I Love You (Eu amo você) {MJ FANFICTION}

Chapter 3

She'd arrived carrying a grotty old sponge that was already breaking apart in her hands. She'd dunked it into the ocean right before she jogged up the steps to her destination. Ramel had taken one look at her, thrown his eyebrows up and laughed.

"Don't worry, I got supplies. You can throw that dirty old sponge out." Was all he'd said and bought out two glistening buckets of sloshing soapy water with two fresh yellow sponges swimming on top. He dropped both buckets at her feet, and she'd wriggled her toes feeling the water slosh over the side, leaving bubbles between her toes.

"Suco?" he asked her, and her ears perked up at the sound of her native tongue.

She nodded slow and thirstily. Still partially dehydrated after her rough hangover.

"Laranja... limão...?" he prompted her to select her preference for the day.

"Laranja, por favor." She thanked him and then stared at the grotty car laid out front. He'd grossly misinformed her of the amount of work she'd be in for, the thing was a mess of dirt and muck. She had to wonder exactly how long it had been since it had been cleaned last.

She picked up her sponge, squeezing it tightly and rubbed it a little against the window until she could see through the suds and into the dark interior. She smiled slightly with satisfaction at the now clean spot until a face appeared behind her reflection in the mirror.

She watched him watch her and as soon as she turned around to face him, Michael bustled down the steps avoiding her completely. He hauled up the second bucket and took it around to the opposite side of the car.

Neither of them spoke to each other.

"I bought both. You wanted orange right Lia?" Ramel reappeared and gave the ice-cold orange juice to Lia. "Sorry Michael, there's no more orange left. Lia took the last one, you'll have to have lemon." He patted Michael on his shoulder as he tipped his own lemon drink into his mouth. Michael's eyes slowly slid from his cousin's face and locked on Lia.

"You never told me we'd have company." He muttered. Ramel pointed at him.

"Oh yeah, Lia's here. She came to help out." He patted him loosely on the shoulder again right before ducking indoors. The two of them remained outside on the front lawn scrubbing away at Ramel's father's car. The fragile silence could have been cut with a knife. Her eyebrows tensed over her eyes as she remembered his cutting words to her the day before.

"You feeling better now?" The sudden and soft words floated to her ears.

She looked up wordlessly up at him before dropping her gaze back down to the filthy windows, choosing not to give him the satisfaction of a response.

He paused a moment gazing at her, edged around to the front of the car and then began scrubbing his sponge aggressively against the hood. "You're very rude, did you know that?" He'd said through his physical exertion.

"Then maybe you shouldn't talk to me." She had mumbled beneath her breath in Portuguese.

"Pardon?" Michael looked up at her. She dipped her sponge back in the bucket, a small smug smile arising on her face as he'd looked on with confusion. He seemed to give up trying to translate her words in his head and put his attention back on the task at hand. "That's right, you just keep on talking in your little language...I don't care what you call me."

Her brows raised now along with her smirk as she continued to ignore him. He scrubbed away with more force this time causing trains of grease and dirt to run over the sides of the hood. "and not to mention you took the last bottle of orange drink...I should, talk some mess in my language."