Page 137 of Just My Type of wrong guy

But it’s not.

Dani <3: I remember when you used to love me and tell me everything.

It’s the fourth time I’ve received a message like this in the last week. This one came before nine, I was still asleep.

Dani <3: Now I have to speculate, along with the fans, why you haven’t kissed anyone and who’s the girl you wrote that song for.

Dani <3: You’re not going to say anything? Like, nothing? These pictures of you two walking around, completely in love, without me getting any confirmation, are killing me!!!

These came around ten, I scratch my neck, heading to the bathroom and laughing. Dani’s desperation to picture me with someone else is only outdone by the shock she’ll feel when we finally admit it.

Dani <3: I hope you two just devoured each other like animals, I hate you both.

Even though everyone in the band knows by now, after our performances of “Maybe” and “Always Us” in the last few shows, we haven’t told anyone yet, and the fun of the secret has been exciting. But I know Dani is about to show up here at my place. She just hasn’t done it yet because, in three days, we’ll have Christmas at her place with the family.

I finish brushing my teeth, wash my face, stretch, ready to meet my girl.

The second I open the door, I hear the soft strum of a guitar, making me smile. I walk slowly, heading toward the entrance of the hallway, while the sweet voice of an angel singing in Portuguese guides me to the living room. But then Alexandra stops playing, and I stop moving, realizing it was just the song ending when she starts another one, and the very first line grabs my attention.

At that table, he always sat, always telling me what it means to live better.

At that table, he would tell stories that now I carry in my memory and I know them all by heart.

At that table, he’d gather people around and cheerfully share what he’d done that morning, and in his eyes there was so much light that more than a daughter, I became his biggest fan.

I didn’t know how much it would hurt, a table in the corner, a house, a garden.

If I’d known how much life can ache, this pain, so sharp, wouldn’t have stung quite like this. Now there’s just a table in the room, and today no one speaks of his mandolin anymore.

At that table, he’s missing, and the longing for him is hurting me.[8]

After she repeats the last line twice, she goes back to the beginning.

I try to keep walking toward the living room – just three more steps – but my body doesn’t move. Two tears slip down my face as I finally understand what Alexandra meant when she said that when her mother died, she lost her father too.

The day I chose my career, I lost my parents.

And even though I’ve moved on, built the life of my dreams away from them, and achieved everything I set out to do, I still miss them both. I miss the family we were and the love that filled that house, right up until I let myself be seduced by an empty promise of success.

It’s been years since I last spoke to them. No sweet messages, no phone calls like my bandmates always share with their parents. And that hurts, because deep down, I never wanted Guilherme’s house to be my only option for a family Christmas.

But Alexandra ’s voice, trembling with nostalgia and emotion, gets softer and then falls silent after a few seconds. I take a deep breath, forcing my legs to move again, wiping the tears away.

I was the one who left. I have no right to stand here crying.

Right now, I can consider myself a lucky guy.

Alexandra starts another song and I enter in the room.

“Me too,” I interrupt my girl.

With a smile that lights up the room in a way winter sunlight never could, she sets the guitar down on the couch and stands up to hug me.

“What a perfect way to wake up, my girl singing,” I whisper against her lips before pulling her into my lap and kissing her.

“It’s just that my labrador wrote a song in Portuguese with me, and it lit up all my love for my favorite songs again,” Alex says, running her fingers over my neck while I wrap an arm around her waist.

“What guy wouldn’t write a song in a language he barely speaks to impress the girl he’s crazy about?”

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