"It was the first thing we had in common. Four comments in and we immediately switched to Spanish." Bayani remembered that it made him comfortable with her right away. His English and Romanian were passable, his accent was thick but people could understand him and he only struggled with wording occasionally. Spanish was as natural to him as Filipino. It was nice not to have to think through every sentence and how it was structured, and simply speak as it came to him. That gave them a bond from the first day.
Bay had no trouble letting someone else lead; as dominant as his personality would seem, he wasn't actually a natural leader. A lone wolf, maybe, but not a leader. "I look forward to her stories. I'm suddenly grateful there's no one to do the same for me. I'm not graceful in embarrassment." The castle kids could possibly tell a few stories, but they didn't exactly have a lot of positive ones mingled in with the rest. And he was solitary before that, his siblings grown and gone, his parents neglectful. He'd rather hear about Victoria anyway. She had a sire she loved and a far better background. "Besides, now you know why I was determined to impress you." It was a natural urge, to impress a girl he liked; in a lot of ways he was still just a teenage boy.
He caught up to her so their pace was in step and liked the easy feel of her hand in his. "You're so demanding," he teased, following an impulse to lift her hand and kiss the knuckles, like he had in Miami. It was what he did when he couldn't think of what to do instead of kiss her. "Of course I will go with you. I was already going to, but now there's some incentive. Like this." He used his grip on her hand to pull her tight, not unlike what he would have done on the dance floor they occupied together, and lowered his head to kiss her deeply.