The courtyard glowed faintly, paper lanterns swaying in the warm night breeze. Music played somewhere in the villa, soft and low, but Javi had dragged you outside, insisting the air was better here, the stars brighter.

He was pacing, hands moving wildly as he spoke, as if his words weren’t enough without the gesture. “You don’t understand — when I met you, it was like—” he pressed his hand to his chest, eyes wide, voice breaking into something raw, “like suddenly every song, every painting, every stupid little poem I’ve ever loved made sense.”

He stopped then, right in front of you, so close you could see the nerves in the way his jaw clenched, even as he tried to mask it with that boyish grin. “It’s terrifying, you know? To feel this much. To want someone this much.”