Chapter Eight
Dalisay winds up, hefting the ax behind her head, and hurls it toward the target. With a solid FUMP it lands squarely on the wall at the end of the lane. Pinky cheers behind her. “Yeah! Bull’s-eye!”
Dalisay spins around, fist pumping, and laughs. Pinky invited her after work to Axe Me About It, a recreational ax-throwing center near Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a giant warehouse stacked like a bowling alley, with several private lanes for people to practice their throws without worrying about hurting anyone else. It’s a good thing too, because Dalisay’s aim wasn’t so great at first. On her third throw she lost her grip and let the ax fly behind her, nearly hitting the burly, tattooed instructor. She’s gotten better with practice. The world’s best-kept secret stress reliever, Pinky told her. Everything with Evan, and Nicole’s secrecy, and the fact that Dalisay’s still adjusting to life in America has made Dalisay feel like she’s juggling axes for real. For once, it feels like she can finally think about something else. It’s frustrating not being able to talk to Nicole. Dalisay would never want to put her on the spot, or out her before she’s ready, and yet at the same time she isn’t sure how she can tell Nicole what she knows. It’s a tightrope walk, one that Dalisay isn’t sure she has the dexterity to maneuver.
But throwing axes for fun seems to put that pent-up energy to better use. If only everything in life made her feel this good.
“You’re kind of scary!” Pinky says. “Dalisay, warrior princess.” Then she gasps. “You would look so good in a Xena cosplay.”
“Consider it … considered. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“It’s so much fun! JM, Evan, and I, we go to Comic-Con every year. We get a hotel room and make a whole weekend of it and everything. You should come! It’s the best.”
Dalisay smiles, dubious. “Evan does cosplay?”
“Yeah! Mostly superheroes. He and JM lift weights at the gym together to get in shape.”
It makes sense then why he looked so good without his shirt. Dalisay bites her lip to keep herself in check. “He’s never struck me as someone who does that kind of thing.”
“What, being a total nerd? Looks can be deceiving. Speaking of …,” says Pinky, smiling over the rim of her beer. “Spill.”
“What?”
“Spill. The tea. I have to know. What torture did you put him through? How’d Evan do with his servitude?”
“Infuriatingly well. He never complained once, not even when my mom had him unclog the shower drain.”
Pinky grins toothily. “He’s all-in, that’s for sure.”
“It’s nice having an extra pair of hands around the house.”
“Is that all Evan is? A pair of hands?”
“Yes.” It’s not a convincing lie.
Even though it’s been days since the dream, Dalisay can’t shake how it made her feel. How good it made her feel. She hefts another ax, appreciating how heavy it is in her palm, how it gives her something else to focus on.
“You’re really not coming around about him?” Pinky asks, skeptical.
“He’s fine …”
Pinky’s lip curls knowingly because Dalisay might as well be made of glass, she’s so transparent. Dalisay blushes and Pinky throws her head back with laughter.
“Hey!” cries Dalisay, brandishing the ax. “You want to laugh at the person holding this?”
Pinky holds up her hands, still cracking up. Dalisay is laughing too, despite herself. Is she really so obvious?
“I won’t tell, I promise,” Pinky says. “Your secret crush is safe with me.”
“Thank you.” Dalisay turns back to the target. “But I’m not sure I’d call it a crush.”
“What else would you call it? You’re into him, right?”
Dalisay doesn’t know. She mumbles, “I may have had a sex dream about him …”
Pinky nearly spits out her beer. “What!”
“It doesn’t mean anything, though, right? I have weird dreams all the time.”
Pinky’s eyebrows are in the stratosphere. “I guess, but … whatever you gotta tell yourself!”
A shadow of guilt gnaws at Dalisay’s insides. She hasn’t even told Nicole yet that she might have feelings for Evan, but then again Nicole hasn’t exactly been an open book either. Besides, talking with Pinky about Evan is a lot easier than it is with Nicole. Pinky doesn’t break out into song, teasing her to no end, like Nicole does.
But none of this means Evan has any feelings for her. He asked her out, she said no; that’s all there is to it.
With a huff, Dalisay raises the ax and takes aim at the wooden target. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s only doing this so he can have the Asia tour.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Have you two actually, you know, talked?”
Dalisay throws the ax and it lands with a solid thunk in the wood. “No.”
“Then you don’t know.”
Pinky might be right. She’s just assuming how he feels. She’s left wondering unless she asks, but does she want to risk the disappointment?
