Fourteen
FOURTEEN
I t was a hot summer in Manila. That was usually a statement met with sarcasm, like, weh hindi nga, no fucking shit, it’s hot. But summer in Manila was the kind of hot that stuck to your skin, the kind where the air was still and humid, like wading through a steamy sauna without the steam.
Thankfully, Jay’s building had an air-conditioned lobby. For Mara’s sake, and the staff that worked there, it was a really good thing.
Jay’s condominium unit was nice. It was the tall, new kind of place that had all the stores you needed at the first floor, plus a bank, a pharmacy and a laundry shop (PasigLabandera!), the kind where a short walk could get you to a cute little café that made you feel like you were part of a “community.” It was in a part of Pasig that was only just starting to get crowded because they build condos where public infrastructure was built for small suburbs. A good spot, not too far from good schools, big malls and commercial spaces. Crowded, but not too crowded that walking around on foot was an impossible task.
It was a well-considered place. Jay had chosen well.
Anyway, the important part of the story was that when Jay opened the door to his unit, he was wet and wearing only a towel hanging on for dear life around his waist. Despite the fact that Mara had seen the lobby receptionist call up to the unit and had in fact swiped the elevator key for her.
“What th— Ate! ” Jay whined in much the same way a bunso child would as Ate Irene emerged from the back with a box full of happy houseplants and an innocent smile. “You didn’t tell me Mara was coming up!”
“I didn’t?” she asked innocently. Mara couldn’t see the expression on Ate Irene’s face because a drop of water had pooled at the tip of Jay’s hair, then splashed on his collarbone, then started to slide down the middle of his chest, and—oops. Into the happy trail it disappears. Oh wow. Newton had been on to something with those laws of gravity. “Gosh, I must be getting old.”
“I would offer to help, but you’re trying to escape from me, and I’m naked,” Jay announced, glaring at his sister. Mara also realized that this was the first time she was seeing all of Jay’s body in the daylight, and wow. It was fascinating to watch his muscles move and tense as he twisted away from her. He was more wiry and skinny than she pictured (than she’d actually held, and touched), but she knew that was the frame of a man who could part her thighs and hold them open while—
“Right, Mara?”
“Hmm?” she said innocently.
“Oh well, I have to go get these babies settled in our unit.” Ate Irene shrugged, moving past them. “Our apartment isn’t going to make itself cozy.”
Mara remembered that Irene and Luna were moving. She’d heard someone mention that Irene’s wedding was coming up soon, but she didn’t know any of the details and didn’t want to press the matter.
“Do you need help, Ate?” Mara was distracted, not rude.
“No, no!” Irene shook her head, butting the box against the wall so she could open the front door, wedge her foot through the gap and move it wide enough so she could pass. Mara held the door open for her so she could change into a different pair of slippers. “The two of you stay. It’s literally across the way.”
“Your car?”
“Her condo,” Jay explained, hand still on the knot in the towel. And no, Mara was not going to think about what he was trying to keep out of her view. Nothing she hadn’t seen before, and touched, too. “She and Luna are moving to Kuya Nige’s place in St. Tropez Court.”
Mara had seen it when the Grab car had dropped her off here. It wasn’t far at all, but she supposed if you were comparing it to someone being ten steps away, if you compared it to moving all the way to Hong Kong, it was a huge distance either way.
She helped Ate Irene to the elevator anyway, leaving the door lodged open. She came back to the unit to find Jay still standing where she left him, a little less wet, but seemingly a little lost. So she closed the door behind her, and he showed no signs of acknowledging her. Instead he was looking around the apartment, like he was trying to find something that was missing.
“You okay?” Mara asked as she took off her shoes. Jay blinked at her. She assumed that he’d forgotten she was there, deep in thought as he seemed.
“Yeah, I—I just realized that was the last of their stuff.” He frowned as he glanced around the apartment one more time. It didn’t look empty exactly—most of the major furniture items were still there. Maybe a little big. Spacious, which he probably wasn’t used to yet. “My family moved out of the apartment.”
“Oh, Jay.” It broke her heart to see him so defeated. She took his hand, the one that wasn’t keeping the towel tied to his waist, making him turn to face her. Then she pressed a hand to his cheek. Jay sighed and closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “You want to talk about it?”
“Not—” he started, but Mara was already halfway to saying something else.
“We could order tacos. There’s a Takaw Tacos near you, right?”
