The Last Guy You Kiss

Seven

SEVEN

O bviously, they didn’t leave the reception right at that exact moment. There were programs to go through, and a couple trivia games to win. Mon scored a gift card to a Japanese restaurant because he happened to know that David was an Aries and Marina an Aquarius, amazing. The bride and groom also decided to forego the traditional garter and bouquet toss. Jay was a higher jumper than most and would have caught the garter without trying. Which meant he would maybe have to slide a garter up a stranger’s leg, which was fine, but in public? Too weird. What was a garter anyway?

But the night continued, and like most Filipino celebrations, ended at a party. The DJ played “Y.M.C.A.,” “Bongga Ka Day” and Sarah Geronimo’s “Tala” in rapid succession, several representatives from every generation and friend group enthusiastically participating. There was always that one family member who ended up being the impromptu dance instructor for everyone. And that person happened to be David, who could take crowds through simple dance steps, with enthusiasm and gusto. He even pulled Jay in, the both of them more than game, because it was always easy to say yes to David.

“Great dancing, as always.” David winked at Jay at some point.

“Once a street dance captain, always a street dance captain,” Jay said, winking back at his cocaptain.

They hadn’t even reopened the bar yet at that point, and already Jay had ended up swing dancing with Tita Claudine to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “September.” And he was going to remember that for a long time, because she’d winked at him and said something very complimentary about his “loose hips.”

“Your friend,” Mara said suddenly, appearing beside him at some point to hand him a bottle of cold craft beer. She was a little breathless—he had seen her dancing with her sisters and singing TLC’s “No Scrubs” word-perfect a few songs ago. They looked across the ballroom, where Scott had somehow acquired a couple of glow sticks and was now dancing to Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” along with all the titas doing the LA Walk. He was more than a little stiff, but you got the impression that he was doing it on purpose to be funny. To be fair, it really was. Jay took a video to send to Ava. “He’s quite the dancer.”

“Give him a whistle, he’ll really go wild.” Jay laughed, taking off his jacket and placing it across his lap. The cool weather and the open windows of the venue really made for perfect after-party dancing. He took a deep sip of his beer, which was also perfect. “Cheers?”

“Cheers.” Mara smiled, clinking the top of her beer bottle with his before she took a sip. “God, my back is giving up. I am so going to need an Alaxan later. I just turned thirty-three last week!”

“I was due to drink maintenance meds an hour ago,” he said, holding up his smartwatch for her to check the alert. “Welcome to your midthirties.”

“Oh no.” She laughed, shaking her head, because Jay’s alarm was pretty peeved that he hadn’t listened. It was fine, he could drink before bed. “Are you—”

“Mara!” someone called behind them. “Tito Pedring and I are leaving na, can we bring home these flowers?”

“Isn’t that bad luck?” Jay asked, raising a brow.

“That’s funerals, dummy.” Mara chuckled, using his shoulder as an anchor to help her stand before she turned to the wedding guest. She was clearly getting tired. But that didn’t stop her from smiling at the guests. “Yes, tita! I’ll walk you to the exit. But not the vase po, we still need those—”

“Ha? But they’re the best part!”

Jay grinned as she walked away, clandestinely keeping her beer bottle at his side as she smiled and nodded to the unfamiliar couple. This happened a couple of times that evening, even as the taco bar finally opened and more ice cream was served to guests taking a break from the partying. The line to the tacos was so long that most of the guests had gone home by the time Jay managed to get a hold of a plate.

Hello, my love. We reunite.

“Taco?” Jay asked as Mara waved goodbye to a younger family heading back to the parking lot. In particular the ring bearer, sleepily waving at them from his father’s shoulder as they walked away.

“Jay!” Mara said. The surprise that registered on her face would have stung, but Jay had a little beer in him, which probably dulled the sting a bit. “You’re still here.”

“I agreed to drive you home, remember?” he asked, and if she’d forgotten that , he definitely would have been hurt. It was absolutely no burden for him to drive her back wherever. Not like anyone was waiting up for him to get back, and it was a Friday. “Where else would I be?”

“Your friends…?”

