The rain started at 6:42 p.m. Fábio knew the exact time because he had been looking at his phone when the first raindrop struck the window on the twelfth floor, and in less than a minute, the sky over São Paulo had turned into a bucket pouring water.
It wasn't rain. It was punishment.
The kind of downpour that turned streets into rivers, brought traffic to a standstill, and packed the subway until there wasn't room for another elbow. The kind Fábio, naturally, hadn't anticipated—because the weather app had said "partly cloudy," and Fábio, like every good adopted São Paulo resident, still believed in weather apps.
He stood beneath the building's awning at Monteiro Tech, his backpack on his shoulders and his earphones hanging around his neck, staring at the curtain of water as if he could intimidate it.
He couldn't. The rain didn't care about him.
His umbrella was back at his tiny apartment. Hanging behind the door. Dry. Useless. Exactly where Fábio had looked at it that morning and thought, It's not going to rain today.
Six fifty. The building had already emptied out. The last employees had hurried off to the underground parking garage or to the cars waiting out front. Fábio didn't have a car. Fábio didn't have a ride. Fábio had a bus stop two blocks away and a shred of dignity that wouldn't survive arriving at the subway station completely drenched.
He considered running. Calculated the distance. Two blocks, about two hundred meters. If he ran fast, he could reach the bus stop in maybe forty seconds. Forty seconds in that rain meant arriving looking like a cat rescued from a storm drain.
He stayed under the awning.
Seven o'clock. The rain hadn't let up. If anything, it had gotten heavier, as if it were taking the whole situation personally.
Fábio leaned against the building's glass wall and pulled out his phone. He texted Lucas.
"I'm trapped under the awning. No umbrella. Send a rescue team."
"Dude, I'm already in Pinheiros. Get an Uber."
"Surge pricing is 4x. My kidney isn't worth that much."
"Then die there. It was nice knowing you."
"Lucas."
"Fábio."
"I hate you."
"I know. Good luck with the flood."
Fábio put his phone away and sighed. He looked at the rain. The rain looked back. Neither of them gave in.
That was when the car pulled up.
Black. Silent. The kind of car that made no noise because it had been designed that way, because people who bought cars like that didn't want to hear the engine. They wanted to hear the silence money could buy.
It stopped right in front of the awning, less than two meters away from Fábio, and the driver's window rolled down.
Alexander Monteiro.
No suit. Just a white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the collar open. His hair was slightly tousled, as if he'd run his hand through it several times. The bluish glow of the dashboard illuminated his face.
"Get in," he said.
It wasn't a question. It wasn't an invitation. It was an instruction, delivered with the same casualness he used when saying "next slide" during meetings.
Fábio stood frozen. His brain processed the scene in layers: Alexander. Car. Rain. Door. Get in. Alexander. Car. Alexander.
"I..." Fábio began, with no idea how he was going to finish the sentence. I'm fine? I can wait? I'll get your car seat wet, and it probably costs more than my entire college education?
"Fábio." Alexander said his name as if it were a complete sentence. "It's raining. Get in the car."
Fábio got in the car.
The interior smelled of leather. And cologne. That cologne. The same one from the elevator, the same scent that lingered in Fábio's memory like a song he couldn't get out of his head.
But here, inside the enclosed space of the car, with the rain beating against the roof and the world outside blurred by water on the windshield, the scent was closer. More real. More dangerous.
Fábio placed his backpack on his lap and tried to take up as little space as possible, as if he could shrink until he disappeared into the leather seat.
"Where to?" Alexander asked, pulling away from the curb.
"Brigadeiro Station. The subway. If it's not too far. If it is, you can drop me anywhere, I—"
"It's not far."
The car glided along Avenida Paulista. The rain turned the headlights of other cars into streaks of red and yellow light that ran down the windshield like paint. The wipers moved in a steady, hypnotic rhythm. Inside the car, the sound of the rain was muffled and distant, as if it belonged to another world.
Fábio looked at his hands resting in his lap. They were slightly damp—he'd gotten a little wet during the dash from the awning to the car. A drop slid from his hair and landed on the knee of his jeans.
"Sorry," Fábio said. "I'm getting the seat wet."
"The seat will dry."
Silence. The kind of silence Fábio already knew—the kind from the elevator, the kind with weight and texture. But this was different.
In the elevator, the silence had been tense, filled with things left unsaid. Here in the car, with the rain creating a dome around them, the silence was almost... comfortable. As if they were both inside a bubble and the rest of São Paulo didn't exist.
"Do you like rain?" Alexander asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
Fábio thought about it. "I do. When I'm inside my house. Under a blanket. And I don't have to go anywhere."
"Then you don't like rain. You like comfort."
"I guess I like rain when it's not falling on me."
The corner of Alexander's mouth moved. That tiny movement Fábio had already begun cataloging—it wasn't a smile, just the shadow of one, the rough draft, the intention.
"It rained differently in the countryside," Fábio said, not knowing why he was telling him this. "It rained just as hard, but the ground was dirt, so there was that smell. Petrichor. My mother would open the kitchen window and stand there, breathing it in. She used to say it was the sky washing away the dust."
Fábio stopped. He looked at Alexander.
"Sorry. You didn't ask about my mother."
"I didn't ask you to apologize." Alexander turned his face for half a second—just long enough for Fábio to see that his almost-smile had become something more. "Go on."
Fábio felt his face grow warm. "There's not much more to say. It's just... São Paulo doesn't smell like anything when it rains. It smells like wet asphalt. It's not the same."