Maybe he was craving birria tacos. Maybe he’d wanted to have it for weeks. Maybe it was something else entirely, but the way his face changed from a broody seriousness to a soft happiness to a full sunshine smile made Mara’s heart flip three different times, three different ways. She liked how easy it was to make him smile. She wondered if it was always going to be this easy with someone else.
“Yes, please,” he said, pulling on Mara’s hand so he could plant a long kiss on her temple. He squeezed her hand. “I’ll go get dressed?”
What an odd question. Of course he should get dressed. They were going to have tacos. But the way he looked at her, Mara kind of had an idea.
“Oh god!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “No, no. Jay, you don’t have to—I mean unless you want—”
“Do you want?”
“I think I want us to talk first.” She laughed, shaking her head because she’d been so worried and nervous the entire car ride here, rehearsing things she wanted to say and how she was going to tell him that she was done, he was right, she couldn’t do this.
All that seemed to fly out the window now.
But, no. They were adults who could have a friendly, but serious, conversation over birria and horchata. Okay, maybe not horchata. Takaw Tacos’s house-made horchata was usually sold out by the time Mara got to them. “Go na.”
So there they were, sitting on the floor of his living room, eating tacos and drinking Coke Zeros. One of them was dripping birria consommé on the bare floor, and the other one was Mara because she’d put her tacos in a bowl, dripped consommé over them and ate it all like a rice bowl.
“I don’t know what’s more unhinged.” Jay laughed, wiping the dripping sauce off his lip and licking the tip of his finger. “Your way of eating tacos or me not having a rug.”
“I don’t think you’re using the word unhinged right.” Mara added more of the tomato thing. It probably wasn’t proper salsa. “Why a rug?”
“A rug adds a vibe,” Jay argued, whipping out his phone to pull up a Pinterest board. Mara tried and failed to be subtle about peeking at his boards—“Photos,” “Interiors,” “Outfits.” Simple. Jay pulled up the “Interiors” board and showed her what he’d pinned. All the spaces showed sunny, comfortable rooms with soft furnishings, but had very modern touches. The rugs were all checkered and slightly shaggy. The coffee tables were sometimes colored acrylic. Mara was surprised. None of that was currently in the half-empty living room. “See?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded, scrolling the board a little more. It was a little too trendy for her tastes (god, some of these rooms had a disco ball), but she could easily picture some of her own furniture pieces fitting in these rooms, too. Her bookshelf. The vanity she’d thrifted that was likely a desk. Vases full of flowers.
She could picture the two of them in that space, eating food on the floor in front of the couch, constantly worrying about staining the white squares of the carpet. Could almost hear her music playing in the background—Maggie Rogers, maybe, while his disco ball slowly spun and made patterns all around the room.
It wouldn’t be such a bad life.
“Why didn’t you have a rug before?” Mara wondered out loud. Just wanting to stop picturing the life she could have. It wasn’t what he wanted. “If it is such a vibe.”
“Children are sticky creatures, Mara.” Jay tsked like she should have known. “I think every pillow of this couch has been flipped over twice from all the spillage.”
“Luna?”
“Some of it was Luna.” Jay laughed. “My sister kind of gets distracted a lot, so spillage was inevitable.” The smile on his face turned a little wistful, and he looked around the room again. “But the place really is big, huh?”
“I didn’t think new buildings had cuts like this anymore.”
“I got lucky with the preselling.” Mara somehow had the impression that Jay’s mind was suddenly far, far away, his eyes focused on some middle distance that wasn’t really there. “Maybe I can rent this place out and move somewhere smaller? Or somewhere closer to Ate?”
She gave him a look. Jay sighed. “You’re right, I should give them their space. Clearly I have more than enough to go around, though.”
“Do you not like the guy she’s marrying?” Mara asked, wondering if it was okay to poke at the issue a little more. It seemed like he needed it. “You don’t seem very happy about it.”
“No, I do! Nige is awesome,” Jay insisted, and Mara believed him, because Jay was a terrible liar. “He loves my sister, and he’ll be an amazing dad to Luna. I just… I’ll miss them, that’s all.”
He gave her a placating smile, one that was all lips, all cheeks as if to assure her, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” But perhaps she could push him. Just a little more. Get to the heart of what he wasn’t saying, because maybe it could help him?
“Or maybe you’ll miss the life you thought you were going to have with them,” Mara said, lowering her taco bowl. “It seemed like you were so ready for it.”
There was silence.
A beat.
A long beat that could also sound like a line being crossed. Had she pushed him too far? Why was she suddenly so worried about pushing him away, when that was exactly what she came here to do?
