Chapter 1: Barcelona

The first thing I thought when I showed up in Spain was that it was incredibly hot. Of course, it may help that it was the middle of the summer, and Spain is obviously a humid country—but when you're from the cold, wet island of England, anything seems overbearingly hot.

I could tell that the heat bothered my older brother, too, because without me even mentioning the humidity when we were in the car, he rolled the windows up—save for a small space on his own to let out his cigarette smoke—and turned on the air conditioner. Usually, Allistor doesn't mind the weather, regardless of location, so him paying any mind what-so-ever was amazing all by itself.

It was that kind of stubborn attitude that got us stuck in Spain to begin with. You see, my brother was well known around the pubs back in the U.K. because he could drink endlessly and not pass out—he did get shit-faced drunk, though. Anyways, one of his co-workers just happened to challenge him to a drink-off, and like the stubborn and competitive bloke he is, he accepted. Oh, and did I mention this co-worker hated his guts? Oh, yeah—it was bound to end badly. To make a long story short, Allistor won, but not before letting his co-worker know how much he hated working with the company. Somehow, through the drunken delirium, that guy remembered all the trash talking and told their boss about everything. Thus, Allistor got fired.

So why did we go to Spain? Well, the same day that Allistor got fired, he met a Spanish man who had come to England to promote his up-and-coming company in Barcelona. Allistor had taken Spanish in college, and when he got to talking to the business-owner, he learned that he was looking for someone to handle payroll—the exact same job Allistor got fired from at his previous job. Without thinking too critically, my brother took the job, packed us up, and moved us out here to Spain.

A rather large bump in the road jolted me out of my thoughts as we were on our way down the road to Barcelona. "Argh! Could you be a little more careful?!" I asked him, fixing him with a scowl.

"Could you be a little less of a twat?" he asked in reply before inhaling a drag from his cigarette.

"What did you say?" I half-yelled, crossing my arms.

Allistor just rolled his eyes. "We'll be in Barcelona soon, so don't ruffle your panties, grandma."

"Ugh…" I scoffed and eyed the buildings far off on the horizon. Those buildings were going to be my new home for the next few years, until I get out of high school and move back to Great Britain. I was going to have to pointlessly memorize all of the streets, get to know people, and avoid getting tricked—it's a miracle that I took Spanish at my old high school, or I'd be thoroughly skrewed.

I didn't want to have to sit in silence, so I turned on the radio, only to realize that everything was in Spanish, and they were talking so fast that I couldn't translate as easily. So, I kept turning it from station to station until I found an international pop station. Well, at least there was a chance that an English song might come up. That, at least, kept me quiet until we arrived at the city.

Barcelona was packed with people on the sidewalks, as well as cars in the streets. There were countless shops, and quite a few buildings were sky-high. I watched in awe through my window before I heard scuffling beside me. I looked over at Allistor, who grabbed a piece of paper from a compartment between our seats. I heard him mumble, "Let's see… The building should be right up here…" He eyed the paper for a quick moment before returning his eyes to the road. Every once in a while he'd glance at the signs on the buildings, as he was looking for something. Then, after a couple blocks of "Not there," I saw his eyes light up.

He turned into a parking lot by a building and parked before rolling the windows down half-way. "Stay here while I run in there. I won't be much more than a couple minutes," Allistor said before turning off the car and getting out.

Yeah right, I thought, Like hell, a couple minutes… You'll be in there for an hour.

With that, he walked around to the front entrance, locking the car as he went. I huffed, unbuckled my seatbelt, and slouched in my seat as I stared out the window.

And that's when I first saw him.

There was a café across the street from the parking lot I was in, and through the large windows on the front, I saw three people who looked to be about my age. One of them had wavy blond hair and what looked like stubble on his jaw line. His expression told me right away that he was a jackass. The second one looked like he was albino, because he had bright silver hair and very fair colored skin—his expression also made me think he was a jackass. And then there was the third. I could already tell by looking at him that he was Spanish, and he had short, wavy chocolate hair and caramel-colored skin. He was displaying a light-hearted grin, and I guessed that he was laughing at something another one of them said. It was then that he turned and looked out the window—although, I swore he was looking right at me. He stared for a moment, and grinned before turning back to his friends.

At that point—and I don't even know why—I sunk in my seat to hide myself from view. God, that Spaniard had a brilliant smile. It was as if sunlight was radiating directly from him when he did such a simple stretch of his muscles. I tried to wipe the image from my mind, but I found myself wanting to take just one more glance at him. So, after a couple moments, I swallowed my pride and slowly inched my eyes back up over the bottom of the window.

The trio looked as if they were agreeing on something. The Spaniard pulled out his wallet, and placed money on the table before the three of them got up. One by one, they each walked out of the café, and I could barely make out their laughter through the sounds of traffic. As they walked, I noticed the brunette stop. He looked right at me, smiled, and waved. I finally got a good look at his eyes and noticed they were bright, emerald green—similar to my own. I swallowed and slowly raised my hand to wave back. He laughed what looked like a light-hearted, friendly laugh, before I barely heard over the cars, "Hey! Toni! Hurry up, you slow poke!" Wait, was that English, and with a German accent? I glanced over and saw it was the albino speaking.

"Si, si..!" I heard the Spaniard reply, as he regained my attention. I looked at him, and he looked at me, before he turned and headed off after his friends. I suddenly got the urge to shout for him, and make sure that it really had been me he was looking at. I inched my hand to the doorknob when…

"What are you doing, Arthur?" I heard from behind me, and looked over to see Allistor opening his car door to get in, giving me an extremely skeptical look.

I just stared at him for a minute before glancing back to the three guys, only to see that if I would have decided to shout something now, they would be too far down the street to hear me.

I straightened my posture and buckled my seatbelt. "Nothing; maybe just observing people here, that's all," I answered my brother.

He smirked and me, as if holding back laughter. "You're weird," he said as he shut the door and buckled up.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes before he chuckled and turned the car on. As he drove out of the parking lot and down the street, I looked back at the trio. I wasn't sure if I was curious, or really how else I would have felt. But I had a feeling I would be meeting them very, very soon.