“Scott’s driving Mon to Starbucks Reserve. They’re meeting Ava and her cousin there,” Jay explained. It was nice of her to think of his friends like that. “Like I said earlier, I’m—”

“All yours. I remember.” Mara nodded, and it seemed like she came to some sort of conclusion in her head. “I’m sorry I’m making you wait. There’s a lot of stuff for egress. I just want to make sure it’s done well.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, squeezing her arm with his free hand. “I’m having fun. I met your mom! She’s hilarious. She was trying to guess whose friend I was, because she was convinced she’d met me before.”

“Oh my god,” Mara groaned. “That’s her thing, and she’s really bad at it. I’ll try to hurry it up. Sorry, Jay.”

“Mara,” he said, placing the tacos in her hand. “Eat tacos. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready, okay?”

He smiled to reassure her that everything was fine. And he really didn’t mind waiting around a little longer. But he couldn’t quite read the emotion brimming in Mara’s face as she took the tacos from him. He didn’t miss that her eyes were a little more shiny, her lips moving as if there were more things she should probably say. Instead she took the plate, picked up a taco and took a bite.

“Mmm,” she moaned. The sound made Jay’s throat feel a little thick suddenly. Was he coming down with something? “That’s really good.”

“I know,” he said, clearing his throat because it definitely was not his throat. Because he could very easily picture Mara wrapping her lips around something else entirely. “Go, go.”

“Thanks, Jay!” Mara said, ducking back into the ballroom. Jay was about to head back himself when he heard a low chuckle from the benches nearby.

“So you’re the famous Jay.” He couldn’t quite make out his features, but the impressive fit and embroidery on the pina cloth was unmistakable. The face slightly glowing from the screen of a sudoku puzzle was that of Martin Barretto, Mara’s dad, and the father of the bride.

Marina looked a lot like her father, now that he was looking closer. Except where Marina was smiley and approachable, her father radiated an intimidating aura, one that told everyone in his vicinity that he was the one in charge. Funny enough, Mara was more like her father in that way.

“My daughter wants to sue you.”

“Which daughter?” Martin narrowed his eyes at him. They both knew which daughter.

“For stealing her heart?” Jay squeaked, feeling his heart lodge in his throat. He’d just been thinking of this man’s eldest daughter eating not-a-taco. If Martin ( Tito Martin?) was going to murder him then and there, he would not be entirely unjustified.

The older man laughed, and Jay could not tell if it was because he thought Jay was funny, or because he was about to make Jay’s life a miserable hell. It was very unclear which one it was.

“Which daughter talaga. How very brave,” was his conclusion, spoken as he peered at Jay over his reading glasses. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

Earlier that evening, Martin delivered a speech about raising his daughters to work hard and how he expected David to be of the same standard. He also inadvertently quoted Lil Wayne in saying that “real Gs move in silence like lasagna,” as he claimed most husbands will have to. It was a good speech. Jay thought it was funny, and touching, and quite right for the man that raised the hellions that were Mara, Mabel and Marina Barretto.

“You’re exactly her type pa naman.”

“Pops!” Mara exclaimed, stepping back out from the ballroom, sans tacos. “I thought you were going to find Mom and head back to the hotel?”

“Well, your sister forgot to book transpo to take her and her lovely groom back, so we’re all carpooling.”

Mara did not seem the least surprised that this was the conclusion. She sighed and held out a hand to her dad. “Let’s herd the family, then. The Luisa’s people are waiting for us to leave.”

She glanced at Jay, and he hoped she couldn’t tell that he was still feeling a little shaky in his leather shoes. But they left him quickly, and Jay headed back to the ballroom himself. He might as well help encourage people to go home to make the job easier.

After grabbing another cone of ice cream (honey and milk, yum-yum) and telling a few guests that the venue was closing, Jay found himself back near the dance floor, staring at the last remnants of the Barretto-Gonzales wedding. Most of the flowers were gone—the guests had clearly helped themselves. But the red-tinted vases were lined up perfectly on top of the presidential tables, one of the staff wrapping them up in newspaper to pack away. There was confetti on the dance floor from when the party first started, and Bruno Mars was singing mournfully from the speakers like the last tito left at karaoke. The remaining guests waved at each other, in varying shades of disarray and a little too much partying.