"It isn't," Alexander agreed. Then, in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere deeper, he added, "I grew up here. I've never smelled wet earth."
"Never?"
"My father took me to a farm once. I was about eight. It rained that afternoon, and I stood on the veranda watching. But I don't remember the smell. I remember the sound."
Fábio turned slightly toward him. "What sound?"
"The rain on the corrugated metal roof. It made a noise that... I don't know how to explain it. It sounded as if the whole world were applauding."
Fábio smiled. He couldn't help it. The image of Alexander as a child, eight years old, standing on a veranda and listening to the rain hitting a metal roof was so unexpected and so beautiful that the smile simply happened.
Alexander glanced at him. Quickly. Then returned his attention to the road.
Traffic had come to a standstill near Rua Augusta. The cars formed a motionless line, their brake lights glowing like a row of red candles. The rain continued. The windshield wipers continued. The cologne lingered.
"You play guitar," Alexander said. It wasn't a question.
Fábio blinked. "How do you know?"
"You have calluses on the fingers of your left hand. Index, middle, and ring fingers."
Fábio looked at his hand. The calluses were there—small, almost invisible marks left by years of pressing steel strings. He'd never imagined anyone would notice. Least of all Alexander. Least of all the fingers on his hand.
"I... yeah. I do. Since I was twelve. My grandfather taught me."
"What kind of music?"
"MPB, mostly. Chico, Djavan, Marisa Monte. Sometimes old-school Brazilian country music, but I don't admit that in public."
This time, Alexander smiled. Not an almost-smile, not a shadow, not a rough draft. A real smile, small and brief, lasting perhaps two seconds, but changing the entire geometry of his face—softening his jaw, lighting up his eyes, revealing a dimple on the left side that Fábio hadn't known existed.
Fábio forgot how to breathe. Literally. He was breathless for a second and a half, then had to inhale through his mouth in a way he hoped hadn't been audible.
It had been audible.
Alexander didn't comment. But the dimple took a little longer to disappear.
Traffic started moving. The car advanced two blocks. Brigadeiro Station appeared on the corner, its entrance illuminated, people rushing in and out with umbrellas and hurried steps.
Alexander stopped in front of the station.
Fábio didn't move. Not immediately. He sat there with his backpack on his lap and one hand gripping its strap, looking at the rain still falling between the car and the subway entrance.
And he realized he didn't want to leave.
He wanted the traffic to have lasted longer. He wanted to hear more about the farm, the corrugated metal roof, the eight-year-old boy who had listened to the rain as if it were applause.
"Thank you," Fábio said. "For the ride. I... thank you."
"You're welcome."
Fábio opened the door. The sound of the rain flooded into the car, loud and real, breaking the bubble. He put one foot outside.
"Fábio."
He turned. Alexander was looking at him with an expression Fábio still didn't know how to read—something between attentiveness and something else, something just behind his eyes, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
"Take care of that cold."
Fábio looked down. He was trembling. He hadn't noticed until then—the shaking shoulders, the trembling hands, a fine shiver that could have been caused by the cold, his damp T-shirt, or anything else.
"I'm not getting a cold," Fábio said.
"Not yet."
Fábio got out of the car. He ran toward the station entrance, getting soaked in three seconds flat. Once he reached the shelter, he turned around.
The car was still there. The window was closed. But Fábio could have sworn that, through the rain-fogged glass, Alexander was still watching him.
The car moved. It disappeared into traffic. Its taillights blended with the others and vanished.
Fábio stood at the subway entrance, dripping wet, his hair plastered to his forehead and his T-shirt clinging to his body. An older woman walked past him and said, "Young man, you're absolutely soaked."
Fábio nodded without really hearing her.
He went down the stairs. Passed through the turnstile. Waited for the train.
Standing in the carriage, holding the pole with the hand whose calluses Alexander had noticed, Fábio closed his eyes and let the sway of the subway rock him.
The city passed outside, dark and wet, but inside his head there was only the sound of rain hitting the car roof, the smell of leather and cologne, and Alexander's voice saying, It sounded as if the whole world were applauding.
He arrived at his tiny apartment. Took off his wet clothes. Had a hot shower. Put on his old sleeping T-shirt. Sat on the bed.
His phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
No—not unknown. Alexander's number. Fábio hadn't saved it yet, but he already recognized the last four digits. He'd already memorized them.
Pathetic.
"Did you get home okay?"
Fábio stared at the message. Two words. And yet, something inside him warmed as if he'd just had a cup of hot tea, as if all the rain in São Paulo couldn't reach him here.
He typed: "I made it. No cold. So far."
Three dots appeared.
"So far."
Fábio smiled. He saved the number. Then spent a while deciding what to name the contact.
It couldn't be "Alexander"—too intimate.
It couldn't be "Mr. Monteiro"—too formal.
It couldn't be "CEO"—too ridiculous.
He saved it as "A."
Just "A." One letter. Small, discreet, meaningless if anyone happened to see it.
But to Fábio, it meant the smell of leather, a dimple on the left side, rain on a metal roof, and the question he hadn't asked but that had remained caught in his throat throughout the entire ride:
Do you feel it too?
Fábio lay down and pulled the blanket over himself. Outside, the rain continued, tapping against the window of his tiny apartment. It didn't sound like rain on a metal roof, and it didn't sound like applause, but that night, it seemed just as beautiful.
He'd been trembling in the car, he thought.
But it hadn't been because of the cold.
It hadn't been because of the cold.