She’d come here because she’d resolved to talk to Jay. Not to display her feelings out for him to dissect or examine, but to have an honest discussion of how they were going to move forward with this. Because Mara concluded that while she absolutely enjoyed what she and Jay were doing together, there was no way she was going to be able to actually have sex with someone who wasn’t going to stick around. She didn’t want to share this with someone who for all intents was just going to add it to a list.
Did Mara know this about herself before she started fooling around with Jay? Maybe. But it wasn’t a hard line until she had to cross it, and it was good to know. So this arrangement was about to end. And he was over there wearing a Good Morning towel wrapped around his head.
Because she cared for him, obviously. Because she still selfishly hoped that maybe just sticking around, staying would be enough to convince him to stick around. There was a great guy out there in Makati who wanted to take her out to dinner at a fancy tasting menu place, who wanted her to showcase her art to the upper echelons of Manila’s art world. Someone who wanted her and thought she was beautiful.
But then, there was Jay. Jay, who only wanted the best for her, who was considerate and sweet. Who thought she was brilliant and smart. He wanted her to be happy, and he thought she was beautiful, too. And Mara’s heart wanted someone it had come to know well, someone whom she knew would treat her with kindness.
“I was,” he admitted with a downcast look. “Maybe I’m mourning that a little, right? I was ready for this life where I raised a kid and sustained a family. It was all happening too fast that there was no time to doubt myself or convince myself that I couldn’t do it. And I’m not angry, nor do I blame Ate or anything, but yeah. Suddenly my life is different, and I have all this…room.”
He sighed, and Mara wanted to give him a hug.
“I think that’s why I considered Hong Kong. Where else would I have the least possible amount of space to myself?”
“It’s Manila.” Mara chuckled. “Get on the MRT at rush hour and find out what least possible amount of space feels like.”
He laughed, dropping his head back against the couch.
That was when Mara noticed that the sun was setting behind his head, filling the room with warm, orangey light. Was golden hour the thing she was going to remember most about…whatever this was, between them? She could almost hear a sad, maudlin song playing in the background. Maybe “Nakapagtataka,” which was all nostalgia and standing under the rain. How many times could she get away with playing that song out loud before Mabel banged on her door and begged her to stop?
“Exactly,” Jay said, wiping his hands with tissue paper, holding out his palms when Mara held up her handy-dandy alcohol spray for him.
This was it. Now or never. Well, now or later. But if there was anything she learned from her time with Jay (was she already being nostalgic?), it was that you had to say what you wanted out loud. You couldn’t expect the other person to guess, it wasn’t fair to them, and even worse, not fair to you. Mara didn’t know what would happen next, but she was standing by her feelings. There were worse things. Harder things.
“Don’t move,” she finally said. Jay stopped moving. Actually froze like a witch had trapped him in time, complete with the stunned expression on his face.
She couldn’t help it. Her heart melted, and she giggled, pressing her forehead against the crook of his neck as she laughed weakly against his shoulder. Jay’s hand immediately went to her back, rubbing soothing circles on it without him knowing what was running through her head.
“I meant don’t move to Hong Kong. Because I can’t.”
“I don’t think I asked you.” There was a hint of amusement to his voice, like he thought she was being funny. Mara lifted her head to glare at him, and Jay’s face moved from amusement to concern. “Wait. Are you asking me to stay?”
“Not to pressure you, I promise.” Although it was too late, wasn’t it? “I just thought, if you were looking for something to live for. It could be this. You and me.”
“Mara…” She didn’t know what to make of the way he said her name. But she refused to let him get a word in right now, not when he’d opened a floodgate inside her, and she needed to let it out.
“You’re worried about disappointing me, or not loving me the way I need.” She placed her now empty bowl on the table in front of her. “But you’re not giving yourself the chance, either. Or giving me the chance to find out for myself if we would be a good fit together. Because I’d like to know.”
She didn’t want to look up and attempt to guess what he was thinking. But she just really, really wished he would hold her a little tighter, make her feel smaller so the things she said didn’t have to feel so big.
“They wouldn’t call it falling if it didn’t require you to be brave,” Mara pointed out. “Or if you didn’t lose control a little.”
“You want me that much?” Jay asked, his hand sliding back down. “It’s been three nights, Mara.”
“It’s been three months for me,” she admitted, looking up this time to face him and the truth of the way she felt. “Three months where I sat in that flower shop, waiting for the one that you promised me to walk through the door and fall in love with me. And I was going to be okay with being your failed vector. But the moment I decided to stop waiting, you showed up.”
