The Last Guy You Kiss

Two

TWO

S omewhere in the parking lot of Luisa’s, Jay Montinola sneezed so hard he tripped on his own two feet. The sneeze was loud enough that he caught the attention of some of the other guests making their way to the ballroom—sorry, the casita where they were supposed to wait before they got to enter the ballroom—at the designated reception venue for #DavidPutsMaringOnIt. The struggle for clever hashtags was too real.

Close by, he heard a gasp.

“Oh my god, isn’t that—”

“Girl, go up to him! I swear the kiss thing is real. Remember Jam got married last year, just because she accidentally kissed him during mass?”

“I’m not that desperate.”

“Even if it means finding the One ?”

“That was a huge sneeze,” Mon Mendoza, groomsman number six and wedding lector, commented beside Jay, falling into step between him and the gossipy wedding guests as they continued to walk down the slope of the large parking lot. “Someone’s thinking of you.”

“Me?” he said incredulously, but laughed anyway. “God, that sounds ominous.”

“Quick, think of a number between one and twenty-eight!” Scott Sabio—also a groomsman but at a higher billing as he was in charge of the array—chimed in, walking behind them. Jay didn’t miss his friend closing ranks, hands in his pockets and looking for all the world like a lord surveying his land. He held in the urge to give them both hugs and smiled instead, playing along.

“Aren’t there only twenty-six letters in the alphabet?”

“Duh, we’re including n and ng. It’s only proper.”

“I want tacos,” Jay announced suddenly, just as their little trio finally arrived in the ballroom. As crowded as the room had become, it was easier to blend in like this. Most of the guests were already at the pre-reception venue, and they were lucky enough to find seats toward the back, in the covered veranda. “Do you think there will be tacos?”

“It’s Luisa’s—they’re definitely going to have tacos. David wouldn’t not get tacos. Wouldn’t not? Is that grammatically correct?”

“It’s a double negative,” Mon explained. “Grammatically correct, but sounds like you’re obfuscating your words.”

“Obfuscate?” Jay echoed in a high-pitched voice, teasing. Mon, cool as ever, simply raised a brow at him.

“We’re going to be here for a while yet, Jay,” Scott chortled, crossing one leg over the other and flipping his hair. A couple of people turned their heads, because it was hard to miss seeing a handsome man flip his hair, but Scott didn’t seem to notice. “We can talk about you being back from Hong Kong.”

“I’ve been back for four years! Pose,” Jay pointed out, holding up his camera and snapping a casual photo of Scott. Then another. And another. Scott, being Scott, changed up his poses every time. Even pretended to hold a drink that he definitely didn’t have.

“Yes, but we lost almost three of them to the stupid pandemic. So you’re like a fresh balikbayan!” Scott enthused, making Jay laugh. He’d spent most of his post-college life in wealth management at a private bank in Hong Kong. He came home for the Lunar New Year one year, in 2020, and then…he couldn’t go back. Then “couldn’t” turned into “didn’t really much want to.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” he agreed. “Although I do miss having balikbayan money. For this wedding, I’m down, what, one thousand pesos in toll fees, two thousand on gas, two thousand more for a wedding gift?”

“You’re only giving them two thousand as a wedding gift?” Mon, who was sitting beside Jay, wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Don’t you work in finance?”

“Consulting now, actually. And now we’re stuck here for the next several hours because we like David that much.”

“Didn’t David let you cheat off of him on the math final in senior year?”

“He did. And yet I have no tacos.” He shot three more photos of Scott, who was looking dangerously into the lens of the camera. What a goofball. “Smile, Scott. I can’t sell these photos on OnlyFans if you’re not smiling.”

“Oh, please . Fans appreciate variety.” He posed again. “Oh my god, Jay. Stop.” It became increasingly obvious to anyone who was watching the two that Scott actually did not want Jay to stop and was posing quite handsomely with every snap. “Also, good to know your being kuripot hasn’t changed.”

“ Makwenta might be the better word.” Mon’s little dimples popped up in his amusement. “Someone who keeps score. Jay’s not a penny pincher.”

“Gago.” Jay chuckled, lowering his camera and shaking his head. Reviewing the images made him laugh, because it was Scott, and it was impossible to take a bad photo of him, especially when he was in a barong that fit him perfectly, in a venue that screamed “casual fancy” behind him. He was shooting in black and white today, playing with lighting, capturing casual and ceremonial moments without taking away from the formalities of the wedding. It had taken him forever to settle on which camera to shoot with, but this was a good choice.

Scott held out his hands in a “gimme” gesture, and Jay handed him the camera to review the photos.

