybe he should take some time, probably after Luna’s graduation, to go visit England. They needed to talk face to face, as he was getting quite worried about Gastón…

He was about to turn back towards the side staircase when he heard a noise that seemed to be coming from down the hall. 

Matteo did not know if this was against his better judgment —Well he had been told multiple times that he had no “better judgment”— or not, to go after a suspicious noise in a mansion that could as well be haunted. Also, disturbed people had attempted to burn it down too, multiple times, but his curiosity got the better of him. He could fight off a burglar if it came to it. He slipped Ambar’s phone to his pocket and started moving.

As Matteo walked further in the hallway, he heard the noise again. Now more clearly. It sounded like someone was crying. 

There was no doubt about it as he approached the grand staircase of the Mansion. As he walked closer to it, he saw a figure huddled at the top of the stairs. 

Matteo instantly knew who it was, even when they were not facing him. He had witnessed Jazmin working on all the girls’ hair before the party, because she had insisted of doing his and Simon’s hair as well —Pedro had ran away. That brown straight hair with a half updo, as Jazmin had called it, was unmistakable. 

“Nina?”

Matteo saw her jump and frantically turn around. He had obviously scared her. Her glasses were in her hand and face tearstained.

“It is me, Matteo. What are you doing here?” He asked as he started walking towards her, “Are you okay?”

“...Yes…uhm, Well… no,” She was trying to wipe the tears off her face. “It’s stupid.”

“I doubt that if you are like this.” Matteo pointed out. “Do you want me to get someone?”

“NO! No, please … don’t get Eric.” Nina’s voice had quickly gotten fast and desperate… before she buried her face into her hands and, burst back into tears. Matteo furrowed his brow. It was pretty interesting that she had said that… specifically not wanting her boyfriend present. 

Hold up a second, were they even boyfriend and girlfriend? Matteo honestly had never heard Nina call Eric that. Not that Matteo had even meant him. He was never going to lie and say that he even liked the guy or whatever he had with Nina, but as Luna had said, he was not really allowed an opinion… but you gotta have some solidarity with your brother.

Matteo stepped on the stairs and sat down next to Nina. He did not wanna leave her alone while she was like this. He had gotten to know her much better during the past year, and he definitely held affection and protectiveness towards her, as she was extremely important to two people Matteo loved the most: Luna and Gastón. 

“Did something happen?” Matteo draped his arms around her, as he remembered that Gastón had mentioned in passing in some side sentence that Nina calmed down easily from physical contact. 

“No, nothing happened.” Nina sobbed, “That is the problem. I— I don’t feel anything… or at least the right things.”

“Are we talking about Eric…?” Matteo questioned carefully. Nina just nodded. Matteo tried to mask the smile on his face. He had been right, and had not just imagined the nothingness between Nina and Eric. He had always failed to see what ever Luna was always gushing about being so cute. 

“I have no right to be unhappy. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I can’t help it. Everyone was so happy for me, I just thought that, since it seemed to make so much sense to everyone, it would make sense to me too.” Nina seemed to start calming down, even when her voice still seemed quite shaky. 

“No one can tell you how you should be feeling,” Matteo responded. “I learned that the hard way.”

“I thought that I was over it. That I could move on. But I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know what I am doing.”

Matteo absolutely knew who the topic had changed into. “Honestly, we both know that I won’t be unbiased on that front, but it never is a good idea to lie to yourself. Everyone will understand.”

“Matteo, he doesn’t love me anymore. He said he was happy for me… ” Nina shook her head, “...I, I wasn’t happy about that. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say. That he would come back and fight for me? I just convinced myself that I could get over it.”

Matteo really wanted to tell her the truth about that phonecall but he knew that it was not his to tell. They needed to talk that out themselves. “Nina, you know Gastón as well as I do. Do you really think he would ever stand in the way, if he thought he was in the way of your happiness.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Small smile formed onto Nina’s lips. “But I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, about my future, about anything. It is a blurr. I have messed everything up for myself and I can’t see a way forward.”

“I know how that feels.” Matteo responded, “Trust me, it will all become much cleared if you really think what you want and care about. And do not think that you will disappoint anyone. Everyone loves you.”

Matteo got up and offered his hand to Nina. “I think we better head back. They’ll be having all the fun without us.”

“I can’t go back out there,” Nina shook her head. “I can’t face Eric… this is not the time and place for it. I need to get my head in straight. And… Luna will know something is wrong. I know I need to tell her, but I can’t do it here, she’d drop everything. It is her party, I can’t do that.”

“I can make up an excuse for you, if you want to slip away.” Matteo offered as Nina got up from the stairs. 

“Thank you,” Nina hugged him.

“Someone once asked me to take care of you,” Matteo hugged her back, “I don’t think I succeeded in that, but maybe I can still redeem myself. You are my friend, and we all stick together.”

“We do.” Nina smiled at him and started walking down the stairs. Matteo turned around and took the route he had come from.

“Here’s your phone,” Matteo threw the phone at Ambar as he got back to the garden. Ambar, Simon and Luna had been chatting with Delfi and Pedro next to the band gear. 

“Finally!” Ambar said as she effortlessly caught the phone. “What took you so long?”

“I could not find it.” Matteo remarked as he joined the others. “Maybe you should have sent someone that actually knows the current layout of your room… like Simon.”

Ambar looked like she wanted to snark something back at Matteo, but she just rolled her eyes, flipped her ponytail and wrapped her arm around Simon’s arm. Matteo grabbed Luna’s arm and pulled her a little further away from the circle. 

“I ran into Nina while I was on the goose chase for Ambar’s phone,” He started.

“Oh, did she come back out with you?” Luna questioned.

“No, she went home.”

“Why?”

“She had a huge migraine,” Matteo lied smoothly. That was something that would sound believable and not make anyone too worried. “Probably from the sun. And the festival this morning was probably exhausting for her as it was her performance. So not really surprising.”

“Oh noh,” Luna looked alarmed, “I should call her, make sure she is alright.”

“Luna, she knew you would make a huge fuss,” Matteo took Luna by the shoulders, “and she didn’t want to take attention away. It is your big day after all, she didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Oh,” Luna looked down, “okay then.”

“Call her tomorrow,” Matteo suggested, “Now come on. Are we just going to let that delicious looking cake melt in the sun?”

“Oh, did I tell you that Mom made it double chocolate?” Luna started pulling Matteo towards the cake. Her attention was successfully diverted. 

***

3:00 AM. Nina rolled on her side in her bed. You should never look at the alarm clock when you were having a hard time sleeping, but there she was. 

Not that it could make things any worse than they already were. Thoughts swirled in her head and she was unable to get them in order. 

Matteo was right, she should just be true to her heart and listen to it and not her head. 

In her head, being with Eric made sense. He was nice and sweet to her. He reminded her of herself… when she had been younger. She should give him a chance, she owed him that… Everyone thought so… but did she think so? 

What did she feel? She had felt content at the start because… because everyone had been so happy. Happy for her, because she was happy. Had she actually been? Been happy? 

She tried of thinking of Eric. Being with him had not been unpleasant, just, something was missing. She was not really sure about what she felt for him. Did she feel anything for him? The only thing she felt right now, was guilt. Not the overwhelming warmth and happiness that made her heart race. Everything that just a voice over the phone could cause.

She didn’t not feel the buzz when she touched his hand or the constant need to be close to him. There was nothing physical about the relationship. No attraction… Maybe it would come with time…

Be honest with yourself Nina … the truth was that… she did not want any of that. She could not even imagine it. It was not just nerves because she was inexperienced, because it was not true. She had done it before. 

She and Gastón had gone all the way just three months into the relationship. She could never regret it, it had been incredible. Any time he had even just touched her, the feeling was indescribable. She had not felt something like that since… 

Even just the way he had known something was wrong from her voice after saying once sentence. She missed that too.

Tears crept their way back into her eyes. The searing pain in her heart returned in waves. She could not keep going like this. He was gone, but that didn’t change the things with Eric. She could not keep doing this to him. She had seen firsthand what happened when the relationship was stretched too thin while there was nothing left. .

She almost instinctively reached out to the drawer in her nightstand. Her hands found the fabric easily, she never could have been able to get rid of it. Nina wrapped the green scarf around her left hand and laid back on the bed. 

Next morning she was not feeling that better, so she tried to keep busy. Alongside all of her personal problems, she still had to figure out, well, the future. 

The graduation was going to be in three days and she still had not finished any college applications. Her mother had surprisingly not been super overbearing on the topic, but Nina had the feeling that if she didn’t present her with some answers soon, Ana’s patience was going to run thin. 

This should be easy, if only she actually knew what she was doing. 

Nina was sitting on the floor of her room and had probably a thousand different university leaflets in front of her. Yeah, honestly, she was trying to focus on this to avoid the eventual conversation with Eric. But this also needed to be done, so what better time than now?

She reached for one of the leaflets and looked it through. Why was this so hard? She had thought that after figuring out the major, picking the school would come automatically. 

“Could I just get some kind of sign?” She leaned into her bed and sighed. How had she let this come to this? 

She thought back to year ago. She had had the perfect plan then, which would have given her everything she had ever wanted. But she had let that all go. She really didn’t know what she wanted, huh? Why had she stayed? Staying for the writing post seemed ridiculous right now, but she had not known it then. She had given up all her happiness, all her clarity for that, and had ended up here—Why had she done it all?

Suddenly her phone started ringing, making Nina jump for a second. She frantically looked around to see where she even had left it before getting up to get it from her nightstand. That must have been Luna, probably wanting to ask why she had disappeared last night… the call was coming from an unknown number. So it was not Luna.

“Nina Simonetti,” Nina answered the phone. 

“Nina, Hello,” a vaguely familiar male voice rang from the other end of the line. “this is Manuel Ramirez, the headmaster of Blake South College.” That's why the voice had sounded familiar.

“Hello, Mr. Ramirez,” Nina answered, not really sure why she was receiving calls from the headmaster.

“First I want to say how sorry I and all the faculty are that you won’t be giving a speech at your Graduation ceremony this Saturday.” Probably about two weeks ago after they had gotten their final exam results back Nina had received the news that she was the top student of their graduating class. Traditionally that would mean the she would have been required to give a speech at the graduation, but thankfully she had been allowed to turn it down. She would never have the courage for a speech. From what she knew, the one giving the speech was the student who had gotten the highest results after her. She did not know who that was, but thats how Gastón had given the speech last year. 

“I know, but as I told Mr. Perez already, I don’t really like to give speeches and I am sure the one who has been offered the honor will be more than up to the task and I am really looking forward to hearing their speech.”

“We understand that,” Mr. Ramirez continued, “and that is not what I called you to discuss. Well, as you know already, you received the highest marks across the board. So, I have the honor to inform you that you have received the Educación Internacional Para Jóvenes Prometedores Del Mañana scholarship. It is sponsored by the city hall of Buenos Aires, and is highly coveted. Blake is one of the rare schools that has the qualifications for its students to even receive it.”

Nina was too stunned to speak for a second. She had not expected this at all. “I am sorry… I don’t think I have ever heard of that.”

“Only the top graduating student can qualify for the scholarship, and even then it is not guaranteed,” Mr. Ramirez explained, “No one at Blake has received it in a couple of years due to varying circumstances.”

“Yea, but, what is it exactly?”

“Like the name suggests, it is a scholarship for international study programs. It covers five-year University tuition, which means to masters, plus the student accommodations for a one year.”

“Wow… uhm, that is a lot,” Nina was still wrapping her head around all of it. “Does this apply to all the schools?”

“Not all of them, of course. All the Universities included in it are ones with teaching languages other than Spanish. This excludes most of the Spanish and Latin American universities. The latest schools added to the scholarship are from the Nordic region of Europe including The University of Helsinki and the Aalto University.”

“So this is for learning new cultures?”

“I won’t beat around the bush Nina,” Mr. Ramirez continued. “This scholarship is for you to go to an Ivy League school. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and of course Cambridge and Oxford. Blake is a coveted upper secondary school and we expect great things from our alumni. We have not had an alumna in a noteworthy school outside of Argentina in five years until last year when one of our graduates went to Oxford. He is keeping the name of Blake South College up, and we have all the faith that you do the same.”

“Of course, but I need time to think.”

“I’ll sent you all the detail via email. I am sure you’ll make the school proud.”

“Thank you.” Nina said and heard the call to be disconnected. 

Wow. She had had so much on her plate that scholarships had not even crossed her mind, not to mention a massive one like this. It was huge. 

Somehow automatically her hand had reached for another university leaflet… Oxford. The looming, beautiful building stared at her right from the page. The Head Master just had to mention Oxford. 

Was this the sign? Did she believe in signs? She didn’t know. 

Just… after everything had happened, she had just thought that she would spend the rest of her life in Buenos Aires. Moving away had been a fleeting dream, a burst of courage… because she would have not been doing it alone. Now… she was afraid. 

The scholarship was way too good of an opportunity to not take advantage of it. She wasn’t an idiot. Right after they had divorced, her parents had set up a trust for her future education, which they had put in a certain amount monthly. Nina’s Blake tuition had been covered from that. Of course, her parents had tried to one-up each other on their contributions, plus Mora had made couple of donations to it as well. Nina did not know the full amount, but she knew that it was a fair amount. But there definitely was something super tempting to not needing to rely on it. 

Gastón had gone to Oxford with Isla and Marco paying everything out of pocket for him, and of course he had been extremely grateful about it, but Nina knew that he had felt some kind of way about it. Being the sole child of millionaires was not as easy as it maybe seemed. 

“Why are you in my head again?” Of course, she had ended up thinking Gastón again.

All a sudden her phone rang again. This time it was Luna. 

“Hey Luna,” Nina picked up the call.

“Ninaaa!” Luna’s bubbly voice came from the other end. “Hiiii!”

“I am glad you called,” Nina started speaking, “I am so sorry that I left yesterday. I didn’t want to make a scene…”

“It’s all good. Matteo told me you got a headache.” Luna responded, “How are you feeling? Any better?”

“Yes, it went away during the night.” Headache? Matteo clearly was quite good at the excuse game, which should have not been surprising. Nina did get stress migraines from time to time. “I am fine now.” She felt really bad about lying to Luna like this, but she didn’t know what to say. She needed to figure everything out. But she would tell Luna the truth. 

“Okay well, what are you doing now?” 

“Universities. Trying to sort all that out before Mom’s patience runs out.”

“Uuuuu, me too!” Luna’s voice got even more excited. “I can’t believe that we are graduating on Saturday. Matteo has been helping me and Ambar is taking me shopping today. What are you wearing?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Nina questioned. “Mora sent me a dress from her upcoming collection.”

“Take a picture. I wanna see it. Can you come over tomorrow? I wanna talk to you about the plans I have made about community college.”

*

“I missed you!” Luna jumped to hug Nina as she opened the Mansion door the next day. 

“You didn’t see me for a day.”

“Yeah, but still.” Luna did a small twirl. “What are those?” Luna was gesturing the pile of booklets Nina was holding-

“University pamphlets. I wanted to talk with you about all of that and you mentioned community college.”

“Yes of course,” Luna said as she skipped ahead when Nina walked inside. “Simon and Ambar are out, and so is Pedro, so only Matteo is here with us. We can talk in peace. Mom just brought some cookies to the living room… I left my phone upstairs. I’ll go get it real quick.”

Nina shook his head laughing as she watched Luna run up the stairs before realizing that she was getting up the wrong staircase. 

“She still does not know how to navigate here,” Nina turned around and saw Matteo shaking his head behind her. He had appeared from nowhere. “I was sitting on the couch, so I heard what you were talking about.” 

“Yeah. It is maybe time to actually make decisions about all of this,” Nina gestured to the brochures in her hands. “Luna mentioned leadership and teaching classes at community college.”

“Yes, that idea came to her in a dream yesterday. You know how she is. She will probably tell you more about it soon.” Matteo explained, “Monica and Miquel are really happy about her actually having a plan.”

“It is a good one. Academics are not really her and that way she can have her career in skating as she wants.”

“Yep… How are you doing?” Matteo changed the subject. “You look better than couple days ago.”

“I don’t know how I am doing.” Nina shook her head, “I made some decisions, but totally lost with others.”

“What decisions?”

“Eric,” Nina shook her head, “I just… I can’t keep doing this to him. He deserves much more than me. But I don’t know how I am supposed to tell him that. I don’t want to break his heart.”

“Well, truth is always a good start.”

“I know.” Nina said looking down, “I better put these down on the table.” she gestured to the leaflets she was carrying and started walking toward the living room. 

“Hmmmmm… Oxford huh?”

Nina turned around and to her horror, she saw Matteo holding the Oxford leaflet. When had she dropped it?

“Uhmmm, well, I just had it there.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are pretty bad liar?” Matteo said looking at her. “Look, you don’t need to tell me, but I want you to know that you can trust me. I am your friend.”

“I know. Okay. The headmaster called me—” Nina started to explain, “—and told me that I have gotten a scholarship called: Educación Internacional Para Jóvenes Prometedores Del Mañana.”

“Wow, thats big.”

“You know what it is?”

“I am pretty sure Dad was just and just able to mask his disappointment that I didn’t get it.” Matteo laughed, “But yeah, I know what it is. So you were thinking about Oxford?”

“Well…” Nina struggled to find the right words, “...the scholarship kind of came out of the blue. I don’t know, honestly.”

“Wasn’t it your dream to go study abroad last year?”

“Well, yes, It was, but…”

“But now it is not anymore?”

“No, thats not it. I guess, it still is? Maybe. I would love to go, learn and live like an adult, with no Mom hovering over my shoulder and England is an amazing place.”

“Then what is the problem?” Nina saw Matteo to furrow his brow. “If you say Gastón, I won‘t believe you. I know him and you do too, he would never have a problem with you following your dreams.”

“I know that.” Nina smiled. “Guess part of that is the fact that I felt like he closed the door on that path for me, but I wanna open it again, but I don’t know how. And how can I leave everybody? All my friends are here and the team…”

“Nina, Roller will always be important part of all of us, but we are all also growing up.” Matteo started talking, “Simon and Pedro are trying to keep the band afloat, I have the label plus the studies I am doing, so do Jim, Yam, Delfi and Jazmin. Ambar is going to law school. Everyone will be going their separate ways, and I think you know that. If you want my opinion, I think you should do it. Taking risks can be worth it, especially if its for something you really want. Plus it seems like you have already made the decision.”

“I have?”

“You got a scholarship that basically enables you to go study basically in any school in the world, but the only thing you are thinking about is Oxford.”

Matteo was right, and Nina knew it. Maybe she had always known it. “But how do I tell Luna?”

“Tell me what?”

Nina turned around and saw that Luna was standing on the bottom of the staircase.

{}

The bottom line was that she needed to tell Luna, and she had no way out of it right now. She wanted to tell Luna … because she loved her and she needed her support in all of this. 

“Uhmm, well, I was going to tell you as we got talking about, you know, the universities.” Nina started as Luna walked closer to her.

“Well, tell me then!” there was no care in the world in Luna’s voice. Nina envied her of that, of Luna’s ability to live such carefree life, no matter what obstacles came into her way.

“You two should probably sit down,” Matteo piped up from the background, “I think I saw Monica make a huge batch of some milkshake in the morning so I am just going to go get it. Leave you two alone for a minute.”

“So was your thing something to do with the Universities you are considering, because I looked up couple of them just to see what kind of classes they had to offer with the community college, but I could really use your input…” Luna started talking as they sat down on the sofa. Nina was still holding the Oxford leaflet but Luna had not noticed it.

“Luna, would you please let me talk?” Nina interrupted before Luna got properly going with the babbling. She had to tell her now before she chickened out. 

“Okay. Is everything okay?” Luna’s voice got more serious as she saw Nina’s face.

“Yes, it is… or actually I don’t know, well it is.” Nina started stumbling over her words. Why was she like this? “Anyways, this has to do what I was telling Matteo about when you came downstairs. I got a call from Blake’s Headmaster yesterday.”

“Oh noh.” Luna reacted.

“No, it was nothing bad,” Nina started explaining, “Actually, it was good news. I have gotten a big scholarship to a—”

“Nina, that is awesome!!” Luna suddenly jumped to hug Nina, interrupting her. “You are so smart! You absolutely deserve it!” Luna let go of Nina and started jumping up and down while sitting on the couch. “I am not that well versed in scholarships, what exactly did you get it for?” She suddenly stopped. 

“Thats the thing, it was for international study programs, and it would cover the tuition all the way to the masters. I know I would technically not need it, but it is opening so many doors and is a huge opportunity. I’d be stupid not to take advantage of it and I think I want to.”

“That sounds amazing. Of course you’d want to.”

“But the scholarship was for Universities that don’t have Spanish as their teaching language.”

“Well, you are super good at languages,” Luna continued excitedly, not catching on Nina’s worries, “unlike me. You know I can barely speak Spanish as it is.”

“Luna it means that I’d have to leave Argentina, and Southern America as it is,” Nina started to explain again, “I’d be leaving all of you.”

“I know,” Luna said reaching to take Nina’s hands, “I will miss you, but if this is really something you want, of course I support you. I might be oblivious about lot of things, but not everyone will be together forever, and we all need to go where we need to be, because we cannot know what will happen. What would have come of me if I had not moved down from Mexico. I’d be still serving food at Fodger Wheels.” Luna started laughing and Nina joined her. She already started feeling relieved, even when there was still lot more she needed to tell Luna. “And if you go, don’t you think for a second that you’ll get rid of me. I’ll be spamming your phone so hard no one else can ever call you. But did you have a school in mind, or do you need help choosing?”

“Well, actually—” Nina started taking a deep breath.“—I do. Oxford. Only thing that has been in my mind is Oxford. Matteo brought up a good point and he is right. It is what I want, what I have always wanted, no matter how scared I may be.”

Nina waited with a baited breath what Luna was going to say next. It was pretty obvious was anyone would think about why she wanted to go to Oxford and it was partially true, she needed to solve everything that had happened with Gastón, but she also wanted this herself, she always had, but who would believe her?

“Well, that school is super famous,” Luna started talking again, “and must be a good one. Fancy school would suit you really well. And you wanted to go there last year, so this is like you got a second chance.”

“Yeah, a second chance for lot of things.” Nina responded. She was not sure how to approach the next part of the topic. She really just wanted Luna to know everything.

“Did you already talk to Eric about all of this?” Luna asked. There it came. It struck Nina’s heart how sincerely Luna was asking that. She really wanted to believe that they were in love. 

“No, I haven’t.” Nina answered. 

“Oh, you have not had the time yet?” Luna continued, clearly quite oblivious to the real reason, “I just assumed since you even told Matteo already.”

“Matteo just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and he has experience with takins risks for what you want, with everything with Alexander.” Nina explained. “But I haven’t told Eric, and I am not going to ask his opinion.”

“Really?” Luna’s voice became more confused.

“Luna, look, there is more that I haven’t told you.” Nina started. Luna needed to hear everything.

“Nina, you are scaring me.”

“Luna, I am breaking up with Eric.” There, she had said it. For the first time, she had really fully admitted it, admitted that that was what she wanted. Saying it outloud felt so good. 

“Oh?” Luna stared blankly. She seemed to try to come up with something to say. 

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I just really came to terms with it myself and I think its the right thing to do,” Nina started, waiting for Luna to speak. 

“Is it just because you want to go to Oxford or—” Luna started speaking, “—because I feel like you are not telling me the whole story.”

“I am not,” Nina confessed, “but I want to. Just let me explain. Yes, part of it is because I want to go to Oxford and I do not believe it would work for us, but even if I didn’t… I…” even if Nina was sure of what she was about to say, it was still hard to put into words. “...It just isn’t working, between us.”

“What happened?” Luna asked with genuine concern. 

“Nothing happened. He is a lovely person and a good friend, but thats it. You know the spark that you get when you love someone, or even just like them… there is none of that and I can’t keep pretending that it is coming. I can’t keep being in a relationship just for convenience or waiting for something to happen. I have no idea what it is that he feels for me, but I am sure our feelings don’t match and I can’t do that to him. It won’t make him any happier if I am unhappy.”

“I had no idea.” Luna said, reaching out for Nina’s hand again. “I though you were happy.”

“I guess I thought so too, for a start, because… I don’t know. I don’t even know how it even really happened. He liked me, and I felt guilty that I did not feel the same way, and then I guess I convinced myself that I did.” Nina kept rambling, “and you all were so happy for me… so I thought I should be. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Luna squeezed her into a tight hug. “All that matters are your feelings. No one should have told you how to feel, we should have realized that…”

“Luna, don’t do that.” Nina interrupted before Luna started forming an apology of her own. “This is only my fault. I made the choice. I am the one who got Eric involved. I am the one who has to end it. I can’t be with him if my head is somewhere else.”

“Does some of this have to do with…?”

“Some of it does have to do with Gastón,” Nina understood what Luna was asking. “Going to Oxford means so many things to me right now. I am not … over him, like I thought I was and I guess I need answers more than anything else. But I also feel like going is the step I should have already done for myself, but I don’t know.”

“Whatever you decide, you know I support you, right?”

*

Nina sat on the bench at the plaza where Luna and Matteo often liked to rehearse. It was a bit away from Roller and not as crowded as other places closer by, so it was perfect. 

She smoothed her skirt as she waited. She was nervous… of course, she was. This was the right thing to do. She knew it. It wasn’t that. Just… it probably never was easy to break it off with someone. 

But it wasn’t fair to keep going either, it was not fair to her or to Eric. She couldn’t keep stringing him along, no matter what she was going to decide about the school, even if inside she absolutely knew what she wanted to do. Stay or go, she couldn’t keep lying to herself anymore. 

“Hi, why did you wanna meet here?” Nina was shaken from her thoughts. Was he already here? She looked and saw Eric there, standing in front of her. So… it was time to do this.

“Oh, hi.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks for coming. Please sit down.”

“Sure,” Eric said while sitting down. “Why didn’t you come to Roller? You have not been answering any of my texts.”

“I am sorry about that. I have just been really busy.” That was not a lie… her mind had been extremely busy. “But I asked you to come here since I wanted to talk to you privately and Roller is always so crowded.”

“What about?”

“I have been doing a lot of thinking… and I think I finally know what I want to do after school.” Nina had rehearsed this speech in her head thousands of times but it still took effort to not stumble over her words. 

“Oh, what is it then? Psychology right?”

“No, literature. It was always literature when I sat down and really thought about it. But—” She took a deep breath before continuing. “—this isn’t about that. A couple of days ago I got a call from Blake that I have received a full scholarship for international study programs. And… I have been thinking I should take it.”

“International? I didn’t think you’d be into that. Where would you even go?”

“Oxford. Their English language and literature program is one of world renown.” Nina decided to ignore the first half of what Eric had said. 

“Oxford? Like in England? Thats pretty far.”

“Yes,” This was it. “And that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t think it is a good idea that you and I—”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Nina hated to hear the hurt in Eric's voice. She had never been out to hurt him. 

“Look, Eric, I am sorry. You are very nice and sweet, but I just don’t think it will work like that. Long distance is hard, and I have done it before. It's not a good idea.”

“Why can’t you just stay here? You can study literature here.”

“I know I can, but this isn’t about that. I just feel like it is something I need to do for myself. I decided not to be afraid to follow my dreams. I finally realized why I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study, it was because I was afraid of what I actually wanted. I wasn’t listening to myself. I told myself that I should be here, because it is safe, but I don’t want to be safe anymore. You don’t know this but a year ago I had a chance to go to Oxford, but I turned it down. I have finally realized it was the wrong decision.”

“It is because of him?” Eric suddenly interrupted her, he seemed sad, but also angry for some reason, “Isn’t it?”

Nina didn’t need to guess who he was talking about. “Don’t bring Gastón into this. Please?”

“After everything he has done to you, you are just going to run back to him? Did he call you again?” Eric did not appear to be listening.

“No. Look, you know we were together for a long time and that I loved him,” the past tense stung on her tongue. If she was honest, there was no world where she could imagine herself not being in love with Gastón. It was impossible. “He is always going to be an important person to me. And I admit, our break up was not the cleanest and there was no closure, but he is not why I am doing this and he would never want me to. You do not know him. Oxford is huge, we might never ever run to each other. I am doing this because I am done not taking risks for what I want. I need to go to figure everything out for myself.”

“So you are just gonna leave everybody?”

“Luna knows everything. Without her and Matteo, I would have never come to this conclusion.”

“Sure, Matteo,” Eric suddenly scoffed. “Don’t you think he is going to be a bit biased? Even I know who his best friend is.”