He heard a laugh from a corner and saw Marina and David emerging from the photo booth. The booth had a backdrop that was especially created for tonight—tall velvet arches holding cascading flowers and a large version of Marina and David’s initials monogrammed together. There were flowers tucked behind their ears, and they were unable to keep their hands off of each other.

They tumbled out of the photo booth together, laughing at the faces they made as they looked at the photo strip. They looked deliriously happy, like absolutely nothing could ruin it, especially not tonight. And in this moment, he felt that rare moment of being happy that he had the smallest hand in getting them together. Curse or not, they were both good people, with dreams that they found fulfilled in each other.

Jay turned on his camera and snapped a photo. He felt strange, preserving this version of his friends. Would they stay this much in love? What if they fought? What if their dreams changed—would they stay together? If they had kids, would they bury their resentments so deep they only came out after being married for thirty years? He sincerely hoped not. For now, at least they were together, and happy. Sometimes that was more than what one could ask for.

“Shall we go?” Mara asked, coming up beside him. Her cheeks were flushed red, her breaths short, and she was sweating just a little.

“You’re all flushed,” Jay said, brushing away a strand of hair that had come undone from its hold. The action was instinctive, and made Mara’s eyes go wide in surprise. He quickly dropped his hand. “Let’s go home.”

They made it to his car soon enough. Jay was already sitting in the driver’s seat when Mara opened the door. He hadn’t remembered that he left his Snoopy plushie on the passenger’s seat, and the poor guy’s head tilted toward his guest.

“Sorry!” he said as Mara quickly caught the plushie in her hands. “He gets excited.”

“Whoa, down, boy.” Mara giggled, clearly in a good mood. Or maybe she was a little nervous? She tucked the doll under her arm and sat in his passenger seat, juggling the plushie, her purse and her skirts with the expertise of someone who did this sort of thing her whole life.

“Bad dog.” Jay fake scolded the plushie and put him in the back seat, relegated next to an odd-looking heart character with tentacles and a pouty lip. He had to remember to bring that up for Luna.

“Oh. Snoopy has a friend?” Mara asked curiously.

“That’s my niece’s,” Jay explained. “She keeps telling me Snoopy is lonely.”

“That’s sweet,” Mara noted, grabbing the seat belt. When she struggled to find the place to put the buckle, Jay helped her, tingles shooting up his arm when their fingers touched. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” Jay said. They were both quiet for a moment, letting the fact that they were about to do this sink in. It was no easy feat, committing to spend two hours (or longer) in a car with someone you, for all intents and purposes, just met. “Um. Just let me know if you need to make a stop on the way or whatever.”

“Okay,” Mara said, her eyes fixed on the figurine on the dashboard. The little squirrel bobblehead happily offered them an acorn as Jay started the engine. “Yours, or your niece’s?”

“Mine. My front teeth grew in before the rest, and I was a squirmer when I was a kid, so my family called me a squirrel.” He sighed fondly, shaking his head as the car hit the highway. “Imported rat, as my sister joked.”

Mara laughed, and Jay thanked his younger self. The poor kid didn’t know that more than twenty years later, his little origin story would make a beautiful woman smile. But first things first. One thing that Jay had not considered when he offered to drive Mara home was where home was for her, exactly. Marina had a car for the short period of time that they dated, and the subject of where she lived on the weekends didn’t exactly come up.

“Our house is in Timog, near ABS and GMA,” Mara explained. Driving through Metro Manila was all vibes and GPS locations, but Jay got the picture. The GPS estimated a one-and-a-half-hour drive ahead, which was excellent time, considering it took them about the same time to get from the church to Luisa’s just that afternoon. “There’s probably a McDo or Jollibee wherever you exit the Skyway, so you can just drop me off, and I’ll get a Grab.”

