Chapter Twelve
“Evan!”
It’s Dalisay. Evan doesn’t turn around. He’s too embarrassed. He rushes down the block, his hands tucked firmly in his pockets, shoulders hunched as he hears her footsteps hurrying after him, the bells on her sweater jingling as she jogs. It would almost be funny if Evan didn’t feel so miserable.
“Evan!” Dalisay says again, breathless.
She catches up to him just before he gets to the bus stop. He can’t take it anymore. He turns around to face her.
“I’m sorry, Dalisay. I—That was so stupid of me.”
“It’s okay!” she says, breathless. “I know Daniel was teasing. It’s just how he is. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything,” he says. Evan licks his lips, toeing the sidewalk with his boot. He can’t bring himself to look her in the eye, and he’s afraid that if he does, he might break. He’s so ashamed. “I should have realized.”
“Jokes are supposed to be funny,” Dalisay says. He’s surprised how sharp her tone is. She’s furious, but not at him. “It’s not your fault. Daniel went too far. He’s trying to protect me because he thinks … He does this with all the guys I’m … It’s his way of testing you.”
“Like you were testing me? With this bet?” he asks.
She’s silent, the straight line of her mouth saying more than any words she could speak. Regret pulls at his gut. He’s lost the bet. He can’t do any more, not after today.
The Five Stages was a complete failure, but for some reason, the bet is the last thing he cares about because there’s only one thing he wants, and now he can’t have it.
“My mom knows what Daniel did. You wanted to impress her.”
He almost says it’s not her mom he wanted to impress but stops himself. He’s been reading everything so wrong, and it hurts more than he can say.
When Evan still doesn’t say anything, she says, slowly, “Listen, are you busy this afternoon? I know it’s Christmas Eve and all …”
“No. Do you need me to do any more chores?” He doesn’t mean to sound so blunt, but he’s had a rough day. He regrets it the minute he says it. “Sorry.”
Dalisay shakes her head. “It’s not about that. Can we meet at the Union Square ice rink?”
“The ice rink?”
Dalisay nods. “Please?”
Evan lets out a breath and tucks the corners of his lips down. “Sure,” he says.
Evan doesn’t know how to ice-skate to save his life. The last time he came to the Union Square ice rink, it was for Yoon-gi’s twenty-first birthday, and everyone was drunk and falling over one another. Evan barely remembers the day at all. He woke up with the worst hangover the next morning and so many bruises, he couldn’t walk right for a week.
The rink at Union Square is outdoors, surrounded by white tents selling hot dogs and hot chocolate under the shadow of the giant Macy’s Christmas Tree decked out for the holidays. The square is already packed with families as Evan waits near the gate, looking for any sign of Dalisay.
His insides squirm as he tries to figure out why she would want to come here. After everything that’s happened, he’s sure this is the end. While Dalisay may have warmed up to him a bit, he’s certain that she’s not the type to change her mind about things, especially when such things made her family look like complete fools in front of their community.
He’s not upset he lost the bet, he’s upset he lost her.
At the far end of the square, Lola and Dalisay appear, arms linked together, walking toward Evan. They’re speaking in Tagalog while they approach, and Lola’s face splits into a grin when she sees Evan.
She says something to Dalisay, and Dalisay translates. “Lola says she’s never ice-skated before, and she’s excited for you to teach her.”
“Oh!” says Evan. He wasn’t expecting Lola to be here. He thought when Dalisay said to meet at Union Square, she’d be alone. He recovers quickly. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’ve never ice-skated before either,” says Dalisay. “You’re probably an expert.” When her eyes sparkle like that, it makes Evan feel like he really is standing on ice, weak-kneed and prone to falling over.
Evan laughs nervously. “Right.” He doesn’t have the heart to explain that the opposite is true. Why is she dragging out the inevitable?
With their rented skates, they sit on a few benches under one of the tents to tie their laces. Lola and Dalisay chat happily in Tagalog, but Lola is having some trouble bending over to tie her laces.
“I can do it for you, Mrs. Ramos,” Evan offers, unsure if she understands him. But Lola stares at him with one eyebrow raised, so similar to the way Dalisay does it, then nods. When he kneels down and ties the laces on Lola’s skates, she says something to Dalisay, and the back of Evan’s neck feels like it’s caught on fire.
He’s failed every single stage. He fumbled their first meeting, she threw away all his gifts, she didn’t sing back during his serenade, he broke a priceless family heirloom, and he made an ass of himself today. Regret tugs at his gut as he lingers behind as Dalisay and Lola wobble their way to the ice, gripping the wall for support. Other skaters whiz past in a giant oval on the rink but Lola and Dalisay are fearless.