“Is it so hard to believe I made this decision for myself?” Nina sighed. She hadn’t realized that this was going to be this hard. “Matteo is my best friend’s boyfriend. I have known him for years, you have not. He is also my friend and wants what is best for me. He is also the only person who actually understands what I have been through, on a lot of levels.”

“But, if you wouldn’t be going, then you and I would…?”

“Eric…” Nina took a deep breath. She had really hoped that it would have not come to this. But in the end, she had to be fair to him, he deserved the truth. “I don’t want to lie to you. Even if I wouldn’t be going… Uhm… I do not think we should keep going.”

“Why not?”

“I…” her train of thought broke for a moment. She tried to think how to format this in a way that would hurt him the least. “I just don’t see it working. In the long run, I mean. You are very nice, but it is not…”

“But I love you!” Eric suddenly exclaimed.

“You can’t be in love with me.” Nina almost pleaded at this point. “We have been together for a month. It doesn’t happen like that.” Except that it did… between certain people it did. Something that she could never imagine happening between her and Eric. 

“So you don’t love me?”

“I am sorry… you are a wonderful friend and I care about you…” She didn’t know what else she was supposed to answer to that. “It has been a confusing year for me and I have not fully listened to my heart. I am so sorry, I never meant to hurt you. But I can’t keep doing this, it is not fair, to me or to you.” 

“But…”

“I am so sorry.” She got up from the bench. “Goodbye.”

After that she started walking away, quickening her steps and praying that Eric would not follow her. After she had gotten far enough, she stopped for a moment and took a shaky breath. 

She had done it, finally. On the other hand she was extremely relieved, and the other she felt immensely bad about it all. She had expected to cry, but not a single tier had fallen.

She looked around to see where she was, since she had kind of just started walking aimlessly. 

*

“Nina!” Luna opened the mansion’s door. “Come on in.”

“Thanks, Luna,” Nina said as she stepped into the mansion’s hall. 

“Are you okay?” Luna said as she closed the door.

“Yeah, I am. I just didn’t want to go home and be alone…” Nina started speaking. Luna must have seen it on her face. As she started speaking she noticed that Matteo, who had been sitting on the couch, was walking toward them. “I— I did it. I just broke up with Eric.”

Luna didn’t say anything but pulled her into a very tight hug, which Nina very much needed.

“How are you feeling,” Luna asked after she finally released Nina.

“I don’t know,” Nina admitted. “I mean, I'm happy I did it, but on the other hand I feel like I was horrible to him and I know I hurt him. I never should have gotten him involved…” her voice finally started breaking.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Matteo said putting his hand on her shoulder. “How did Eric react? Does he need a stern talking to or a punch in the face? Since I can do both.”

“Matteo!” Luna struck him on the ribs, which made Nina laugh. She really needed that laugh.

“That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

“Okay. but if I see him behaving even a little bit out of line towards you, I will punch him,” Matteo declared. Both Luna and Nina rolled their eyes at him, but Nina was very happy that he wanted to look out for her. She had never had a brother.

“Does this mean that you made your decision?” Luna asked Nina. 

Luna, was right, Nina really had. “Yes, I have. I am going to Oxford.”

“I am so happy for you!” Luna started jumping up and down, “But I am also gonna miss you so much.” She suddenly stopped and then started again. “But as long as you are happy. I am gonna come visit you so much, I will basically become a citizen of Great Britain.” She did big hand gestures as she spoke and then suddenly spun around.

“You know she means it,” Matteo laughed.

“You know what…” Nina said as they sat down on the couch, “I’ll fill in the application now, before I change my mind.”

She took her laptop out of her bag and opened the Oxford university site. Luna and Matteo looked at her as she filled in the application with practiced ease, since she technically had already done it once before, only not to herself. 

“Done,” she closed her eyes and clicked the “send” button on the screen. As she opened her eyes, the text “your application has been successfully sent” was on the screen. “I did it!”

Luna and Matteo pulled her into a group hug.

“We are so proud of you!”

“I guess this means I am really going,” Nina sat down on the sofa. The reality started to hit in. She was extremely excited, but also absolutely terrified. “Please, don’t tell anyone. I don’t even know will the application go through… and if it does, I won’t be leaving for at least a month.”

Luna, just nodded, but Matteo seemed a bit hesitant… and Nina knew why.

“Matteo, please.” She looked him in the eyes.

“Yeah, of course. It is not my business.”

*

“You are sure you don’t want to stay?” Luna asked as her and Matteo were walking Nina to the door. “Matteo was going to show me a movie called… Look-alike alien wars?” 

“You mean Clone Wars.” Matteo laughed. “Luna might need two people to explain everything to her.”

“It is okay,” Nina laughed as well. “I don’t want to third wheel you two the rest of the evening. Mom will complain if I am late for dinner.” Her mother was an element that she had not even thought about while sending the application. She’d still need to deal with her… but she’d leave that for tomorrow. Not that she needed permission, but she couldn’t just run away.

The Blake graduation was going to be tomorrow and Luna had insisted that she, Nina, Jim, and Yam celebrated together at the mansion. Breaking the news about the university would be easier when her mother was happy from the festivities. 

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Luna said as she hugged Nina one more time. “Remember that you are coming here in the morning. Jazmin is coming over and she and Ambar will make sure that we look absolutely fabulous on our graduation day.”

“How could I forget. You have done nothing but gushed about the dress Ambar found for you.”

*

“Luna. STAY. STILL.” Jazmin said sternly so Luna stopped squirming in her seat while Jazmin was trying to tame her hair. 

They were in Luna’s room, Luna sitting in a chair while Jazmin was working on her hair. Nina was sitting on Luna’s bed already wearing the dress Mora had sent her from Milan. It was white and had a sheer overlay that was embroidered with flowers. It was extremely beautiful, Mora had always understood her style. 

Jazmin had done her hair just a moment before and Ambar had just left to get some things from her room before starting on her make up. 

“Hey girls, how are our graduates feeling?” Delfi appeared at the door suddenly. She was holding a camera.

“What are you doing here?” Jazmin asked as she attacked a tangle that was in Luna’s hair. 

“I thought I’d document some snippet of the graduation day. Ambar told me that they were getting ready here.” Delfi said gesturing to the camera. “Basically giving this another try again. You would not believe how many different things is included in video production. I need to know about finances, editing and even photography.”

She raised the camera and snapped a picture. 

“But this is something I will probably never get.” Delfi lamented. “Why does the pic end up so dark?”

“We are in a low-light room and there is no direct lighting,” Nina piped up, “The lighting and shadows will even out if you put on the bigger zoom and hold the shutter down for two seconds while taking the picture on 30 per second framerate.”

“Wow, it does look better,” Delfi looked up from the camera after trying again. “How did you know to do that? I have read all of the photography hacks on the internet, but have seen no mention of this.”

“I don’t remember.” Nina answered. Gastón had taught her that… it had apparently been bit of a family secret and he had learned it from his father. She shook her head so she would not get fully lost in the memory. She had to stop thinking about him.

Even when she had made the decision to go to Oxford, it still did not mean that everything between them was magically fixed. What she had said to Eric was not a lie. It was a strong possibility that she was never going to run into him. Just because she was not over him, did not mean that he was the same way. He had been the one to tell her that he was happy that she was in a relationship, that he wanted to be friends, no matter how much the things between them felt unfinished. And she was not going to Oxford only for him. 

She wanted to go to Oxford. More time passed from her sending that application, more sure she was about it. It was what she was supposed to do.

“You know I am quite sad that we never had a graduation party,” Jazmin pondered while tying a bow to Luna’s hair. 

“Well, we had so much going on at the time.” Delfi was leaning into the door frame. “The Roda fest… the threat of the red sharks… The sliders…”

“I thought we agreed to never talk about that again?” Ambar who had returned and was powdering Nina’s face shot a death glare towards Delfi. 

Last year when half of them had graduated they had not had a big celebration or anything together, but everyone had had their small things with their own families. Matteo’s and Gastón’s parents had taken them out to dinner together after the ceremony. Nina had of course also been there, still being Gastón’s girlfriend at the time. She remembered that day like it had been yesterday. 

He had kissed her before doing anything else after the ceremony had finished, almost like she had been the only thing that mattered. There was that one picture that Marco had taken of them after the ceremony where Gastón was lifting her up. She knew she still had it… she had all of the pictures. She never could have thrown them out.

“Nina, are you okay?” Ambar’s voice snapped her out of the memory.

“Oh yeah, just zoned out. I didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“By the way, do you know what is up with Eric?” Delfi suddenly asked. “He was not at Roller yesterday at all. Is he coming today?”

Nina glanced Luna as panic rose in her. Only ones who knew about her situation were Luna and Matteo. She had not even thought about what to say to the others. Maybe the easiest way was the truth, right here, right now.

“Uhm, no.” Nina started, “He is not coming… actually he should not be coming.” She hoped that he wasn’t coming. She had no idea what to say to him when they would cross paths again. “We broke up… yesterday.”

“Wait? What? Why?” Delfi and Jazmin exclaimed as one unanimous choir.

“Well, uhm… I might as well tell you. You’ll find out during the ceremony anyways. I got a scholarship that allows me to go study abroad. So, I am actually, if I get accepted, going to Oxford. I just made the decision, so I have had no time to tell you.”

Delfi and Jazmin seemed to look quite speechless while Ambar’s face was absolutely unreadable. She was just casually arranging the eyeshadow palettes on the table. 

“Is it because of Gas—”

“I am sure Nina knows what she is doing.” Ambar interrupted Jazmin while grabbing a brush from the table. “Look up for me please.”

“No way, I forgot my shoes to your room, Ambar.” Luna jumped up from her chair startling Jazmin. “I’ll go get them.”

“Luna wait!” Jazmin yelled before dashing after Luna, probably to make sure the hair she had spent an hour doing would not get ruined by the moon hurricane. 

Delfi also removed herself from the room as she got a call from Pedro, so Nina was left alone with Ambar. 

“Thank you, for having faith in me.” Nina said as Ambar was brushing some highlighter to her cheeks. “Of course, it looks like I am doing this because of Gastón, but—”

“It is not our business why you do anything,” Ambar noted to her as she put her brush down and reached for a bag of lipsticks. “But I am happy to see people be true to themselves. You get nowhere if you don’t listen to your heart. I have more than enough experience with that. You gotta fight so you can do what you love, with the people who you love. It is always worth it. So… red lipstick looks really good on you usually, but this dress has much more pastel feel so how about we try a dusty pink?”

*

Nina got the notification right after the ceremony. She read the message over and over again.

She had been accepted to Oxford…

***

“No way. You must be cracking mate. Don’t tell me that that is schoolwork.” Gastón closed his laptop shut as he heard a voice from behind him. It was the day where the non-new students who lived at the dorms at Oxford had to be back if they had been out of the housing for the summer, so all of his friends would be returning on that day from summer vacations.

They had agreed to meet up at the campus coffee shop and a Gastón had nothing to arrive from —he had spent his summer at an internship at Renishaw, so he had not gone home. Because he had had no time to travel back… amongst of other reasons. 

“I was just checking the preliminary assignments.” Gastón remarked as James Wilson slopped into the chair next to him. They had met on the first day of the orientation week, since they had the same major, energy technology engineering, and really hit it off.

If Matteo would have not existed, he would call James his best friend, but Matteo did exist and their bond could never be broken by any new friend. Matteo knew him like no one else. “You know, the ones from Professor Smithson’s class, where he never tells that those exist until right before the exam.”

“Do not speak to me about those.” James groaned. “I still think I should have taken chemical engineering instead.”

“And you would have flunked out on the first material science course.”

“What are you two talking about?” Gastón’s roommates Oliver Carson and Jacob Thomas appeared soon enough to their chairs. 

“Gastón was writing his valedictorian speech.” James joked. 

“I don’t get why we even need to be here. The orientation week starts on Monday, we are not freshmen, so we have nothing to do.” Jacob huffed. “Why is the freshmen moving day after us.”

“Speak for yourself. I still have the advance assignment for my digital layout course.” Oliver sighed. He was majoring in graphic design. “Do not ask me why I did not do it during the summer. When you live in the farm in Cornwall, with three siblings and bad Wi-Fi, you don’t get much peace. Maybe I should have stayed here like Gastón.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t go home for the summer.” Jacob turned his head towards Gastón. Jacob was the oldest of the group and was studying computer science for the third year.

“You forget that I had a JOB. Pretty big thing after only your freshmen year. Plus, I live in an other country.” Gastón countered. He tried not to sound too annoyed. they had been through this with Matteo so many times and he felt like that even if his Oxford friends didn’t know the full story, they still suspected the real reason why he was so reluctant to return to Buenos Aires. “I did go to Italy briefly, Matteo was there with his girlfriend so I met up with them there.”

“I live in another country too.” Jacob pointed out, “But I still went home.”

“Wales and Argentina are pretty different places.”

“Speaking of Wales,” James started speaking, “did Marlee come with you?” he asked Jacob.

“Did I do what?” the voice of Marlee Wynne asked. She and Ariana Williams had finally arrived. Marlee was Jacob’s childhood friend and studied social sciences and Ariana was her roommate who just had happened to have the same major as Oliver, even if those two did absolutely not agree on anything that came to graphic design.

Basically their friend group of six had been formed by Gastón, Oliver and Jacob having been roommates and everyone bringing one person to the group. Gastón had brought James, Jacob Marlee, and Ariana had been more shared effort of Marlee and Oliver. Through the last year they had become quite of a close group. Gastón would not change them for anything. He missed his friends at Buenos Aires and was still in contact with them, but it was really nice to have a solid group here as well. 

“Never mind. What took you so long?”

“We had to stop at the front desk,” Ariana started explaining with her Irish accent. “Were getting a new roommate, and then Marlee slowed us down by giving me the play by play about some ex-girlfriend of hers.”

“Correction, she is not my ex, we are casual,” Marlee rolled her eyes, “but now apparently, she has “moved on”, because I am always away. Almost like she has completely forgotten about me.”

“I am pretty sure that’s how moving on works.” Oliver suggested.

“You men don’t get it.” Marlee scoffed. “We need more girls in the group. Anyways, what happens in Wales stays in Wales.”

“Second that.” Jacob sighed in relief, “Well was Ireland as adventurous Ariana?”

“Well, my brother got married, so I wore a pretty dress.” Ariana shrugged, “that is as far as the excitement goes. If you were expecting that my ex-boyfriend has gotten with my middle school bully —even if that would totally happen in my town— you are not in luck.”

“Seriously, we are so boring,” James laughed, “We are studying at Oxford, one of the most historical schools in the world. We should be solving some kind of mystery and not be moping about how none of us had any excitement during the summer.”

“Yo, por otro lado, estoy contento por algo de paz y tranquilidad.” Gastón remarked. 

“English, please.” Oliver shot a glance at Gastón. “We have not all the sudden become fluent in Spanish.”

“Since you make no effort. I was just saying that peace and quiet is not a bad thing.”

“Did you get enough drama in high school?” Ariana questioned, “because I kind of did.”

“Not in high school exactly, but in my skating team? Yes.”

*

“I still cannot believe that you used to skate. As a sport?” Oliver laughed as the guys were back in their dorm room and the others were unpacking their stuff. Gastón was just laying on his bed and stared at the ceiling. “You on ROLLERSKATES?”

“I did lot of things you would not believe.”

“What did your parents say when you did not go back?” James who was lounging in an armchair. He lived in another dorm room but often spent lot of his time at Gastón, Oliver and Jacob’s room. “Weren’t you an only child?”

“I am.”

“So am I and they wouldn’t leave me alone the whole time I was home.”

“Mom and Dad respected my decision. Education is important to them, thats why I am here in the first place.” Gastón explained. “They came to visit me here. Tried to convince me to get an apartment.”

“Are you abandoning us?” Jacob gasped. Gastón was not fully sure if he was joking or not.

“I told them no. I have no desire to move out. This is much more… economical.” Gastón shook his head. He had not exactly told the guys about his parents being millionaires, and was not sure would he ever. How did you tell someone about that? “Plus, what would you do without me?”

“Are we sure that is not just an excuse?” James piped up from his armchair. 

“That the living at the dorms is cheaper?” Gastón questioned.

“No, the fact that you are avoiding going back to Buenos Aires at all cost.” James pointed out. “Come on, tell us the truth. It is about her, isn’t it?”

“I just don’t think she wants to hear from me,” Gastón sighed. “We share a friend group, I would not be able to avoid her.”

Gastón really did not want to talk about Nina right now. It was bad enough that she still haunted his dreams. He saw himself telling her that he was happy for her new relationship over and over again. He kicked himself for ever letting her go, and now it was too late.

His feelings for her, the ones he had had ever since he had been 17, still loomed strong in his body, mind and heart. It did not matter if she was thousands of kilometers away and they were not talking.

“Ugh, my roommate wants to fight over drawer space.” James got up to his feet. “If Gastón moves out, that bed is mine.”

“I am going for a walk.” Gastón got up from his bed after James had gone. He grabbed a notebook from his closet and walked out.

He walked the route he always did until he sat on a bench in a park he often went to when he wanted to think. He opened the notebook and placed the pen on the paper. 

I should not be doing this… but I can’t stop, but I must try. I will forget you, because I have to. 

***

“I WILL MISS YOU SO MUCH!!!” Luna squeezed Nina so tightly. She and Matteo had come with Nina’s mom to sent her off at the airport. 

“I will miss you too.” Nina hugged her back. 

“You need to start to get going,” Ana pointed out before hugging her daughter as well, “¡Adiós hija! Call me when you land.”

“Of course Mom.” Nina nodded and started walking towards her gate. 

This was the beginning, beginning of something that she did not even know yet.

{}

Yes, there it was. It was two doors down from the left. Nina walked in front of it, took a deep breath and put the key into the lock and opened the door. 

The room was empty, but clearly lived in. It wasn’t that small, at least 30 square meters or more. There were three beds in the room. One was against the middle of the left wall and two against both sides of the wall on the right. Next to the beds there were a nightstand and a closet, above a bookcase. Opposite of each bed there was a small desk. 

The bed on the right, closest to the door was clearly the one that would be hers. The bookcase was empty, and so was the desk. On the bed, there was a dark-blue bedspread while the other two had colorful sheets. In the bookcase above the bed on the left had a bunch of books. From their spines, a lot of them seemed like biographies and history books and one of them seemed to be a feminist manifesto. The desk closest to the window had a bunch of drawing supplies arranged ins strict order.. 

Nina dragged her bag inside and sat on the bed. She only had two suitcases plus a back bag. During packing, she had discovered the unfortunate truth that there was only so much she was able to bring over. She brought all the necessities and clothes she could, but she needed to go shopping, especially when it started getting colder. Jazmin had offered to fly over to be her personal shopper, but Nina had declined. The easiest way to do this would probably be online shopping. 

Nina stacked the books she had brought on the shelf while trying to leave room for more books that she could get from the library. However nervous she was about the classes that would be starting after the orientation week, even if she had already memorized her timetable completely, she was also really excited about everything…especially the library. 

“Seriously, you need to let it go.” While Nina had been unpacking her stuff, she had left the door half open. She had almost finished unpacking her second suitcase when she started hearing footsteps and talking that were coming closer. “Why do you think I am talking about this?”

“Hold up a second. Did you leave the door open?” The voices had stopped in front of her door.

“No.”

Then the door opened, and Nina turned around to see two girls coming in. They were both taller than her. One had blonde hair that looked almost white, and she had freckles all over her face. She was bit shorter than the other one who had black hair that had been dyed pink on the tips. 

“See, I didn’t leave the door open.” The white-haired girl pointed to Nina.

“Well, don’t get mad at me.” The black-haired one rolled her eyes at her. “Well, this was a good way to meet our new roommate. First thing she sees is us arguing. Anyways…” she turned her attention to Nina. “You are our new roommate, right?”

Nina just nodded and got on her feet from the floor. She should probably introduce herself, but she somehow found it hard to find the words now that two sets of stranger eyes were focusing on her. “Hola, soy—”

Wrong language… Good start Nina. She wanted to slap herself, buts she just shook her head and tried to rearrange the things in her brain as fast as possible. “—Sorry.” She finally started speaking English. “I’m Nina Simonetti, and yes, I am your new roommate.”

“So, you are Spanish?” The black haired one asked casually. She had a pretty distinct accent. Ireland maybe? Nina was not fully versed on different accents and dialects when it came to the English language. She had expected girls to look confused or laugh about her slip, but they did not react at all to her speaking some Spanish. Almost like they were used to it, well maybe they knew other international students.

“Argentinian, actually.”

“Well, that is even better.” The blonde haired slopped down on the middle bed. “So are you an exchange student?”

“No. I’m gonna be here until I have a master's degree.” Nina answered sitting down on her own bed. “If I survive that is.”

“Well, don’t worry.” The black-haired girl went to sit at her desk close to the window. “This place is not as scary as it sounds. You could almost call it boring. So… whats your major?”

“English language and literature.”

“Thats cool…” the black-haired one continued before she trailed off for a moment. “...what are we even doing? We haven’t introduced ourselves yet. I am Ariana and that right there is Marlee. I do graphic design and she does social studies.”

*

“Okay, here is the auditorium. We don’t have classes yet because since we’re not freshmen, that’s why Marlee went out for the day, but I have some things to do so I am gonna be at the library. Shoot me a message when you get off and we can go to lunch together.”

“Thanks Ariana,” Nina said as she and Ariana walked towards a door. A lot of people were already gathering around it. It had been so long since she had made any new friends and she had been afraid that it would be hard, once again. “Can you show me around the library later?”

“Sure,” Ariana shrugged, “I don’t spend that much time there, but I’ll show you what I can. I do know a person who knows the library much better. You’ll meet him later like all the rest of our friends.  “Well, have fun!”

Nina eyed the crowd after Ariana had left her. Soon enough the doors the lecture hall were opened. 

“Hi! This seat taken?” Nina had sat in the middle of the sixth row. She was just sending Luna couple of pictures of the lecture hall when she heard a voice from next to her. 

“No.” Nina shook his head and a girl with light brown hair sat on the seat next to her. 

“I’m Lisa, Lisa White.” She was offering her hand for a handshake. “I have always wanted to be a biographer, so this had to be the place to start.”

*

As the week went on, the nerves Nina had been feeling at the start already started to drift away. The classes had not yet started but even just the introductory lectures she had been attending during the orientation week had been extremely interesting. 

Marlee and Ariana had taken her under their wing and Nina really liked them already. She didn’t need to be alone for a second if she didn’t want to be. Marlee and Ariana also apparently had a bigger group of friends that they wanted to introduce Nina to once the classes started. She had even gotten to know couple of her classmates like Lisa. 

She missed Luna and everyone, but it really felt like Oxford was where she was meant to be. 

There only was the one thing…

Nina knew that Gastón had no idea that she was there… unless Matteo had secretly told him, but she was sure he would have not betrayed her trust like that. 

She was feeling extremely conflicted. Part of her wanted to call him right now, let him know that there no longer was an ocean between them… other part of her was being hesitant. There was no changing the fact that all she knew, he wanted nothing to do with her… she was not sure if she could be able to take that heart break again. 

Plus, the words Eric had said to still echoed in her mind. That she was just running back to Gastón. It was not true, but it still made her feel extremely guilty. 

***

“Okay gentleman, keep you eyes peeled for cute freshman girls.” Jacob declared as he, Gastón and Oliver exited their room. Jacob grabbed Gastón’s shoulders, “So are we looking for a blonde or are you more into darker hair colors?”

“What?” Gastón gave him a concerned look. “What is this?”

“New year, new chances.” Oliver continued. “Thats how this is going to work. We get you a girlfriend and then she can wingman girls for me and James, and for Jacob… whatever he is into at that time.”

“Why me?” Gastón rolled his eyes. He should have guessed that the guys would try to stage a new intervention as soon as they had an excuse. 

“Because you are the one of us who actually has prospects.” Jacob shrugged, “You are the good-looking Hispanic Latino, who is also really smart and nice. We are just average boring Europeans in the eyes of all the girls.”

“How many times do I need to tell you that I am not on the market?”

“That’s the problem, you should be.” Oliver was working on something on his tablet, but still fully invested in the conversation. “The only reason you are single is because you keep sabotaging yourself.”

Gastón rolled his eyes. He had gone on maybe two or three dates last year, and those had ended up being nothing short of a disaster… because of him. All that had done, was to prove him that no other girl could ever fill the hole in his heart. He had sworn off dating after that, because he did not want to give anyone any false hope. 

“Hey guys!” Ariana appeared in their side and Gastón breathed a sigh of relief when the topic changed.

“Where’s Marlee?” Jacob asked he opened the door to the staircase.

“She went to escort out roommate to her first lecture. Plus her first class is not even in this building.” Ariana explained. “You are not still doing that?” She turned her attention to Oliver’s tablet.

“I was just tweaking it.” Oliver answered her back. “It needed more color.”

“Whatever, looks like a mess anyway.” Ariana shook her head, “I assume you did not notice the email that said that lecture hall has changed. It is now 296U.”

“What?”

“Knew it.” Ariana rolled her eyes. “So, we are going here.” She grabbed Oliver by the shoulders and started steering him towards the left corridor. 

“I am actually going this way.” Gastón said and pointed to the corridor on the right. “I need to go check something in the study hall. My class is close to it anyway.”

“Have fun!” Jacob said as he kept walking straight ahead. “See ya.”

Gastón shook his head as he walked alone through the hallway. There was nothing he actually needed to do at the study hall but taking that route to his class spared him off the rest of the walk with Jacob and more talk about finding him a girlfriend. It was already enough that Matteo kept calling him an idiot every time they talked. Matteo did have a good reason for calling him an idiot, but it was starting to get annoying. 

Yes, he had been an idiot. But there was nothing he could do anymore. Nina had moved on, probably being very happy at Buenos Aires. She must have found an amazing literature program at some University at Buenos Aires and was having the time of her life. Only thing he hoped for her was that she would keep writing and maybe someday he hoped he could read that again. 

Stop it. He wanted to slap himself. He was supposed to stop thinking about her. Even if he was not going to give into Oliver and Jacob’s matchmaking schemes, it didn’t mean he should keep going on like this. Who would have known that if you fall in love madly once, it was super hard to ever let it go, and he had tried. 

Maybe he should try harder…

His train of thought was cut by him slamming into someone. Great… He had been so in his thoughts he had forgotten completely to look ahead. 

The girl he had crashed into had dropped the books she had been carrying so he crouched to help to pick them up. 

“Por favor perdoname. Esto fue completamente mi culpa. I wasn’t looking in front of me,” Really? Like this was not going to get any worse. He had started to speak Spanish, something he tried to avoid doing when speaking to girls, especially ones he did not know. It always got him branded as the hot latino and that was something he wanted to avoid by all cost. 

“No te preocupes por eso. Está bien. Happens to me all the time.” He was just and just about to register that the response also came in Spanish.

Gastón blood ran cold and he got on his feet at the instant as he heard her voice. It could not be…

…he looked up and found himself staring straight into those green eyes that still haunted his dreams.

 Crazy. He had gone crazy. He was very clearly hallucinating right now. She could not be here. 

He was not sure how long he had been standing frozen until he got something out of his mouth. “Nina?”

“Oh my, are you okay?” Gastón got snapped back into reality by Marlee’s voice. Wait a minute, what was Marlee doing here? He shook his head and looked straight ahead again. She really was standing there, Nina really was there, standing in front of him.

“You clumsy oaf!” Gastón realized that Marlee was standing next to Nina, hand on her shoulder. Her words seemed to be directed towards him. Nina looked as confused as he was, but Marlee didn’t seem to notice it. “Way to make a first impression.”

“What?” 

“It is not even that early in the morning, why do you look like you been hit on the head with a wooden block?” Marlee continued. “Fine, I guess I need to do everything around here.” he she turned towards Nina. “You remember how we said that we had other friends? This is one of those idiots. That is Gastón, with a last name that I can’t pronounce, and he apparently also needs glasses. Gastón, this is our new roommate, Nina… Simonetti was it?”

Gastón did not know how he was supposed to explain that they did not need introductions at all. He had never told his friends that much private information about his life In Buenos Aires. He had never told then his girlfriend’s name, so of course Marlee and Ariana would have had no idea who she actually was. It did not look like that Nina was eager to start explaining the situation either. 

“She is also from Buenos Aires, so you two should get along splendidly.”

“Sure. That sounds good…” Gastón started speaking. “Súper gusto en conocerte. Soy Gastón Perida.” He switched languages over, so Marlee could not hear. “What are you doing here?”

