Chapter Twenty-Three
Diwa had bought the light therapy lamp the week he’d flown in from Manila, when he hadn’t slept for nine days and his housekeeper had Googled circadian disruption and put a printout on his pillow. Since then he’d used it every morning without fail, and the results had been nothing short of amazing.
He woke up easier. His afternoon slumps had vanished. Colin, who’d come in from a job last night, fallen asleep on the sofa before nine and woken at six this morning still looking like he’d been run over, was getting twenty minutes whether he liked it or not.
He pulled it down off the shelf now and carried it through to the conservatory.
“Right.” He set it on the side table, plugged it into the wall, and angled it towards the wicker chair where he wanted Colin. “Sit.”
Colin, who was holding a mug of tea that Diwa had pressed into his hands to keep him sitting still, frowned at the lamp. “What’s that, then?”
“A light therapy lamp. It has an output of ten thousand lux. It mimics natural sunlight, which your body needs about twenty minutes of in the morning to regulate melatonin and serotonin. Given the absolutely tragic state of British weather in March, you’re not getting any of it.
” Diwa patted the back of the chair. “Sit, sit. You’re going to feel amazing in about fifteen minutes. ”
“I feel fine right now.”
“You’ve yawned three times in the last five minutes. Sit down, Colin.”
Colin sat. He held the mug with both hands and looked up at Diwa, resigned to his fate.
Diwa crouched down in front of the chair, took the mug out of Colin’s hands despite Colin’s disgruntled protest, and set it on the side table next to the lamp.
He pushed Colin’s hair back off his forehead, smoothing the silver at his temples with his thumb, and tipped Colin’s chin up a fraction so the light caught his face square-on.
“Close your eyes if it’s too bright.”
“It’s fucking blinding, Diwa.”
“That’s how you know it’s working. The photoreceptors at the back of your eye have to register the wavelength, that’s the whole point. You don’t have to stare at it, just keep it in your peripheral vision. Twenty minutes, max. You’re going to feel like a brand-new man.”
“You’re making this out like it’ll be better than your cock.”
Diwa’s hand stilled in Colin’s hair. He looked down at the man sitting in his conservatory chair, squinting against ten thousand lux of artificial Norwegian summer, holding entirely still under his palm, and felt a hot jab of affection in his chest.
“Well,” he said, “no, Colin. Obviously not. Nothing in this house is better than my cock.” He smoothed Colin’s hair back again, because his hand wanted a job. “But it’ll perk you up. Like a couple of shots of espresso. Without the gut rot.”
“Mm.”
“Give me twenty minutes, Colin.”
Diwa kissed the top of Colin’s head and went to fetch his book from the kitchen, so he could sit beside him while Colin’s photoreceptors did whatever they were going to do. The conservatory was warm. Colin had settled deeper into the wicker chair with his eyes half-shut against the glare.
Diwa was lowering himself into the chair opposite when his mobile buzzed against his thigh. He let the line connect without checking the screen, because he’d been lulled into a good mood by the presence of his omega, and said, “Hello?”
“Diwa.”
It was Kuya Maki. Five years older than Diwa, four inches taller, and the eldest of all the cousins, which in the de la Vega family was less a position of seniority than a permanent appointment as judge, jury, and enforcer of their grandmother’s will.
Diwa’s spine straightened against the chair.
His free hand found his thigh and gripped hard as he composed himself.
“Kuya.” The honorific for ‘older brother’ came out automatically, his voice dropping half a register and shedding ten years in the process.
He sounded, even to his own ears, like the fourteen-year-old who used to hide Maki’s flip-flops under the sofa in Antipolo and then deny it with wide eyes while Maki stood over him with his arms folded.
The tactic had worked precisely once. “How are things?”
Maki didn’t answer the question, because Maki had never in his life allowed a mission of his to be derailed by pleasantries. “Lola Joy’s ninetieth is on October fourteenth. We’re throwing a party in Manila Shangri-La. You’re coming.”
This was not an invitation, but a clear summons delivered in the flat imperative that Maki had inherited from their grandmother, along with her jawline and her total indifference to excuses, or tears.
“Kuya, I’m in London right now, I —”
“I know where you are, and I don’t care.
Get your ass on a fucking private jet. Our lola is turning ninety.
She’s been alive for ninety years, Diwa.
She survived the Japanese, she survived Marcos.