“Ooh. I do look good. If you’re putting that up, I want a cut. Ten percent.”

“You’re lowballing yourself. Forty.” Sure, most of his photos of this joyous occasion were now of Scott fooling around with the decor and foliage, but it still suited. The beauty of bringing around a camera just for fun was that you could take stupid pictures of groomsmen while waiting for the taco stand at the pre-reception merienda to open up.

You can also hide from certain people . Jay looked around the ballroom quickly, scanning the room for a flash of burnt orange fabric, waiting for a chill to run down his spine at the sight of a certain seething someone. Nothing? Nothing? Excellent.

See, he was not, as David said, a “scaredy-cat.” Because scaredy-cats would have said no to being a secondary sponsor of the wedding in fear of the maid of honor . (Jay had done an excellent job looping a cord around David’s neck at the church, which he thought was appropriate for the life his friend was choosing.) Scaredy-cats would have booked it back to Manila the second the wedding was over, duty fulfilled. But Jay was not a scaredy-cat. He was a mature thirty-five-year-old adult, taking stupid photos of his hot friends.

“Or better yet,” Jay began, but he and Scott were clearly of the same singular brain cell and the both of them said, “Sixty-nine,” at the same time.

“Four. That’s how old the two of you are.” Mon chuckled.

“Three, that’s the number of hours we’re still stuck here.” Scott groaned, drooping backward into his chair and pretending to melt into it. “Five. The number of hours I slept last night.”

“That’s not too bad…?” Mon pointed out.

“I need seven hours of beauty sleep, Moning. You know this.”

“Bored, that’s what we are,” Jay said, holding up a little V with his thumb and index finger in a pogi pose as Scott took his photo. “But still looking good.”

“I’ve been smiling and taking pictures for the wedding photographers for several hours. My face is glued like this permanently now, and I can’t sue for emotional damage because I agreed to be David’s groomsman,” Scott complained. “This is what happens when I’m hired for my face card.”

“It’s a good face.” Jay shrugged, taking his camera back to take more photos. On a scale of one to ten, how bored were they? “So if you’re the visuals of the wedding party, what does that make Mon?”

“Power forward,” Mon said, now cradling a beer in one hand and looking at his phone.

“Is that soccer or basketball?” Jay asked, frowning. “I don’t do sports.”

“The photographers asked more than once if Scott was the groom,” Mon added, and Scott groaned. Mon was always the picture of calm and stability, and his current pose showed it off. Jay took a couple of photos. “David thought it was hilarious.”

“Marina and her sisters, not so much.” Scott winced, and Jay failed to fight the slightly terrified laugh that burst from out of his throat. He fumbled with his camera to pretend the sound he made was because of a camera thing. But Scott and Mon had known him since high school. It wasn’t easy to hide anything from them, which he added to the list of things that sucked about being at this wedding in particular. “Huh. Moning, you were right.”

“I told you.” The tone of Mon’s voice had not changed at all, barely looking up from his phone. “Jay’s terrified of one of Marina’s sisters. But I don’t know which.”

“I’m not—”

“Is that why you aren’t a groomsman?” Scott asked, and his ears practically perked up at the possibility of chismis. “Hala, hala. Demoted to cord sponsor despite being the one closest to David.”

“Did you guys notice the flower arrangements have a little sprig of purple?” he asked suddenly, pretending to be very distracted by the abundance in flowers in the reception. Sometimes changing the topic worked wonders on his friends. “It wasn’t in the invitation, and it’s not in the theme color. I wonder why.”

“Maybe you should ask Marina.” Oooh, Scott was pushing his buttons. Jamming his finger into them repeatedly like a naughty child who was told not to. Jay narrowed his eyes at his friend, but Scott was too busy pressing imaginary buttons to pay him any attention. “Or wait, isn’t her Ate a florist? Is that why she looked familiar?”

“I was thinking she looked familiar, too,” Mon agreed. “Jay? Thoughts?”

“I have no thoughts. David didn’t say why I wasn’t a groomsman?” Jay wondered out loud, deflecting, because he absolutely knew why Mara Barretto’s face was familiar, but he was never, ever going to tell his friends. Guilt was a meal that kept you full, like when you force fed yourself amaplaya because it was literally the only thing on the table. Blergh. “He’s usually chismoso about these things.”

“He said it would make sure you were free to take your photographs,” Mon said, because Mon was also secretly a chismoso about these things. “And while I think you’re an amazing photographer—”

“I’m not a photographer.” Jay made a noise that was half laughter, half scoff, waving his friend away. He wasn’t delusional enough to think that he was better than the people literally paid to photograph David and Marina’s wedding. He held up his little digicam. This particular Fujifilm was not the top of the line, but it was reliable, and on sale when he bought it. “It’s a point and shoot. All you have to do is point, and shoot. Not exactly a skill issue.”