“I— I didn’t think it would happen this way.” Nina responded.

“What did you think was going to happen?”

“Okay. I gather that you two introduced yourselves to each other… but what do I know, I do not speak Spanish.” Marlee laughed, “Now that there is two of you, rest of us are probably forced to take some lessons.”

“I have been telling you that for a year…” Gastón still did not know what to say. He was still wrapping his head around all of this. “I need to get to class… uhm, I see you later.” And he just walked away. Honestly, he did not know wat else to do.

He actually had class. The lecture hall was still quite empty when he got to it, since there was still 20 minutes until the lecture was starting, when you took the academic quarter into account. He must have walked faster than he had thought. He sat down on his usual seat in the eight row, and ran his hand through his hair. 

What was happening? If Marlee had not appeared on the scene, he would still believe that he had been hallucinating. Nina was here… at Oxford… and she was the roommate of Marlee and Ariana…

 Why had no one told him? There was no way Matteo had not known, Nina surely had told Luna… Why was she even here? She hadn’t wanted to leave Buenos Aires… that was the reason he had made the worst decision of his life on a whim. 

“I know, I know, I am late but I was talking with Jacob…” Gastón heard a vague voice come to next to him. “...you okay?” James snapped his fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

“Yeah, totally.” He turned his head towards James. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to explain… You know, the girl I left in Buenos Aries and the one I am still in love with is here. Just a casual conversation starter. But he and James were not that close, and James did not know everything. 

Telling the truth about Nina, especially without her knowledge and consent, when it looked like she was going to be in the same circle was not right. Marlee and Ariana clearly had taken her under their wing and it was not his place to make things awkward or break the six of them up because of this.

He needed Matteo… Matteo was the only one who knew what was going on. 

Gastón took his phone out and wrote Matteo a message. 

Gastón: I need to talk to you, it is important. I am calling you in 75 minutes and you better pick up. 

“Seriously! What is up with you?” A slight slap on his shoulder made him sit up and become aware that he still was in class and James was eyeing him suspiciously. “You are just staring blankly ahead, clearly not paying attention and you have ignored me every time I have asked you something.”

“What? I did not hear you.”  Gastón shook his head and tried to snap back into the moment.

“My point.”

“I did not sleep well. I’m sorry.” He came up with an excuse. 

“Then where is the coffee?” James questioned, “Don’t tell me you started a decaf diet.”

Gastón was about to snark something back when his he felt his phone vibrate and he grabbed it with a lightning speed.

Matteo: Well, good morning to you too. Should I be concerned? Well, good for you, I have an early production meeting with the label, so you did not wake me up. What can be so important?

Gastón: I think you know… don’t you? 

Matteo: What are you talking about?

Gastón: Just answer my call after my lecture

***

Nina sank onto her bed after she got back to the room. Marlee and Ariana still had classes, they were going to meet her for lunch, so the room was empty. 

She stared at the ceiling while taking some deep breaths. If only her heart would stop pounding so she could hear herself think. 

This was not how she thought it would have happened. Not that she had any plan in place… but, she would have wanted to have herself somewhat together before she came face to face with Gastón again. 

Was life really what happened when you were busy making other plans? Typical. She was never going to be allowed to have control of her own life, was she?

Instead of taking her time, with her head straight, and everything that she wanted to say thought through… not bumping into him like some idiot because she had been too busy looking at the ceiling and the walls, even the more modern areas at Oxford were extremely beautiful. But, what else had she been expecting… they always had a habit of bumping into each other… smile automatically formed on her lips when she thought about it. 

She had been even more shocked when Marlee had started scolding him like he was her younger brother. They knew each other… pretty well it seemed. Nina had had no idea, she had never heard of Marlee Wynne or Ariana Williams before. She knew that Gastón’s roommates were called Jacob and Oliver and she vaguely remembered him mentioning the name James, but nothing about any girls. 

Only thing she knew right now, was the overwhelming surge of emotions… and she had no idea what he was thinking. Nina reached for her bag and started searching through it for her phone. 

“Hi, Nina! What is up?” Luna picked up the video call at once. Nina for a second didn’t understand what Luna was talking as she mispronounced couple of the English words, “What did you think? Matteo has been teaching me English because he thought I’d fare better in that than Italian. I think I am doing better.”

“It was really good, Luna,” Nina laughed. 

“So, tell me everything about your first day.”

“Well, there is lot to tell, but I don’t know how to start.”

“Is everything okay?” Luna’s face grew more concerned. Nina was sure she was able to tell it from her face. 

“Yes, it is… but uhm,” Nina tried hard to find the right words. “I ran into Gastón.”

“You did?” Luna’s voice was surprised but also excited. “Just like that?”

“Yeah, I was just walking in one of the study halls and we just bumped into each other. I didn’t even know that he lived in this building.”

“What a coincidence!”

“Well, it was not a coincidence, exactly,” Nina thought what the best way was to explain this, “but it also was.”

“Nina, I am not understanding right now.” Luna’s face grew more confused. “How can it be a coincidence and at the same time not?”

“You remember the girls that are my roommates, Ariana and Marlee?”

“Oh yeah, they sound cool.” Luna responded.

“Well, that’s the thing.” Nina started. “They are Gastón’s friends.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes, I, I didn’t know that. They probably were not friends yet when we were… you know, still talking.”

“World always has mysterious ways of working.” Luna laughed, “But tell me, what happened with Gastón.”

“Nothing,” Nina ran her hand on her face, “He… didn’t exactly look happy to see me. He barely said anything and then practically ran away. He said he had class. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“How was it supposed to happen?”

“I don’t know.” Nina lamented. “Marlee and Ariana are nice and seems like they want to be friends with me. They don’t know the truth. I don’t know what to do.”

“You two should probably talk.” Luna suggested, “If I have learned one thing about me and Matteo is that, you should always try.” 

***

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?” Gastón had thrown himself onto his bed as soon as he had gotten to his room, which thankfully had been empty. Not that Oliver or Jacob would have been able to eavesdrop, since they did not understand Spanish, but his overwrought tone of voice would probably give something away.

“Hi to you too. I am doing well, thanks for asking.” Matteo thankfully answered as soon as he called him. 

“I am not in the mood for jokes.”

“Okay.” Matteo’s face turned a bit more concerned. “Whats wrong? It has been a while since I have seen you this distressed.”

“Don’t try to tell you didn’t know. I am sure you did. I thought I had gone crazy, Matteo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nina!”

Sudden recognition spread onto Matteo’s face. Gastón was right, he had known.

“Is it some kind of new thing there that you don’t tell me anything that is happening, just like when you almost killed yourself?”

“Okay, look.” Matteo started, “It is true, I did know, but she asked us to not to tell anyone. Try to look it from my side, what would have you done?”

Gastón hated to admit that Matteo was right. He would never compromise someone's trust like that. 

“But lets backpedal for a second,” a sudden smirk suddenly started growing on Matteo’s face. “You mean to tell me that you two met already? That was fast.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly intentional.”

“What do you mean?” Matteo questioned, “Did you just crash into each other?” He joked.

“Pretty much so.”

“Really?” Matteo’s smile grew wider, “You two really are some kind of soulmates… what really are the odds?”

“The same odds that she is the roommate of my friends.”

“This just keeps getting better.” Matteo started laughing, “Marlee and Ariana, right?”

“Yes, them.”

“We’ll this is a super good thing.”

“It is?” Gastón questioned. Just the thought of her being so close, but still out of reach, was torturous. “She didn’t even tell me that she was coming here. Who says she even wants anything to do with me?”

“You are madly in love with her, don’t even try to deny it, we both know that's the truth. You don’t need an excuse to see her, she is in the same circles as you. Now act.”

“Matteo, it won’t work like that.” Gastón sighed resigned. 

“I should not be telling you this, but it is for a good cause, so I’m doing it anyway. Nina is not with Eric anymore. She broke up with him right before their graduation. She’s a free woman.”

“That does not mean she wants to be with me again. I am sure she did not move away to another country only for that.”

“Obviously not, but that does not mean that she doesn’t still love you. I think she does.” Matteo kept pushing, “Look, you know nothing happens without a reason. You have been given a second chance, you just need to take it.”

“I can’t. I left her by saying that we can’t make it work when there is an ocean between us.”

“Which was stupid,” Matteo remarked. 

“I know, I know.” Gastón shook his head. “But I can’t just say that I want her back now when she is physically here. How do you think that will sound?”

“That you love her, messed up, and want to redeem yourself?”

“It sounds like I’d only want to sleep with her!”

“You mean you don’t?” Matteo raised an eyebrow at him.

“You know what I mean,” Gastón huffed at Matteo’s suggestion. 

“Then what are you planning on doing?” Matteo kept challenging him. It was clearly on purpose. They knew each other two well. 

“Getting over her.” Gastón stated simply.

“Okay… uhm that is quite a goal.” Matteo was trying to hold in his laughter and Gastón rolled his eyes.

“I am being serious.”

“No, you’re not. How many times have you tried to do that?” Matteo pretended to count with his hands, “You have not succeeded once. You can’t do that—”

Matteo got interrupted by the door. Gastón looked up and saw Oliver enter the room. 

“I would honestly appreciate some support.” Gastón continued, not paying Oliver any mind. 

“I will of course support you, but how well do you think you will actually succeed when she is actually there, when you could not do it when she was still across the Atlantic.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“Honestly, the only thing I want to see is for you to be happy.” Matteo finally sighed. “And I think it is with her… uup, I need to get going… think about what I said okay. I have experience with stupid decisions ruining my life. You have a chance to make things right, don’t ruin it. I want to give a speech at your wedding.”

“What were you talking about?” Oliver asked Gastón from his desk, where he had a complicated setup of screens and drawing pads. 

“Nothing important,” Gastón lied swiftly. He was not sure how he would even begin to explain any of what had happened to the others. 

“Kind of sounded like you were arguing.”

“Since when do you understand Spanish?”

“I don’t, but the language does not hide your tone of voice.”

“Matteo is an Italian, it is impossible not to get in an argument with him.” Gastón just shrugged. “You should see him and his girlfriend… anyways, I need to go to the library.” He got off the bed, grabbed his laptop and walked out of the door. 

That had not been an excuse, he actually needed to go to the library. No matter what kind of emotional hurricane he was in, he still needed to do his work.

“Gastón!” As he was walking forward on a hallway, he heard someone call his name. Who was he kidding, it was not someone, he could recognize that voice in his sleep. 

He stopped and turned around to see Nina making her way towards him. He still needed to blink, because it still hadn’t fully sunk in the she really was here, in front of him. 

“Hi.” She caught up with him. Outside she had not changed much, her hair was a bit longer, but that was it. She still had that shy smile and her eyes were the same. She was so beautiful…

“Hi,” Gastón responded back, not sure what else he was supposed to say. Oh, there were a million things he wanted to say, but could not. 

“We should talk.” Her voice was the same too, except that there was an underlying confidence in it, even if she clearly also was nervous… and he found that extremely attractive… like he always had. 

“Yeah, we probably should,” He shook those thoughts quickly out of his head. 

“Do you know a place where we can do that?” 

There was this underlying awkwardness looming between them that Gastón absolutely hated. Neither of them really knew what to say or do next.

“Sure, there are a couple of couches around that corner,” he said and started walking forward in the hallway and Nina followed him. 

“We don’t need to worry about being overheard.” He explained as he sat down on one of the couches, Nina sat on an armchair opposite of it “I have yet to meet a Spanish speaker, which is a bit odd, but we can talk in peace wherever we want.”

“Well, that is good.”

Silence loomed over them for couple of minutes. 

“So uhm… what are you doing here?” Gastón finally broke it by asking the question that had haunted him the whole day. Matteo had given his own answers to it, but he wanted to hear it from Nina. 

“Well, I study here.” Nina answered simply, “I am majoring in English language and literature, right now I am going to go all the way to masters so aiming for at least five years. You are still doing energy science engineering?”

“Yes.” Gastón nodded, “I definitely found my field… So, how are you?”

“I guess, well as you can be,” Nina responded, “I had some hard time figuring out what I wanted to do after Blake, but I think I finally managed to figure it out.”

“I am sorry…” Gastón started “...I am just so surprised to see you. No one told me anything.”

“I know.” Nina looked down. “Don’t be mad at Matteo, please. I asked him not to tell you, be mad at me.”

“I get that. Little heads up would have been nice, though.”

“I didn’t mean it to happen like that either. I guess we just can’t look ahead of ourselves,” Nina smiled shortly. 

“So, I have to ask—” the question had been burning on his tongue ever since this conversation had started, “—last time you said that you couldn’t come to England because you could not leave your life… but, here you are. I guess I am just having a hard time understanding it.”

“Well yes, of course, you would.” Nina looked down again. Gastón could tell that she was thinking hard about what to say next, you could tell that from her small frown and the fact that she kept fiddling with her hair. Had she been nervous to face him again? “Honestly, it is a long story. You see, I got a scholarship, it was called: Educación Internacional Para Jóvenes Prometedores Del Mañana, I don’t know if you have heard of it.”

“I have.” Gastón responded, “That’s a huge honor.”

“I know,” Nina continued, “it was too good of a chance to not take advantage of it. This was what I always wanted when I really sat down and thought about it.” She suddenly looked up at him straight into eyes. “I know what I said then, and I don’t know… I did think so then I guess… and I am sorry…”

“Oh, no no no,” Gastón interrupted, “You don’t owe me any apology or even an explanation… I should have not even asked.”

The silence loomed over them for the second time.

“So… you know Marlee and Ariana?” Nina broke the silence this time. 

“Yes, I do.” Gastón nodded. “It kind of started from me, Oliver and Jacob. Marlee is his childhood friend. Ariana studies that same stuff as Oliver and then I met James. We’re quite close now, the six of us. I still talk to Matteo almost daily and Simon and Pedro sometimes join him too, but it is nice to have friends here.”

“Well, that sounds great.” Nina smiled, “I totally understand that, and if you want me to—”

“I am not going to tell you to do anything,” Gastón caught up quickly where Nina was heading, “You are free to be friends with anyone you like. I would never dictate that. Marlee also seemed quite protective of you, and that is going to be hard to shake.”

“But they don’t know?”

“Yeah, they don’t know anything about our history, and I am honestly not sure how to approach the subject.” Gastón shook his head. 

“I understand what you mean.” Nina responded. “It would make things awkward, more than they already are.”

“Yeah”

“But this doesn’t need to be awkward,” Nina suddenly said.

“I absolutely agree,” Gastón was not fully sure where she was going with this, but he figured that the best course was to agree.

“We’re friends.” she continued, “We were before and are now. No reason to make this that complicated, right?”

“Yeah, totally.” Gastón was sure that some part of him inside died from those words, but what else had he been expecting? Hadn’t he just said an hour ago to Matteo that he’d get over her?

“You were going somewhere, weren’t you? Before I stopped you.” Nina suddenly asked and shook Gastón from his thoughts. 

“Yeah, I was. I need to get some work done.” He started getting up from the couch. 

“Then I should let you get to it then,” Nina also got up from her chair. 

“Yep,” Gastón said while looking at his watch, “And Nina… it is good to see you... really.”

“It is good to see you too.”

“And if you need anything, you can ask me. I know this place pretty well already, and we will probably be seeing more of each other. Marlee and Ariana are great people, you are in good hands.” Then Gastón did something that he knew he would come to regret and kissed her on her cheek before heading to the direction of the library. 

{}

…thinking about the feeling of his lips on her skin, even if it had just been a small cheek kiss. Just a small polite gesture from their culture, nothing more. They had relegated themselves to this polite friendship and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

Nina had blurted that friendship thing out in a small internal panic, in order to delude the awkwardness that had been looming over them. She wasn’t sure what else she would have been supposed to say. She had no idea how much Marlee and Ariana, or any other of Gastón’s friends, knew about his ex-girlfriend or how they’d react to it being her. 

The whole situation was so complicated… why was love this hard? 

“Nina? What are you doing here?” She jumped from the sudden voice that came from behind her. “It is 7:15.”

Nina turned around and she was so rapidly looking for the voice that she dropped her bag. 

“Over here. Did I scare you?” She finally turned enough around to see Gastón standing close to the end of the hallway. He walked forward to her and picked her bag off the ground.

“Little bit… I didn’t know there was anyone here.” Nina took her bag from him, “What are you doing here?”

“I go to the gym in the mornings. There is small one over here.” He gestured towards the door at the end of the hallway, “But they apparently removed the sign… Hmm, don’t know what that’s about.”

“You— go to the gym?” Nina realized too late that her words came out as a stumbling mess. She had been too focused on erasing the image from her mind. She really hoped he had not seen her face or the fact that her eyes automatically had focused on his arms, which unfortunately were covered by a long-sleeved shirt.

What was with her? She had seen him shirtless enough times not to get that flustered over that… and just thought of him working out made her feel things she hadn’t been feeling in months. 

“Couple times in a week, depends really. Only cardio and lifting mostly to keep in shape since I don’t exactly skate anymore.” Nina was not sure if Gastón had noticed her staring, but had or not he still kept talking, “It helps to keep up a routine and helps me think. But you did not answer my question. I don’t think you were looking for the gym.”

“No, or course not,” Nina snapped back into the moment. “I didn’t really sleep well, so I decided to do little exploring and I think I got lost. I am not sure how I ended up here, exactly.” Her phone dinged and she pulled it out of her bag, “Sorry, one second… Marlee asks me to come to the study hall lambda… now I just need to find my way there…”

“I’ll show you.” Gastón said while looking at his own phone. “We have a group chat and Marlee told us all to go there. We’ll need to go through our room so I can drop my bag off.”

“Sure.” Nina nodded and followed him to the stairwell door and went through the door he was holding open for her. 

“Speaking of skating,” Gastón started as they were descending the spiral staircase that pretty much felt never-ending. “I watched the River Live festival.”

“You did?”

“Yep, Matteo sent me the link to it. It looked incredible.” Nina was happy to notice that the awkwardness seemed to pretty much be gone. Maybe it was because Gastón was totally fine with being friends. “It was great to see you out there as well.”

“Well, Luna put me on a boot camp,” Nina responded, “It went alright I guess… but it wasn’t something that felt very natural to me. Not like you all.”

“Didn’t look like it. Everyone must have been so proud of you…” Gastón’s voice trailed off for a second, “Uhm… I talked with Matteo, and he told me that you and Eric are not together anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Nina nodded. She had not been expecting that Matteo would have kept that from Gastón after her presence at Oxford had been revealed. 

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” Nina shook her head, “It was the right thing to do… it just wasn’t working. It was a whole mess honestly. He… didn’t really take it well. He tried to make me stay by telling me that he loved me.” She blurted out.

“Autch,” Gastón reacted. Nina could tell from his face that he disapproved.

“I have no idea what he is thinking right now and I don’t think I want to know,” She continued, “We haven’t spoken since and I honestly do not know what I would say to him. We we’re clearly not on the same page about the relationship… it was my fault. I never should have gotten him involved.”

“You did what you thought was right.” Nina felt his hand land on her shoulder briefly. It sent shivers down her spine, no matter how casual the touch was. “If he loved you, he would respect your decisions.”

“Yeah,” Nina sighed. Something about his voice was still so reassuring. It still managed to make her feel better about herself. “We don’t need to talk about this.”

“You’re right,” Gastón stopped in front of a door that had α5 written on it. He held it open for her and then followed her into the hallway. The hallway appeared to be normal dorm hallway. Nina followed Gastón as they turned at least ten different corners. “So what do you think about Professor Sauylar? I took one elective literature class last year and she taught it.” 

“Well, I only have had couple lectures but everything she has talked about has been so intriguing…” Nina continued before remembering something, “I have been meaning to go to explore the library at some point. Ariana showed me around a little bit last week, but I wanna see the whole library, but I think I will probably get lost… Ariana said that she knew a person who could show me around better than she can. She meant you right?”

“Yes, I am sure she did.” Gastón laughed. “Jacob an Oliver prefer E-books, Marlee makes so many notes on the books that she often just buys if she needs something and James only comes with me occasionally. I can totally show you around there. It is amazing and you really can get lost there. I mean it is not the Blake library, but we’ll make due.” He kept joking.

Nina was not sure if he was doing this on purpose. She really hoped she was not blushing again, because just the mention of the Blake library brought to her mind all the moments they had shared there. Or there was just something wrong with her mind, but the small daring smile on his lips made her mind blank at least twice.

“I’ll just grab my bag real quick,” they stopped in front of a door that had the number 267. Nina realized that they were approximately two floors down from her room. It was official, the roomnumbers made no sense. She watched as Gastón opened the door and went inside. 

Nina stood outside the door feeling a bit awkward. She walked tad bit forward and peeked in the room. The layout wise it looked almost identical to hers, except that it was mirrored, with two beds being on the left side. It also look quite tidy… which should have not surprised her since she knew Gastón… but she did not know Jacob or Oliver. Gastón seemed to look up for a moment and Nina quickly pretended that she had not been looking. 

She did not know why she felt so nervous being so close to the place he slept at. She had been his girlfriend and intimate partner for a long time… maybe the past tense there was the answer. It felt unnatural to keep the distance like this or constantly think about what was she allowed to say to him and what not.

Or maybe the problem was that, she had been the first… and she had no idea how many or who had come after her. That was something she was sure that, even if she would have asked, Matteo wouldn’t have had the heart to tell her. Not that she was entitled to that knowledge, but just thinking about the possibility broke her heart. That was not technically fair at all since she had been with Eric after all, even if they had barely ever done anything. 

Oh goodness sake! No one had even said that Gastón was single. She had only seen him couple of times at Oxford, and never with anyone else, but that did not mean there weren’t other times where he could have been seeing people. Who said he did not have a girlfriend whom he had met on his classes?

If you applied all the logic to the equation, it was more likely than not that Gastón was seeing someone. Who wouldn’t want him? Nina knew all the reason why someone would want to be with him. 

“Okay, lets go.” Gastón closed the door. He was carrying a blue backbag that looked oddly familiar to Nina.

“Is that the same one you had at Blake?”

“Yeah, actually,” Gastón answered as they started walking again. “It still in one piece and those messenger bags are extremely unergonomic, so I took it to use again. Do you still have the green one?”

Nina a shot her gaze up as he mentioned the back bag, she had stolen from him when they had started dating. She didn’t think he would have remembered it. “Uhm… yes I do, at Buenos Aires that is. I didn’t take it here. I know I stole it and I did think about returning it, but I didn’t know how to do it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gastón just shook his head, “You can have it. There are worse things you have stolen from me.”

Nina was left wondering what on earth he meant by then when they rounded the corner, and they suddenly were at the study hall. The entrance they had taken was not the one she had used the other times she had been at the study hall. 

“I found her at the top floor of the sigma wing.” Nina started walking after Gastón towards the opposite corner of the hall where she saw that Marlee and Ariana were talking with three guys. One of them was as tall as Gastón and had dark skin, other had red hair, the third one was pretty pale with brown extremely short hair. He also had an earring. 

“What were you doing there?” Ariana asked as Nina came up to them. She very quickly noticed that the guys were looking at Gastón a little bit longer than you usually looked at someone when arriving and kept glancing at her. “There are reception dead-zones here, you can actually get really lost.”

“Well, I did kind of got lost.”

“Anyways, now that you are here,” Marlee started speaking addressing the other guys “most of you have not met each other yet. Guys, this is our new roommate Nina Simonetti. She comes all the way from Argentina.”

“She is a freshman, so be nice to her.” Ariana put her hand on Nina's shoulder. “These are the people we somehow tolerate in our everyday life. Oliver Carson,” She pointed to the red-haired guy, “someone who does not know how to draw a straight line. James Wilson and Marlee told me you already met Gastón… how do you say it again?”

“Perida, it is not that hard,” Gastón rolled his eyes, while avoiding eye contact with Nina.

“Sure.” Marlee responded, “James and Gastón are our brainiacs from the science and technology faculty. And then finally, that is Corncop.” Marlee pointed to the guy with the earring. Who made very not amused face.

“Don’t listen to Marlee. Jacob Tomas.” he spoke before shooting Marlee and playfully murderous glare. That was clearly some kind of joke between them. 

“We’re the so called singles club at Oxford,” Ariana remarked, “Even if some of us wouldn’t need to be.” Nina was sure she was looking at Gastón while saying it. So Gastón was single? But what did “not needing to be” meant?

“Well nice to meet you Nina,” Oliver started to speak, “but I think we are all soon late to class. See you around.”

“We’ll be adding her to the chat and not listening objections,” Marlee said before the guys started to scatter. 

***

“I am not exacarating,” Gastón said to Matteo who was on the other side of his phone screen. Gastón had slipped from the group after lunch because he needed to give Matteo a status update, plus to blow off some steam. “She just wants to be friends, and I am fine with it.”

“You sure look fine,” Matteo’s face told him that he was not buying it, and the truth was that he should not be buying it. 

Obviously, Gastón was not fine with it, no matter how much he tried to tell himself that. But that was what Nina wanted, so he had to respect it. So, he needed to scarp more on it. Only this morning he had already slipped on the shoulder. He had managed to stop himself before he had moved his hand closer to the back of her neck and grabbed a piece of her hair like he often had done. It was not the easiest thing to fight against your natural instincts. How did she manage to be so cute when startled.

Only thing he wanted was to be close to her. The feelings, everything he felt for her had come rushing back so fast… maybe because they never had been gone in the first place. 

“I am literally quoting: “This should not be awkward, we are friends.” Do I need to show you a recording for you to believe me?” Gastón shook his head, “What did you want me to say? Thats what she wants, and I am accepting it. We talked this morning, it was completely normal.”

“So you talked, did you?” Matteo still had that annoying smug smirk on his face. 

“Yes, we did. You know that I work out on the mornings. I ran into her at the wing, which is pretty far, and she had gotten lost.”

“So she just happened to be lurking outside of your gym,” Matteo remarked skeptically. Gastón wanted to snark something back, but honestly he had kind of been wondering the same, but he was sure he had just imagined the change in her impression after mentioning working out. “These coincidences really just keep being coincidences.”

“She was lost. This place is a maze.” Gastón shook his head.

“So, what did you talk about?”

“Nothing special, a little bit about everything. You know, what she had been up to in Buenos Aires, like that Eric guy.” A sour taste appeared in his mouth with saying that name.

“So, she told you about that?” Matteo seemed to get excited. “You can’t make things up anymore. You did realize that she specifically told you that she is single?”

“She didn’t bring it up,” Gastón huffed, “I did. She deserves to know that you told me.” He leaned back against his bed’s headboard. Thinking about that Eric guy made his blood boil, “What kind of person tries to guilt-trip someone to bend to their own will by telling them they love them?”

“Oh, so she told you about that?” Matteo had an amused expression on his face, “Honestly, I never really like that Eric guy. I don’t think you would have either.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.” Gastón said through his teeth. Nina deserved the world.

“See?” Matteo’s smile suddenly grew wider than the Cheshire cat, “How do you feel?”

“Like I wanna punch him.” Gastón stated. 

“I didn’t mean that.” Matteo shook his head, “You are getting this riled up about the guy Nina dated disrespecting her, but you are still trying to tell me that you are fine being her friend.”

“Yes, of course I am.” If only Matteo wouldn’t be so good a reading him. “We have been friends before—”

“Hey, Gastón—” The door opened and Jacob, Oliver and James came in. Gastón signaled them that he was on the phone. 

“When have you been friends?” Matteo continued, “If we look at the time line backwards here for a second… you started talking to her and the literally the next day you were complaining to me about how you were confused about two girls. You have always been crazy about her, and that’s why you started liking the freaking Felicity in the first place, because that was how she was expressing herself. I had the first row seat to this show, and I know you. You would have fallen for her anyway.”

“I have no other option.” Gastón sighed, “I can’t just hoist myself on her. She does not deserve it.”

“What if what she deserves… is you?”

“We’ve been over this…”

“I can see I am not getting through to you right now,” Matteo huffed, “especially with an audience.” 

“You do know they can’t understand, right?” Gastón looked up on the other guys. “Talk to you later.”

“I can’t even start to comprehend what you possibly could have been talking about,” James remarked after Gastón hung up on Matteo

“All kinds of things,” Gastón noted dryly. “You know, there is things I don’t tell you.”

“We know that already,” Oliver leaned back on his bed, “So, from one topic to another, what do you think about Marlee and Ariana’s new roommate?”

“She seems nice.” Jacob nodded while typing away on his computer. 

