"Fine," she said, swinging her bag over her shoulder. "But we’re going to a place I pick. And if I see a single person wearing a sweater tied around their shoulders, I’m leaving."
She had bumped into him—literally—outside a coffee shop in Salamanca. Her iced latte had done a graceful, tragic arc onto his suede loafers.
"Right," she said, straightening up and handing him a soggy mass of napkins. "Perdona si te llamo 'Cayetano,' but I feel like you probably have a sailboat named after your grandmother and a very strong opinion on polo shirts." Perdona Si Te Llamo Cayetano Raquel Tirado Fe...
Raquel looked at her watch. She was supposed to be meeting friends in Malasaña, a world away from the starched shirts and signet rings of this neighborhood. But there was something in his eyes—a flicker of humor that didn't fit the 'Cayetano' mold.
The man looked down at his ruined shoes, then up at her. He had that effortless, slightly tousled hair that looked like it cost a hundred euros to maintain and a smile that suggested he’d never had a bad day in his life. "It’s fine," he said, his voice smooth and maddeningly polite. "They were getting old anyway. All three weeks of them." "Fine," she said, swinging her bag over her shoulder
As they walked toward the metro, the girl from the outskirts and the boy from the golden mile, the labels started to feel a little less permanent. Maybe he was a Cayetano, and maybe she was exactly who she thought she was, but under the Madrid sky, they were just two people walking toward a better cup of coffee.
Raquel paused her scrubbing. The accent, the Barbour jacket draped over his arm, the leather weekend bag—he was a walking stereotype. Her iced latte had done a graceful, tragic
The orange glow of the Madrid sunset bounced off the glass buildings of Paseo de la Castellana, but for Raquel, the view was mostly blocked by the back of a very expensive, very well-tailored navy blazer.