He tried to speak, but all he managed was to open his mouth and make a small noise. He seemed surprised that she was saying this all out loud. She’d planned to go the completely opposite direction with this, but instead all she wanted was to exhaust every option, every word she had in her arsenal to come to a conclusion about all of this.
“So here’s the thing, Jaysohn. I’m not looking for forever. But I think I could find forever in you.”
His mouth hung slightly open as they looked at each other.
It was such a mundane thing, to speak truths to someone who had taken it all, who had listened to it all and gently volleyed back their own. But Mara felt like her world shifted in that moment. Like this was a moment in time that was to be marked, mostly because she’d given power to her feelings by sharing them. Bravery must always be acknowledged, even if it was just for her.
He smiled. Mara could spend pages and pages of a journal chronicling Jay’s different smiles—the ones he gave when he was being polite, when he was trying to hold in a laugh, when his happiness was a small, warm feeling and when he was so happy his face rivaled the sun in its brightness. But the truly incandescent Jay smile, the one that melted away Mara’s fears and made her think this was going to be okay? It was probably her favorite. It was the one he gave her when he first kissed her, the one he gave her now that she’d showed him her heart.
He touched her cheek and, still smiling, kissed her. He tasted like birria, but then again, so did she. “I’m staying.”
Mara’s jaw hung slightly open, too dazed from the kiss and everything to process what he said. “What?”
“You think I could rent out this place for forty-five thousand?” Jay mused, doing a piss-poor job of pretending that he didn’t notice Mara’s confusion. “Or is that too low? I mean, it has furniture, so that should count for something. I probably need to find a broker, which means I have to butter up Mary June Ang from the admin office, and I am so bad at buttering her up. She’s into those fourth-gen K-pop kids. I just can’t. ”
“Jay,” Mara exclaimed, resisting the urge to poke his side.
“Can you believe my bosses wouldn’t give me a relocation package to move to Hong Kong? Basically the offer was to work in Hong Kong for the same salary, which, why would I when the money stretches farther here? And it’s not like they actually need me to report to work. I have several colleagues who stayed in Europe and Australia and they were never asked to RTO.”
“Are you really not moving?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, deliberately being evasive as he started to pop his shoulders, his neck, like he was dancing. “I’m a movement machine.”
There was no talking to him then. And she had run out of words to say, reasons to make and arguments to give. What was it that Shakespeare said? “Shut up, and let me kiss you”? Probably.
“Jay,” she said, putting her hands on his cheeks. If she was pressing just a little more to get him to stop talking, she wasn’t going to deny it. But it did force him to look at her and blink innocently. “Shut up.”
And he did. Not only did he shut up, he kissed her back. Deeply and fully wrapping her up in his arms. It felt like he was trying to pour his entire soul into his kiss, trying to bring her close and never let her go. They continued kissing, moving closer until Jay knelt over Mara, the coffee table pushed back a little so he had room to put his knees between her thighs. So she could look up at him with dazed eyes and swollen lips. The sunlight was on his face still, and the moment would stay in her mind forever, the day Jay said he wanted to stay.
“What did you call yourself? A failed vector?” he asked, chuckling as he handed her back her glasses after cleaning them off with his shirt. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I kissed you that first night. I was so sure I did it wrong.”
“I don’t think there’s a right way to use a magic power that could just be coincidence,” Mara teased, wrinkling her nose to push her glasses just a little higher. “But Jay. You didn’t fail. In the corniest way, your kiss magic is still a thing. It just worked on both of us.”
He kissed her again, and Mara could feel that he was torn between continuing to kiss her and smiling, which she remedied by making out with him even harder.
“I know we need to talk more.” He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “But I want to give this a try. I want to give this all I can, as much as I can.”
“Good.” Mara nodded. “Because I want that, too.”
And suddenly, Mara knew Jay wasn’t going to let her leave his condo right away. He swung himself off of her and stood up, holding out a hand for her. Mara let him help her stand, and he ended up stumbling slightly backward when he popped up, and she pulled him back to steady him.
“Can I show you something?” Was Mara just imagining that embarrassed blush on his cheeks, or…?
“Is it your pet cat?” she joked, and he pulled her toward him with their still connected hands, raising them above their heads until Mara’s body was flush with his, before he lowered his head and kissed her. She needed to tiptoe a little bit just so he didn’t crane his neck so much.
“Just to clarify,” he said. “I was asking if you were ready to have sex with me.”