“Yeah, I agree,” James nodded and turned his gaze toward Gastón. “You?”

“Yeah, she seems alright.” Gastón tried to keep his face expressionless as possible. 

“Just alright?” James kept asking, “So, you didn’t think she was cute?”

“Uh, why are you asking?” Gastón got caught completely off guard by that question. 

“I don’t know, just looked like you were getting along quite well when you came to the hall,” James stated nonchalantly. “Marlee said you had already met… how did that happen?”

“I accidently ran into her and Marlee on the first day.” Gastón tried to sound as casual as possible, “Like I said, about today, she was lost. And you have no idea what we were talking about. It was nothing special. Do you know how exhausting it can be needing to use language not your own in everyday communication? Sometime speaking Spanish is just relaxing.” 

“It is quite a coincidence that she is also from Buenos Aires, isn’t it?” Oliver had also turned his head towards Gastón.

“What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know, just saying,” Oliver shrugged his shoulders, “Ariana told me little more about her, because I was curious. She is a literature major, likes books and reading. Apparently writes. Seems pretty sensitive. Maybe little shy, but give it a month in Marlee and Ariana’s hands and she’ll need to start opening up. There even is no language barrier. Gastón, you should ask her out.”

Gastón hoped his face was not showing the pure panic and… everything else he was feeling. If they only knew… he half considered just blurting out the truth here and now… but no idea how they would react. It would make the things harder.

“Why an I the only one getting an intervention about needing to ask someone out,” he finally settled on saying. “As far as I know, you three are also single. Why aren’t you focusing on that?”

“Because we are not having an emotional block about all of this.” James crossed his arms. “Girlfriend would be nice, but you refuse the mere idea of it.”

“We are not psychologists, but you do realize what is holding you back, right?” Jacob had turned back from his computers.

“I honestly don’t anymore.”

“We know you loved her, your ex, but she’s in Buenos Aires, you are here. Unless you are planning on going on like this for four years and then trying to get her back after that, when it will be too late, might I add, there is no point to this. We’re saying this because we care about you.”

“This isn’t about that,” Gastón tried to answer.

“Then what is it about?” Oliver questioned again. “Your excuses don’t work anymore. You have good opportunity here, with Nina. You should at least try. Ask her out. What do you have to lose?”

“No entiendes...”

“You don’t have to marry her.” James continued. The word made Gastón freeze for a moment… it had crossed his mind more than once. It was always said that 18-year-olds shoudl not be thinking of marriage, but he had always seen a future like that with Nina. Well, untill... “You can tell her you’re not looking anything that serious, but mate, you need to put yourself out there again. When was the last time you went on a date? A year ago? You never know what might happen.”

“Plus getting laid would do you some good.”

“Thank you for that assessment, Jacob.” Gastón remarked sarcastically.

{}

“How did we end up being friends with a bunch of guys?” Marlee slammed her laptop shut. 

“I don’t know,” Ariana rolled her eyes. “At least we're not outnumbered two to one anymore. Right?”

“What?” Nina saw from the corner of her eye that Ariana had turned her head towards her. 

“How do you like our guys?”

“They are nice.” Nina tried to say nonchalantly. It was true, James, Oliver and Jacob were nice. Gastón on the other hand… well, there were a million different ways she could describe him. 

“They are harmless, but idiots.” Marlee laughed. “No wonder they still don’t have girlfriends.”

“Uhm, about that,” what Marlee had said had reminded her of something Nina had been wondering about for a while but always forgot to ask. “When I met everyone, you said something about everyone not needing to be single… I honestly didn’t get that.”

“Oh, that’s just a joke we have with Gastón.” Ariana laughed. “He hates it.”

“But what did it mean?”

“It is only about how James, Oliver and Jacob try to fix him up with dates, but he is having none of it.”

“Why?” Nina blurted out without thinking. 

“Why are you so curious?” Marlee asked her with a suspicious tone, “Are you interested in Gastón?” 

“No,” Nina said quickly before her face could give anything away. “I was just asking because I want to get the full picture.”

“You sure?” Ariana joined in, “Because you two do seem to talk a lot. You get along super well, at least it looks like it.”

That was true, they did. They hang out in a group a lot, but Gastón always seemed to make an extra effort to speak to her. He was always asking if she needed help with something or knew where everything was. Nina often caught him up on everything that had happened in Buenos Aires during the past year and sometimes they even ended up gossiping about Luna and Matteo. Talking to him was so natural and she had missed him so much. More they talked and spent time together, more she just realized how much he meant to her… Almost like nothing had had ever happened and her feelings for him were as deep as ever.

Nina was afraid to read anything into it. They were friends and friends talked a lot… even if a small part of her kept hoping it was because he wanted to spend time with her. 

“Well, he is better in English than me,” Nina tried to defend herself. “I hate using google translate so it is easier to ask him about some stuff.”

“We get it. He does have his appeal,” Marlee and Ariana didn’t appear to be listening, “He is smart, I’ll give him that. Very friendly and charming. Good looking even, if you are into that kind of thing.” Nina saw Marlee and Ariana exchange a couple of skeptical-looking looks.

“Why do I feel like there is a but coming?”

“None of us can say that we know everything about Gastón,” Ariana continued from Marlee. “It took a while for him to open up to anyone, and we all know that he has not told us everything about himself. I mean, it is pretty clear that he has a bit more money than he lets on… and there is nothing wrong with that of course. I guess what I am trying to say is that he is still quite protective of his private information. He came from Buenos Aires, like you, so maybe you understand this, and there is definitely things there that he still misses. It is not like coming from a small town to live in a big city as we have. His life is still in Buenos Aires in some ways and probably always will be.”

“What we are trying to say is that he is a good person, and would definitely treat a girl well,” Marlee started. “But we’re not sure how emotionally available he actually is.”

“What do you mean?” Nina seriously had no idea what they were talking about. She had known that Gastón had not opened up to his roommates right away, and it was totally understandable why Isla and Marco’s financial status was not something he was voluntarily telling people. But emotionally unavailable? 

“This happened before we really knew him,” Ariana was looking like she was thinking hard, “So this definitely will not be the whole story. When he came here, he had a girlfriend, back in Buenos Aires. We to this day do not know her name, or what really happened, but a month or two into the semester he went back to visit and when he came back, he had broken up with her. No one knows why, not even James, so we can only guess. I have a hard time believing that she had been cheating on him or something because he was not angry, just extremely sad. He was really broken up about it.”

Nina hoped her face wasn’t giving anything away… it was extremely jarring hearing this side of the story… especially when it was about her, Ariana and Marlee just didn’t know it. Nina had not really thought how Gastón had been feeling about all of it, she had been so wrapped in her own grief and heartbreak. Maybe he had been as hurt as she had been… missed her as much, maybe still did. Those thoughts made her heart flutter, even if it was not likely at all.

“The thing is that we have no idea where his head with that is anymore.” Marlee nodded, “And we don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“But if you wanna go for it—” Ariana spun a pencil in her hand and her and Marlee shared a mischievous glance, “—by all means do. This is just something to be aware of. And honestly, he could use a girl, actually, someone like you Nina.”

“Oh noh, you misunderstood,” Nina started speaking.

“Sure.” Marlee was looking at her unconvinced, “You just casually were interested in all of this.”

“Yeah, I was curious.”

***

Gastón was going through an equation he had grafted about some energy losses. Even if it was the year 2019, he still preferred on doing most of the work by hand. 

The Hillary term had just begun, but he only had three courses. Material physics, programming basics course and something like that. The programming had been a little bit more challenging, but nothing he would not be able to handle. 

He opened his class schedule and looked it through. Maybe he should have taken some more classes. Studying was the only thing he had full control over right now. Everything else… was a mess. 

Since when did trying to forget someone make you just fall in love with them more? That didn’t make any sense. 

It had been months since he had learned that Nina was at Oxford, and now she had been fully integrated into their group. He had absolutely nothing against that, he couldn’t choose her friends for her. Plus, he could not think of better people to take care of her than Marlee and Ariana. 

BUT BEING SO CLOSE TO HER WAS MAKING HIM CRAZY. They had agreed to be friends, but it was hard to ever really comprehend that. Matteo was right about how they never really had been friends. 

He also could not bring himself to stay away for her either and always found at least one excuse to talk to her little bit longer. This was probably the least sense he had ever made in his life. He knew he could not have her, he didn’t deserve her and she didn’t want him either way. It didn’t matter that she was single. But at the same time, he could not get her out of his mind. 

Honestly, he could not blame the guys for thinking that he and Nina could be a good match, even if they did not know everything. Matteo obviously told him off every time they talked.

Gastón honestly didn’t know what to do anymore. Was this some kind of cruel joke from the universe to punish him after a series of really bad decisions. He refused to start hoping that this was some kind of second chance that fate had given him. No way he was worthy of that. 

But there was no escaping the truth either. Every time he talked to her, about anything, or even just looked her into her eyes, he just fell more in love with her. 

He had been on the verge of breaking down multiple times already. The multiple paragraph messages he had written — and the promptly deleted after realizing that she might have noticed him typing. He had even considered writing by hand… but that would have been way too corny. His own actions had led him into losing her, and he had to carry the consequences. 

He had even considered speaking to Luna, asking her help, but never ended up doing it. He and Luna were friends enough, she was Matteo’s girlfriend after all, and sometimes joined him on video calls. She also occasionally texted him, usually about something stupid Matteo had done so they could make fun of it, but Luna was always going to be on Nina’s side. Matteo had assured Gastón at some point that Luna did not hate him, but Gastón didn’t want to take the risk when it came to this. He was the person who had broken her best friend's heart and he really didn’t want to accidentally start causing a wedge between Luna and Matteo either. 

He took his focus off his phone and look down the hallway. 3ßß? He was on the wrong floor? Really now? The day was starting out well. 

3ßß was the floor where the girls’ room was, he realized. He had a brief internal battle about if he should pop in and say hi, but decided not to do it. He would just walk to the next staircase and change floors. 

In front of the door was a group of couches around a table. He saw her from the far already. Nina was sitting on one of the armchairs and crouched over her computer and some papers. She looked concentrated, but not in a good way. It almost looked like she was struggling. She did not appear to notice him.

“Hey. What are you doing?” Gastón could not bring himself to just walk past her. Nina frantically looked up as he voiced his presence. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh no you didn’t,” Nina shook her head. “I was just doing some homework.”

Gastón walked over and sat on the couch facing her. From the corner of his eye he saw the papers and those seemed to have bunch of symbols written on them. “This doesn’t look like literature homework.”

“Oh it isn’t,” Nina sighed, “It is for University basic level physics.”

“You’re taking basic phys as one of your freelance courses?” Gastón questioned. “Nina, you’re a literature major. Why would you do that to yourself?”

“I just thought that, since I could fit it in my schedule, that I should take it for general education and common knowledge.” Nina looked back onto her computer, “But honestly, I don’t know anymore. This looks like gibberish to me. I was good at physics.”

“I know you were,” Gastón responded. His instinct was telling her to just quit the course if she was having hard time. He had done it on his first term at Oxford, and knew it was not going to get any easier. The problem was that he also knew how much she hated giving up. “Let me see it.”

He moved to the chair next to Nina and looked at the problem that was displayed on her computer screen. 

“Okay, I think I see the problem.” He said after looking at her work, “You need to cross-reference the two formulas, not calculate them separately. Plus, this needs proof about the energy not disappearing. The work that is acquitted to that is always the friction, and that is always negative. It was said right there.” He pointed to the problem on the computer screen.

“Really?” Nina said while looking over the formula he had drawn on the paper. “I didn’t even notice that. I am so stupid.”

“How can you even say that?” Gastón said defensively, “I don’t think anyone who is studying at freaking Oxford can call themselves stupid. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Well, I didn’t get in like that, did I?” Nina hung her head slightly, “I got in here through that scholarship, which pretty much was a guaranteed spot.”

“That was maybe so,” Gastón hated to see her doubt herself like this. She always had had trouble seeing her worth, when that was the only thing he could see. She was amazing. “But not just anyone gets the scholarship. Nina, Ambar didn’t get it.”

“Well, she had a lot of things going on…”

“I don't think Blake ever knew about the rink thing.” Gastón interrupted, “She didn’t get it because the board that determines these things didn’t deem her worthy of it, but they thought that you were. So don’t try to tell me that you are not one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. I have seen what you can do when you put your mind to it.” 

He wasn’t sure if he was just imagining or was she blushing. 

“And honestly, if I look at this,” He gestured to the problem, “Your issue does not seem that you are not comprehending this, you just don't fully understand it.”

“And those are different how?”

“This is in a different language… it can trip the best of us up. Took me a while to properly get hang of it too.”

“Thank you,” Nina said to Gastón after he had finished explaining. “I wish I was like you. I probably won’t pass this.”

“Well, do you want that I help you?” Gastón blurted out before he had fully thought it through. “I could go through the stuff with you on a regular basis, so you get a better handle on it.”

“Would you do that?” Nina looked at him in disbelief. Honestly, if only she knew that he would do anything for her. “This course ranges to the Trinity term. Over Easter and everything, a long time.”

“I know that,” Gastón assured her, “This is a mandatory course in the science and technology faculty. I did it a year ago. So, tomorrow morning? Meet you at the library, so we can continue this?”

“Yeah, sure, that works for me,” Nina smiled at him, and he had to avert his eyes before getting lost in that smile. “You don’t have to do this for me.”

“What if I want to?”

“What are you two talking about?” All a sudden, James, Oliver and Jacob appeared on the couches.

“What are you doing here?” Gastón countered their question.

“This is a free level.” Oliver shrugged as they sat down. “Answer the question.”

“Gastón just helped me with my electional physics course,” Nina explained.

“Why are you doing optional physics?” James looked horrified. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t forced to.”

“I thought the credit would be a good addition to my roster,” Nina said a bit more shyly. “I know I am a literature major, but I loved doing science in high school.”

“What school did you go to?” Oliver asked, “I don’t think we know that.”

“It was called Blake South College.” Nina suddenly looked at her phone. “I need to go. My class starts.” She turned towards Gastón. “¿Entonces mañana? ¿En la biblioteca?”

“Sí. Te veo después. I’ll text you.” He tore his eyes off her, so it didn’t look like he was watching her walk away. As he turned back to the rest of the guys, he noticed that they all were staring at him. “What?”

“Blake South College,” Jacob said with a pensive voice. “Why does that sound so familiar… NO WAY! Wasn’t that fancy private school of yours called something similar, Gastón?”

“Uhmmm, that’s because…” Gastón felt his words getting stuck in his throat. He honestly was not sure what to say… the fact that no one knew that he and Nina actually knew each other was running pretty thin… but it had also gone far enough that there was no easy way out of it either. Things were going well between them, or as well as they could, as friends at least. He didn’t want to make it awkward again. “...it is the same school.”

“What? You two went to the same school?” Oliver had to lean back as he was laughing so hard.

“Looks like it,” Gastón responded, trying to sound nonchalant, “What's the big deal? She is younger than me. I didn’t even know all the people from my own grade.”

“When are you recognizing that she is made for you?” James punched him lightly on the shoulder.

“Not this again.” Gastón groaned. 

“What excuse are you going to use this time?” Oliver joined James. “You both are conscientious and responsible to frustrating degrees sometimes. You both love books and nerdy stuff in general. Don’t you see yourself that you are whipped for her pretty much already?”

“You are just imagining.”

“I don’t think so.” Jacob shook his head. “I mean, just when we walked in here and saw you talking… just saying: I see sparks fly.”

“You listen way too much Taylor Swift, Cob.” Gastón rolled his eyes.

“Not apologizing. Swifty forever.”

“I am with Jacob.” James continued, “You are literally bending over backwards to tutor her in physics. Since when you have tutored anybody?”

“Then how did you pass the electromagnetic course?” Gastón snapped back.

“You only help me because we do most of the work together,” James was not relenting, “Nina’s a literature major, she doesn't need that course. You are willing to sacrifice your time helping her pass something she doesn’t even need to do. Come on, this is just an excuse to spend time with her.”

“I am helping her because it is not the physics that is the issue with her.” Gastón tried to explain himself, “She is really smart, but the different language on this kind of stuff can trip you up. I can explain it easier to her since we speak the same language.”

“So, it absolutely has nothing to do with practically being her knight in shining armor, saving her from the impending doom of failure?” Oliver joked.

“You know, there is a thing called being friendly.” Gastón shook his head, “James, we’re late. We need to get going.”

“I seriously don’t get what your deal is anymore,” James continued as they walked down a hallway. “Ask Nina out and be done with it.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about.” Gastón tried to continue being defensive. He actively tried to avoid flat-out lying… since he was terrible at it, but he also needed a way to get the guys off his back. “She is my friend like she is a friend to all of us.”

“So, what you are saying is you’d have no problem with it if I asked her out?”

“WHAT?” For a moment he was sure his blood was literally boiling and all he wanted to do was to punch James in the face for even suggesting such a thing.

“Just joking.” James started laughing, “But feel that jealousy, don’t you? You can basically see it. You have no filter sometimes. You keep telling yourself whatever you wanna tell yourself, but you aint fooling anyone else mate.”

“That was not funny.”

*

The next morning Gastón was walking towards the library at 7:45 am. They had agreed to meet up there at 8:05 am. He had intentionally taken the longer way to the library… He had always been a punctual person and almost always tried to be five minutes earlier than you were supposed to, but right now he was afraid that it would look too eager if he would be there waiting for her. 

What the guys had said to him had really gotten to him. He was doing this so he could be closer to Nina. He truly wanted to help her, but they also were right. Things were getting harder everyday, and he was starting to be afraid that he wouldn’t trust himself to be alone with her at all.

 Gastón hadn’t told Matteo about this, but he was sure he had heard if Nina had said anything to Luna. Matteo would have probably just told him the same things as James, Oliver and Jacob. 

Gastón got stuck wondering why or why not Nina possibly would have mentioned this to Luna. Because she didn’t think anything of it and was just grateful for the help? For sure Luna would have not been interested in that. Or had she mentioned it because she did think it was something. Did he want her to think that? Ähh, he really should have talked to Matteo…

Stop it. Nina Simonetti was the only thing in his life that made him overthink and analyze everything. He needed to stop. 

They were friends, and he had to accept it and get over himself. And that would be started by not just stalling time on a hallway. 

Gastón and Nina had agreed to meet up at this one corner of the library where Gastón often worked. It had one roundtable and was relatively secluded, so there often were not a lot of people there. 

He was just about to walk around the bookcases that covered the area when he heard talking behind the bookcase. 

“I am so sleepy that I am sure I am gonna trip on my skates.”

“I am sure that won’t happen,” He heard Nina laugh. It was probably the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Have you met me?” It was clear that Nina was talking on a phone, so he didn’t want to interrupt. “But, I need to go now. Talk to you soon.”

Gastón listened long enough that he knew that call was discontinued and came out from behind the bookcase. 

“Hey, you're here early.” He put his bag down on the chair next to the one where Nina was sitting and set the coffee he had brought with him on the table. “That was Luna right?”

“Yes, it was her.” Nina nodded.

“It is impossible to mistake that voice,” Gastón laughed, “but how is she awake right now? Matteo would have told me if she has become an early bird.”

“She has not,” Nina shook her head. “Her and Ramiro are with an agency now and they want an introduction video of them or something, that they can promote them with. They were going to go get some sunrise shots.”

“I think I remember Ramiro mentioning something about that.” Gastón still actively kept up with the group chat their group at Roller had. 

“Luna’s really excited about it. She will finish her community college classes in about six months or so, so they can properly go full time after that.” Nina said while taking a sip of a thermos cup that she had with her.

“Don’t tell me you have become a coffee person.” Gastón questioned as he sat down.

“No, it's not coffee, just tea.”

“Lemon?”

“Yes, I don’t change that much.” Nina laughed. “But I see you have become a coffee person.” She pointed to the cup he had brought with him. 

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Gastón cringed. “It is more of a necessity. I either go to the gym or do just work in the mornings, so you need to stay awake somehow. I don’t believe in all nighters, those do not work. But this is more of a latte, barely has any coffee in it. Black coffee is the last straw against the battle for workaholism, and I refuse to cross it…” He trailed off after realizing that he had started rambling. With Nina it was just so easy to talk about everything… 

“What does that mean?” Nina had apparently picked up on what he had said. 

“Nothing, just Mom and Dad constantly drink black coffee and I always thought it looked disgusting,” Gastón turned his cup absentmindedly when he talked, “I mean, you know how it is with them. They were always there for me, but not necessarily always really there. They definitely are workaholics.” He sighed, “I am not even sure if they‘re aware of it themselves. It has never affected them or their relationship at all, since they both are, and they work together so much. Match made in heaven honestly.”

“How are they?”

“They are doing well. Nothing out of the ordinary really. They are working a lot obviously, especially since they don’t need to worry about me anymore.” Gastón started explaining, “We do talk often. At least once a week.”

“Well, that is nice.” Nina smiled at him.

“How— how are yours?” Gastón asked in an attempt to distract himself from that smile. 

“Dad’s still in Miami. He really loves his job there. I think he’ll probably stay there, maybe forever. Mom is still helping Luna and Ambar with the inheritance, at least from what I heard last we talked.”

Gastón was fairly certain that he had not just imagined her upper lip stiffening up just a bit when Nina mentioned Ana. She didn’t usually look like that when talking about her mother. Gastón really wanted to ask her what was bothering her, but wasn’t sure if that would be crossing a line… It wasn’t his business. 

“Have you looked at the elective course roster more?” He asked, changing the subject. “There are a couple of really good photography courses.”

“Really? I haven’t really looked at them.” Nina raised her head, “Have you taken any?”

“I took the basics in an advanced photographic aesthetics course.” Gastón noted. “It was incredible. I mean I would not be a Perida if I didn’t take a photography class at college. Did I ever tell you that Mom and Dad actually met on a photographic course in the University of Cordoba? Dad helped Mom pass it…” As soon as he had said it, it was impossible to not draw comparisons to the situation he was in with Nina right now. Gastón shook his head quickly before he got lost in a daydream. 

“I don’t think I have heard that before,” Nina responded. “Their story is beautiful… You're lucky. My family is probably cursed when it comes to love—” Gastón felt a sudden sting in his heart when Nina said that. Was that really how she felt…and was it because of him? Of course, it was. He was the one who had hurt her by his stupid actions. “—especially after everything that happened with Gary.”

“I still can’t believe that that actually happened.” Gastón shook his head before falling silent for a moment. “I don’t think you are cursed… I— I never meant to hurt you. I just—”

“You did what you thought was right.” Nina suddenly interrupted him. “It was not my place to stand in your way, or hold you back.”

You never held me back. I was stupid and foolish. Only thing holding me back is not being with you and the agony that that creates. Gastón was so taken aback by what she was saying that he ended up staring her right in the eyes, which was a big mistake. He could see the hurt clearly in her eyes, but almost like there was a glimpse of hope in them…

“Nina. What are we doing?”

“What?”

“What are we doing… with physics? I mean that's why we are here, this early,” Gastón snapped back into reality. “You were on the first exercise packet, right?”

{}

She knew that there was no way she could get over him now. Nina didn’t want to get over him. If she had had any doubt before, it was gone now. She loved him. His laugh, his smile, the way he had the most patience in the world while explaining stuff to her. He was a fantastic teacher. Everything she had always loved about him, she loved even more now. 

But it was not up to her. If Gastón still felt the same, wouldn’t he already have made a move? He usually didn’t beat around the bush with what he wanted. Sometimes the hope in her did wake up, whenever she thought that he was looking at her a little bit longer than normal, but it could have been easily that she had just imagined it. 

It didn’t matter if she knew what she felt. If he didn’t love her anymore, there was nothing she could do. She didn’t want to lose him either way. She couldn’t be that desperate ex who could not accept reality. 

“Nina? Are you listening?” Nina shook her head to get her focus back. Gastón was holding the pen out for her. She grabbed it and it almost felt like, with the way he was handing the pen to her, that he was purposefully trying to avoid even slightly touching hands. Like she needed any clearer indication of what kind of place she held in his heart. 

Not that there had been anyone else either. Gastón didn’t seem to go out at all, at least with any girls. Any time she had seen him come out of classes, he was with James and James only. In the mornings he always appeared out of their dorm with Oliver and Jacob, so he didn’t spend his nights anywhere else either. That just gave her more hope, no matter how foolish it might have been. 

“Yeah, I’m listening.” She started drawing the arrow indicating the velocity on the paper. “So, after this, I just insert all the variables in here, and calculate the right one?”

“Yes.” Gastón smiled at her. “You’re really getting the hang of these.”

“Not without you.” Nina looked back on the paper, “How did you draw a perfect circle on this paper. You couldn’t draw those well before.”

“I know,” Gastón laughed, “but we’re supposed to decide our minors this year, and I was kind of thinking of architecture actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I really want to get into environmental construction once I graduate, and they really could complement each other.” Gastón directed his eyes towards the computer screen, “It is just an idea, I haven’t really mentioned it to anybody—”

Once again Nina felt that involuntary flutter in her heart. He was telling her something that no one else knew about?

“—Now as everyone is away for the holiday, I will have time to think. Not that we’ll get lonely.” Now she was sure he was side eyeing her. All of their friends were going home for the holidays, but she and Gastón weren’t obviously, since they would have a little longer of a journey, so dorms would basically be deserted, outside of two of them. “Did you understand this one, since I think we can probably pick it up from here tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Nina said shutting her laptop and trying to ignore the disappointment in her chest that this would be it for today. She opened her phone and saw a reminder from her calendar. She had completely lost the track of time…“Oh, noh.”

“What is it?” Gastón looked at her concerned. 

“Nothing, just—” Nina shook her head, “—I completely forgot. We have this group project about history and literature. I am doing that with Lisa, you know the classmate I told you about, and we agreed to go to this one museum today to do some research. The problem is that it is pretty far away, and I had looked up a bus to get there but now I missed it and Lisa’s getting straight on a train back home after this… I’ll have to cancel.”

“Don’t do that,” Gastón stopped her before Nina was able to press Lisa’s contact to call her. “What museum was it?”

“We were supposed to meet there at 2 pm. There is no other way to get there. I won’t make it on time.” Nina showed the address to Gastón on her phone.

“That’s not true. I’ll drive you.” Gastón said and picked his backpack up from the chair he had set it in, “I know that place. You’ll make it just fine.”

“You’d do that?” Nina looked at him at in disbelief. Why was she even surprised? Of course, he had a car.

“Of course,” Gastón said nonchalantly like this was not a big deal at all. “Come on. You didn’t want to be late.”

Nina quickly grabbed her bag from where she had left it and started following Gastón down a hallway. They walked until they turned to another hallway that Nina had never been to—she would probably never learn all of the secrets Oxford had to offer. At the end of that hallway was a bigger and really heavy-looking door that Gastón pushed open.

The chilly April air flooded from the door as they walked to what seemed to be a parking garage of some sort. Nina just kept following him until they stopped in from of a sleek-looking red car. Gastón got a key from his pocket and pressed a button and the car’s lights flickered. 

Nina didn’t know why she suddenly was feeling quite nervous about getting in a car with him. This wasn’t even the black Ferrari he had had in Buenos Aires, the back seat of which they had spent a fair amount of time making out on. 

“You seem to have a habit of looking surprised about me and cars,” Gastón laughed, as he drove out of the parking garage, “I can’t be that bad of a driver.”

“No, it’s not that,” Nina shook her head, to get the images that had been floating in her mind out of her mind. “I just never came to think that you had a car here.”

“It is good to have it, for these kinds of situations, but I don’t get that much use from it.” Gastón said as he stopped at the stoplight. “Mom and Dad insisted like they do every time honestly. Especially, this didn’t need to be new. I am gonna return it once I move back after graduation anyway. There is just no saying NO to them on this kind of stuff.”

“Why not?” Nina asked. The changes in Gastón’s speaking demeanor had been pretty clear, something kind of bothered him about this. 

“Well, you know how they are,” Gastón directed his eyes on the road, and he started speeding on the highway, “I know they only wanna help me, but they keep saying that it is an advance of my inheritance, which doesn’t even make sense. I am getting everything anyway… one of the reasons I would really love to have those siblings.”

“You’ve never talked about that before,” Nina asked while looking at him curiously. Obviously, she had known all along about this. Having been born and raised in Buenos Aires, it was impossible not to know who Isla and Marco Perida were, as they were prominent names in the business world, even if Nina had not connected the dots right away. But she realized Gastón himself had never really acknowledged to her that often that his parents were self-made millionaires, they weren’t any celebrities after all. His family was normal people, just like him, the wealth didn’t really show outside of the obvious things. This was the first time he really was talking about it.

