The rain doesn't look like it'll lift anytime soon and the girls are beginning to get bored. Rachel and her friends decide to hang out at Annie's home, which is the closest. They won't have to drive too far in this weather.

At the parking, when Rachel gets inside her car to leave, she notices a bundled up leather garment on the carpet at the passenger's side.

"Not this again," she groans. She can't do this. Absolutely not. She won't be keeping yet another leather jacket of Hector's.

Rachel angrily grabs it, gets out, then shrieks because she forgot to open her umbrella.

But it's too late. She's wet from even this little exposure to the downpour. So she goes with it.

Rachel walks across her school's parking lot for which a motorboat would've been a better mode of transportation now. She reaches the corridor at the left.

She looks into each class on her way, and finally sees the class where Hector and his friends are. Loud and laughing.

The steam in her anger whistles down at the sight of the boys. She's scared to go in or call out to him.

But Vince sees her. "Rachel?" He says.

Rachel looks up. She looks at Hector and raises her arm that's holding his jacket so he knows why she had just crossed the Mississippi River to him.

Hector doesn't move; Neither does Rachel.

Hector mildly raises an eyebrow. "You're gonna bring it to me or what?" he says.

The steam builds back up inside Rachel. She stomps across the classroom to him, leaving a puddle of water under each footstep. She drops the jacket on the table he's sitting at.

"Stop leaving your jackets everywhere you crazy cat lover!" She says and stomps out of the classroom leaving behind more puddles of water and a stunned group of boys.

By the time Rachel had reached for her car door she's sure the rain had seeped into her skin, muscles, even into her veins and had diluted her blood.

She pulls the handle when suddenly her arm is grabbed and she's turned around with an astonishing facility.

"You were there?" Hector says.

She knows it's Hector only by his voice and large build because she can't see clearly from the constant stream of water drops that screen down from the ends of her eyelashes.

"I was at the bus stop across," she says and tries to turn back so she could get away from the constant assault of the torrent, into her car.

But Hector keeps her in place and moves closer. "Do you know what happened to the kittens?" He says.

"No!" She shouts, both because some thunders have come to existence and she's upset he's holding her back from her shelter.

Hector goes quiet.

Rachel thinks he's finally done so she tries to turn again but he pulls her back.

"What?!" She says, this time also bringing her arm above her eyes to block the rain so she can see him. But the rain is too thick.

He doesn't say anything.

"What?" She asks again.

"Why do you hate me?" Hector's faint voice falls on her ears.

Rachel is not sure she heard him correct, both because it's too loud around them and then it doesn't seem like something Hector would say.

She opens her mouth to say she doesn't hate him. But she's really not sure if it's true. She closes her mouth and pushes him away.

He lets go of her.

They both just stand there, still, momentarily lost at each other's actions and their own response. It's very unlike them.

Rachel is the first to snap out of it. She gets inside her car, revs it to life and drives away. All she can think of now is drying herself up and change into some warm clothes. She's freezing.

NIGHT AT HOME, Hector pulls over his head a grey t-shirt, and grabs the used towels at the counter and throws them into the laundry bin.

He looks at his reflection on the bathroom mirror. "Fuck," he swears at himself and looks down.

What was he thinking? He hopes she didn't hear him since she just pushed him away and left. What had gotten into him? He wonders.

Perhaps it's from the lack of enough training. Because of the rain, he and his team couldn't train as much as before. Maybe that's what stressing him out - to be cooped up inside his home.

Suddenly Hector hears the sound of glass breaking. He clenches his jaws.

Soon one of the house helpers is at his room's doorstep calling for him. "Madam is drunk, master. She cut herself, and won't let us treat her."

Hector pushes himself off the counter and goes outside to his mother's side of the mansion.

Hector's mother, Eleanor, is a beautiful Italian belle, who now looks unhinged in her disheveled robe, smudged out makeup and frayed hair.

"Hector," she says as she wobbles on the cold marble floor, seeing his son's face. "Your father ruined my life!" She says, "He's a devil. Don't you dare become like him, or else I'll curse the day you were born!"

Eleanor slips on the spilled whiskey and falls. Hector rushes over and helps his mother up. He takes her to her room. The maid from before hands him a first-aid kit and leaves them. Hector tends to the cut on Eleanor's left hand.

"My sweet little angel," Eleanor says as she brushes Hector's hair back. "If only you didn't have that wretched man's face."

Hector finishes the dressing and gets up to leave. Eleanor grabs his son's hand. "The poor girls," she says, "who will fall for you, for that pretty face of yours, only to find out you are the devil's son."

She passes out on her bed. Hector pulls the sheet over her and leaves.

Back inside his room, he sits on the edge of his bed. The devil's son. He has heard that many times before. Sweet little angel, too. He has heard them all.

His legs twitch. He wants to leave. Even though it's already late. He looks outside the window. It's not raining. He heads to the dresser to grab his car's key.

He'll go check on his bike that's at the mechanic shop.

When he turns to the coffee table to grab his wallet he sees his leather jacket. He forgot to hang it to dry. He picks it up, and stares at it.

Hector smirks. Cat lover, that's something he has never heard before though. Who swears at people like that?

"Apparently she does," Hector mumbles as he drapes the jacket over one of his chairs and leaves it to dry.

Hector reaches the mechanic shop that's open 24x7. He's a regular customer here. The chief mechanic Bo takes Hector to his bike. The repair is finished.

Hector is relieved to hear that. He loves his bike. It's a companion that has been with him through some tough times, driving him away from all that was happening at home.

Hector was worried when it suddenly stopped and wouldn't start in the morning on his way to school. He had called the mechanic to tow it to the shop and was waiting in the rain, unable to leave the side of the bike.

That was until he noticed Rachel at the road, inside her car, looking up at the sky through the windshield.

He knew she was heading to school as well. But a moment of hesitation crossed his mind. But it was only a moment. Hector left his bike and walked over to Rachel's car and knocked on the window.

He resisted a smile when he saw her startled wide eyed looking back at him.

That car ride wasn't so bad, Hector thinks as he climbs up now over his bike. He tosses his car key to Bo so someone else can drive the car he drove in to his home. Hector will ride his bike now.

AFTER RIDING FOR a while at the winding lane, his favorite spot for bike-riding, Hector visits the spot where he found some stray kittens and its mother across the road inside a crate.

Hector gets off his bike, and goes and stands at the spot where the stack of crates were. He turns around and sees the bus stop at the side. He bites his lips. So that's where she was, Hector thinks.

He scratches his head, not knowing what to feel. There's a little embarrassment. A bit of humor, too. Then something else.

Hector goes back to his bike and puts on his helmet, ready to leave. He pauses and looks up at the bus stop's banner and the area around the stop. This is a residential district. He wonders what she was doing here. If she lives in this neighborhood or she was visiting someone.

He decides to go around the block briefly before heading back home. His eyes scan the parked cars for that gaudy royal blue paint color he spotted in the morning under the rain across the road.

End of chapter