“It’s a Friday night,” Jay pointed out. When Mara stared at him in confusion, he continued. “Friday night in Manila means traffic. Traffic means less Grabs and price surges. You’re still in a dress—you can’t just walk into a McDo in a dress. I’ll drop you off at your house if you direct me.”

“But—”

“—stuff,” he said, laughing because he was fourteen years old. He didn’t even have to look at Mara to know that she was rolling her eyes.

“Where do you live?” she asked when he settled down.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out at a later date. Maybe.”

The car was quiet after that, as if an awkward silence had been laid between them on a blanket. And now a metaphorical cat was rolling around the blankets and enjoying the awkwardness. Jay’s palms were sweating. He wasn’t sure why. He was just doing a friend a favor, that was all. He was the kind of guy who liked doing things for other people. This was not supposed to make him nervous.

He connected his phone to the car’s speaker system. Jay was a firm believer that the right playlist set the right mood and chose one. Unfortunately, his finger slipped, and he ended up playing “Don’t Go Home” by GD & TOP. Wow. Hello, 2012.

“Ah, fuck,” he said. Thank god she couldn’t tell how embarrassed he was since it was dark. He held his phone up to her, the screen showing the music controls. “Here, you can change the playlist. Just, no podcasts or audiobooks, please. I will fall asleep.”

He heard her chuckle as she took the phone from his hand, and there was silence while she browsed. Jay undid one of the buttons of his shirt, feeling the skin under his collar heat up. What was it about sharing your playlist with someone that made you so vulnerable?

“This is…a lot of K-pop,” Mara said. “Second-gen K-pop to be exact.”

“My era.” Jay sighed dramatically. “I was deep in the Hallyu wave until 2013, I think. EXO had just released ‘Growl’ when I quit the game.”

“Interesting,” she said, and it was killing Jay that he couldn’t see the expression on her face. It wasn’t cool to like K-pop when he was in college, but at the time he enjoyed it too much to care. When he was in his twenties, he changed music tastes, moved to Top 40 songs and a sentimental love of early 2000s R and B. But now in his thirties, he kept looking for those familiar K-pop sounds and found himself discovering the new, younger acts, too. Mamamoo was his favorite. The screen on his dashboard showed that his phone was playing “Gee,” by Girls’ Generation, because of course it did.

The familiar intro started, and Jay spoke along. “Uh-huh. Listen boy.”

“My first love story,” Mara said back, much to his surprise and delight.

“Oh my god.” He started singing the vocal harmonies. She knew them just as well as he did. Mara clapped along to the beat, and they continued in tandem just before the verses started. Jay tried his best to fake his Korean, as he had ever since he first heard this song in 2009. He knew…some of the words. He definitely knew, “Gee gee gee gee.”

He was sure Mara knew the words, too. Knew them better than he did, actually, because he stole a glance at her and she was mouthing them perfectly, not missing a single beat. And just when he thought she was lip syncing, he heard the softest little voice singing the chorus sweetly. The music wasn’t that loud, and there were only the two of them in the car, so he could catch words that were definitely Korean.

“Mara, if you know the words, you should sing them out loud.”

“But—”

He didn’t wait for her to make any excuses. “It’s just me.” Wasn’t that enough inducement? He could feel in his bones that Mara wanted to sing out loud. Loving K-pop was 99 percent feeling and 1 percent knowing the words. It wouldn’t do for her not to do the 99 percent. “Sing your heart out.”

And she did. She hit the high notes perfectly, like the girl group’s unseen tenth member. Jay would never know or understand the feeling of a young girl’s first fluttering of love the way the song described, but the way Mara sang the song, smiling and shimmying in his peripheral view (she knew the dance, of course she did)…man, he wished he could dance along.

They cycled through a few more songs at her choice, which contained her favorites from 2NE1, SHINee, and KST, a newer boy group. It made the drive feel faster, and Jay liked that she was letting loose in front of him.

“You know more words than I do,” Jay teased her.

“Well, I took basic Korean as one of my electives.” Mara snickered, like the idea was hilarious to her now. “My course let me take two electives my entire college life. Because I was fully convinced that I was going to shed all of my interests after college because of work, I chose musical theater—”

“Oh my god, you’re an ex theater kid.” Jay shook his head. “No wonder you can sing.”