“I mean, I guess it has hit me now, honestly… What on earth am I gonna do with it all?” Gastón sighed, “I don’t have any idea about investing or whatever or interest in it… This is the only reason why I wish just a little bit that they would have forced me to follow their career paths. I know this is stupid, but sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming.”

“It’s logical to feel that way. It is a huge responsibility. That's why Luna split her inheritance up with Ambar.” Nina looked at him sympathetically, “But you shouldn’t get bent about it now, you have time. No one wants to think about the time when their parents are gone. And you are not alone.”

“Because a lot of our friends are millionaires already, why not just join them?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Nina rolled her eyes at him, “You do know that Ambar went to Law School right?”

“Yes, I do. That will be a deathly match.” Gastón chuckled, “No criminal will be able to get anything past her.”

“She wants to specialize in inheritance or family law.” Nina continued, “She can help… 50 years down the line, or whenever this actually will be relevant. Right now, you can just be yourself and live your own life and not worry about the future.”

“Is Nina Simonetti telling me to not worry about what will happen?” Gastón said glancing at her amused. The look in his eyes made Nina’s heart flutter again. “What happened to the Murphy’s law?”

“Nothing happened… it is all still here, trust me.” Nina laughed, “But that doesn’t mean others need to. I know you can do it, so you should believe in yourself too.”

“I know this is one of the most superficial insecurities to have. I know I am extremely privileged.” Gastón shook his head, “My future is secured, and I am able to provide that for my children and my… wife.” His voice trailed off for a moment once he said the last words. 

Nina felt her heart speed up. She could have sworn his eyes had flickered on her when he had said that. Could it be that he had envisioned that future with her? She definitely had…

“Anyways…” Gastón continued, “I am sorry about dumping this all on you… kind of just came out. It’s just, I can’t really talk about something like this with the guys… Jacob, Oliver or James don’t exactly know, I mean they must suspect something because I am here with no student loans or scholarship, but I rather not have them know specifics. I know I should have talked about this with Matteo, but it is not always easiest to do through the phone.”

“It’s okay,” Nina reassured him, “You can talk to me, we’re friends.”

“It has always been easy to talk to you, Nina.” Gastón wasn’t looking at her, since they had just hit traffic, “I— I really missed that, last year.”

“I missed that too.”

“Can you tell me the address again?” Gastón asked after a small silence.

“560 Queens Road.” Nina looked the address up from her phone. She had almost forgotten already that he was giving her a ride to meet up with Lisa.

“Okay,” Gastón said while turning right from a roundabout, “Don’t worry, we’ll still make it on time… You know, if you need a ride somewhere again, you can just ask me. This doesn’t need to be a one-time thing. Or if I can’t do it at the time, I can just give you the keys.”

“Oh, I can’t do that.” Nina was completely taken back by the suggestion. 

“I mean I’ll need to show you the ropes, but I trust you enough to let you drive. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Nina interrupted, “I can’t drive.”

“You don’t?” Gastón questioned, “I thought, you would have gotten the license before you moved.”

“I know, and I think maybe I should have gotten it,” Nina looked down, “But I guess I never made it happen, and I don’t know if Mom would have let me…”

“Is everything okay between you and Ana?” Gastón suddenly asked, “You barely ever mention her and when you do, you sound bit strange.”

Nina looked down again. Of course, he had noticed that. 

“Well, it’s the same deal again,” she sighed.

“I thought you got on better now.”

“We did, yes,” Nina continued, “Mom is in some ways almost a completely different person from who she was three years ago, but in some ways, she’s still not.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I got the scholarship to come here quite suddenly, and I made the decision quite fast as well. Not that I regret it, it is not about that. I didn’t tell Mom about any of it until I had gotten in… and she didn’t like that, because after I declined the offer going in 2017, I guess she just thought I’d want to stay in Buenos Aires.” Nina sighed, she really didn’t like thinking about this, “Basically, after I told her that I was coming here… we had a fight. In the end, she had to accept that I was an adult and had made my decision and then we kind of just pretended that it never happened, but I haven’t talked with her in a while.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” Gastón glanced at her again.

“Her problem is that she thinks that she always knows the best and doesn’t admit when she is wrong. That has never changed, you saw it yourself. She and Dad never worked anything out. They are fine now, as Dad moved away.” Nina shook her head. “I know she technically wants what is best for me, but I need to grow and be independent someday. I thought she already understood that.”

“You’re the only thing she has. These kinds of big changes are not easy to our parents. Mine at least have each other.”

“I know that.” Nina looked out of the window, “Mom and dad have been fighting over me since I was 7. Mom just doesn’t understand that I am not going anywhere. I love her, she is my mother. It’s not going to change, no matter where I go with my life. I just hate this. I don’t like being in a fight with anyone, especially with her.”

“You said that you haven’t talked to her in a while,” Gastón turned to look at her as they stopped on another red stop light, “Maybe you should. Explain everything to her like you just did to me. It is clearly really bothering you, and it is not good to keep pondering on it.”

“Yeah, maybe you are right.” Nina looked straight ahead again. “But I don’t know…”

“Just remember that none of this is your fault…” Gastón started saying and suddenly chuckled, “I’m sorry, but I just have a hard time imagining someone being mad at you.”

“It is not that impossible,” Nina looked at him not amused, “Lot of people had been angry with me… You have.”

“Because I was an idiot.”

“You were not,” Nina started. Her intentions had not been for the conversation to end up in this direction… the Oxford application, in the end, was the pivotal reason why they were broken up in the first place… “You had every reason to be angry at me… I am a lawyer’s daughter and I basically committed identity fraud… You could have sued me.”

“Not likely,” Gastón shook his head, “You didn’t mean any harm and like I said, it is hard to stay mad at you.”

Nina saw Gastón keeping his eyes on the road, but he was smiling. Nina had no idea why he was speaking to her so tenderly. It was making her so confused… she hated how much it all filled her with so much hope. Was she really just being delusional?

“Do… Do you ever think what would have happened if I hadn’t done it?” She asked carefully, “Would be both still be in Buenos Aires…?”

“Honestly, I don’t know…” Gastón’s voice trailed off as he pulled up to a parking lot, “... and we’re here.”

“Already?” Nina tried to mask the disappointment in her voice. 

“Yep, the museum is right here.” Gastón stopped the car and turned to look at her again, “You can get back alright by yourself?”

“Yes, I think so,” Nina nodded, “Thanks for this honestly. You didn’t need to do this and waste your time…”

“I didn’t waste anything,” Gastón shook his head, “And like I said, it was really nice to talk to you…” He did a sudden hand movement, and his arm struck the place the car key was inserted, and the key fell out. “Arg, really? This is the one thing I absolutely hate about this car. The key is extremely loose and falls out all the time. Where did it go?”

“It’s right here,” Nina noticed that the key had fallen on her feet. “I’ll get it.”

She reached for the legroom of the front seat and picked the key up. “Here—”

…As she went to place the key to Gastón’s outreached hand, she realized that he had leaned forward to see where the key was and that their faces were maybe only a couple of centimeters away from each other. 

She somehow managed to put the key into his hand, by accidentally brushing her own against it. The contact sent sparks down her spine, almost like she had been suddenly struck by lightning. The friction burned her skin.

It suddenly became hard to breathe as she looked up and her eyes ended up meeting his.

The look in his eyes was intense. More intense than she had seen it in months. She hadn’t seen it like that since… His brown eyes looked like they were on fire. 

The only thing she heard was her heart pounding as she waited for him to close the gap between their lips…

…but before she had the time to do it herself, she realized that he had pulled away.

Gastón had pulled away from her.

***

Gastón hoped it didn’t look like he was hurrying to leave, as he watched Nina get out of the car. As soon as she had turned away and started walking into the museum, he backed away from the parking spot and down the road. 

Soon enough he found a small convenience store with an empty parking lot. He shut off the car and buried his head in his hands after parking the car. 

What was going on? What was he doing? 

He had thought he could handle himself with her… but it was getting impossible. He was IN LOVE with her. It was impossible to ignore those strong feelings and how they made him absolutely mad. 

He wanted to kiss her. Press her against the seat and make her feel everything he felt for her. Kiss her until she forgot her own name. 

They had gotten too close. It had been a centimeter away from happening. 

He took a couple of shaky breaths as he grabbled for his phone from his pocket and instinctively clicked on Matteo’s contact. 

The surge of feelings was so overwhelming, he almost felt like crying. Not that there was any shame in that, but he didn’t cry often. Honestly, only Matteo had seen him like that, outside of his parents. The few times he had cried, since being a child, most of them had been about Nina. How did that girl ever manage to get such a chokehold on him? Äh, he knew precisely how.

“Hey!” Matteo’s voice rang from his phone and Gastón turned the camera on, turning the call into a video call. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Gastón shook his head.

“I can see that.” Matteo continued, his voice growing concerned. “What’s going on?”

“I… just…” Gastón was trying to find the right words to describe the situation. 

“Let me guess, it starts with an N and ends with an ina?” Matteo started smirking. 

“This is not a joke, Matteo.”

“Okay… Tell me, what happened now?” Matteo’s voice turned serious again, “Start from the beginning.”

“Okay, Nina had to get to this museum, and I offered to drive her,”

“Aha, you gave her a ride…” Matteo repeated, for some reason getting amused.

“Yes, I did. I have a car and the public transportation is a nightmare,” Gastón continued, “That’s not the point. So, I drove and we got talking… actually had a really good talk… and when I dropped her off, we … we got kind of close, accidentally, and I… I… It took everything I had not to kiss her.” He finally blurted it out. 

“Well…” Matteo made a couple of faces, “So you didn't do it? But you wanted to?”

“Of course, I wanted to!”

“The fact that you are admitting it is so many steps to the right direction that I can’t even begin to tell you,” Matteo started smiling, “At this point, you should have just done it, finally ended this suffering for all of us, especially yourself.”

“Matteo, I couldn’t have done that,” Gastón shook his head, “I am not like you and Luna in your first skating competition.”

“Okay, okay, not my finest moment, I admit it,” Matteo raised his hands up in a sign of surrender, “But, this isn’t about that, or about me and Luna. This is about you and Nina.”

“She just wants to be friends with me.” Gastón ran his hand through his hair, “There is nothing I can do, but I can’t keep doing this.”

“You are certain that that is actually the case?” Matteo didn’t look that convinced. “Tell me something. Was she the one to pull away?”

“Uhm…” Gastón tried to rewind things in his head, “...No…I did.”

“So, you have no actual proof for that.” Matteo was smiling once again, “She doesn’t know what you want, so, of course, she wants just to be friends. You should know Nina better than anybody, hasn’t she always been afraid of rejection?”

Gastón just nodded. He did know Nina and that was exactly how she sometimes was. He had looked her in the eyes, and for a moment he had allowed himself to see the hope in her eyes.

“What if that's not the case?” he shook his head again, “We’re in a good place right now… I don’t want to lose her.”

“So, you just rather keep suffering while watching her from the distance?” Matteo raised his eyebrow at him, “Hermano, it is all or nothing right now. You want her, you are in love with her, it won’t go away.”

“It’s killing me,” Gastón admitted.

{}

“You know I am not good at that,” Nina shook her head, “I hid behind a screen for a year because I was so afraid to put myself out there and get rejected, even when everything I ever wanted was right before my reach.”

“You won’t know if you don’t try,” Luna smirked, “And to me it is kind of hard to believe that Gastón has gone through all the trouble to help you with that physics, or whatever it is that you are doing, if there is nothing there anymore.”

“I don’t know,” Nina shook her head again. It was so hard to let herself hope, everything would just end up hurting twice as worse. “I don’t want to lose him… but I can’t keep going like this either…”

“Luna!” Someone was yelling for Luna behind the computer screen. 

“Ambar’s calling me,” Luna turned around, “I’m sorry but I need to go. I miss you amiga.”

“I miss you too. Talk to you tomorrow?”

Nina fell down on her bed. Maybe Luna was right… and all of this was just in her head, and she should just take a risk…

Another tear rolled down her cheek. What was she supposed to do? Call him right now and plead her heart out to him, only to get rejected and ending up looking desperate. Would they just spend rest of their time at Oxford avoiding each other? She wouldn’t be able to bear that.

On the other hand, would she be able to bear to watch him live his life from the sidelines as his friend? Watching him fall in love and build that life, she had always wished to have with him, with someone else while knowing that she had thrown away her second shot when she had had it. 

Did she even have a shot?

The thoughts started to swirl in her head with such a force, Nina had to close her eyes. She couldn’t keep thinking about this anymore. 

Nina grabbed her phone and started scrolling on it pretty aimlessly, with no particular goal. She just needed some distraction. 

She wasn’t sure how she had ended up there, but after little time had passed, she found herself browsing the audio files she had saved on her phone. 

Why did she have so many unnamed files? Nina decided that as she had nothing better to do, she might as well start deleting them. 

But what if some of them had something important? She honestly did not remember what those even were for… 

There was only one way to find out. She picked one file at random and clicked on it.

“…The human voice isn’t the only way to communicate. But unlike gestures and signs, speech generates a lot more meaning when it comes to communicating ideas and feeling…”

Nina realized too late what this recording was… it was this.

“…The human voice has a perfect smile…”

She knew the she probably should have stopped listening to the recording but she just couldn’t bring herself to press pause.

“…A pair of eyes, so musical that…”

Nina closed her eyes and tears started streaming out of them again. It was too much, listening to the 16-year-old herself fawn over the same guy, those same musical eyes that still caused her heartache today when she was almost 20. If only she had known, she would have been wiser, done things differently, and avoided all the hardship.

…Delete, Delete, Delete.

She curled on the bed tighter. The clock was nearing midnight, she hadn’t even noticed that. Living in the dorms and sharing a room with two other people, no matter how well they got along, had made her value her privacy. But tonight, she really wished she wouldn’t need to sleep alone.

***

Gastón groaned and rolled over on his bed. He had not slept well… at all. 

It wasn’t like him to just lie in bed for hours in the morning but now he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Not like he was in a hurry to go anywhere. 

His talk with Matteo had not exactly helped anything, but at least he had been able to vent. Not that it had solved anything. Honestly, he didn’t see any way out of his situation… it was impossible to just turn your feelings off.

The most logical option was to just stay away from Nina, but he honestly couldn’t bring himself to even finish that thought. It would be extremely hard, because they saw each other all the time, and she would notice something was up. 

The biggest reason obviously was that he didn’t want to. He wanted to see her every day, hear her talk and laugh, see her smile. In the back of his mind, he hoped he could wake up next to her rest of his life. 

There also was the dynamic that he full on was forced to see her right now. He had promised to see her through the physics course and the exam was in three weeks. If he bailed on

Nina now, she would hate him, and to be fair that would mean that he would not need to worry about staying away from her, but he could never bring himself to do that. He would not be able to live with himself if he knew that Nina hated him. 

There was no solution to this. They were meeting at the library at 9 pm, and he would just need to control himself. 

Gastón rolled over his bed and again reached for his phone. When had things gotten so hard? Honestly, he had brought this all onto himself, by himself.

He noticed that he had instinctively opened the chat between him and Nina. He really needed to get rid of these habits. 

He had expected to see the message where they had confirmed the time for today’s tutoring session but somehow, he had scrolled way further. What he was looking at were messages from 2016… or one message in particular. 

Against all of his better judgment, he clicked on the video he had sent Nina in a ditch attempt to reach her before she left Buenos Aires. He had not had any actual hope of stopping her, and had been just desperate to let her know what he felt. He had been willing to wait for her until she came back. That felt like an eternity ago now. 

“...Nina and Felicity, the girl of my dreams…”

He had had it all figured out when he had been 17. She still was the girl of his dreams no matter how much he had screwed things up. 

Almost like the rest of the day had gone past in a trance because soon enough Gastón found himself walking back to the library when the clock chimed 9 pm. He felt himself to be visibly nervous. 

He saw Nina from afar already. She was sitting in their usual spot that was mostly concealed from view by the bookcases. She was writing something on her computer. He could notget his eyes off her and tried to ignore as well as he could that she was only wearing a cardigan on top of a tank top. 

“Hey, I’m sorry that I’m late,” he finally got himself together enough to actually approach the table. 

“It’s fine,” Nina looked up at him smiling as he sat down. He instantly got lost in it.

“What did you say?”

Gastón had to shake himself back into the moment as he heard that Nina had been saying something. 

“Just that I thought you’d like to know that I talked with Mom.”

“That’s great.” Gastón answered, “How did it go?”

“Pretty great,” Nina nodded, “It was a conversation we really needed to have, and I think things will get better from here.”

“That is really good to hear.” Gastón smiled back at her and noticed something from the corner of his eye. What Nina had on her computer screen didn't look like physics homework. It was Spanish prose, so could not be any of her literature assignments either,

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s nothing…” Nina glanced at the screen visibly getting a bit nervous.

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Gastón raised his eyebrow at her, “You do know that I can tell pretty well when you are lying?”

“Okay,” Nina relented.

“I don’t honestly know what it is quite yet… but it is trying to be a novel… maybe.”

“A novel? Really?”

“Maybe, I don’t really know what I am doing,” Nina shook her head, “Honestly, this probably won’t be a good idea. I just kind of started it after I gave up on the Amigos el Patin since journalism wasn’t really for me.”

“What makes you think so?” Gastón questioned, “You’re an amazing writer. What is it about?”

“Well, about this girl, she does not have a name yet, whose parents get divorced, and the custody battle ends up being so bad that she ends up in the system,” Nina started explaining, “The divorce issue in the media is often used as comic relief and child’s trauma is not fleshed out or given enough focus. I want to change that.”

“That sounds really intriguing. And you have real-life experience with it,” Gastón nodded.

“My situation didn’t end up as bad at that, thankfully,” Nina huffed, “Not to say that it was great all the time like you know. I never tried to run away, but I sure did think about it. But enough about this, it is just my silly project. It’s probably gonna mount out to nothing.”

“I think you have beginnings of something great here,” Gastón countered, “You can make it happen if anybody.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course.” He made a huge mistake by looking at her straight in the eyes so she could see that he truly meant it. She was so close, it would be so easy to lean towards her… NO, he needed to stop thinking about that. “So, what problem did we leave it on yesterday?”

“Five,” Nina said while tapping on her computer to open the physics document. The she reached for her notebook which she had apparently left on her left, so she needed to reach across Gastón’s arms to get it. 

That was the only thing he could focus on for a second, how her hand had almost brushed his again.

Seriously, he needed to stop this, they were just friends. 

“You okay?” He realized he had been staring into nothingness until Nina’s voice shook him back into reality. 

“Oh yeah, I am. Sorry, just zoned out for a moment.” He turned back towards her. “What were you saying?”

“About this, do I need the harmonic force’s formula for this or not?” Nina pointed towards the next problem.

“Okay, let me see,”

Gastón leaned closer to the computer, “Yes, you do need that. The weight is on a spring which will have its own wave sequence. You know, a certain amount of movement in a certain period of time, just like the heartbeat—”

As he quit talking about the heartbeat, he realized that his own heart was racing. He turned his head to his right and realized that Nina had leaned towards the screen as well and placed her hand over his in the process… he saw her slowly turn her head towards him as well. They were only millimeters away from each other. 

Their eyes locked and eye contact got as intense as it had been the day before, if not more. 

Gastón felt himself be completely frozen, any part of him refused to function…

“Kiss me.”

Nina’s voice filled the silence suddenly. At that moment his brain short-circuited, and his mind blacked out completely. He wasn’t even sure what was happening until his left-hand dove into her hair and placed it on the back of her neck. And he kissed her.

He kissed her. 

It got intense really fast. Gastón felt Nina’s hands run along on his chest and he wrapped his right arm around her waist in an attempt to get her closer. It forced them to get up from the chairs. 

Once they were forced to separate due to them running out of air, they just stared at each other. Gastón’s mind was running over 200 kilometers in an hour. Had that just happened?

“Sorr…” he stopped himself before he finished what he was about to say. He couldn’t brush this off as spur of a moment. Like Matteo had said, it was all or nothing. This was his only shot and there was no going back now. “Actually no. I am not sorry. I have wanted to do that for months. I—”

“Gastón…”

“Please let me talk,” Gastón interrupted Nina as she was about to open her mouth. “Look, I don’t know if this is coming completely from the left field for you, but for me, it is not. I— I can’t keep doing this anymore. I love you, you have been the only thing in my mind ever since I crashed into you on the first day and before that too. Leaving you was the worst decision I have ever made in my life, and I have regretted it ever since. Thoughts of you have kept me up at night countless times. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t want to keep pretending to be your friend when all I want is you, all of you. I know this might be way too much for you and I have no right to say any of this. If you want, I will stay away from your life as far as possible, you don’t need to see me again, but I just need you to know this. I love you, I always have, that is the only thing I know for certain. I don’t know how to stop.”

“Gastón,” Nina grabbed his arms and looked at him straight in the eyes, “It was me who asked you to kiss me in the first place.”

Gastón realized that he had not fully even registered that since he had acted on such an impulse. 

“I came here, because I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. Afraid of taking risks for what I want. But I can’t stop being afraid if I’m not with you. I know that now.” Nina was looking at him straight in the eyes. Gastón could have sworn he saw stars on them. “I didn’t know what I wanted, because the missing part in all of my plans was you. I love you and I don’t know how to stop either.”

“I never should have left,” Gastón shook his head, “I never stopped loving you. I can’t bear it anymore without you.”

“It’s a good thing I am here then,” Nina continued. Gastón had moved his hand on her arm and her hands were resting on his chest. He really had to fight the urge to pull her back tightly against him, but he wanted to let her finish talking first. “Maybe, this was how it was always supposed to happen. You were the one who said that we’d find each other someday and the sea would always keep our names. Maybe it is just waiting for us to decide when it is time… and Maybe it is now.”

“There is no maybe about it.” He said before the small distance between them became too much and he closed the gap between their lips once more. 

The kiss was much more intense than the last one. Both of his arms were around her waist this time, pulling her tightly against him as possible while her arms were around his neck. The tongues got involved very quickly as the pure desperation from both of them became very clear. Everything that had been charged between them, during the past months, weeks and days, was finally released. 

Gastón ended up rotating them, as there were no walls in close proximity to press her against and lifted Nina onto the table, simultaneously pulling that stupid cardigan off of her. 

Things would have probably escalated much further if they hadn’t suddenly heard a noise. The place they were was secluded, but still not completely hidden and getting caught in the position they currently were in was not something that you’d wish to happen to anybody. This wasn’t the Blake Library. 

“We should get out of here.” Gastón helped Nina off the table, still keeping her as close as possible.

“That’s a good idea,” Nina smiled at him and for the first time he allowed himself to just look at her, without any kind of reservations. She was beautiful.

They walked out of the library as discreetly as they could, never letting go of each other's hands. As soon as they got to the lobby of their dorm wing, Gastón picked Nina up and twirled her in the air. 

“I missed you, every day, every hour every minute,” He pulled her into a very tight hug.

“I missed you too,” Nina buried her face into his neck, “More that I could ever describe with words.”

“Luna and Matteo will have a field day,” Gastón laughed. “You are right about that,” Nina laughed with him. 

“Stop that.” He brushed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her right ear. 

“What?”

“If you smile like that I can’t stop kissing you,” Gastón smirked and kissed her again. 

*

The clock was striking 11 pm when Gastón walked Nina to her dorm room door. 

“Good night.” He pulled her into another hug. He really didn’t want to let her go… honestly ever. “Do you know how happy I am right now?”

“I can feel it.” Nina slid her arms around his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He placed his hand on her waist. “Good night.” He leaned down and kissed her. 

It was supposed to be a light, sweet, and tender kiss of goodnight, but he maybe should have known better. As soon as she laced her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, he automatically deepened the kiss into an extremely passionate one and backed her against the door they had been standing in front of. 

Honestly, after the library, he had tried not to have any expectations of anything. Gastón didn’t want to pressure Nina into anything. They had just started to figure things out a little over an hour ago after all. But as he was running his hands through her sides and the kiss growing more heated with every passing second, it was impossible to ignore how much he wanted her.

Soon enough he moved away from her mouth and moved his lips onto her neck. 

“Gastón.”

“Do you want me to stop?” He pushed himself off of her and the door, only to Nina to open the door and suddenly and pull him inside. 

“No, don’t stop.”

{}

“Tell me,” Nina gave him the most annoyed look she was able to.

“Okay…” Gastón only laughed at her, “All I am gonna say is that I think I owe you that I take you out, like properly.” Gastón looked up to the ceiling for a moment, “Probably should have started with that…” He leaned down so his lips were on her ear, pulling her ever closer. “Not that I mind how last night went down.”

Nina felt her heart speed up as she felt Gastón’s breath next to her ear. She momentarily considered suggesting of just scrapping whatever he had planned to favor some other activities. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. 

It had been quite… a night… Nina had been able to count at least three hickeys around her neck and her shoulders in the morning. She had forgotten how easily she bruised on that area. It had definitely been a while, but everything still had gone like it had been the most natural thing in the world… and with Gastón it really was. 

“I think we should get going.” Gastón said after they separated. 

Nina pulled her jacket on while Gastón went to grab his own from the closet. She had looked at the weather forecast after Gastón had told her to bring a jacket, it was still early spring and quite chilly outside.

“Is that—?” Gastón walked back to up to her as she had been wrapping a scarf around her neck… Well, it was not just any scarf. It was the green scarf, that had originally been Luna’s, that Gaston had used as a blindfold at Ambar’s 17th birthday party. Luna had given it to Nina right after, and she had kept it in her nightstand at Buenos Aires ever since. It was a bit of her anti-nerves charm.

“Yeah, it is.” Nina nodded, “Luna gave it to me. It would be a bit weird if she had kept using it.”

“I know that,” Gastón traced his fingers on the fabric, “I just didn’t think that you’d have it with you, especially here. It would have been completely fair if you had thrown it out, I would have deserved it.”

“I didn’t throw anything out,” Nina admitted, looking down with a shy smile, “I, I couldn’t…”

“If you keep smiling like that, were never getting out of here.” Gastón leaned down and gave her a quick peck. 

“If you told me where we are going…”

***

“How long are we gonna keep walking?” 

“Just a little longer.”

“Where are we going?”

“Still not telling you.” Gastón laughed as he led Nina forward on the street they were walking. They had spent most of the mid-day strolling around a older part of town after having gone for lunch in a small cafe he knew. 

“These blocks are a labyrinth,” Nina continued, “How do you know how to navigate here?”

“Would you believe that I actually have done lot of walking, especially at these parts,” Gastón explained as they started walking up a hill. “Engineering requires way too much brain space sometimes, so I need something to clear my head.”

“I thought that was what the gym was for?” Nina asked while sliding her hands higher on his arms. 

“It is also what the gym is for.” Gastón explained while trying not to fully get distracted by how she was feeling up his arm at the moment. It made him want to stop and kiss her on the spot again. “You’re a writer, don’t you ever need to clear your head.”

“I should probably figure out something like that,” Nina looked up at him, “Being able to clear my head would be something very beneficial. It is hard to keep your thoughts together sometimes.” 

“Well, not that I had my thoughts straight any more than you had,” Gastón smiled at her back, “Wouldn’t have taken this long… to realize that I cannot give you up, again.”

“I don’t want to give you up either,” Nina looked around, “Where are we?”

“Maybe a month after I had come back here from Buenos Aires, obviously I was still a complete wreck and Matteo had just called me an idiot for the millionth time—granted I absolutely deserved it. I just had to get out. So, I started walking and ended up here, and I often come here when I really need to think.” Gastón turned Nina around, so she saw the whole park. “Now I don’t need to do that alone anymore and I don’t want to.” He took her hand and led to a bench in the middle of the park.

“I honestly still feel like this is just a dream,” Nina tightened her grip on his hands, “like I am going to wake up, back in Buenos Aires, as lonely and as miserable as I was the whole last year.”

“I know I hurt you,” Gastón looked down from her face, “I just didn’t want to hold you back.”

“You never could have done that.” Nina ran her fingers over his palm, “And yes, you did hurt me, but maybe I should have fought harder as well. It's pointless to try to look for villains now. There is no point staying apart if it makes both of us miserable. Watching Luna and Matteo, and Simon and Ambar really should have taught me that.”

“That still takes some getting used to… Simon and Ambar? And Luna and Matteo have actually soon been together for a year.” Gastón shook his head laughing.