“Tell that to professionals, man.” Mon laughed, still without looking up from his phone. “But I think there’s something you’re not telling me and Scott, and as your friends, we just want to make sure everything’s okay between you and David.”

“Oh, David and I are fine,” Jay assured Mon, which wasn’t a lie. He and David were fine. He and David even laughed at the church when Jay made a joke about having a phone charger at the ready because, ha-ha, cord sponsor.

“So it’s Marina you have a problem with.”

“Jay, you aren’t paying attention to me,” Scott, the thirty-plus year-old man, whined . There was something about hanging out with his high school friends that brought out their younger selves—they still liked to wheedle each other and tease mercilessly. It was childish, but nostalgia hit Jay hard whenever they were together. He missed it.

“Oh my, I would never ignore my talent! Please, sir, pose by the ice cream cart,” he said, as he and his friend shuffled over to the ice cream stand near the seating area. One hour down, one more to go. But what else were guests supposed to do in between the 3:00 p.m. ceremony and the 7:00 p.m. reception start? Scott was being petulant, insisting he would look better by the window. “I don’t know how Ava stands you.”

“My girlfriend loves me. But I love her more, and standing each other is the least that we do,” Scott said proudly, his already handsome face almost aglow with the love of someone Jay thought was a cool person. It mystified him, how easy it was for his friend to say it out loud. Even David had just done it, in front of God and all the witnesses, and there had been zero hesitation in his voice when he made his vows. Not only was he willing to spend an ungodly amount of money to say it out loud (Luisa’s wedding was expensive , and that was without renting out a second ballroom as a holding room), he was willing to stake his name, his life, his reputation on it. Because wasn’t that the point of all of them being invited?

Terrifying. There were no guarantees in love, even less in marriage. More so in a country that had no divorce law.

“I could never,” Jay said out loud, keeping the camera up and seeing Scott’s change from sentimental softness to surprise, then amusement, all through the lens of his camera. “Sorry. I’m happy for you, really, all that standing. Woo, go team ScAva.”

“That is a terrible couple name. It sounds like a skin disease.” Scott winced.

“You know, Jay,” Mon piped up from where he was still sitting like an old Dad watching his kids play in the pool. “For someone so good at capturing human emotions with a camera, you get very awkward when feelings are brought up.”

“Hey, hey, hey. ” The need to defend himself rose quick and hot. He could stand to be berated for being terrified of a woman he barely knew, but not for being emotionally unavailable. Because he was here , wasn’t he? “Just because I’m not in a stable, long-term relationship like you guys, doesn’t mean I’m—”

“You asked if David had a cold when he was sniffing at the altar,” Mon pointed out.

“The pandemic isn’t over, I was being cautious.”

“You made little beep boop noises when he kissed Marina in front of everyone at the church,” Scott added.

“I was trying to be entertaining!”

“You haven’t been in a serious relationship since Selena.”

“Okay, yes,” was all he said, frowning at his friends to get them to stop. He wasn’t in the mood to revisit that, especially not right now. “And because it was Selena, you know why I don’t want to be in a serious relationship. Plus, I’m between here and Hong Kong, I don’t really see myself settling down anywhere anytime soon. And I have other priorities, you guys know that.”

Her name was Luna, she was nearly four now, and the love of his life. Unfortunately for Jay’s nightlife, his niece had an early bedtime, and according to his sister, “can’t party,” which Jay thought was a real shame because Luna had inherited her ninong’s dance skills. But Mom trumped Ninong every time, and Jay was going to have to settle for that.

He smiled when Scott and Mon studied him with what he could only describe as concern. It was sweet of them, worrying about him, but Jay was fine. “Also I still date. I date quite a lot, thanks. I’ve seen the insides of more condom—”

“Ew.” Scott wrinkled his nose.

“ Condominum units than most real estate agents. The market for condominiums is wild, guys. Apparently the market is hot and I’m losing money because I’m not making it,” he said quickly. But there was absolutely no shame in his voice. He liked going out, liked meeting new people, and making them feel special. He actually preferred flitting from place to place. It was exciting, and fun, even when his back hurt the next day because he was thirty-five and decrepit. “But it’s too near Luna’s school, I would never give it up.”

“We’re talking about emotional vulnerability, not sex,” Mon reminded him. “Not the same thing.”

“Also, Luna goes to school now?” Scott gasped. “But she’s a baby!”

“It’s pre-school, so everyone is a baby.” Jay chuckled. “But I’m fine. You guys are great at making other people happy, it’s just not me.”

