Nina seethed as she walked towards the club. How could her father sell the business? How could he treat her mother, his partner, as if she had no say? How could he talk to Benny that way? She knew for a fact that he loved Benny like the son he never had. Nothing made sense anymore and the one person she would normally talk to had also been affected by her father's reckless decision.

As soon as her thoughts turned to Benny, Nina felt a pit form in her stomach. A few hours earlier her heart had fluttered in the presence of the kind man she's come admire and regard as one of her closest friends. The afternoon they'd spent together was surreal.

Having had a crush on him for years, Nina didn't believe Benny would ever really flirt with her. Thus she took his performance at the dispatch with a grain of salt. It wasn't until Abuela's doorstep when he shooed Sonny away, then took her around the barrio and as was his specialty defused her self-doubt that she realized what was going on. Benny had held her hand looking at her like she was the most extraordinary person in the world as he walked her home before going back to his own place to get ready for her homecoming dinner. It was all she'd ever hoped for and now she'd lost him his job, leaving their personal relationship in limbo.

It took her less than a second to find him at the bar downing drinks. "Benny, can we take a walk outside?" she asked.

"And there she is!" he exclaimed sarcastically.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know!" she tried to explain, yelling over the loud music.

"Who let you in?" he demanded. The entire neighborhood knew she was only nineteen. "This is the girl who cost us our jobs today!" he yelled at the bartender who couldn't care less.

"I'm gonna make it right!" she implored causing him to scoff.

"A toast to the end of all I know!" He said downing his shot and then the one Usnavi left behind.

"You've had enough!" Nina scolded officially upset with him as well as her father.

"Says the girl who has it all!"

"That's not fair!" she yelled, he knew she'd been busting her ass all year to come up empty-handed.

"Well, why don't you run home to daddy? He loves to remind me that I'll never be good enough for your family…for you…"

"You don't know me!" Nina spat, even though just a few hours ago she would have sworn he was the one person who knew her best.

"Poor you…" he mocked.

"I thought you were different," she said quietly, but she knew he'd heard her.

"Salud" he smirked humorlessly, and Nina finally left him alone.

As always Vanessa was the center of attention on the dancefloor, guys were literally falling over themselves to get in on the action. So, for the first time in a long time, Nina felt isolated and alone while in a crowd of people in her own neighborhood. Being home meant nothing if the people she'd depended on her whole life were gone. Before too long she accepted some guy's offer to dance, wanting to disconnect from her disastrous night. One moment she was dancing the next she was alone and the guy was on the floor. The situation felt oddly familiar only this time Benny didn't valiantly escort her out of the club, instead, he proceeded to pound on the guy as more people joined the fight. Taking the night from chaotic to catastrophic, the lights and music suddenly went out shrouding the room in darkness.

Everything after that was a blur. Nina found herself pushed around trying to make her way out of the club. Torn between looking for Benny and leaving him to his own devices for being a jerk, Nina frantically looked around trying to locate him with her limited vision. Once she spotted him outside, drunk but otherwise fine, she stubbornly refused his offer to get her home.

One second she was walking home, or at least in a direction she hoped was close to home, feeling like she kept getting turned around in the dark, and the next Benny was pulling her into a mindblowing kiss.

"Yo, be mad at me, you have every reason to be, just let me get you home safe," not being able to see her clearly in the dark made her silence that much more disconcerting, "or to my place, or we can just stand here if you want...but you're not getting rid of me until I'm sure you're safe."

"I don't want to go home," she admitted quietly as people continued to bump into them. Her brain was a tangled mess of emotions, she couldn't help reacting to his kiss and the magnetic pull he always had on her. Nonetheless, some of the things he'd said to her hit below the belt.

"My place is less than a block from here, would that be okay?" he asked with trepidation, expecting her to either run away or punch him any second.

"That's fine," she finally relented.


The walk to Benny's place was silent, punctuated only by the odd warning to head an obstacle on the route. Once they were safely inside, and the door locked behind them Benny was faced with the reality that if he didn't break the silence he was going to have to deal with it for the rest of the night.

"Look, I was a jerk…" he trailed off hoping she would interject. Unfortunately, he could practically hear her raised eyebrow as she crossed her arms and stared him down. He'd never been more grateful for the darkness. He crossed a line, he'd let his insecurity about measuring up to Mr. Rosario's standards get to him, and he'd taken it out on Nina. Playing the night back in his head, it truly dawned on him that throughout everything she'd only been concerned with him and making sure he was taken care of. Instead of reassuring her that he would be okay, he'd mocked her. "I'm sorry." he finished lamely, walking towards her.