“Time changes people,” Nina joined in the laughter, “You were actually quite lucky… you didn’t need to watch all the drama unfold, no matter how happy the ending was.”

“I got very colorful reports from Matteo, so I think I got the full picture,” Gastón nodded before running his fingers through her hair. “You’re right, about people changing. There’s no point in pretending that we are exactly the same people that we were in Buenos Aires two years ago, even if you haven’t grown an inch, but I don’t care. Everything I don’t know; I want to learn. I want to know everything about you again. I love you.”

“I love you,” Nina leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her closer, “It’s you and me now.”

A gush of chilly wind suddenly blew past them. Gastón felt Nina press herself against him tighter. He had taken note during the English winter that she was quite sensitive to the cold weather. Buenos Aires climate didn’t always make that apparent.

“Are you cold?” He rubbed her arms with his hands.

“I’m fine,” Nina looked up at him, “As long as you are holding me.”

Gastón leaned closer to kiss Nina. She responded at once and met him halfway lacing her fingers in his hair. Kissing her again, after so long, was a feeling he probably never could fully describe. She was amazing and after last night, there was no way he could keep his hands off her. 

The wind picked up once they separated and Gastón could feel Nina visibly shivering while some darker clouds started looming in the distance. 

“Were going now,” Gastón got up from the bench, “You’re freezing, and it looks like it’s starting to rain soon.”

“Will we make it to the car before the rain hits?” Nina got up and grabbed his arm.

“I know we will,” he smirked at her, “Where I parked, is actually very close to this park. We just took a detour while getting here.”

“You tricked me?”

“Well, yeah, kind of,” Gastón smirked at Nina, “Come on, before we get rained on.” 

He pulled her along as they started running towards where they had left the car. 

Gastón pulled the key out of his pocket and clicked the unlocking button as they were about 15 meters away from the car. 

As they got to the car, instead of getting onto the passenger seat, Nina stopped on her track and suddenly grabbed the front of his jacket and leaned against the car kissing him and pulling Gastón into her. 

The kiss was broken once they heard raindrops dropping down on them and on the car. 

“We were supposed to get out of the rain, right?” Nina said breathlessly before opening the car door she had been pressed against previously and getting onto the backseat, pulling his arm, and urging him to follow her.

***

Nina bent down to pick up another article of clothing from the floor and stuffed it in the canvas bag. Their first night have been spent at her room, but during the past week she had practically moved into Gastón’s dorm, so lot of her stuff had just migrated over. 

But, now the week was over. It was Sunday and the classes were resuming on Monday, which meant the return of everyone else. This, on the other hand, meant she and Gastón couldn’t exactly keep going with the arrangement they had at the moment, since they both had two roommates. 

It was crazy how things had changed so fast. A week ago, Nina had been losing her sleep over all the heartache over Gastón, and now it felt like they had never been apart. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” Suddenly arms wrapped around her waist pulling her closer and a light kiss was placed on her shoulder, which was bare given the quite wide V-neckline of her sweater.

Nina hadn’t realized how touch-starved she actually had been. Could you really become touch-starved when you were friends with Luna Valente? Luna didn’t let an opportunity for a hug ever go to waste, but that was so different from what this was. 

“You scared me!” Gastón had been at the gym the whole morning and Nina had not heard the door open. She dropped the bag and turned to face him. His hair was still partly damp from a shower, and it looked utterly adorable and extremely hot at the same time.

“I never locked the door so that’s why you didn’t hear it. Sorry, but I gotta say, you’re kind of cute when you’re jumpy,” Gastón grinned at her while moving his hands lower on Nina’s back. “But you didn’t answer. What are you doing?” He looked down at her bag. 

“Well, I have to get all my stuff out of here, or Oliver and Jacob will have couple of questions for you.” Nina drew a circle with her finger on his shoulder. “I can’t keep living here once they are back, in T minus five hours. No matter how much I’d want to.”

“We can’t just lock every door at campus and not let anyone in?” Gastón sighed, “It will sincerely feel weird to wake up without you in my bed.”

The way he was looking at her made Nina blush furiously. Truthfully speaking, the past week had been a ride of her life more ways than one. They were adults now, with no parents —especially her mother— breathing over their shoulders, there was no threat of getting caught and scolded. Not that had stop them before. Things got always heated between them super-fast, and it felt incredibly good. 

“I don’t think there is anything we can do.”

“So, we’re not telling them?” Gastón questioned. 

“I don’t know,” Nina shook her head. She had half forgotten that no one actually knew what had happened. “I guess, we could keep this to ourselves, for a while anyways. Until we figure out what this is.”

“Well, what is this?” Gastón’s grip on her waist tightened. “Nina, Yo te amo a ti. You love me?”

“Of course, I do.” Nina wrapped her arms around his neck so her fingers could reach his hair. “I can’t see my life forward without you. I have never been able to do that, no matter what.”

“And we’re not teenagers, who take months to make things exclusive or put labels on things because they don’t know how. As far as I am concerned, it is our time now, and I wanna be with you.”

“That's very clear. So, this is official?” Nina nodded.

“Very official.”

“But if we tell Marlee, Ariana, Jacob, Oliver and James, that would mean that we would need to tell them everything. That will get complicated.”

“I know. I am frankly not looking forwards to all the “told you so” the guys will shoot at me.” Gastón shook his head, “I am sorry I ever started that. Should have known it would end up backfiring, but I couldn’t think how to approach the topic. As far as they know, my ex is still in Buenos Aires.”

“I would have frankly done the same,” Nina chuckled. 

“That story is very longwinded and complicated…” Gastón looked at the ceiling for a moment, “I guess we could keep all of this, you and me, just between us, for a while. We’ll tell them when the time is right.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“They won’t be back for hours,” Gastón said, looking at his watch, “So, we have some time. We could go check out that place that opened at the campus corner.”

“Sounds good,” Nina smiled at him before looking to the floor where she had dropped her bag, “I’ll just drop my stuff to my room really quickly.”

“Not so fast,” Nina tried to turn but Gastón didn’t let go of her but instead pulled her closer. So close that their noses were touching. “I need to kiss you first.”

As should probably have been expected at this point, the kiss didn’t end up being short. He was such a good kisser; it was hard to get enough. Soon enough, Nina felt herself being lifted off the ground and being placed on the mattress of the bed.

*

Nina stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to the floor of her room. She hadn’t exactly made it out of Gastón’s room, when she had planned, but that didn’t really matter. Dropping off her stuff wasn’t exactly life or death matter anyways…

The elevator doors opened, and Nina froze for a moment from surprise as she saw someone else standing in the hallway. You could see the, clearly freshly touched-up, pink highlights from afar.

“Ariana?” Nina got out of the lift and started walking towards the door.

“Nina?” Ariana turned towards her from her bag that she had next to her, “Good thing you showed up. I buried my keys somewhere down in my suitcase.”

“I thought you were coming in in the evening.” Nina questioned as she took her own ley out and opened the door and Ariana started dragging her stuff inside. 

“My flight got canceled,” Ariana huffed as she got inside. “Can you believe it? It is literally an hour-long flight, barely any work for anybody. Wrecked all the plans I had for today. Had to take an earlier flight and almost everything was booked so I was forced to fly business… not that that was that horrible. Mom and Dad paid.”

Nina sat on her bed while Ariana talked, and discreetly ran her hand through her hair. Checking how it looked hadn’t really crossed her mind since she hadn’t expected to run into anybody. Her hair was low maintenance most time, the only time it got tangled was when Gastón really got his hands in it. Nina thought that she needed to come up with some way to ask Jazmin for some kind of hair care spray recommendation without giving anything away. But maybe it didn’t look that messed up right now. Ariana had a keen eye for any detail out of place and her sister-in-law was a hairdresser, so she would have probably already said something.

“Found them!” Ariana pulled her key chain out of her bag. “This is what I get for letting Grace help me pack. You really had splendid timing—” She turned toward Nina. “—otherwise, I would have been stranded. Where were you coming from?”

“The… laundry.” Nina invented fast. Coming from the library with a bag of clothes wouldn’t be believable. 

“With that bag?” Ariana pointed to the canvas bag.

“Yeah, I didn’t have that much.”

“Anyways, it must have been really peaceful here when everyone was gone,” Ariana continued, “Hopefully you didn’t get utterly bored.”

“No, there was no chance of that happening,” Nina just shook her head, hoping that her poker face was solid enough. It was kind of hard to get bored when getting to wake up on the arms of love of your life once more and feeling more alive than she had probably felt in two years. “I got a lot of studying done. Closing in on the physics exam so it was good that I was able to focus on that.”

“Gastón got everything cleared up for you?”

“Yes, we got a lot of things cleared up,” Nina said and couldn’t fully meet Ariana’s eyes. 

“I still can’t believe you actually took pointless physics class,” Ariana shook her head, “People who succeed in that must be crazy. Gastón and James are practically insane.”

***

Gastón looked up from his laptop as he heard a key being turned on the lock. He looked at his watch, which showed that it was definitely either Oliver or Jacob at the door. 

The plans for the lunch with Nina had turned into dinner after she told him about Ariana’s unannounced early arrival. That had been quite close, but at least it had been Ariana. If it had been Jacob or Oliver they would have been caught in the act, if you could say. Even James would have been worse than one of the girls.

“Hey! We’re back!” To his surprise, it was both of them. 

“I see you two finally came to disturb my peace,” he greeted them, while Oliver and Jacob dragged their stuff to the room. “I was already missing you two.”

“Well, can’t leave you with your own devices for too long.” Oliver dropped himself onto his bed. “I never want to take the train again.”

“Speaking off,” Jacob sat on his desk and started hooking up his complicated monitor system back up. “I could maybe be getting my grandpa’s car. The only problem is that I have never driven in nightmare traffic like London… probably gonna wreck it in a day.” He huffed. 

“There are couple of really sticky spots,” Gastón started speaking, “Only way to get through those is practice. I can go through them with you once you get the car.”

“Would you? Thanks. Papa will kill me if I destroy more cars, not that it was my fault last time. Note to self, never let Marlee drive.”

“Have you taken something?”

“What?” Gastón turned his head so fast that he surely tore some muscle on his neck once he realized that Oliver was addressing him. “What on earth are you implying?”

“Nothing, just—” Oliver was looking at him with furrowed brow, “Something seems off about you. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“I can assure that everything is splendid,” Gastón rolled his eyes.

“It’s not that—” Oliver continued, “—Just, maybe you seem in a better mood or something. I don’t know.”

“I honestly have no idea what you are talking about,” Gastón shook his head. In all honesty, he did… Almost as long as Jacob and Oliver had known him, he had been heartbroken about everything that had happened with Nina. Now he had her back, unannounced to them obviously, and he was feeling much better. Like there was actually some light in the world again. “Aren’t I always on a good mood?”

“No, you’re not.” Jacob joined in. “We have been forced to look at your face for almost two years now.”

“Okay, maybe I am in a better mood?” Gastón wasn’t sure what they really wanted him to respond here, “I had a good holiday. I didn’t need to look at two of you for a week and had some space. There is nothing wrong, especially something like that, Oliver.” Gastón shot offended look towards him, “I am not stupid, and Mom and Dad would kill me.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry. Forget I said anything,” Oliver shook his head, “I am becoming my mother. She’s a therapist, and most concerned about what I am doing and do I have a job for the summer and wad not. Honestly, I’m the one who got into Oxford, I can take care of myself. She should put her energy into figuring out who Annie is dating or something. She’s 14 and on her third boyfriend already.”

“Well, have you filled any applications?” Jacob asked Oliver. Gastón was glad that topic got changed into something else. 

“Not yet, but I got couple things lined up in Cornwall. It will be impossible get anything from London.”

“I got the applications sent during the week.” Gastón remarked. 

“Why do you even bother?” Jacob questioned, “Renishaw will take you right back.”

“Well, that is the plan,” Gastón shrugged, “But I have no guarantee of it, so I need to have a backup.”

“How many contingency plans do you need?” Oliver looked at him unconvinced, “For being that smart, you sometimes seem to have zero confidence.”

“Being raised by two people from the poor part of Cordoba will do that to you. Can’t take anything for granted.”

“I thought they were rich?” Jacob asked, quite bluntly.

“Mom and Dad had it rough when they were younger,” Gastón explained, “Then they worked and got us out of there. I wasn’t born in Buenos Aires. It’s a long story, that even I won’t probably fully get to know it ever.”

Thankfully the topic fizzled out, just in time when Gastón’s phone dinged.

Nina: I’m able to get away soon. If that dinner is still on the table?

Gastón: Always. I need to get away from Oliver and Jacob. I already miss you

Nina: It has been a couple of hours

Gastón: A couple of hours too long. Is Marlee there yet?

Nina: No she’s coming later

Gastón: Good, she is harder to fool. Meet me at the garage in 30 min. Say that you're going to the library or something

Nina: Are we really sneaking around like some criminals?

Gastón: You bet we are. Not like we haven’t done it before

Nina: I love you

Gastón: Yo Tambien, te adoro mi amor

“That is exactly what I was talking about,” Gastón looked up when he heard Oliver speaking again and saw that he was eyeing him again suspiciously, “You have never smiled like that before.”

“You are really being serious right now?” Gastón tried to fake a disbelieving expression while he discreetly changed the chat he had with Nina to Matteo, “I was talking with Matteo.”

“What were you talking about to make you look like that?” Oliver raised his eyebrow at him, “You should see yourself.”

“We were talking about his upcoming anniversary plans with his girlfriend. He really wants to surprise her.” Gastón invented, “I am not allowed to be happy for them? You don’t know what Matteo and his girlfriend have been through. This means a lot for them.”

“I thought you were friends with her?” Jacob all a sudden asked

“With whom?”

“Matteo’s girlfriend.”

“Yes, of course, I am friends with her. She was the captain of our skating team, that's how they met.” Gastón started getting very confused. Why on earth was Jacob suddenly interested in whether was he friends with Luna or not? 

“I just find it weird that you never call her by her name” Jacob shrugged, “I mean you call all of your other friends by their names, no matter if we don’t know who they are, but she always just is Matteo’s girlfriend. Do you not know her name or something?”

Gastón tried to think of something and quickly. Obviously, he had been avoiding saying Luna’s name and for a good reason. He wasn’t fully aware of how familiar anyone else was with Nina’s best friend Luna Valente, but her name was surely in some kind of circulation. It would look bit odd if he also knew a Luna who was from Mexico. 

“Of course, I know her name,” Gastón tried to laugh it off, “I guess I never noticed that I speak about her like that…” Both Oliver and Jacob were still looking at him very suspiciously. Gastón realized that they were expecting him to actually give them a name. “...Her name is Sol.”

“Sol?”

“It means Sun in Spanish. Extremely accurate if you knew her. Matteo has a thing for things in the sky apparently.”

“Are celestial names some kind of trend in South America?” Oliver asked while sitting down on his bed, “Wasn’t Nina’s best friend called something similar… Luna or something?”

“Yeah, I think it was Luna,” Jacob pointed out. Gastón was glad that they were looking at each other and didn’t notice how he tensed for a bit. At least his choice of using Luna’s alternative name, for not exposing his and Nina’s secret past, was validated. “That means moon right?”

“Yes, it means the moon, people who don’t even speak English can figure that out.” Gastón looked at his watch and saw that the thirty minutes he had spoken to Nina about had almost run out and he should really get going. “As much fun this has been, I need to get going. I have things to do, so I’ll have to leave you to play detectives alone.”

***

“Look who decided to grace us with her precense?” Marlee exclaimed as Nina returned at to her room. Marlee had apparently arrived from Wales while she had been gone. “You were out late. Don’t tell me you’ve been out partying.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was at the library. Didn’t Ariana tell you.” Nina rolled her eyes. They had lost the track of time with Gastón, after having dinner they had ended up taking a long walk as the sun had been setting and had just kept talking. It was almost midnight now. They would have probably actually been back in a reasonable hour, if they hadn’t ended up kissing in the car for so long. “I found some research pieces on Agatha Christie.”

“Where are they?” Ariana asked suddenly, “Those books are huge.”

“Oh, I didn’t check anything out,” Nina explained quickly. She had never been that good at giving excuses, Luna always saw through her. Maybe it was a good thing that Marlee and Ariana didn’t know her that well, yet. “I read them there… that’s why it took so long.”

“Okay,” Ariana nodded and reached for her tablet, “We know better than get between you and the library.”

Marlee and Ariana seem to be focusing on their own things, with Marlee grumbling something about an unfinished essay and Ariana started drawing some commission she had gotten for an event poster. Nina took her jacket off. As she was looking for an empty for an empty hanger, her eyes noticed a black shirt at the back end of the closet. She had completely forgotten she even had that. Jazmin had forced her to buy it, saying that it would look good on her and that she needed some more daring clothing. 

Nina closed the closet door and sat on her bed as she felt her phone vibrate. A smile formed on her face when she saw Gastón’s message.

Gastón: Good night. I had a great time tonight

Nina: Me too. I love you

Gastón: I love you too… I’d rather be sleeping with you 

Nina tried not to blush as the conversation carried on. It was miraculous that he could still have this kind of effect on her. She was not a teenager anymore, nor was he, but he still had the uncanny ability to always know the right words to every occasion, even via text.

Gastón: I don’t know. It is going to be hard tomorrow, try to pretend that I am not madly in love with you

Nina: You have done good enough job this far

Gastón: Trust me, I have done a terrible job

“What are you smiling at?” Nina looked up from her phone from Marlee’s voice, “Who are you texting with?”

“Just Luna,” Nina lied quickly as she saw that Ariana too was raising her head from the tablet and two set of eyes were focusing on her once more. She really should learn to have better control over her facial expressions, since getting caught staring love-struck at her phone was not how this was supposed to go. “She sent me a picture of her boyfriend wiping out on the skates—you should really see it—and made a joke.”

“What kind of joke?”

“Just that: He even falls better than cooks pizza.” Nina internally cringed. She was supposed to be creative and a writer, but she was no actress, and impro was not her strong suit. 

“What does that even mean?” Ariana raised an eyebrow at Nina. Marlee didn’t look either like she understood the “joke”.

“Nothing really,” Nina scrambled to explain, “Just that, he’s Italian, so that’s the joke, because Pizza, Italy… you get the jist.”

“Gastón’s best friend is Italian too,” Marlee suddenly pointed out. Nina froze for a second. “Quite a coincidence.”

“Not really, actually,” Nina hoped that the brief moment of terror was not evident in her voice, “There are lot of Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires, between lot of generations. It’s not like they all know each other. The city is very multicultural. Luna herself is Mexican. I was surrounded by at least five different accents and everything.”

“That’s interesting.” Ariana propped herself up on her bed, “You know, I have noticed that you and Gastón have quite different accents, even when both of you are from Buenos Aires.”

“His parents could be from somewhere else, and who knows if he was actually born in Buenos Aires,” Nina tried to shrug. Obviously, she knew that Gastón spoke Cordoban Spanish, given that he had been born there and only moved to Buenos Aires once Isla had almost died and they had decided to give it their shot to have a better life. Something they had succeeded in miraculously. That accent was on of the most attractive things to her in the world. 

“Simonetti is actually a Italian name,” Nina said to change the subjects. “I am not Italian, but I might have some ancestry.”

*

“Why couldn’t vacations just last forever?” Marlee complained in the morning. All the girls were already up at 6 am since everyone had a 8:00 sharp class to welcome them back from the vacation. 

“You say that every time,” Ariana said as she pulled her hair into a ponytail, “So quit your complaining and come over here, if you wanted your hair look not like a hot mess. Grace taught me a new braiding technique.”

Nina was not paying that much attention as Ariana started sorting out Marlee’s hair. She opened up her closet and tried to come up something to wear. Her laundry washing schedule had kind of gotten messed up during the last week, so she didn’t actually have that many options. 

“Wow, thats a new look on you,” Ariana had looked up from Marlee’s head and was looking at Nina. 

“Oh, my friends forced me to get it,” She had ended up pulling the shirt she had been looking at yesterday from the closet. She had never worn it before, since trying it out at the store. It actually wasn’t as revealing as she had remembered, with the black top having cold shoulder cut outs and deep V-neck lined up with lace, or she was bit more confident in herself. 

“Well, it is looking good.” Marlee had also looked up, “Surely gonna catch some eyes. Are you trying to impress someone?”

“No,” Nina shook her head. It was the truth, that had not even crossed her mind… but now that she was thinking about it, she did wonder what certain someone would think… “I just had it at the back of the closet. I need to do some laundry, so I didn’t have much option.”

“Didn’t you do laundry yesterday?” Ariana pointed out obvious plot hole in Nina’s explanation already. 

“I did, but I need to do more.” Nina quickly shook her head, “We’re gonna be late.”

“You’re right,” Ariana got up from her chair and Marlee from the floor, “I need to make sure Oliver finds the class again.”

Nina grabbed her bag from her bed and the girls walked out of the dorm’s door. As they were walking, she discreetly looked at her phone and saw, to her disappointment, that Gastón hadn’t sent her anything. Not even message to say good morning. 

Surely, he was up already. He also had a 8 am class. He wasn’t sure when they would be able to talk to each other in peace before the classes would be over for the day. She already missed him so much, from just one night being spent apart. Maybe she could get him alone at lunch or something. 

She saw him from the fas as they got out of the stairwell at couple of levels lower. He was standing in the middle of the hallway with Jacob, Oliver and James. 

“I can’t believe my eyes,” Marlee exclaimed as they walked closer to the guys, “All four of you? Awake?”

“You act like this is the first time ever.” Jacob rolled hie eyes at her. 

Nina’s eyes locked with Gastón’s. He was looking at her quite intensely, she could see it from his eyes. Everyone else was focusing on the bickering match Marlee and Jacob were having, they didn’t notice as Nina and Gastón almost had a silent conversation through their eyes. The small worry Nina had had from not seeing him message her anything thoroughly melted away. In that moment she really felt how hard this really was. She really wanted to just walk up to him and kiss him on the spot but that would have cause quite a shock if anything.

“Okay, I think we better get back to class,” they tore their eyes off each other once Oliver started talking, “And Ariana, before you say anything, I did check, and the class location has not been changed.”

After a maybe a minute everyone scattered to go to their respective classes. As Nina started heading to her own direction, she tried to give Gastón a one more glance but didn’t see him anymore. He had already vanished to some staircase with James, probably. 

She had to get him alone at some point before the day was done. James was probably going to be biggest problem since he and Gastón often moved together the most days during classes. 

Nina was about to send Gastón a message to come up with some excuse to get rid of James when she heard footsteps approach her. The footstep steadied beside her, and she turned around and saw Gastón walking next to her. 

Nina smiled smally to him as they kept walking. The hallway they were on was not crowded at the moment but it interlocked with bunch of other ones so people could come and go all the time, so they were nowhere out of sight. 

“Hey.” 

“Hi.” She looked at him quickly again, before looking back forward—

She suddenly felt a hand close around her wrist, and before she could fully even register what was happening, she was pulled into a narrow and dark side hallway that she didn’t even know existed. Not that she had time for making intricate floorplans, as she was pressed against the wall and kissed feverishly. 

“If… if your aim was to us to make it to class on time, I don’t think we’ll be able to succeed.” Nina panted while catching her breath when they broke the kiss for a moment, before pressing her body back into his and kissed Gastón again.  

“Well, you didn’t think I was not going to say good morning?” Gastón said as they separated. Nina saw that his eyes were scanning her all over. “But God… What are you trying to do? Kill me?” He brought himself closer to her, so their noses were touching. “Our cover is going to be blown so fast if you keep looking like this.”

He moved his lips onto her right ear and started trailing down her neck. 

“Stop,” Nina pushed on Gastón's shoulder, knowing if he managed to hit the sensitive spot on the base of her neck, she would have no ounce of self-control left. She tried to make a mental note about getting a new concealer because she definitely would be in a need of one. “You are gonna leave a mark, then we’ll definitely get caught.”

“Okay, sorry” Gastón pushed himself off the wall, “We’re not good at this.”

“We definitely are not.”

“Oliver and Jacob are out during lunch,” Gastón traced his fingers on her right ear. “Our room will be empty…”

“You’re sure?”

“Hundred precent,” He moved his fingers on her chin and traced her lower lip, with a tender look in his eyes, before leaning down to kiss her one more time. 

***

“I honestly don’t want to do this anymore,” Nina shook her head as she poured over the last exercise packet in the library.

“Electromagnetism is hard,” Gastón looked at Nina adoringly, “But you can do it. Just follow the formula and apply the integrals.” He took the pen from her and drew something in the notebook.  

“It is not working with me,” Nina stared at the paper, “I don’t technically need the credits from this course. I should just quit. I don’t know why I ever even took this.”

“I am not letting you quit.” Gastón looked at her sternly, “The exam is on Friday, you’ve come this far. I didn’t start to help you just because I was in love with you, I believe you can do this.”

“Really?” Nina looked up at him and ran her fingers on his arm.

“Yes, obviously,” Gastón looked at her. “But don’t try to distract me. I know what you’re doing.”

“You do? Well, then you could just let me quit.” Nina shifted her weight closer to Gastón and wrapped her arms around his neck. She definitely knew what she was doing, because she knew what it did to him when she was being confident. 

“This is not working,” Gastón got out after they finished a brief make-out session, “If you won’t believe me, what would Luna say if she heard that you gave up on the finish line?”

“Luna and Matteo.” Nina looked pensive for a moment, before looking back into Gastón’s eyes, “They are gonna kill us.”

Just like they had not told anyone of their Oxford friends about their reconciliation two weeks ago, well they didn’t even know that it was a reconciliation, the news had not reached Buenos Aires either. Gastón had intentionally started mentioning Nina less and less when he talked with Matteo, because he knew that he would see right through him if they got into the topic. 

“They definitely will.” Gastón nodded, “Kind of surprising that they don’t already know. I am not that discreet.” 

“Nor am I.” Nina nodded. “Should we just tell them? I mean, they know the whole story, so nothing to hide.”

“I guess you are right,” Gastón looked at her, smiling bit mischievously, “So, how about you finish this exercise that were doing and we’ll call Luna and Matteo afterward. I am not letting you quit., I was still your tutor first, boyfriend second.”

“Okay.” Nina rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer…

At that moment Gastón’s phone started ringing. It was Matteo calling him on facetime. 

“Well, look at that,” he picked up his phone, “What on sixth sense? He really has the best timing.” He turned to look a Nina, “So, you wanna do this now? I can ask him to get Luna to join him.”

“Sure, no better time than now,” Nina nodded, “How are we doing this? Do I just show up on the frame?”

“Stay out of the frame at the start, we’ll see what Matteo wants first.” 

“Okay,” Nina scooted her chair a little further away. 

“Here we go.” Gastón said and picked up the call. 

“Hey!” Matteo appeared on the screen with Luna by his side.

“Oh, Luna’s here as well.” Luna did show up in his calls with Matteo on occasion, but not usually at the start, just joined later on if she felt like it. 

“Yes, I am here!” Luna’s bubbly voice rang from the phone.

“Where are you?” Matteo asked Gastón. 

“At the library,” Gastón said. Honestly, it should have been quite obvious, given his surroundings. “So what’s up?”

“You tell us.” Matteo remarked. Gastón sensed that he was trying to go somewhere with this, but where, he was not sure of.

“Well, nothing really to report,” Gastón started. He tried to think what was the best way to direct the conversation towards him and Nina. Nothing to report was probably not the best way to start but no going back now. “The term has started well enough.”

“Good to hear that?” Matteo nodded. “How is it going with everyone else?”

“I am not pretending that you actually care how James, Oliver, or Jacob are doing.” Gastón briefly laughed. Matteo had always had this almost obligatory mild distaste toward his other friends, that Gastón found purely comical. “So did you actually have a reason for calling me, or are we just making small talk?”

“Not really,” Luna piped up, “We were just bored so we did rock paper scissors and Matteo won so got to decide who we would call.”

“Well, there actually is something we do need to talk about,” Gastón said and turned toward Nina who was still out of frame, “You wanna come in and say hi?”

“Who are you talking to?” Matteo furrowed his brows. Gastón put his phone on the table and probed it up on a book. 

“Nina!!” Luna instantly brightened up as Nina moved to be visible on the frame. “You’re here too?!”

“You called me while I was in the middle of helping her actually pass this course.” 

“So, you are still doing this physics thing?” Matteo’s face was quite questioning. 

In that instant, Gastón got the idea of how to get the message across the clearest to Luna and Matteo. 