The moment Evan steps onto the ice, he nearly falls. The ice is smooth, and he slides across the surface, arms thrown wide for balance. Dalisay’s smile is huge as she looks back at him, her own arms flapping beside her. His instinct is to reach out and hold her upright, but someone else’s hand slips into his—Lola’s.
“I can hold your hand,” Lola says, her voice gravelly and stern. “But Dalisay cannot.”
It’s like she’s read his mind.
Heat creeps up Evan’s face. All this time, he had assumed she only spoke Tagalog. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, speechless, but Lola doesn’t let go.
Without them, Dalisay takes off, getting the hang of ice-skating quickly enough to join the flock of skaters around the rink, smiling the whole time.
Sweat breaks out on Evan’s back as he helps keep Lola upright. Once, Evan nearly loses his balance and throws his foot out, almost tripping a couple of women skating by.
“Watch it, dude!” one of them yells at him.
“Sorry!” he calls.
Lola’s hand grips his like a vise, and his fingers start to lose feeling, but if it means losing an arm to keep her safe, Evan will do it.
“So,” Lola says, “you have had quite a journey to this point.”
“Yeah. The stages were a lot harder than I thought.”
“Not for the faint of heart.” The wrinkles on her face deepen with a smile. He thinks this is the first time she’s directed one at him. “What are your intentions with my granddaughter?”
Evan finds that he can answer truthfully for the first time out loud. “I like her. A lot.”
Lola nods. “You are in good company, because I like her a lot too.” She winks at him. “Dalisay is one of the kindest, most clever people on earth. Her heart is true, but she is protective of it. She does not let it free so easily. One must truly be exceptional for her to give them her heart.”
He catches a glimpse of Dalisay through the crowd, coasting on one foot with a huge smile as her hair billows out behind her, and he feels his heartbeat in his throat and a longing he didn’t know existed tears through him.
“Many don’t put in the effort,” Lola says.
Evan’s heart feels like it’s being squeezed as tight as his hand, and he means it when he says, “She’s worth it.”
“Yes. She is.”
Later, after a tentative few laps around the rink, Evan guides Lola safely back to dry ground. Her smile is huge, full of childlike wonder, and her cheeks are pink with joy. A photographer near the Christmas tree offers to take their photo for ten dollars, and Lola can’t pass it up even though Dalisay tsks at the price. Lola hands the photographer the money and she brings Dalisay and Evan close on either side of her. She’s so small, Dalisay and Evan’s shoulders bump together above Lola’s head. Evan catches a whiff of Dalisay’s perfume, and his smile twitches as the camera flash goes off. She’s so close to him, and yet she feels so far away.
When Evan helps Lola untie her skates, his own feet sore and aching from being so confined, Lola says, “I need to do some shopping at Macy’s. Dalisay, will you walk me there?”
At first, Dalisay looks confused, but then the expression disappears. “Evan, will you wait here?” she asks.
Still in servitude mode, Evan nods.
He’s leaning on the fence by the Christmas tree for twenty minutes when Dalisay reappears alone, holding two steaming paper cups. “I hope you like hot chocolate,” she says, holding one out.
Evan takes it, their fingers brushing for the slightest moment before she pulls away. She wraps her fingerless gloved hands around her own cup and leans on the railing, just as the tree lights come on to the gasp of the crowd.
“Oh!” she says, excitedly pointing. “So pretty!”
Evan barely notices. He’s only been watching her, and it’s as if the rest of the world has melted away. The lovely slope of her nose, the gentle waves she ironed into her hair, the shiny pink lip gloss … When she glances back at him, he looks down at his hot chocolate and grips it tighter.
How can there be one more stage after this?
“Lola spoke very highly of you,” Dalisay says. “She said you were quite the gentleman.”
“I was prepared to use my body as a shield in case we fell.”
Dalisay laughs and when she does, her hair falls over her shoulder. It’s such a stupid instinct, but Evan wants to touch it, to tuck it behind her ear. The need to touch her is all-consuming and holding himself back becomes an Olympic-level endeavor. How can something so simple drive him so crazy?
They fall into silence for a few seconds, sipping their hot chocolate and people-watching. The skating rink is a lot more crowded now with families and couples enjoying the muggy winter evening. A young couple skate by holding hands, smiling, and Evan’s heart drops a little. They make it look so easy.
Everything he’s gone through these past few weeks has made him feel like he’s coming up short. The thought eats away at him, and he can’t stop himself when he finally says it.
“I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time,” he says. He can’t look at her. “I thought I could do it, but …”
“The five stages.”
Evan nods, and despite everything smiles. “I’ve been trying my best, and to do everything the way you expect in the Philippines.” He swallows and looks up at the tree, anything so he doesn’t have to see her face. “But I guess I’m a blundering American who can’t even manage four stages.”