Jay didn’t get to see Mon and Scott as often as they saw each other—the two of them had gone on to study in the same university, had their own barkada without him, saw each other often because of work—Jay had been in Hong Kong for the longest time, and was only starting to get more time for friends since coming back. He’d missed a lot of random dinners out, coffee invitations and big trips out of the country because of work, because of family. But he was there when they asked him to be. He felt guilty sometimes about being a bare minimum friend, but he made his commitments. His friends understood that.

“Speaking of serious relationships,” he said, ordering himself a cone of barako ice cream. It would have to do, for now. “Where are your better halves?”

Mon and Scott gave each other looks, a silent communication done easily by those who have known each other for as long as they had. And Jay, being their friend for about the same amount of time, could understand every word. “Is he deflecting?”

“Yes.”

“Should we let him?”

“Yes. Because we like him. Also do you think I look good in this barong?”

“We didn’t get plus ones, actually,” Scott said, chuckling after Mon rolled his eyes at his unspoken question. Scott had ordered ice cream, too, and was taking a huge chomp off of the side of his quezo real mountain like the chaos demon that he was. “So Ava took her cousin Tori to this new degustation—”

“Degu-what?”

“Tasting menu,” he explained, “in Silang. They went to a tasing menu place without me. The guy who makes a living off of food videos. They are sending photos, and it is taking everything in me not to shove this entire ice cream cone into my mouth and follow them.”

“The food here in Luisa’s is good, too, though,” Jay pointed out, but Scott answered him with a pout that was so pitiful that he actually wanted to take his words back. “So they say.”

Scott was everyone’s favorite foodie influencer, after all, and it was rare for him to be so excited about something in the Philippine food scene, saturated as it was. His girlfriend Ava’s plans had two things that were sure to make a man like Scott Sabio suffer—not being included in something, and not being included in something food-related. It was devious and hilarious, which was one of the reasons why Jay thought Ava was a perfect match for his friend.

“If it helps, I didn’t get a plus-one, either,” Mon announced. “Olivia’s in LA anyway.”

It was a flex for Mon to say things like that so casually. It came with the territory of dating the Olivia Angeles, the most famous Pinoy in Hollywood. Since the SAG and the WGA strikes ended, Hollywood was back in full swing, and Olivia’s schedule was booked with meetings, shoots and reshoots, constantly flying back and forth. Jay wondered how Mon could stand to be half a world away from the person he loved. He hadn’t had much of a chance to see Mon and Olivia together—Jay hadn’t actually met her yet—but a Mon in love was a happy Mon, and good for him.

“Did you hear what David said when you told him that?” Scott chortled, shaking his head in disbelief. “God, I love the guy but sometimes he can be dense as… Mon, help me out.”

“Osmium is the densest naturally occurring element in the world,” Mon supplied. “But yeah, I heard it. Something about Mara not liking it if Olivia showed up and upstaged Marina. He said it when he was introducing me to Marina’s parents.”

Jay winced, because oh David. He was a good guy. A really nice one, actually. But he tended to absolutely not consider anything whenever he opened his mouth, which had gotten him into a lot of trouble in the past. Like, for example, turning a photo Jay took into a meme and posting it everywhere online.

“Yeah that was really tactless of him,” Mon said. “Marina’s Ate is a bit…”

“Scary?” Scott asked, and Jay couldn’t help himself. He made a noise. In general, Jay made a lot of noise, he was a noisy guy. But the sound that came out of his mouth was partway between a laugh and an agonized whine. Because it was actually pretty funny for his friends to be so close to his reasons for not being a groomsman, and yet so far. “What the hell was that ?”

“What was what?” Okay, his voice was a little too high-pitched and nervous. He cleared his throat, then stumbled on his way to sitting down on the lounger next to Mon. “What was what?” He had the feeling of being caught, but without knowing what for. Not the first time it happened to him, really.

“That little Jay noise you made,” Mon said, tilting his head in confusion. Across them, Scott gasped and pointed.

“You’re scared of Marina’s Ate.”

“Okay, that’s—” he began, but really, what was the point? “Yes. Fine, fine, yes. I’m scared of Mara. In fact we are sitting here, at the very hidden corner of the entire ballroom, because I do not want her to see me.”

“Why? What did she do?” Scott asked. Jay felt like he was bracing for a punch in the stomach, because it wasn’t anything that she had done, it was all him. Him and an enterprising idiot on the internet who thought the image of Mara Barretto scowling was funny enough to share with the rest of the world. That idiot being David. But Jay was never going to say that out loud. “Oh god. What did you do?”