“More than that honestly,” Gastón squeezed Nina’s hand under the table and tried to communicate his intentions to her via his eyes. She seemed to get the hint, and once he leaned towards her, she answered his kiss once he captured her lips in front of their friends. He really should have had screen recording on since Luna and Matteo’s faces must have been priceless. 

They broke apart pretty quickly. One glance at the phone showed that either the screen had glitched and frozen or Luna and Matteo had frozen in shock. 

“You two okay?” Gastón asked while looking at Luna’s and Matteo’s faces and jaws that had hit the floor, figuratively. He wrapped his other arm around Nina’s waist and pulled her closer. 

“OMG!!!!!! AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Luna snapped out of the trance first and started jumping around, they must have been sitting on a bed or something. “I KNEW IT!!!!! I knew it! Knew iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!”

“You figured this out on your own?” Matteo’s face was in utter disbelief while Luna was still bouncing around, “What on earth has gotten into you? Since when? We thought we would need to stage an intervention soon.”

“Well, we can tell you that we don’t need it.” Gastón brushed some hair out of Nina’s face while talking to Matteo. Gastón hadn't really given any thought on how Matteo would reach, but he was sure that they would need to have another convo later on the night for all the details “I was an idiot, we all agree on that. But I stopped being one two weeks ago.”

“DETAILS! I need all the details!” Luna jumped back to next to Matteo.

“Well, there are lot of those,” Nina said while glancing up at Gastón.

“We have all night!” Luna exclaimed from the other side of the camera, “I am so happy for you guys! Love is such a magical thing isn’t it?”

"Well, it truly is," Matteo laughed at Luna, "I think "thank you" is what really is in order here

{}

“Since when?” Gastón had pretty much learned Nina’s schedule by heart already. It made it easier to catch her in the hallways in between classes. 

“The Thursday lecture changed locations,” Nina explained while smoothing her hair down with her hand, “Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I must have forgotten.” Nina turned to look at him, “But I actually need to go, or do you want me to be late?”

“Of course not,” Gastón laughed and scooted to sit next to her, “Soooo… I guess I will have to let you go, as long as you kiss me first.”

Nina rolled her eyes before leaning towards him. Gastón placed his hand on her nape, deepening the kiss momentarily. Honestly, he’d much rather just keep going with this, but they were still at Oxford, so like it or not, they had to attend classes. Being in love was no reason for failing, neither his nor Nina’s parents would not let them get away with, nor should they let themselves get away with it either. 

“I love you,” He looked deeply into her eyes after they separated, “You know, how about we go away for the weekend? Get a hotel somewhere. I am kind of getting tired of sneaking around.”

“That sounds really great,” Nina traced a pattern on his hand before her eyes focused on his watch, “But, now I really need to go.”

Gastón reached for his laptop after Nina had left. He didn’t have any more classes today, but still, there was some work that started to pile up. The minor requests should be submitted before the end of the month. 

As he was about to open up a project file, the door suddenly opened. He half expected to see Nina come back for something she had forgotten… except that she never forgot anything plus there was no way she would have gotten the door open, she didn’t have the key, she would have been needed to knock. 

Instead, through the door came Oliver and Jacob. 

“What are you doing here?” Gastón asked before realizing what he was saying. 

“Well, we kind of live here,” Oliver looked at him skeptically. 

“What happened to the classes both you have had, for the whole year now, out of campus?” Gastón asked.

“Oh, mine got canceled,” Jacob dropped down on his bed. 

“Mine too,” Oliver sat on a chair and took his tablet out.

“Well, that is just convenient,” Gastón mumbled. He was not sure if he should be freaked out about almost getting caught or relieved that it didn’t happen. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Gastón looked back down at his computer. He opened the file and scanned through the formulas he had written on there before opening up a calculator software. 

“What was Nina doing here?” 

“What?” Gastón looked up at Oliver’s voice. “What are you talking about?”

“We saw her come out of here?” Jacob sat up on his bed and had a very unorthodox smirk on his face. Gastón saw him and Oliver exchange glances. They had planned this. “What was she doing here?”

“We, uh, she—” Gastón tried to come up with something and quickly. They had seen her, so lying about that wouldn’t really work. “She just came to ask me something. I was her tutor after all.”

“Really? She couldn’t do that in a hallway?” Gastón felt like two pairs of eyes were practically trying to drill themselves into him. “And you are not teaching her anymore. Don’t tell me Nina took another physics course, after how much she was complaining about the last one. If she has, she needs more than just a little bit of help.”

“It was a private matter,” Gastón shrugged, “None of your business actually.”

“Just like it is none of our business that you two are sleeping together?”

Both Oliver and Jacob were smirking even bigger now. Gastón found himself quite speechless. This reminded him way too much of the time when his mother had been determined to get him to admit that he was seeing a girl when he and Nina had started dating, granted she had been right… just like Oliver and Jacob were right now…

“Well, I…”

“Don’t waste your energy trying to deny it,” Jacob crossed his arms, “I don’t know what the popular belief is, but we ain't stupid.”

“I mean it is really obvious. Do you fancy a list?” Oliver looked like he was about to burst into laughter, “You have been in an extremely increased mood the past weeks, your eyes never have wondered, until now whenever she’s around, those texts you often get late at night that are from Matteo that definitely are not from him, way you often disappear between classes and appear back up from the direction of certain literature classes. Yes, James has noticed this too.”

“And I mean, why would you try to deny it? There is no judgment here.” Jacob also started looking amused, “You have been holding a torch for Nina, since I don’t even know, even if you refuse to admit it. We're all human here, you are too. It honestly has been a matter of time, before you’d have taken her to bed. Nothing wrong with that, as long it’s consensual. It was, right?”

“Of course, it was!” Gastón snapped, “What do you take me as?”

“Ha!!! You admitted it!” Oliver almost practically jumped, “You are sleeping with Nina.”

“We’re not…”

“You are really still trying to deny it? Come on now.”

“We’re not just sleeping together.” Gastón finally let out of his mouth. There was no point trying to start denying it, this confrontation had clearly been cooking between Jacob and Oliver, and probably James too, for a while now. Seeing Nina leave had just given them optimal segway.

“You mean you manned up and told her that you are mad for her?” Oliver and Jacob looked astonished, “Before or after?”

“Before, actually,” Gastón cracked a smile. “I mean, it was really great. Everyone has been right. I was just super stubborn, but I guess I couldn’t lie to myself anymore, before I did something stupid anyway. I am in love with her, have been for a while now.” Much longer than a while, but he couldn’t just tell Oliver and Jacob that he had been in love with Nina since he had been 17, chasing her internet persona around and looking extremely stupid. They would have to let part out in the open at some point, but they needed to do that together.

“So, what is the deal here?” Jacob leaned closer. He was way too into gossip and relationship drama. “Still like a situationship? Or official, or getting there? You do know you need to nail her down now, as you just said that you are in love with her. Ah, should have gotten that on tape. Oliver, you weren’t recording right? He’s gonna deny that in like an hour.”

“I am not going to do that,” Gastón laughed, “We are, actually, official I mean. She is my girlfriend. We just hadn’t told you guys yet. We were going to, though, at some point.”

“This really is a Christmas miracle.” Oliver laughed, “Little late though.”

“More like Easter.” Gastón cringed, before smiling again. Honestly, it felt good to talk about this, about everything. 

His phone call with Matteo, after they had told him and Luna, had lasted at least three hours. Matteo didn’t let him spare any detail or save him from hearing it about not telling him right away.  

“If we would have known that all it took was to leave you two alone for a week, we would have done it months ago,” Oliver laughed, “But, good for you honestly. You are finally moving on.”

“Yep…” Gastón couldn’t meet their eyes. He was doing the exact opposite, “...thats what I am doing, for sure. It was about time.”

“Well, our job here is done,” Oliver leaned down on his bed.

“Well, don’t speak too soon,” Jacob smirked, “We need to hear the wedding bells first.”

“Guys…” Gastón laughed, “Nina’s not even 20. Her mother is the strictest lawyer in the world… would wring my neck.”

“Uuu, you already have insight knowledge on the in-laws, huh?”

“She has told me stuff,” Gastón tried to think something that would be vague enough to not fully sound like a lie. “Her parents are divorced and stuff like that.” Yep, not like he had pretty much convinced her parents to let her move to a different country with him already.

***

“Hey!” Both Marlee and Ariana were in their room when Nina opened the door. 

“Hey!” She sat on her bed and pulled the laptop out of her bag and opened the document where she had her novel draft… yeah, it really was a novel, wasn’t it. Maybe it was stupid to pursue something like this as a literature freshman, not even having her bachelor's done but Gastón had said that what she wanted to write about was worth exploring… and he had the unfortunate ability to make her believe pretty much everything he said to her. Maybe it truly was worth the shot. 

“Where were you at lunch?”  Ariana’s voice shook Nina out of her thoughts concerning her draft. 

“What do you mean?” Nina asked while trying to keep a strict poker face… There had been lot of things happening during lunch…

“You just seemed to disappear,” Ariana continued talking, “You often do that now, since Easter anyway.”

“Well, I was in the library,” Nina shrugged and tried to turn back to her computer, but Marlee started speaking, picking up the subject.

“You were?” She leaned her head on her hands. “Let me guess, you read books just there again, and didn’t check anything out, again.”

“Yeah,” Nina wasn’t sure was Marlee being sarcastic or not right now, “I didn’t fancy carrying extra books around for the rest of the day.”

“Okay,” Marlee said, and she and Ariana looked like the conversation was over, or at least that was how Nina took it, so she reached up to her bookcase and tried to pull a book out of it…

“By the way, by putting powder on top of the concealer, it blends much better to the skin when covering a hickey.”

“What?!!” the book almost fell onto Nina’s head as she pulled it while jerking her head around with little too much force. 

Both Marlee and Ariana were wearing very blatant “You really thought you were going to get away with this?” faces while also smirking very proudly.

“Come on now,” Ariana was the first to speak. “You really think we wouldn’t have noticed? Library? Really? What you have been doing can be as far away from studying as it can be.”

“Uhm…” Nina tried to think of something to say but everything just got stuck on her throat. She could also feel her cheeks visibly heat up. Blushing clearly would give everything away.

“It has been obvious. You have stopped buttoning those button-downs completely up, you did that when we met, there are other things too, like the late nights in the “library” where you come back just a tad bit more disheveled…” Marlee’s smirk kept widening, “We’re not blind…”

“Well, yes… Uh, you are right. I am…” Nina was not really sure how to phrase this. 

“So, how long has this been going on with Gastón?” Ariana’s tone had turned into a teasing one. 

Nina was speechless once more. The girls had really done their research. They had thought that they had done a good job covering their tracks with Gastón, but apparently not. 

“It is obvious that it is him, he is not that good at hiding it either. He hasn’t smiled that much before nor has his eyes been heart-shaped since we have known him, until now,” Ariana kept talking, “You got him under a spell huh? Taking that physics course was a good idea after all. You did try to deny it, but you can’t anymore… So, are you together or…? Because neither of you really seem like people just casually sleep with each other.”

“And if you were—” Marlee remarked still smirking, “—it wouldn’t have taken this long. Gastón has had his eye on you since you met, and so have you on him.”

“No, it is not like that,” Nina knew she probably was blushing furiously right now, “We are, together I mean.”

“I knew it!” Ariana clapped her hands together, “from Easter, right? Because honestly, this room did not look very lived in when I came back. Got a lot of quality time alone?”

“Yes, we did.” 

Nina reached for the phone and after grabbing it, she realized that it was on mute. When had that happened? There were a couple of messages from Gastón, asking her to come to meet him after the class. 

Gastón: Hey, where are you? You haven’t answered. I really need to talk to you Nina: My phone was on mute, I didn’t notice. I’m sorry, meet you right there

“I need to go…” 

“To the library?” Marlee laughed, “Nah, don’t worry about us, go to your man.”

*

“So, about that weekend?” Nina ran her fingers from Gastón’s hair to his neck as their lips separated for a moment. They had met up to talk but this far, almost no talking had actually been happening. 

“Yeah, I looked up something,” Gastón slid his hand on her waist, “Kent is only about a little over an hour's drive away, and apparently extremely beautiful on the spring. We can just get out of here tomorrow after classes.”

“Sounds amazing.” Nina smiled. She had looked at a lot of pictures of English countryside before moving, it had looked extremely beautiful. She had kind of fantasized about getting to visit places but hadn’t really seen herself going alone. 

She noticed herself starting to get lost in Gastón’s eyes, and his fingers drawing circles on her back didn’t really help. 

“Uh, we were supposed to talk about something,” She shook her head as she remembered the text conversation. “That wasn’t it right?”

“Yeah, we were,” Gaston shook his head as well, and backed away a little bit so she could get off the wall she had been leaning against. “You’re way too beautiful not to get distracted.” 

“So, what is it. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is fine,” Gastón took her hands in his. “Just, uhm, so—” He appeared to take a breath, “—Oliver and Jacob saw you leave our room, today.”

“What? You said that they had classes off the building, like always.”

“Yes, they do,” Gastón tightened his grip on her hands, “but apparently both of their classes got canceled, which was just awfully convenient.”

“So, they only saw me leave?”

“Yes, so it could have been worse,” Gastón smiled kind of awkwardly for a moment.

“What happened afterward?” Nina asked running her hand on his arm. “What did they say?”

“Well, obviously they aren’t stupid,” Gastón rolled his eyes, “You were at our room, with me, what else were they supposed to assume? So, they kind of gave me a criminal interrogation.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Well, there was no other choice really. I don’t wanna lie to them, because first of all, I am a terrible liar and secondly, they are my friends. So, I told them the truth.”

“Truth? As in…”

“As in… Yes, it is you, and it is not just a physical thing, we are together. And that you are the love of my life,” Gastón ran his finger on Nina’s cheek. “Then they did gratulate me on finally moving on… which I am not doing exactly… but the bottom line is that they know now. What are you laughing at?”

“I just, can this really be a coincidence?” Nina laughed, “I just realized… Marlee and Ariana gave me the same intervention as soon as I came back from class. There wasn’t much I needed to tell them while telling the truth. They just straight up knew what has been going on.”

“Really?” Gastón's face was amused, “Those five…” He muttered to himself, “This was not a coincidence, this intervention was planned. James had a job interview today, that's why he wasn’t there to interrogate me too.”

“So, everyone knows now?”

“From our own mouths…” Gastón said and looked up for a moment, “...except James, but I am sure he has been told already. So, what do we do now?”

“What do you mean?” Nina questioned.

“You know, what I said about everyone thinking that I have finally moved on a forgotten the girl that “is still in Buenos Aires”, but here you are, in front of me,” Gastón chuckled, “So do we just sit everyone down for Storytime?”

“Oh noh,” Nina ran her hand through her hair in momentary panic, “This means we need to tell them. How do we even begin to do that?”

“It’s a lot,” Gastón grabbed her hand to make her stop fiddling with her hair, “But the thing is that we don’t need to do that if we don’t want to. I mean, the point of this was to let everything out on our own terms and this really isn’t it, is it.”

“You think so?” Nina questioned.

“Obviously, everyone knows were together now, but maybe we should wait a little more to tell them everything. Just until we actually know what to say.”

“I think that would be smartest, yeah,” Nina responded.

“Well, this is my fault,” Gastón placed his hands back on her waist, “I just had to fall in love with this invisible internet girl four years ago. Here’s what I propose, we stop hiding right now, everyone can see us, everyone can know, and tomorrow after class we disappear the hell out of here to Kent.”

“Let’s do that.” Nina wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. 

***

“Your class ends at 12 tomorrow, right?” Gastón asked as they were walking towards Nina’s room later that night.

“Yeah.”

“Good, we’ll make the drive during daylight…”

They looked forward as they heard footsteps and saw James rounding the corner. He very quickly stopped as soon as he saw them. 

Gastón was hundred percent sure that he had been in on the coordinated interrogation he and Nina had been put through today, but he technically hadn’t been there to witness the actual outcome.

“I’ll probably have to talk to him,” Gastón turned toward Nina.

“Do that,” Nina nodded to him, “I’ll find my way to my room well enough. I love you.”

“I love you. See you in the morning” Gastón leaned and pecked her on the lips before detaching his arm from around her waist and watched her walk away before turning towards James. “So, are you gonna keep staring all day?”

“No, I am just feeling like I am hallucinating.”

“Oh come on,” Gastón rolled his eyes at him, “Don’t pretend like you weren’t in the know about how Oliver and Jacob came at me today.”

“Yes, I was,” James nodded, “I am just shocked that we actually were right. Who are you and what have you done with Gastón Perida?”

“Hey, you remembered my name!” Gastón laughed, “Oh well, the only thing I can say is that, if you start teaching a literature major physics, and don’t want to fall in love with her, don’t do it at a dimly lit library at the evening. I just couldn’t deny my feelings anymore.”

“Well, at least I can stop telling you that now.” James patted him on the back, “Wait… Library? Really? I have heard of a lot of strange hookups, but the library… Mate…”

“No, not at the library,” Gastón scoffed. How many times would he need to defend his honor today? “What do you think this is? A regency-era romance novel? Both of our rooms were empty, made use of that. I know how to treat my girl well.”

***

The next morning Nina was greeted by a passionate kiss five meters away from her dorm room’s door. 

“Morning,” Gastón said after he released her, “Since we’re going public, I thought you deserved a proper greeting.”

How was he still able to make her blush? Nina laced her fingers with Gastón’s as they started to walk down the hallway. 

As they exited the stairwell and walked down to one of the study halls, where everyone apparently was already waiting for them. 

“Oh, noh,” Nina said while looking at the others, “What are we going to say to them?”

“I mean they know, so technically, nothing,” Gastón kissed her on her forehead, “but I can come up with something snarky if you want.”

“Maybe it won’t be necessary.”

“Hey! Are you two love birds ever grazing us with your presence?” It was Marlee’s voice. 

“Well, here we go.” Gastón wrapped his arm around Nina’s shoulder, pulling her close, and they approached the others. “So, I hope everyone is happy now.”

“Well, yes very happy,” Ariana crossed her arms smirking, “We don’t need to watch you two Latinos pining for each other any longer.”

“This has been the matchmaking scheme of the century,” Oliver laughed, “But this actually worked.”

“Matchmaking?” Nina looked at Gastón questioningly. They had literally yesterday agreed to delay the whole truth about her and Gastón’s actual history, but she already needed to remind herself of it. The others thought that they had met on the first day of Michaelmas term. 

“Let them have the credit,” Gastón shrugged, “Makes them happy.”

“I am trying to start picking up some Spanish from the two of you… is Feliz happy or sad?” James rolled his eyes. “That's the only word I picked up. Speaking other languages in front of people should be forbidden. We never know what you say.”

“It means none of your business,” Gastón laughed, “I honestly like that I can say what I want in front of you, and you have no idea. Non-English speakers are forced to be bilingual.”

“Well, look at the time,” Marleed looked at her phone, “I need to get going. Will we be seeing you two at lunch or is the disappearing act still going on?” She shot a look at Gastón and Nina while everyone else laughed. 

“Just go to class Marlee,” Gastón Rolled his eyes. “James, I’ll catch up with you before the class starts.”

“Why?” Nina looked at him questioningly.

“What?” Gastón moved his arm to her waist, “I’m walking you to class, I’m your boyfriend, no sneaking around anymore.”

Nina smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss before they started walking. 

*

“Nina! Were my eyes seeing right!?” Lisa and another one of her classmates, Jess, hounded Nina as soon as Gastón had left her in front of the auditorium. “Since when are you an item with him? His name was Gastón, right?”

“Well, you know that we have been friends, my roommates have known him since last year,” Nina tried to give them the best explanation she could. It hadn’t crossed her mind that other people, who didn’t know Gastón, would be interested in her new relationship as well. She wasn’t as close with Lisa or Jess as she was with Marlee and Ariana, but they still were friends. “He’s also from Buenos Aires, so we kind of…clicked.”

“So, the only thing you need to do is to speak Spanish? Mind giving me some lessons?” Lisa laughed. “I mean he’s a catch… but you probably know that already.”

“But seriously,” Jess interrupted, “I have a couple of older friends in the science and technology faculty. Gastón Perida is one of the tops of his class, everyone is predicting him to be the Valedictorian. But, like the most commonly known thing is that he does not date, at all. Weird, especially for someone who looks like he does. What kind of spell did you put on him?”

“Oh, come on,” Lisa slapped Jess’ shoulder, “We’re all writers here, don’t you believe in true love?”

“Of course,” Jess rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean that, and I just heard this, so I don’t really know, but apparently, he took some girls out last year, but then he just suddenly stopped.”

Nina looked at Jess. She had not been aware of any girls that had gone out with Gastón. He hadn’t told her…

“There is nothing wrong with that of course,” Jess shook her head, “just interesting. He stopped and pretty much swore off dating, has been unattainable, until now. Maybe he just was waiting for the right one.”

“We’re invited to the wedding, right?” Lisa cut in.

“Little early for that.”

“Well, don’t try to tell us that you are keeping it casual, because it didn’t look like it.”

*

“Who were the girls you were talking to before your class?” Gastón asked Nina as they met up on a hallway after class. “I feel awful that you were pretty much forced to be part of my friend group, but I don’t know your friends’ names. One was Lisa, right.”

“Yes, Lisa was the first person to talk to me during orientation week. The other one was Jess.” Nina said, putting her hand on his shoulder, “She’s a bit of a character. Think of Jazmin, but less shipping craziness and more Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t really know her that well.”

“Sounds delightful.”

“She actually knows people from your faculty.”

“Okay.” Gastón turned to face her, concern in his eyes, “Are you okay? Just seem a little off.”

“Yeah, I am fine,” Nina looked up at him, “Just, uh, Jess doesn’t know you, and obviously she doesn’t know that I do as well as I actually do, so she told me some stuff, in order to help.”

“What stuff?”

“Apparently it seems kind of odd that you used to take girls out and then you suddenly stopped.” Nina looked down for a second, “just came out of the blue for me.”

“Oh,” Gastón was looking at her in surprise. Nina could see that he was thinking hard, “Wait… are you upset about that, that I did that? It was last year when I was a freshman. We were broken up and… Nina you had a boyfriend.”

“No, I am not upset exactly,” She really wasn’t… Nina knew that Gastón had had every right to show interest in other girls when they had been broken up…She knew that. But she sometimes couldn’t help feeling insecure. “I guess I just am wondering why you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, honestly, because it didn’t cross my mind to.” Nina saw Gastón’s eyes wander on the wall behind her —they had stopped on a narrow empty hallway— before focusing back on her eyes. The look in them was unmistakable. He wasn’t lying. “Yes, I went on some dates with a couple of girls last year, but the reason I didn’t think you’d want to know, was because those were nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.”

“Why?”

“Because I was still in love with you,” Gastón reached and grabbed Nina’s hands with his own, “I tried to move on, but it became pretty apparent really fast that it wasn’t going to be that easy… or well impossible. And I am not an idiot, I know that people like me, I never wanted that popularity at Blake and stuff. So, it wasn’t really fair to the girls that I kept giving false hope before I got my head straight… then you showed up here and made that impossible.” He ran his finger on her chin. “I don’t even remember their names. And they probably do not wanna see me again. I have you now, I wouldn’t spare any thought for someone else.”

“I’m sorry about freaking out about this on you,” Nina started talking, while relief started flooding into her, “I guess I just got scared that I was getting in the way of something for you.”

“Nina, you have been the only one for me since you wrote one word down on your account. I was just too stupid to realize it before it was too late.”

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up about that,” Nina ran her hand on his arm. She knew that he did get sometimes in over his head about that and overcorrecting and doing things properly was not uncommon with Gastón. “It’s in the past now… just like whoever I or you went out to last year. I love you too.”

Nina thought that they had done enough talking for now, and kissed Gastón. he responded immediately; Nina wasn’t sure if he had any kind of mechanism to be surprised by anything she did. He just smoothly wrapped his arms around her waist to get her closer. Nina allowed him to push her against the hallway wall. 

“And, uhm, Eric never really was my boyfriend,” Nina said as they separated for a moment, “I mean, we were together… kind of and he thought he was, but I never called him that. We never did anythi…” Her voice started trailing off as she felt Gastón’s breath on her neck and her ear.

“Nina,” His lips were right at the right ear. That area was extremely sensitive for her. Thank goodness they were going away as the classes ended because kissing on the hallway was soon not going to be enough. “I really don’t want to talk about him.”

“Me neither.”

Gastón kissed her again, a little more possessively than before. Probably the mention of Eric got that out of him. Honestly, there was no way Nina could spare any more thought for him when Gastón was kissing her like this.

***

“This place is beautiful,” Nina said as Gastón closed the door to their room. “How did you find this place?”

“I just googled,” Gastón shrugged as he dropped their bags on the floor, “I could become a travel agent if the engineering thing doesn’t work out.”

“We both know that it is going to work out,” Nina ran her hand on Gastón’s arm. “Top of your class after all. Any company will be lucky to have you.”

“There are a lot of different companies in Buenos Aires. If I am lucky, I could be able to stay with one rest of my life.”

“You are only thinking of Buenos Airessian companies?” Nina asked as they sat down on the bed.

“Well, you do know that I want to go home, right?” Gastón asked her. They hadn’t really had a full conversation about their post graduate plans. “I don’t want to build a career out here in England, away from my family and friends. What are your thoughts on that?”

“It is kind of weird to think up until graduation, since it is so far away now,” Nina smiled hesitantly for a moment, “but I never planned on staying here either.”

“It is a good thing that were on the same page.”

“But you’ll graduate a year before,” Nina looked down for a moment.

“I can easily take a job here for a year. We’ll figure that out when we come to it.” Gastón raised her chin so she could meet his eyes, “I am not going to leave without you, made that mistake once already. I know I might have a bit of a romanticized view on university romances, given Mom and Dad, but that should not matter. I love you and I want to have my life with you.”

“Me too.”

Gastón pulled Nina closer by the waist and she climbed on his lap. Their lips found each other quickly. 

Nina was about to pull Gastón’s shirt off when his phone suddenly started ringing.

“If that is Matteo, I am going to kill him through the screen,” Gastón groaned reaching for his phone. 

It was not Matteo, but he was not that sure if it was better or worse for an interruption… It was his parents. 

“It’s Mom and Dad,” He said looking at Nina, “I can just not answer.”

“Well, you should answer,” Nina nodded, “So they don’t start worrying.”

“You know what?” Gastón looked back at his phone. He had suddenly realized that their parents also were people who did not know about his and Nina’s reconciliation… they didn’t even know that she was there. “Should I just tell them, about us. Why keep it from anyone anymore? I know they will start noticing, especially Mom, that something is up, and they start thinking that I am hiding something or that something is wrong.”

“What do you think they’re going to say?” He could tell that Nina was trying to disguise the concern in her voice. Did she really think his parents were not going to approve of her? Gastón had not really made a number about their breakup to his mom and dad, just mentioned it and they had taken the hint that he really didn’t want to talk about it.

On the other hand, he had been noticing that Mom had been kind of subtly trying to ask about how his love life was going during the past year. 

“I think they’ll be happy that I am happy,” Gastón said to Nina, “If they don’t like it, they won’t get an opinion on my life. I’ll better get this now.” Nina moved little bit away from him so she wouldn’t show up on the frame. 

“Hey!” Gastón pressed the answer button and his parents appeared on the screen. 

“Darling, hi! Were we interrupting something, or can you talk?”

“No, I wasn’t in the middle of anything…” Gastón gave Nina a small glance from the corner of his eye.

“Where are you?” His dad asked, “This doesn’t look like your dorm room.”

“Oh yeah, it is not,” Gastón glanced at the ornate headboard of the bed, “I am actually at Edenbridge.”

“What are you doing at Kent?”

“Just taking the weekend off,” Gastón tried to sound at nonchalant as possible. News would be best delivered casually, “We just decided to take a small weekend getaway.”

“We?” Isla questioned. Gastón had slipped that in there because he had been sure that Mom would have picked up on it. “Are you there with your friends?”

“Oh, no no no,” Gastón let out a small laugh, “James, Oliver and Jacob or Marlee and Ariana are not here—” he stopped for a moment, “—I haven’t told you yet, have I? I’m here with my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend? That’s great!” Gastón debated little bit if he kind of should feel insulted on Nina’s behalf about his parents being excited about, in their minds, him having someone new or not, but he could not really blame them, could he? They had many times told him that there should be more in university life than just studying, especially since he was doing so well already. “How did you meet her?”