"For what exactly?" she grilled, taking a seat on his coffee table, with no intention of making things easy for him.

"Everything? I was upset, and I handled it in the worst possible way. I took everything out on you and you didn't deserve it."

"I told you I'd fix it," she argued.

"Nina, this was never really about the shock of losing my job. It was about losing your family, losing you."

"So you decided that calling me spoiled and pushing me away was the best course of action?" she laughed.

"Decide...gives me too much credit," he laughed crouching in front of her "I'm an idiot and I was drunk," he defended, pretty sure she raised an eyebrow at the word 'was'. "You're the least entitled person I know. But hearing that I'm not good enough for the only family I've ever known, for you, that made me crazy. I think it hit me harder because I think your father is right. You shouldn't be stuck in the barrio, you're going to change the world someday." he smiled. But just as he started to make some headway with his apology Nina rolled her eyes and crossed her arms again.

"You know what makes me crazy?" she asked rhetorically, "Everyone thinks they have the right to decide what's best for me! Maybe I feel like I've lost my way because no one gives me the freedom to find it." she scoffed. Even though he was on the receiving end of her rant, Benny couldn't help but feel proud of her fiery temper. She was right of course, she was always right.

"Okay," he conceded, catching her off guard.

"Okay, what?"

"Whatever you want. You decide Nina. You know you're father wants you to go back to school and stay as far away from me and the barrio as possible. I hope you know that I want to spend as much time with you as possible. But for what it's worth I also think you should go back to school, even if it's not Stanford because you're the smartest person I know."

"I can't afford College right now," she argued.

"You can if Rosario's gets sold."

"But that's selfish, it doesn't just affect me! There's you, Domingo and the guys...my parents!"

"Hey, that's not your issue. I'll find another job, I've been talking about doing more with my life for years, this could be the push I need. I can't speak for your parents but I know that even though your mom is livid right now, it's always been her dream to see you graduate so giving up the business won't be a huge sacrifice for her. Between you and me, your dad needs her to negotiate the sale though."

"You sound like you want me to go." she sighed.

"Not at all, I want you to pick what you really want regardless of how it affects everyone else."

"All I know for sure is that I want us to be good. If you're too worried about messing things up with my dad I get it and we can forget the last twenty-four... " Benny cut off her rant with a gentle kiss.

"I don't want to forget anything," he finished for her. "Your dad is the best man I've ever known, but I'm not a punk kid anymore, and if anything I want him to see that too," he reassured her.

"I need to seriously learn Spanish." Benny decided walking out of the bathroom, now fully dressed in sweatpants and an undershirt. Nina, who was sitting on his bed wearing nothing but his old t-shirt just laughed at him.

"That's your first coherent thought after what just happened?" she scoffed once she stopped giggling. "I'm flattered." Truth be told she was happy that things were so normal between them. It was no secret that her experience with men was limited at best yet it wasn't the physical intimacy that she was truly worried about once the moment presented itself. The one thing Nina's books didn't agree on was the protocol for the moment after sex.

"No," he argued laying in bed and pulling her down into his arms, "My first thought was disbelief. But after that, I got to thinking that Spanish would help me in my career."

"Okay, let's start now!" Nina exclaimed excitedly sitting back up.

"Okay," Benny conceded pulling her back so she was once again laying on his chest.

"Benny!"

"What? You don't have to sit to teach," he argued wrapping his arms tighter around her small frame. The notion of cuddling was completely foreign to Benny, yet it came naturally with Nina. Whether a result of the fear of her moving back to the West Coast or the fact that physical contact was the only way for the two to become closer than they already were, Benny couldn't seem to get enough of Nina Rosario in his arms.

"Fine, you pick the words and I'll tell you the Spanish version. Then we can trade and we can see what you've learned."

"Store?"

"Tienda."

"Um...lightbulb?"

"Bombilla."

"That one's weird."

"Is that a question or an observation?"

"The second one" he laughed.

"Isn't it weird?" she asked unexpectedly.

"Spanish? Yeah, that's why I need your help."

"No. This, us...all of it," she asked tracing invisible patterns on his chest.

"I don't think so, why do you?" He asked worriedly.

"No, yes." she sighed, "I've had a crush on you for years, you weren't supposed to like me back!" she laughed.

"Be less likable next time."