She’s survived our Tito Bong’s karaoke at Christmas, for decades, Diwa.
Decades. And she is going to have her entire family in one room on October fourteenth or there will be consequences. ”
Across the conservatory, Colin had opened one eye against the glare of the lamp. Diwa looked at him, and pressed his thumbnail into the seam of his jeans.
“I haven’t spoken to Mama since —”
“This isn’t about your mama. This isn’t about why you’re over there feeling sorry for yourself.
This is about Lola Joy, who asks me every Sunday after mass whether you’ve rung, and every Sunday I have to tell her no.
Then she says ‘Ay, he’s busy, that one,’ because she won’t hear a word against you even when you deserve it.
” Maki paused long enough for the guilt to land where he’d aimed it.
“She’s ninety, Diwa. She might not get another one of these big birthdays. Be there.”
The line went dead. Maki had never been one for goodbyes.
Diwa sat with the mobile in his lap, the screen already dimming, and stared at the conservatory floor. The lamp hummed beside Colin’s chair.
“Everything all right?” Colin asked.
“Yeah.” Diwa slid the mobile back into his pocket. “That was a family thing.”
Colin regarded him for a moment, then closed his eyes and settled back under the light. A minute passed. The lamp hummed. “Was that about your mum?” Colin asked, without opening his eyes.
“No. Well, kind of.” Diwa turned his mobile over in his hands. “My grandmother’s turning ninety in October. There’ll be a party in Manila. My cousin’s just rung to tell me I’m going whether I like it or not.”
“That’s nice. Is it gonna be a small family thing?”
Diwa laughed before he could stop himself.
“There is no such thing as a small Filipino family, Colin. My grandmother has nine children, forty-something grandchildren, and a great-grandchild count that nobody’s been able to verify since 2019.
The last family reunion took over an entire resort in Batangas.
There was a rota for the karaoke machine. ”
“A rota.”
“A laminated rota. My Tito Bong had it printed and colour-coded by household, because otherwise people queue-jump and he ends up not getting his slot for ‘My Way.’ Which, by the way, he performs every single time, and has done since before I was born, and nobody is allowed to comment on this because he once cried about it at Christmas.”
The corner of Colin’s mouth lifted. “Must be nice,” he said. “Growing up around that.”
His words were quiet and level, delivered in the same tone he’d use to observe that the weather had turned or the milk was nearly out.
But Diwa knew what sat underneath them. Colin had raised two boys without a single relative to ring when the heating broke or the money ran short.
He’d built a family out of nothing but willpower, and he’d done it without the thing Diwa had always taken for granted: the backing of a room full of people who shared your surname and who would show up for you whether you deserved it or not.
Diwa didn’t say anything. The lamp hummed on the side table, and Colin’s eyes had drifted shut once more.
“My heat’s due,” Colin said. “In a few days, I reckon. I’d like you there. If you want to be.”
Diwa drew up straighter in his seat. In all their time together, Colin had never once asked Diwa for anything. This being his first ask, this show of trust in Diwa, was everything.
“If you’d rather not, I’ll manage. I’ve managed before, and it’s a big ask when we’ve only really known each other a few months.”
Diwa set his book down on the arm of the chair. He crossed the small space between their chairs, crouched in front of Colin, and pressed his mouth to the furrow between Colin’s brows, blocking the lamp’s light with his own head.
Colin’s skin was hot under his lips. Underneath the familiar scent of soap and Colin’s own skin, the green-sap smell of him had ripened into something thicker and sweeter, closer to the split-open sweetness of overripe mango left too long on the counter.
He pulled back just enough to look at him. Colin’s eyes were open now, steady on Diwa’s face, waiting.
“Yeah,” Diwa said. “Yeah, I want to be there.”
The line between Colin’s brows eased. He held Diwa’s gaze. “Right,” Colin said. “Good.”
Diwa stayed where he was, crouched on the conservatory floor with his hands on the arms of Colin’s chair, close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin.
He wanted to say more. Reassure Colin that they’d be good together.
Instead he put his hand on Colin’s knee, and Colin’s free hand came down and covered it.
“So,” Diwa tipped his chin towards the lamp, still humming away on the side table. “Is it working? Do you feel amazing yet?”
Colin shook his head. “Nah. Still cranky.”
“You’re a tough one to crack. Let’s give it another twenty.” Diwa kissed his knee through the fabric of his trousers, stood up, and went to find the ice cream.