“Well…” Jay winced again.

“Jaysohn Montinola. I am this close to karate chopping your ice cream out of your hand.” Scott held up said karate chopping hand, and Jay curled his body over his ice cream to protect it. Oh god. This wasn’t going to be fun.

“I may have,” he started slowly, “taken a really bad photo of Mara when we went out one time. I was just trying to capture the moment, be present, you know? And then she got really annoyed with me, and I took a photo of her, and that photo turned into a meme, and…”

“Oh my god,” Scott gasped. Mon’s confused blinking was the perfect companion to his disbelief. “Of course. That photo was everywhere. The eldest Asian Ate. Oh my god. It’s Mara Barretto?”

“Wait,” Mon said. “You went out with Marina’s sister?”

“Noooo,” Jay singsonged. “I went out with Marina. David set us up. This was like, a year ago.”

“So,” Mon concluded, because he was a terribly smart guy, “you’re the last guy Marina dated before—”

“Before she decided she would rather fall in love with David instead, yes,” Jay admitted, and as much as he was determined not to be in a long-term relationship anytime soon, it still stung to say it out loud, of course. It always did. But you learned to smile, be happy for them and move on. It was easier that way. “David thought she and I would suit each other, which is hilarious, now that I think about it. So the four of us went to that gin bar in Quezon City—”

“With the tea-based gins. Ooh, I love that place.” Scott nodded his approval. “The secret bar in Nomnom Commons has a more unique selection, but you can’t beat QC for chill vibes.”

“—and that’s when I took the picture. I was taking a picture of our drinks, and I said something about the female equivalent of a quarter-life crisis is quitting their corporate job and starting a small business.”

Both Mon and Scott’s faces were hilarious. They were the same horrified faces they made, Jay realized, when David collided with another player playing basketball and broke his nose in high school. Which was fair, because this was about the same level of “what the fuck.”

And, he admitted, that was probably the most douchey thing he’d said in a long time. He hadn’t even known Mara ran Wildflower at that point. His finger had slipped on the shutter button just as she had glared at him like a worm to crush under her boot (which, fair). Then Marina fell in love with David, he wasn’t asked to be a groomsman, and that’s how this story happily ended.

“Your fears are totally justified,” Mon said. “Because that was terrible. Cancelable. Jesus, Jay. Marina also worships the ground her Ate walks on, and David invested in Mara’s flower business.”

“Have you apologized to her?” Scott asked. And really, that was such an obvious answer, right? Find Mara, put his tail between his legs and apologize.

But the thing was, Jay didn’t know if Mara wanted this brought up again. Internet trends came and went quick, and this was disappearing just as fast as the next. Maybe she just wanted to move on?

“Ummmmm.”

“Wow. It’s a miracle you were still invited to the wedding.”

“Of course I was still invited, I was the last guy Marina dated before she found The One.” Jay snorted, licking off his ice cream in slight agitation. Marina and David were not the first people to invite him to their wedding because he had inadvertently pushed them toward each other, and he knew the drill. He got invited to witness their love because he made it happen. Or, if you believed the urban legend, his kiss did. “Like that girl I accidentally kissed during the Sign of Peace part one Sinbang Gabi.”

“What?”

“It was 4:00 a.m.! I was tired! Her Lola was a great dancer.”

Okay, so in the case of him and Mara Barretto, he was definitely the asshole. Finding her and apologizing was definitely the right thing to do. If only to a) clear the air between them and b) set a good example for his niece because he was not going to be a bad ninong. Canceled people usually wrote, “I’m sorry if you were offended” notes on their phone, posted them on social media and hoped for the best. Jay knew he could be a better person than that.

“I’m going to go somewhere else so you guys can talk about me,” he said, standing amid Mon and Scott’s vehement protests. He personally never subscribed to the urban legend that surrounded him, but he did work with numbers a lot. His record (so far) did not lie. Ten to none, every girl he kissed would marry the person they dated after him.

Jay refused to face what was behind the numbers, even when wedding guests from Tagaytay to Tawi-Tawi talked about the incredible magic of his kiss. He thought of Mara again, at the anger that flashed in her eyes and made his entire soul shiver. Yeah, he definitely didn’t deserve to be invited to this wedding.

“Or you could—”

“Apologize.” He sighed, because god only knew if Mara would even listen. But she deserved an apology, even if he didn’t deserve acceptance. Jay was just going to build up to it muna. “If you don’t see me at the reception…”

“We’ll tell Luna her ninong died trying to do the right thing,” Mon assured him.

“We’ll tell Ate Irene that you died because you were an idiot.” Scott nodded. “Go, go.”