On a Sunday night

2. Maitê and Fernando

On that Sunday, Fernando got in The House Lounge Bar with his friend Davi, Davi's new girlfriend, Jennifer, and a friend of Jennifer's named Lilian. Yes, it was a blind date. He thought that kind of arrangement was a bit ridiculous, but he couldn't say no to his friend, who had insisted so much that he went out with them. Well, that was it and he had searched for the girl on social media and saw that the night might not be a complete waste of time.

Fernando Vasconcelos was in his 30s and he was doing very well with his own life. He considered himself a successful man working as an executive at Grand Canyon, a.k.a GC, an American multinational company with its Brazilian headquarters in São Paulo. He had always been the kind of guy that was dedicated to his work and his family. He grew up with his parents and his older brother in a big house in a traditional neighborhood of São Gonçalo dos Campos. He had moved to the capital to study business at Unicamp and, even as an undergraduate, he got an internship at the company where he currently worked, occupying a highly rated position on the board.

He was single and was very well with his current marital status. He moved in with his last girlfriend from college, but she decided the relationship would end along with their graduation. Fernando had been quite shocked by Ana Paula's decision, at the time, they lived two years in the same apartment, sharing bills, taxes and the bed. It was an unofficial marriage, both of them came from families with good financial conditions, but they both worked to support themselves. Their parents helped them, of course, but they always managed to live with what they had.

A month before graduation, Ana Paula, who was from Minas Gerais and was studying law, simply packed her bags and told him that she was returning to her homeland, to work at the family law firm, and so she went. Fernando decided that women were too complicated and that he would dedicate himself to his career and no longer have serious commitments from then on.

Of course, he didn't keep his promise and had some more serious relationships in the years that followed, but no dating had proven solid. Most of the women he had related to were more interested in what he had to offer financially than in what he had to offer as a human being. This caused him to give up on love for good and was definitely single for three years.

He had met Davi in the first years of his internship at GC. They came from different colleges, but studied the same course and were the only ones in the group of fifteen interns that remained in the company. Their friendship gradually grew up and nine years later they were still friends and co-workers. Davi had specialized in People Management and Fernando, in Resource Management. Now both were at the head of their respective sectors and have just joined the select group of members of the GC Council. They had brilliant paths ahead of them.

But Davi had a serious flaw, he wasn't fine with his bad luck for women. His friend had been married twice in the past five years and, in this meantime, had lost two apartments to his ex-wives. Their friends already called him "my home, my life" for that reason and Davi not only did not care about his nickname, but now he was with another candidate for "woman of his life". And, as if that were not enough, he still wanted to take Fernando along in the same way.

At least Lilian seemed to be interesting. She was blonde, had green eyes and a thin body, clearly shaped in a gym. She was a publicist, model and digital influencer, which seemed to be everyone's profession lately, not that he had anything against it. She was 27 years old and had more than a million followers on her social media (among which he was not included). She liked to produce contents on fashion and beauty, but she also talked about self-esteem and alternative therapies for various problems that affected both women and men.

That was what she said. Fernando already knew that she was beautiful and had an excellent taste for clothes, because of the small investigation he carried out on her social media, but he wouldn't say that, of course. He just wanted to check out the material before falling into what could be a trap set up by his best friend, only to impress another woman.