CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

WITH HOW MANY?

Otávio sat on her couch and his eyes looked around the living room. Dalia and Linda were organising the guest room where he would stay, and Lara had started cleaning the room, stripping sheets and duvet, throwing water on the floor and leaving everything almost sterile for him.

Dalia had chosen another room to put his desk so he could work during the days he was there, and Lara would soon clean that room as well. "You can make yourself at home here, Otávio," she said, and as soon as she said that, he got up from the couch and started fixing frames, knick-knacks, adjusting the TV on the panel that should have been a millimetre misaligned.

Pretending to check her phone, she looked astonished out of the corner of her eye at his insane arrangement of things that were already perfect for her. "This painting that my mother painted and gave you, it's not a work to be exhibited in the living room," he pointed to the painting she loved the most, and his mother had given it to he