That dream was so real, she actually could see herself being with him. But Evan from her subconscious is very different from the Evan of real life. What if he doesn’t feel the same way? Does she really want to open her heart like that again?
“This isn’t just because Evan’s my friend,” Pinky says, “but I genuinely think you’d be good together. For real.”
Dalisay turns back around and takes a sip of her beer. “He’s … definitely not what I thought. He’s stubborn, in a good way.”
It is admirable he didn’t complain at all during his servitude. He scrubbed all the floors in the house on his hands and knees, got on a ladder and cleared the gutters, got rid of a wasp’s nest in those same gutters, and repainted the shed in the backyard. A man of lesser character might have given up by now.
Pinky nods. “When he says he’ll do something, he does it. I could have told you firsthand what you were in for. He’s the only friend I know who will say he’ll pick me up from the airport in the middle of the night and actually follow through. In his piece-of-shit car, no less.”
Dalisay’s heart softens a bit. “Say, hypothetically, I felt differently about him. And he felt differently about me. I would still want to take things slow, and take my time, but I realize for Americans maybe that’s too slow.”
“Don’t worry about all that. Play by Manila rules. JM and I dated for four months before we slept together,” Pinky says, waving her hand like she’s shooing away a fly. She says “four months” as if it’s a long time.
“Who said anything about sleeping together?” Dalisay asks, her voice a little shrill.
Pinky’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you a virgin? Oh, wait—of course you are. Good Filipino girls don’t have sex till they’re married!” Pinky rolls her eyes.
“It’s not that I don’t want to have sex, it’s just … complicated.”
When her dad died, dating had taken a back seat. She was more worried about what her family needed than what she needed. Besides, if her parents found out that she wanted to have sex before marriage, they would have freaked out. All three of them—Daniel, Nicole, and Dalisay—were forbidden from dating anyone until they graduated, and dating Luke in secret was one of the only times she rebelled.
She remembers a time back in Manila when Daniel was caught in the theater kissing a classmate from high school. The rumor mill churned, and news reached the Ramos house before Daniel even crossed the threshold. Their parents ranted for hours about how it was inappropriate and low class and unbecoming for him to gallivant with a girl as if he was some Casanova. And it’s even worse for girls. If they had known Dalisay was dating Luke—her first real boyfriend—she would have been grounded and forbidden from going out for the rest of her life. Daniel merely got a slap on the wrist for his dalliance. Of course, this was before their dad got sick. Priorities changed after that.
Sometimes Dalisay wonders if her parents realized how differently they treated her. How her mom still treats her. Guilt is the first emotion she feels whenever she does something remotely selfish. But can she really call what she wants “selfish”?
She never wants to hurt her family, and at the same time she can’t deny the twist in her gut sometimes when she sees Evan at work, as he laughs with Riggs, when he types so fast his fingers are a blur, the way a crease forms between his eyebrows when he reads …
Her desire feels like a dangerous thing, like something that she needs to control, to tame. It’s come from a lifetime of growing up to be a polite, respectable woman. One sex dream cannot throw off that delicate balance.
“What about your family?” Dalisay asks. “Don’t they worry about you dating?”
“Sure they do! Like any other parents. But I guess mine are more culturally American than they are Filipino. They sort of pick and choose what to hold on to, and with me and JM, it’s a little more relaxed. It’s like the pressure is off.”
Although Filipino, Pinky’s perspective seems totally different from hers, and it makes Dalisay almost envious. Dalisay’s not sure she’s in a position to be able to choose what she wants at all. Concern draws her eyebrows together.
Pinky must notice, because she cracks a smile. “Look, I know you and Evan didn’t start out on the right foot, but you can trust me. He’s not a player. He’s not looking to rush into anything. He’s not going to pressure you or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That surprises her. “He’s had girlfriends. He might be disappointed.”
“Oh, please. He’s had one serious girlfriend. Becca. But it ended … messy,” she says, cringing.
Dalisay’s mind races. She’s about to ask what happened, but then she reminds herself that she doesn’t care about Evan Saatchi. Apparently, she can’t even be honest with her own heart.
How many times is she going to lie to herself?
“I might be speaking out of line, so feel free to ignore me,” says Pinky, “but he’s worth a real shot.”
Maybe Dalisay doesn’t know what she wants. Her mind is telling her one thing, while the rest of her body is saying another.
Besides, Pinky is doing a good job of convincing her. She’s one of Evan’s closest friends, so she would know what he’s like, right? Dalisay trusts her.
The only problem is, Dalisay isn’t sure she can trust herself. She’s too attracted to him to think straight.