“I figured.” Mara smiled. “And yes. Let’s do it. I have condoms in my bag.”
“What a coincidence,” Jay said, moving toward the short hallway to the bedrooms, Mara following behind him, their hands still entwined. “Me, too.”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging him from behind. It may have been the middle of summer, but giving Jay a back hug gave her a comforting kind of warmth. Mara didn’t want to admit it, but she’d craved this, holding him in her arms and knowing that it meant something that she could do it.
“Is it in your little squirrel pack?” she joked.
“Hey, the pack contains the essentials! I told you this.”
He slowly twisted the knob and opened the door. Mara had to admit that she never really had any thoughts on what Jay’s room could possibly look like. Carpeted floors, maybe. Strips of LED lights tucked behind mirrors or a TV. But what his room actually was, she quickly realized, was comfortable. And very, very him.
The first thing she noted was the bright orange donut-shaped lamp hanging on the wall, one she knew was always out of stock at IKEA. Then there was the bed, a large one that had been placed on a platform, with a duvet cover and pillows that had a lived-in texture she was sure it had come with when he bought it. There was nothing on the side tables that was easily reachable to a child, but he did have a Snoopy doll on his bed. Mara spotted a closet, but there was also a clothing rack left out, full to the brim with all kinds of pieces that she was sure he’d carefully chosen.
Her toes settled into the checkered rug, again something he likely selected. His curtains were the kind that were soft and let just enough of the light through, making the room a study of light and shadow at that time of the day. He turned on a stand fan that was in the corner (of course he’d gotten one of those fancy ones made of white metal and fake wood), and the room seemed to breathe a bit better. He also had one of those very trendy floor chairs that she always thought looked like the back of a centipede, but his was dark green so you didn’t really notice. There were framed photos of family and friends, most of which she knew he’d taken.
“I love your handiwork,” Mara said, indicating the large painting placed slightly off-center from the bed, a canvas that had seemingly random squiggles and handprints on it. In the bottom right corner, Mara noted someone had written, “Luna, 3.” Or, “Luna’s”?
“It was more of a group project.” Jay chuckled, his hands tucked into the belt loops of his pants as he looked fondly at the image. He walked to one of the side tables and tossed three things on the bed. A pack of condoms, lube and a sheet of paper that Mara picked up to read and saw were his medical results for HIV and STD screenings. She looked at him, smiling.
“You prepared.” She understood his embarrassed blushing now, because she was doing it, too.
“I wanted this experience to be good for you.” He explained it like it was a simple thing, to make her feel like he cared about her. But god, based on everything Mara had heard from everyone else, the bar was so low that all she felt was damned lucky that they wanted each other this much. What a miracle to find someone who cared about you, as much as you cared about them.
“And what about you?” Mara asked, putting the medical results to the side as she turned to face him on his bed.
“Well, I am a man. So it’s really easy for me to enjoy myself.” He bent down to kiss her again, running his hands up and down her arms and making Mara shiver. He undid the claw clip that held her hair back and ran his fingers through her hair before it fell over her face. “But I also have the most annoying sense of pride, so I have this burning need to make you come.”
“Burning, wow.” Mara giggled between kisses, between shivers of her skin as his nails lightly raked the shell of her ears, her neck. Her top was a crocheted thing that was held together by a front tie, and Jay held the end of the string with his fingers and waited for Mara’s permission before he tugged. The front of the shirt was undone, and Mara felt her breaths quicken.
“Did you make this?” he asked, pulling gently at both ties to fully expose the top of her cleavage, her chest rising and falling even more obviously now.
“Yeah.” Mara nodded as Jay kneeled on the floor in front of her, gently pushing her knees wide so he could slip in between her legs to lavish kisses on her exposed skin. “It’s…it’s just granny squares.”
“You like granny squares?” He didn’t even look up, so focused he was on sucking the skin just where Mara’s bra began to cover her up. She heard herself gasp and felt herself shudder, but all her mind could focus on was the head of his breath, the wetness of his lips, the gentle touch of his hand. He undid the second tie, and the third, and Mara was almost panting, aching for him to touch her more.
“They are surprisingly easy to work with,” she said, blindly taking his hand, his wrist, and putting it over her breast. He could barely cover it as he squeezed, and Mara gasped. “Jay.”
“Hmm?” he said, licking the dip of her cleavage.
“Don’t say granny squares when we’re about to have sex.”
