It was supposed to be just brunch. That was the plan. Show up, eat, maybe stay for one drink and then figure out the rest of the day from there. Nobody ever figures out the rest of the day from there. The table is too good, the water is too close, and the morning has a way of becoming something else entirely before you notice.
The thing about Areia is that it never holds you there. It just makes leaving feel like the wrong decision at every hour. The conversation found a rhythm somewhere between the first round and the second. The sun moved across the sky. Someone ordered something else and nobody questioned it because everyone was thinking the same thing
So the brunch became lunch. Lunch became the golden hour. The golden hour became the reason nobody checked the time until the light was already warm and low and perfect. No one planned it. No one needed to. Some of the best days are the ones that happen completely by accident and feel, by the end, like exactly what you needed all along.