“And basic Korean,” Mara finished. Laughed like it was the silliest thing in the world. “For my final, my teacher let me act out a scene from Dream High where IU is singing a phone ad? Peak of my acting career.”

“That’s daebak.” He stole a quick glance at Mara just in time to catch her rolling her eyes. She was smiling, though, which was likely a good thing. “And are you still into Korean things?”

“Oh yeah,” Mara said like it was a given. “The music, the food. My usual weekday post-work vibe is watching a drama while crocheting.”

“Crochet?” he echoed, immediately picturing her sitting in one of those wooden rocking chairs with the long arms, her brows furrowed as she glared intensely at her yarn and her TV screen. “Like…potholders?”

“Like blankets? Cardigans? I’ve made bags, bucket hats, holders for things. I made Mabel a top with these puff flowers.” She grumbled a little and held up her screen to quickly show him. What he saw was Mabel, posing in a foreign country (Japan, maybe?), wearing a sweater made of cute, puffy flowers.

“Whoa. You made that?”

“Yuh. It gets weirdly cold in the studio so I decided to pick it up. Crocheting helps me not think so much, after work. And I get to do something with my hands, which I really like.”

“You should make me something sometime.” He grinned, and yes, he was being flirty, and he was teasing her a little bit. But crocheting your days away was unexpected. “I would love to see your yarn stash.”

“Oh my god.” Mara laughed, shaking her head at his little innuendo. “That’s where you live, on the corner of maginoo and bastos.” She sighed like it was a damn shame. “What do I do with you, Jay.”

What indeed.

“So…” he started when Mara put on a different song, this time “Jeepney” from Sponge Cola, which was such a throwback that Jay actually felt his thirty-five-year-old back spasm. “You’re the only one heading home tonight?”

“Marina and David have a second reception tomorrow at Seda in BGC.” Mara sighed, sinking back into her seat like her little K-pop high was wearing off. “I want to get to the studio as early as possible tomorrow to help with setting up.”

“Ugh.” The sound came out of Jay’s mouth before he could stop himself, and even then it was too late because he’d already rolled his eyes to the back of his head. Beside him, Mara laughed.

“You want to say that to my face, Jay?”

“No, it’s just…” He tried to formulate nice words, he really did. But the annoyance was real, and this was really annoying. “Seriously? They’re having a fake wedding for the people they didn’t think were important enough to invite to their real wedding?”

“Well,” Mara said. He wished he could look at her, steal a glance, glean what she was thinking. But did he detect a bit of…amusement in her tone? “Some of our cousins couldn’t make it, and David has a few people he didn’t invite to Tagaytay, so—”

“So they’re spending, what, another five hundred thousand—”

“Closer to seven hundred, actually.”

“ hundred?” Jay repeated, flabbergasted. That was an insane amount, considering tonight’s festivities would have cost them a million at least. “Oh my god. Weddings are so stupid. ”

“Are they?” Mara asked. He could tell that she was trying very hard to hold back her laughter.

“With 1.7 million you could make a down payment on a house!” Jay said, his hands loosening their tight grip on the steering wheel. “Okay, maybe not a house. A nice two-bedroom condo in QC or Pasig, maybe. Pre-selling. Rockwell, or some other A to B class developer.”

“Are you sure you’re not a real estate agent?”

“You could also invest that same amount and earn 5 percent on a time deposit, and that’s if you stayed conservative.” He’d seen people make more. Way more, and sometimes at his advice. He’d made millions on paper in the span of a minute. His work was terrifying that way, but when he managed to do well, the thrill that it sent him was incomparable.

Nowadays Jay’s clients—people with way more money than him—preferred stability. They were either keeping the funds for a rainy day, or transferring the earnings to their children and asking Jay to give them a crash course on money management. It was surprising how much one’s goals changed when you changed clientele, which was probably why Jay wasn’t inclined to go back to Hong Kong anytime soon. Maybe.

“Different people have different priorities,” Mara reminded him. “Marina and David don’t mind, and everyone’s happy.”