The sound he made was the cross between a splutter and a raspberry, because his mouth had still been pressed against her skin. The unexpectedly funny sound had her bursting with laughter. Jay’s shoulders were shaking, and they spent the next few minutes holding on to each other and cackling. And when it faded, Mara knew with certainty that this was not going to be the experience she’d expected, hoped, feared or worried about.
This was going to be so much better.
“Just so you know,” Jay said, holding a hand up to Mara’s eyes and waiting for her little nod before she slipped her glasses off her face and placed them on one of the side tables. “If anything is uncomfortable, you can tell me to stop.”
“I know,” she said, nodding.
“I can stop. I can,” he insisted.
“Please don’t. At least until I say so.”
And they really didn’t. By the time Mara was on her back in nothing but her slip dress, hips raised slightly by pillows and breathing through Jay watching her with hungry eyes, she didn’t want this to stop at all. She pulled down the front of her dress and undid the clasp of her bra in front. It really was easier. Jay helped her loop her arms under the straps, giving him the space to pull the bra away. She shivered when Jay pulled it away, her skin tingling where his fingertips touched her bare breast.
“Oh Mara,” he gasped, reverent and gentle as his cool fingertip lightly flicked at her slowly hardening nipples. “You are so beautiful.”
“Yes I am.” She had no plans of taking off the rest of the slip tonight, but it was comforting to know that she was in no hurry to do it. Because while this would be the first time, she was determined to not let it be the last. “Can I put the condom on you?”
And when Jay entered her, his cock warm and hard, slipping into spaces of her body that not even she was sure she’d ever touched, Mara knew this was definitely not going to be the last time they did it. It was such a new, but welcome feeling. But she loved the weight of his body against her, the way it fought against her but filled her so well. She loved the sounds their bodies made in their joining, her tension melting away as Jay canted his hips against hers, as her body shook and clenched to make him fill her deeper, deeper.
“God, Mara, you’re so tight,” Jay babbled as they slammed into each other, the bed making a creaking sound underneath them. “I knew it would feel good inside you, I knew it.”
She couldn’t say anything in response, luxuriating in the feeling that something inside of her was going to explode. Mara wanted to hold it in, to stop it, or contain the feeling. But it was impossible, so impossible.
“Are you going to come, love? Don’t hold back, let me hear you. God, I want to hear you.”
She had imagined what this would feel like. Oh, she knew it would be wonderful, but she had underestimated how deeply intimate it was, so be this close to a person. To have them know what you sounded like in your most vulnerable moments. In times like this it was impossible to hold on to control, and that freedom was what Mara had not expected to feel at all.
She came with a shout, her hand over her head as it grabbed Jay’s headboard for support, her leg wrapped around Jay’s hip. He followed her shortly after, slowly sliding out of her to properly dispose of the condom.
Mara blinked up at Jay as he walked back to her, a satisfied, smug grin on his face. The room had darkened, and several floors below, traffic built into gridlocks. People moved to and fro in their own places. All of them blissfully unaware that this magical thing would be inevitable—that Mara Jane Barretto was going to fall in love with Jay Montinola, and she was happy to keep falling for as long as she could.
Sex was cool. But knowing you got to do it again with someone you liked? Well, that was even better.
“You okay?” Jay asked, moving to the bed to lie beside Mara, helping her toss aside the extra pillows to his nearby floor chair (“It’s the chair I throw everything on. Best five thousand I’ve ever spent.”). He stretched his arms over his head, his toes forward and still naked. Then he bundled Mara into his arms, pulling the rest of her slip over her legs, her knees. “Let me grab your glasses.”
He reached over her and grabbed them, and her vision was restored. The world was a lot less blurry, but thank god it was mostly all very much the same. She did feel a little overwhelmed, curling into Jay’s chest and letting him smooth his hand up and down her back.
“Next time,” she said, looking up. Jay looked a little worried. Nervous. “We eat after sex.”
His face broke out into a happy, satisfied smile. He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Next time,” he echoed.
And Mara’s heart settled into a peace she had never before understood. But there was peace in feeling so wanted, and so loved.
The room was quiet, but neither of them felt like getting up at the moment. It was in that quiet moment that Jay suddenly asked. “Can I order flowers from you?”
“To give back to me? Just give me money.”
“Wow.” Jay laughed. “It’s actually for this thing happening on Friday. Do you want to come?”
“Wait,” Mara said, frowning up at him. “What’s happening on Friday?”
Nige and Irene are finally getting married!
Civil ceremony to be held at Leo’s Deli at the Kontra
San Juan City