A Lesson in Loving You

Chapter 3 — Off-Grid Territory

The clock on the library’s stone wall ticked past 5:00 PM, its steady rhythm echoing softly in the secluded corner of the municipal archives. Rain streaked down the tall, arched windows, blurring the bustling streets of Porto Alegre into smears of gold and gray.

Maitê’s eyes burned. For two straight hours, the oak table between them had become a battlefield of competing methodologies.

"Your primary source selection is heavily biased toward macro-institutional data," Inácio said, tapping his pen against her open binder. He had shed his jacket entirely, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the lean, wiry strength of his forearms. "You're building an argument on regional economic stability using figures from state-sponsored banks. It ignores the informal agricultural trade in the Southern border towns."

"Because informal trade lacks verified quantitative metrics, Inácio," Maitê replied, her voice clipped, though her fingers twitched over her leather planner. "We cannot build a forty-percent capstone on estimates and regional hearsay. Professor Silveira wants empirical rigor."

"Empirical rigor isn't the same as ignoring half the economic reality just because it doesn't fit into a tidy spreadsheet," he countered, leaning forward. His broad shoulders blocked out the dim light of the aisle behind him, drawing her whole world into the narrow space of the study desk. "You're terrified of variables you can't control."

"I am terrified of losing points because my partner thinks economic sentiment is a substitute for hard data!"

"Look at page forty-two," Inácio insisted, reaching across the small table.

At the exact moment he reached for the leather-bound ledger resting beside her laptop, Maitê reached for it too.

Her fingers brushed the spine; his hand closed over hers.

The argument died instantly in the quiet air of the archive.

His hand was warm, larger than hers, calloused along the palm in a way that betrayed hours spent on the rowing team or riding horses—not the smooth, untouched hands of a lazy academic playboy. Maitê froze, her lungs seizing. The heat of his skin burned through her quiet, disciplined composure, sending a sharp, electric jolt straight up her arm to her collarbone.

She looked up. Inácio hadn't pulled his hand away.

His dark obsidian eyes were fixed on her, the lazy, mocking light entirely gone. Up close, framed by the shadow of the tall bookshelves, she could see the faint, pale line of the scar along his left jaw, running down toward his neck. She could see the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest under his black sweater, and the golden flecks trapped in his irises that only appeared when the light hit him at an exact angle.

For five long seconds, neither of them moved. The rain outside seemed to quiet, swallowed by the suffocating weight of their proximity.

"You're holding the ledger," Maitê managed to whisper, her voice lacking its usual razor-sharp edge.

Inácio blinked, his gaze dropping to her lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to her eyes. Slowly, deliberately, his fingers uncurled from hers, leaving the skin of her hand cold and tingling in the air.

"Right," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, rough and lower than usual. He cleared his throat, leaning back into his chair, though his dark eyes never truly left her face. "The ledger."

Maitê pulled her hand back to her lap, lacing her fingers tightly together to hide the faint tremble in her knuckles. She stared at the open page, but the numbers scrambled before her eyes. The quiet hostility that had sustained them for four years felt suddenly flimsy, replaced by an unsettling, hyper-aware electricity that made every breath feel heavy.

Inácio picked up his pen again, but he didn't write. He leaned his elbow on the table, resting his jaw in his palm as he watched her attempt to reorganize her highlighters with mechanical precision.

"You bite your lip when you're trying not to lose an argument," he said softly, a trace of his low, teasing tone returning to break the silence.

Maitê’s hand stilled. She snapped her highlighter cap closed with a loud click. "I do not."

"You do," Inácio insisted, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Lower right side. You’ve been doing it since freshman year whenever I beat your score on the history essays."

"I have never paid enough attention to you to notice what you do," she shot back, her hazel eyes flashing with a sudden, defensive heat.

"Liars get deducted points on the rubric, Vilanova," he drawled, though there was no malice in it—only an intoxicating, dangerous warmth that made her heart hammer against her ribs. "And for the record, you have a tiny freckle right on your left eyelid that only shows up when you're glaring at me."

Maitê stared at him, her cheeks burning with a sudden flush that she couldn't suppress. She wanted to hurl an insult, wanted to re-erect the pristine, icy wall that kept him at a safe distance. But as she looked at the relaxed, handsome tilt of his head and the intense, unblinking focus in his dark gaze, the words caught in her throat.

He wasn't just bothering her. He was watching her. He had been watching her for years.

"Page forty-two," Maitê said, her voice barely louder than the rain outside as she pulled the ledger toward herself, refusing to meet his eyes again. "Show me the border trade numbers."

Inácio’s soft, low laugh echoed in the quiet archive, a sound so rich and unscripted that it made her chest pull tight. He slid his chair an inch closer to hers, his shoulder almost touching hers as he reached out to point at the manuscript, stepping willingly into her territory with

out breaking a single rule.