Dalisay laughs, a sort of snort-hiss that’s so cute, he could explode. It’s a totally new feeling, and Evan feels like he might be going insane. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her shake her head in disbelief. “You think you’re still on stage four?” she asks.
“Well … yeah.” There she goes, laughing at him again, but Evan is too tired to fully understand why.
“There are five stages,” she says, waving her hand, fingers splayed. “The last is this one.” She reaches for his hand and slides her fingers in between his. The tips of her fingers are warm, the touch of her wool gloves soft. Her eyes sparkle and she squeezes his hand. “The Acceptance.”
It takes a second for it to sink in. “That’s it?”
“When we hold hands in public, it means I’ve accepted you as my suitor,” she says. When she looks away, the dimples deepen in her cheeks. “Don’t look so surprised.”
He doesn’t know what to say. Dalisay seems amused by this. Her gaze slips back to him. Her lips are closed, but her smile is bright, and her eyes have so much color, with flecks of gold and mahogany, deep and rich. He never allowed himself to see it before, and now he can’t look away.
“You won,” she says. She lets go of his hand, and Evan realizes too late that he didn’t want her to. “I thought you’d chicken out. I didn’t think you’d see it through. But you proved me wrong. You earned it.”
Evan doesn’t know what to think. A part of him wants to be thrilled that he did it, that he passed all five stages, but another part of him has moved way beyond that.
“I don’t care about the Asia tour,” he says.
Dalisay’s eyebrows shoot up.
“I …” He looks at her, weighing the words in his mind before releasing them. “I want this, us, for real.”
There, it’s out in the open. He can’t take it back.
Dalisay looks at him for a long second, her dark eyes wide and surprised. She still doesn’t say anything.
But Evan’s nerves get the better of him and he can’t stop. “I know we said there weren’t any strings attached or whatever to date after the stages were over but I can’t help the way I feel about you. Forget the tour, forget the bet. I want to be with you. I stopped caring about winning a long time ago. And I know you don’t have to change your mind about me or anything, but I figured you should know.” She still doesn’t say anything, and that’s all he needs to get the message. He winces. “And I made this really awkward! I … I’ll see you at work.”
He turns to go but Dalisay grabs his wrist. “Wait.”
His skin burns where she touches him, but he doesn’t pull away. Her touch is grounding him to the spot.
“Evan, I …” She can’t seem to find the words, and his heart pounds so hard, it actually hurts. Her fingers twitch, holding on to him tighter. Finally, she says, “I feel the same way about you too.”
Relief is like a drug coursing through his veins. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
“Why didn’t you?” she laughs, eyes bright.
This whole time, he should have known … They’d been circling each other, neither knowing that their feelings for each other had become mutual. The revelation is as clear as a ringing bell. He takes her hand, the one on his wrist, and holds it. Every nerve in his body is electrified.
A smile creeps onto his lips. “I want to kiss you so bad,” he says, a little breathless.
Dalisay sucks in a tiny breath, like maybe she’s a little breathless too. She raises an eyebrow and a playful smile lifts one side of her mouth. “I bet you won’t kiss me.”
Evan’s heart is beating like crazy. “I’ll take that bet.”
His eyes drop to her lips and desire fills him up. He wants her. He’s wanted her for so long, and now that she’s right in front of him, all he has to do is close the gap. She goes still, as if waiting to see what he’ll do; then Evan lifts his other hand, resting his palm on her cheek. Then he pulls her toward him.
He kisses her, pressing his lips against hers so gently, it makes his head spin. She melts against him, leaning forward, and her breath tickles his cheek. Her lips are so soft, and he can taste her cherry lip gloss mixed with chocolate on her tongue. He deepens the kiss and feels her whole body respond, matching his urgency now that they are finally doing what he’s dreamed about for weeks.
After a second, he pulls back and remembers to breathe as Dalisay’s eyes flutter open. Those beautiful dark eyes take him in and it’s easy to forget where they are. He lifts his hand off her cheek, dumbstruck. Is this really happening?
Dalisay licks her lips, her pink tongue peeking out for the briefest moment, before she looks at him with a shocked expression that Evan can only assume matches his own. His blood pounds in his ears as they stare at each other. It’s like the temperature of the air between them got cranked up a hundred degrees.
Deftly, Dalisay twists her hand out of his and she grabs him by the front of his jacket, her gaze returning to his mouth with a kind of desperation that makes him feel like he’s a Hershey’s bar placed in front of a chocoholic. She might eat him alive.
Holy shit. She wants him. Now.
“Should we … go somewhere else?” He barely recognizes his own voice, low and hoarse with desire. “Somewhere private?”
She nods, meeting his gaze once more. Color rises in her cheeks, and her eyes sparkle with Christmas lights from the tree as another smile spreads on those insanely kissable lips. “About time.”