“Yeah, so,” Gastón glanced at Nina again. He tried to think about the most organic way to reveal that it actually was Nina, “She was a roommate of my friends, a literature major. Then she decided to take a very unnecessary physics class and I kind of got roped into helping her. Uhm, she’s here, so why won’t you just meet her, because it is kind of weird to keep speaking about her while she’s literally right here.”

“Well, we would love to, if she’s okay with it.”

“Of course,” Gastón looked at Nina, “Ven aquí. Puedes conocer a mis padres.”

“Does she speak Spanish?”

“Yes, she in fact does,” Gastón wrapped his arm around Nina's shoulder, his fingers rubbing soothing circles on her arm as she slowly showed up at the frame. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Mom’s and Dad’s faces were priceless. Gastón was debating of taking a screenshot on his phone. 

“Well, I didn’t say I had a new girlfriend.”

***

“Hey! You’re back.” Nina was greeted as she dragged her bag back inside her dorm room on Sunday evening.

“Yes, I am.” Both Marlee and Ariana were in their room. 

“So, how it went at Kent?” Ariana asked as Nina started emptying her bag.

“Well, it was very beautiful. There was this rose garden in the inn we stayed at. I took lot of pictures; I can show them to you. Gastón has a better camera here, I never took mine with me.”

“Sure, those gardens definitely were beautiful,” Marlee interrupted, “But that surely was not the best part of the whole trip, was it? Come on, we’re more than up to some girl talk.”

“Umm, what kind of details do you want me to talk about?” Nina felt herself blush again. Honestly, this was something that she hadn’t really done before. She and Luna talked about everything, but they never really had gone into any detail about physical intimacy with their partners, even when with Luna had been with Matteo for almost a year now. Luna had a very innocent heart when it came to discussing relationships.

“As far as you are willing to go, darling.” Ariana rolled over at her bed as someone suddenly knocked on the door.  “I’ll get that.”

Nina didn’t look up as Ariana opened the door. 

“There was no one there, but this was left on the door,” Ariana returned and sat on Nina’s bed, “I see someone else had great time too.” 

She handed Nina a small red rose. 

“This was on the door?” Nina questioned looking at it.

“Yes,” Ariana smirked, “I guess we learn something new every day about people you thought you knew.”

“Yeah,” Marlee laughed, “I didn’t think Gastón was this kind of romantic, but good for you.”

“Yeah, Red Roses are his thing,” Nina said while softly looking at the flower. 

“How many has he had time to give you to it become a thing?” Ariana raised her eyebrow at Nina, “You seemed surprised. This has happened before?”

“No, no, thats not what I meant,” Nina quickly corrected, realizing that she had said too much, “I meant that it seems like something he would do.”

{}

“Good,” Gastón laughed while playing with Nina’s fingers, “It means that I have three weeks free at the start of summer. So, what do you wanna do?”

“What am I supposed to want to do?” Nina looked at him. The look of slight confusion on her face was way too cute, and Gastón had to try his hardest not to get distracted. 

“Well, it would be a waste if we just sit here the whole summer. There are lot of different things we can do.”

“I don’t know how to come up with something. You choose.”

“Well, if you want me to.” Gastón grinned at Nina, “We already were at Kent, but there are lot of other places here as well.” Gastón stopped to think for a moment, “but, honestly, we can just do that during the weekends if we want, so… How about we go back home?”

“Home?” Nina looked up at his eyes, “You wanna return to Buenos Aires?”

“Well… Yeah.” Gastón reached to take both of her hands to his and ran his thumps over them. “I have been thinking that for a while now. I mean, I didn’t come back last year, and honestly kind of regret it. Matteo really tried to get me to come. So, you’d like that, if we did go back? We could stay at mine.”

“Yes, I really would love that,” Nina smiled at him, “Your parents would be fine with us staying there?”

“Of course. I am not sure about their schedules right now, but if we get to be by ourselves, I’m not gonna be upset.” Gastón got up from his chair and moved to one on the other side of the table next to Nina.

“Luna will be so excited,” Nina smiled, “It would be so great to see everybody…and we can tell them.”

“Right, they don’t know,” Gastón laughed, “Almost forgot about that. If Luna and Matteo have kept their mouths shut, which I think they actually have. Jazmin would have flown across the ocean to make a video about this.”

“She’s probably never going to change in that aspect,” Nina laughed, “At least Delfi shut Fab and Chic down, but Jazmin is never going to stop.”

“We’re never going to live to see that day,” Gastón agreed, “How about we just call Matteo and Luna now, and let them know, so we can plan accordingly? And make sure nothing has actually leaked and they are just waiting to ambush us.”

“That's a good idea.”

“Well, lets not waste any time.” Gastón took his phone out and called Matteo.

“Hey!!!” Matteo appeared on the screen after a moment, “Nice to see you fancy school people. I was beginning to worry that you are beginning to forget how to speak Spanish.”

“We spoke yesterday,” Gastón snarked while changing his phone to his other hand, while wrapping the other around Nina. “Is Luna there?”

“We want to talk to you both.” Nina continued.

“Yeah, she is here… somewhere.” Matteo appeared to look around, “I think she went to the kitchen.”

Nina and Gastón looked as Matteo got up, from Mansion’s living room from the looks of it, and started walking around. 

“She’s with Simon in the kitchen,” Matteo whispered to them, “Do you want to…?”

“Just don’t show the screen,” Gastón said, while their view on the video call got quite crooked as Matteo lowered the phone.

“Chica Delivery,” Matteo entered the kitchen where Luna was sitting with Simon and Ambar, “Can you come with me for a moment?”

“For what?” Nina and Gastón heard Luna’s voice question. 

“We, uhm, have a phone call,” Gastón felt half bad for kind of finding Matteo’s stumblings in the attempt of hiding who he had been talking, kind of funny.

“From who?” Simon’s voice rang, “Why the secrecy?”

“There is no secrecy. It is my cousin, wants to meet my girlfriend,” Matteo continued, “And its none of your business anyway.”

“You know, if you wanna make out, you can just say so!” Ambar’s voice yelled as Luna and Matteo walked to the mansion’s stairwell.

“What does your cousin want from me?” Luna questioned as they entered her room. 

“It’s not my cousin,” Mateo huffed and sat on her bed, flipping the videocall’s camera back to the front and spoke to Nina and Gastón. “I hope this means we can stop this act at some point soon.”

“Oh my gosh!!! Hi!” Luna jumped next to Matteo on the bed. “You could have just said that it was them.”

“Actually, your performance was very entertaining,” Gastón laughed. 

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Matteo rolled his eyes sarcastically. “So what is up with you two?”

“Well, we want to talk with you two about something,” Gastón started talking, “You’ll probably be happy about that, since you like to complain.”

“Uuuuuu, about what?” Luna leaned closer, excited.

“We were talking about the summer, and Gastón’s internship doesn’t start until in a few weeks from starts of the summer—” Nina started explaining, “—so we thought we’d come back, for a couple of weeks.”

“REALLY!?!” Luna started jumping, “OMG! You are really planning on coming back?”

“Yeah, I think we both miss all of you there,” Gastón responded, “Plus, maybe it is time to let everyone know, about us I mean. You two haven’t told anybody right?”

“Of course not.” Matteo scoffed clearly smiling, “Everyone else is in deep darkness about you two, even if it really should be really obvious, if they just saw your faces.”

“Well, thats the plan, we want to tell everybody.”

“So, when exactly are you coming, on what day?” Matteo asked, “Because, uhm… actually, I have an idea. We’ll be at Italy for a couple of days at the start of summer, so what if we fly to you after that and then we fly back to Argentina together.”

***

“I wonder what Matteo bribed Luna with to get her on this early morning flight,” Gastón said to Nina as they were walking towards Luna and Matteo’s arrival gate at 9:35 the morning at Heathrow.

“I honestly don’t know, or do I want to know,” Nina shook her head and turned to look at Gastón’s watch, “When is it landing?”

“In ten minutes,” Gastón said pulling her closer by the waist as they sat down. “We better enjoy the quiet while we can.”

“You know you miss them,” Nina rolled her eyes at him before leaning her head in his shoulder, “But it probably will take a while until they can get off. I can’t imagine Luna and the baggage claim conveyer belt are good friends. Remember when she was convinced that she had lost her bag at Cancun during Roda Fest?”

“Good times,” Gastón laughed before brushing a strand of hair back behind Nina’s ear. He looked like he was about to lean in to kiss her when a burst of people started coming out of the arrivals gate. 

There was no sign of Luna and Matteo until the crowd started dwindling. 

“¿Estás seguro de que esta es la dirección correcta?” A bubbly voice all a sudden was heard at the terminal.

“Yes, this is the right direction.”

“But are you sure? We need to find them.”

“I have been here before… I am sure.”

Nina and Gastón raised their heads to see a couple walk out of the gate. Luna was hard to miss in the crowd while she was wearing a flagrantly bright rainbow summer dress. 

“But are they here?” Luna was jumping on her tiptoes on the platform sneakers she was wearing, “What if they went to the wrong gate?”

“They didn’t,” Nina and Gastón saw Matteo and Luna’s heads turn towards them and they got up from the bench they had been sitting. “They’re right there.”

“AAAAAAAaaaaaahhhh!” Nina felt Gastón detach his arm from around her, just a few moments before she was tackled into an extremely tight hug. Wasn’t Luna just at the other side of the terminal? Well, maybe she had finally actually learned to fly. “I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!”

“I missed you too.” Nina hugged Luna back, and Luna tightened her grip, so it got hard to breathe for a moment. 

“You look so good!” Luna still kept jumping up and down after she had released Nina, “You have not fully turned into a “posh English lady” on me?” Luna joked.

“No, never,” Nina laughed. She turned to look at Gastón who was just coming out of his own hug with Matteo.

“I honestly can’t believe this! You’re together again. True love really conquers all!” Luna gushed after tackling Gastón in a hug as well. 

“I am with her,” Matteo laughed, “I honestly needed to see this in person, so now I can fully believe it.”

“You need a demonstration?” Nina saw Gastón smirk before his arm wrapped around her pulling her into a kiss. 

***

“So, you are looking very well,” Matteo nudged Gastón with his elbow. They had separated from the girls at first when they had arrived at campus because Luna had wanted to see Nina’s room. “Such a different tune from the fall.”

“Well, it is hard to mask how happy she makes me.” Gastón smiled as he opened the door to his room. Oliver and Jacob had left to their homes earlier during the week.

“And everything that comes with it?” Matteo raised an eyebrow suggestively as he sat down.

“Well, I don’t have any reasons to complain,” Gastón nodded his head, “She’s amazing, in any way imaginable. Even though I do sometimes fear that Nina’s mother is getting ready to wring my neck for what we have been doing, like she probably would have when Nina was 17.”

“Are you in a relationship if you are not scared of your in-laws?” Matteo laughed, “Oh, I can finally say this in person. Congratulations, you’re no longer acting like an idiot!”

“You been waiting for a long time to say that huh?” Gastón punched Matteo lightly on the shoulder.

“Yes!” Matteo punched him right back, “I have been watching you to be the biggest mess in your life when it has come to Nina for FOUR years now… it’s finally over! I am just so happy about you two being happy.”

“I mean, I could say the same about you and Luna—” Gastón was interrupted by the door opening. Had he not locked it and the girls were coming… No, they would have heard them afar.

“I thought you left in the morning?” Gastón asked as James suddenly walked through the door.

“Series of unfortunate events… because I don’t have a car,” James leaned on the doorframe, “Dad’s picking me up…” James moved his eyes in the room and finally noticed Matteo, “...I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company. Wait… are you Matteo?”

“En vivo y en persona.” Matteo got up from the bed, while eyeing James verily. Gastón had not really considered how this meeting would go down before this moment. Matteo out of principle wasn’t the biggest fan of Gastón’s other friends —whom he had never met until now— because he was a bit territorial about their friendship. On the other hand, Matteo did know that what he and Gastón had was never going to be broken. 

“Matteo, be nice.” He said in Spanish.

“I am always nice,” Matteo rolled his eyes before offering his hand to James and switching to English, “Matteo Balsano, Gastón’s best friend.”

“James Wilson,” James shook Matteo’s hand, “Nice to finally meet you, since I have heard a lot about you. Plus, I have heard you multiple times, but never understood what was being said.”

“Yeah, Spanish can be a hard language to master… But I managed to do it once upon a time.” Matteo deadpanned. Gastón found this scene purely comical.

“So, you are flying to Buenos Aires in the evening?”

“Yeah,” Gastón answered James, “Matteo and his girlfriend flew here from Italy, so we can go back together. Nina’s showing her around.”

“Oh yeah, you finally got to meet her,” James directed his words to Matteo who threw Gastón a side glance. “I am sure you have heard all about everything to do with Nina, so you definitely can agree that it definitely was such a relief that Gastón stopped being an idiot.”

“Yeah, I have a lot of experience with him being an idiot when it comes to girls. Nina’s no exception” Matteo started saying, his side eye towards Gastón growing “But yep, I have met her… for the first time.”

“Don’t oversell it,” Gastón said to Matteo in Spanish so James couldn’t hear. “We should probably go find the girls.” 

“James, I see you at the fall.” He patted James on the back as he and Matteo walked out of the door.

“How long are you gonna keep this up?” Matteo questioned as they were walking down a hallway, “These guys still don’t know about your crazy quest for the invisible internet girl?”

“Or that I knew her before at all,” Gastón shook his head, “I even told them that Luna’s name is Sol, because otherwise, it would look quite weird that my best friend's girlfriend has the exact same name as Nina’s best friend.”

“You do know that you need to tell them someday,” Matteo continued, “You can’t lie to save your life, so I am surprised that anyone has ever bought this. They’ll find out during the wedding anyway.”

“When have you become this wise?” Gastón nudged Matteo with his elbow.

“I have always been like it,” Matteo shrugged laughing, “But don’t change the subject. They need to know before the wedding.” He looked at Gastón smirking, “What? We both know that that’s the endgame here. Not like you haven’t thought about it.”

“Of course, I have.” Gastón smiled. He had thought about it, maybe a little too much for only being 20, but he couldn’t help it. That was the only future he saw in his mind. “But, we've only been together again for a little over a month. We can’t just pick up where we left off and were young. Nina’s 19. Ana would actually kill me. I guess there is no rush, if we're being realistic here. It’s not like you have any proposal plans yet either.” 

“Hey! We were talking about you!” Matteo pointed a finger at Gastón.

“It’s really good to have you back!” Gastón started laughing.

“You too,” Matteo hugged him suddenly, “I honestly missed you, a lot.”

***

“Are your roommates here?” Luna asked while skipping ahead of Nina in the stairwell.

“No, I told you, Marlee and Ariana went home earlier this week.” Nina explained as she opened the door to the level where her room was located. 

“Awww, thats sad.” Luna hung her head as they walked on a hallway, “They sound awesome, I would like to meet them.”

“I am sure you will,” Nina said as she opened her dorm room’s door.

“Uuuuuuu, this room is nice,” Luna gushed as they walked into the room. It was a little more bare than normal as Marlee and Ariana had taken most of their things home. “But have you been staying here alone now that they’ve gone?”

“No, I haven’t been staying here,” Nina said as she sat on her bed. “Gastón’s roommates are also gone, so I have been spending the night there.”

“Oh, right,” Luna said while jumping next to Nina, “So, do you need any help with packing?”

“I got everything sorted out yesterday,” Nina said while pointing to the suitcase next to the bed. That had been one of the only times she had actually been back in her room after Oliver and Jacob had been gone. Staying in separate rooms with Gastón didn’t make any sense when they weren’t forced to do it.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. 

“Are we going to eat or what?” Matteo and Gastón appeared through the door, “I am starving.”

*

Nina and Gastón were sitting at the table with Ana. They had arrived in Buenos Aires the morning the day before and stayed at Gastón’s house. Nina’s mom had insisted that they come to have lunch with her as soon as they arrived. 

Ana knew about them already, Nina had told her parents pretty soon after they had talked to Gastón’s parents. Their friends at Buenos Aires on the other hand… still had no idea, but they had a plan… or part of it. After they were done with Ana they were going to meet with Luna and Matteo at the mansion. 

According to their plan, Simon and Ambar would be the first ones to be told. Luna and Matteo had told them that Nina would be visiting. After that, they would figure out how to tell the others. 

“Isla and Marco must be happy to have you back,” Ana said addressing Gastón. 

“Well, they would be,” Gastón laughed, “If they were here. They’re in Columbia. They were actually quite mad, that we were coming back while they were gone. But they’ll be back next week, and I will get no peace.”

“Well, I understand them quite well,” Ana turned toward Nina, “I would be the same way if you came back while I wasn’t here.”

“Well, you never travel anyway,” Nina rolled her eyes, “So you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Why would I want to travel? Ana continued, “There is plenty of justice in need to serving right here in Buenos Aires. Not like your father, who seems to be very at home at Miami.”

“You know Dad’s very happy there,” Nina responded, “What would he need to be here anyway? I’m not here. Oh, did you get those boxes I asked for?”

“Yes, I did.” Ana said, “What do you need them for?”

“I need to sort out my stuff so I can ship some of it over.” Nina answered. She had thought she had already explained this to Mom. “I am not going to be gone forever. We talked about this. Just until I am done with my degree. If you feel lonely you can just say so.”

“Actually, have you talked to Mora lately?”

“No, not really,” Nina furrowed her brow. 

“Well, she’s coming back from Milan.” Ana smiled.

*

“What are you looking at?” Nina asked as she walked back to her room after grabbing couple things from downstairs. Her mother had left to meet a client so Nina and Gastón had been left alone. They had few hours before they had agreed to meet up with Luna and Matteo. 

Gastón had been standing in front of her nightstand looking at something. Nina walked behind him. He was holding the framed picture from her graduation with everyone, in his hand.

“You were very beautiful,” His head turned towards her for a moment. There was clear sadness in his eyes. “I should have been there.”

“No one can blame you for not being,” Nina wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him from behind. “You were across the ocean and had a lot of things going on. Renishaw is more than a formidable place to have an internship at as a freshman and look where it has gotten you now.”

“That's what I said to Matteo, but I was lying,” Gastón put the photo back down, “If I would have tried, I could have come to see your performance live at the River Live Fest, Luna’s party, and to your graduation. Mom and Dad have miles for the rest of my life… I just couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have been fair to you and… I couldn’t have borne to see you, with him.”

“I can’t blame you for that either.”

“He’s not in this picture.”

“I broke up with him the day before,” Nina explained. She still felt guilty when she thought of that. “So, he obviously didn’t show up. I don’t know what happened with him afterward, except that he doesn’t work at Roller anymore. Maybe it’s for the best that we don’t see each other, I hurt Eric way too much for it to be fair for us to be friends.”

“You could never hurt anybody.” Gastón turned around and ran his finger on Nina’s cheek. 

“But I have, and probably will in the future.” Nina shook her head before looking into his eyes, “Why are we even talking about my ex? There’s no point to that, he’s gone, and I am in love with you. I only hope that he is happy, the way I am.”

Gastón pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around Nina as she leaned her head on his chest. Her mind turned to peaceful almost at once. 

“So, I am pretty sure your stuff isn’t going to pack itself,” Gastón said looking around in Nina’s room. “Are you taking those photos?”

“Should I?” Nina asked looking at her nightstand, “Did you pack the ones you have from your graduation?”

“Yes. I thought I’d take that whole album.” Gastón nodded, “It’s just something nice to have. Those are good pictures.”

“I agree,” Nina said, turning her head, “I’ll look through some of the books I have here, see if I wanna take any.”

She was leaning forward on the bookcase when she felt fingers trace down on her spine. 

“What are you doing?” She turned around and Gastón’s arm grabbed her tight around the waist. 

“Well, just a thought. I did some calculations, and we have more than plenty of time on our hands and your mother’s gone…”

“We were supposed be packing.” A smile formed on Nina’s lips as his hand moved to her hip, caging her against the wall next to the bookcase. She had no actual intention of fighting his intentions, she had truthfully thought about it herself. Gastón was just the one who acted on more daring impulses faster.

“We can 100 percent get it done, but now that we’re alone, and will probably be hounded by everyone the rest of the day when we get to the mansion.”

“Aha.”

***

“Welcome!” Luna and Matteo were waiting for them at the mansion’s gate when Gastón drove his car up to the gate.   

“Is everything in order?” Nina asked Luna as they started walking across the garden.

“Yes,” Luna was practically bouncing. “Simon and Ambar are thinking that just Nina is coming.”

“Pedro’s not here,” Matteo continued, “He’s out with Delfi, house hunting. Or not house hunting exactly but looking for an apartment so they can move in together.”

“Oh, I just love surprises!” Luna jumped up. 

“Lets just hope it’s a good one,” Gastón ran his hand on the back of his neck. He had been detached from the rest of the group, you couldn’t get around that fact, so he was a little nervous. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Luna looked at him. “When has love not been good news?”

“Well, it will be a surprise,” Nina reached to take Gastón’s hand, “No one knows that we even ended up at the same campus.”

“I can’t wait to see Simon’s face,” Matteo laughed. 

“I’m excited!” Luna jumped again as they got to the door.

“Here we go,” Gastón shared a look with Nina and tightened his grip on her hand as Luna opened the door and four of them walked inside the mansion. The hall was empty. 

“Hey!” Luna yelled inside the house and winked an eye to the others, “SHE’S HERE!”

After a moment, footstep started approaching them.

“Nina’s here already?” Ambar, wearing pastels once more, emerged from direction of the kitchen, Simon behind her. “So great that you’re back…”

Ambar’s voice trailed off as Gastón felt both of hers and Simon’s eyes focus on him. Amber clearly was attempting to minimize the shock on her face.

Simon on the other hand did not even try: “What?”

*

“You need to tell us everything,” Ambar said once everyone was sitting down at the mansion’s living room. “I mean, we knew nothing about this at all.”

“Well, it’s a long story,” Gastón said looking at Nina, “We will probably never know how this happened, but someone somewhere was clearly on my side. I have mentioned my friends before, Jacob, Oliver, James, but important to this are Ariana and Marlee.”

“Who just happened to be my roommates,” Nina continued, “So it was kind of impossible to avoid each other.”

“We bumped into her on the first day, not that I knew that Nina was there, Matteo.” Gastón shot a side-eye towards his best friend, “So I thought I was hallucinating for a second. But that being said, it was just impossible to stay away from her. Should have known that from the other times I tried that. It’s impossible.”

“We all know that fighting against something that is inevitable has no use,” Simon said draping his arm around Ambar. 

“But you kept this under wraps really well,” Ambar continued, “I mean, I am gonna be honest here, many of us, me included were curious of what would become of you now that Nina had come to Oxford, but then we heard nothing.” Then she suddenly turned toward Luna and Matteo, “I also can’t believe that you two knew about this and somehow kept it secret.”

“I can keep a secret.” Luna protested. 

“Well, yes, you can, but I thought you would have been bouncing off the walls.”

“She was, trust me.” Matteo remarked, “Not like they told us right away either, though.”

“It was two weeks,” Gastón rolled his eyes, “And you were the first to know before anybody else.”

“How did your other friends react?” Simon asked. 

“Well, thats the thing,” Gastón smiled shortly, “They do not know. I mean they know that were together and I had to deal with month of nagging about needing to ask Nina out, not just from Matteo. All they know that I had a girlfriend in Buenos Aires who I left… they don’t know that Nina’s the same person.”

“Seriously?” Simon and Ambar looked astonished, “That kind of secret is almost impossible to keep.”

“They don’t speak any Spanish, so we don’t need to worry about saying something and being overheard,” Nina started talking. Gastón slid his arm on her waist, lacing his left-hand fingers with hers. “We know that we need to tell them at some point, but don’t exactly know how. Yet anyway.”

“It is one step at the time, right now.” Gastón continued, “Right now, we need to tell you all that we’re back together. You we’re the first ones after Luna and Matteo, then there are the rest.”

“Do you have any plan for that?” Luna asked, “Because Ramiro took Jim and Yam to Chile.”

“Thats the problem, not everyone is even here.” Nina breathed.  

“I might have an idea,” Ambar perked up suddenly. 

“All the help is welcomed.”

“Okay good,” Ambar continued, “Unlock your phones and give them to me.”

“Okay…” Gastón and Nina handed their phones to Ambar. 

“So, I trust, when the case is two of you, that you have pictures.” Ambar looked very focused, “Preferably one where you are kissing.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Perfect. Now everyone else, mute the group chat.” Ambar chucked her own phone to Simon. “So, I have your permission to do this?” She looked at Nina and Gastón. 

“Yes.”

“Great,” Ambar smiled and handed them their phones back. “Now everyone will definitely know within the hour. If I have learned anything from Delfi and Jazmin, it is that news travel quickly.”

“Well, now that thats done, tell me everything about Oxford.” Ambar continued, “It must be so beautiful.”

“It truly is,” Nina started saying, “I feel like I have learned more during this year than I have in my whole life. The language was a bit challenging at first, but I am starting to get the hang of it.”

“She is already showing signs of a British accent,” Gastón turned to look at her, “So she is definitely getting the hang of it.”

“Those two won’t speak any Spanish anymore once they return to us for good,” Matteo laughed. 

“Well, we’ll see in four years.” Gastón rolled his eyes again toward Matteo.

“Four years?” Simon questioned.

“Until I graduate,” Nina explained. 

“Are you coming back then too?” Ambar looked at Gastón. “I thought you’d be doing a PhD.”

“Oh no, I am not doing that,” He shook his head, “I did think about it at some point, but no. It would be way too much effort right now and masters in science and technology from Oxford will get me way ahead in life already. I can get that doctorate later if I want, but I don’t wanna spend all my twenties studying. There are other things I want out of life.”

“I am just going to sit here and pretend to know what you are talking about,” Simon laughed, “I was talking to Mom the other day and happen to mention that two of my friends go to Oxford and for a moment she did not believe that I have winded up in the such sophisticated crowd, especially with Ambar at law-school. Rico and Julio, my brothers, flat out didn’t believe me.”

“Well, everyone has their own paths,” Nina nodded, “How are you doing with Pedro and the band?”

“Still figuring it out,” Simon grimaced, “But we’re optimistic. It is really not the same with no Nico.”

“Nico still having fun at New York?” Matteo crossed his arms, “We haven’t heard of him in a while.”

“Thats the thing,” Simon continued furrowing his brow, “I am not sure… He and Ada have not worked out.”

“Maybe he’ll come back then!” Luna piped up. 

“We can hope that.” Simon shook his head smiling. 

“Lot of people are coming back now,” Ambar said looking down, “I mean I came back from pretty much oblivion… and honestly I should thank you.” She turned to look at Gastón. “You don’t need to be this nice to me, last we saw each other I was skating for the Sliders.”

“Actually, it was during the Open,” Gastón responded. Honestly, he didn’t see any reason to be mad at Ambar. He had heard many good things about how she had turned things around. 

“I have been trying to compartmentalize the Red Sharks out of my mind.” Ambar closed her eyes.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re fine. I have known you for a long time, and honestly proud of you.”

“How long have you known each other?” Simon leaned forward, curious.

“Since third grade?” Ambar counted with her fingers, “I am not doing the math right now. I went my whole comprehensive schooling at La Hoja de roble.”

“And I started there when I was nine,” Gastón added, “So yeah, third grade checks out. If I remember correctly both Delfi and Jazmin both started there in the fifth grade.”

“Did you go to that school as well?” Luna asked Matteo.

“Yep, I started there at eighth grade. Probably like a week or two after the semester actually started, because Dad’s moving schedule of course couldn’t possibly let me start school like a normal person.”

“Yep, I saved your skin during the chemistry class.” Gastón laughed. 

“Thats not what happened!” Matteo countered. “I had it under control.”

“It didn’t look like it,” Gastón shook his head, “You were absolutely lost with Mr. Patrena’s whiteboard.”

“He was the worst,” Ambar huffed, “How anybody ever learned anything from his classes, is beyond me.”

Suddenly they heard the noise of mansion’s door opening. 

“Have you seen this—??!!” Delfi walked through the door, Pedro trying to keep up with her pace behind her, her phone in her hand. They both stopped in their tracks as they saw everyone at the living room. 

“Yes, we have,” Ambar spoke first, “Live, actually.”

“It really is true?” Delfi and Pedro turned to look at Gastón and Nina. 

The Team of Jam&Roller

Ramiro: What?

Jim: IIIiiiiiiIIIIIiiiiIII!! 💗💜💚💙💛

Yam: Omg!!💙💙💙💙

Ramiro: Cool

Jazmin: I need an interview now!

Gastón: No.

Nina: No

{}