“Even you?” he asked, the question out of his lips before he considered the words. “You’re sitting in a car with a stranger, and you were planning to take a Grab from wherever to get ready for a reception that already happened.”

His question was met with silence. Jay didn’t know if it was because he’d said something dumb, or if she was really thinking about it. Either way it took some time before Mara gave him an answer.

“That’s not a fair comparison,” she finally decided, her voice sounding blithe and dismissive. “You can’t ask someone if they’re happy while they’re doing something inconvenient. Of course they will say they aren’t. But happiness is happiness because it happens in between inconvenient things. Hard things.”

Jay said nothing, getting a sense that she wanted to say more. But really, half of his being silent was because, goddamn it, he’d upset her again. How the hell did he keep managing to do this? Was this all part of Scott’s Journey to Love or whatever?

“Take this wedding, for example,” Mara said, pulling Jay’s focus back to the road, and to her. “I’ve been up since 5:00 a.m., wearing a dress that isn’t exactly comfortable. My hair is flammable, my eyelids are itchy, and I’m going home in a car with a guy I met once a year ago, and loathed for just as long.”

“Loathed makes it sound like you wanted to eat me like a piece of bread,” he said, the words spilling out of his mouth before he thought about it. He didn’t need to see Mara glaring at him, because he could feel it on his skin, like goose bumps but worse. “Sorry. Go on.”

“All of that? Inconvenient. Some would even say shitty. But, my sister got married to the man she loves today.” He didn’t miss the way her voice caught at the end of that sentence. But it was a fond voice, a loving one that wrapped around him like a gentle caress. “She will spend her entire life, if she wants, with someone who will always be in her corner. Someone who can reach high shelves and open guava jam jars so she can spread it on kesong puti and crackers.”

“And that’s your happiness? Seeing your sister being roommates with someone else?”

“Is marriage just being someone’s roommate?” There was that dismissive tone again. “Come on, Jay. You can’t be that cynical.”

“Come on, Mara. You can’t be that idealistic,” Jay argued, because she was Mara Barretto. An eldest Asian daughter practically made of high boundaries and cynicism, because she needed to be on her toes for everyone else. “You have to know. Relationships aren’t just jam jars and high shelves. It’s absorbing all of another person’s bullshit, and hoping to god they can do the same for you. But because it’s life, and life is never fair, it’s never exactly equal, and you spend the rest of your relationship—the rest of your life in this country because we still haven’t passed the divorce bill—a little disappointed, or worse, fucking trapped.”

Jay’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he felt his face heat up. He was pretty sure he’d never said any of this to anyone, but he didn’t want Mara to have any illusions of what life was going to be like for her sister. Was she really going to hitch her horse to that?

“People disappoint each other all the time,” he pointed out. Could give her a long list of people he’d disappointed just by being himself. “And I wish it doesn’t happen to Marina and David, but… I don’t know. I think it’s a waste of time and money.”

“Argh, can you cut the condescending bullshit?” Mara snapped. Jay froze, taken aback at how angry she was. He was trying to be conciliatory here! “ You have to know . Tang ina. Of course I don’t know. I’ve never been in a relationship! How very ilusyonada of me, to want my sister’s husband to love her.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jay groaned, running a hand through his hair. He’d seen Pride and Prejudice enough times to know when he was being a Bingley, in his words, an “unmitigated ass,” and he seemed spectacular at doing that with Mara.

She’d never been in a relationship. Marina had told him, and David had worried about it once. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Yet here he was, projecting his insecurities at her. Amazing. “I’m sorry, Mara. I’ve been in a lot of relationships. I feel like I’ve seen it all, you know? I’ve disappointed people in spectacular ways, you included. I just… I don’t want you to regret anything, if you do decide to want the same thing.”

And he could have been better for those other people. Could have fought for those relationships, stood outside their door with a boom box, met them on top of the Empire State Building, run after them through the airport. But it was easier for everyone involved if he just moved on, tried again. Clearly, ten out of ten times, it had been the right thing to do. He was happy with his life, satisfied that he could provide a home for people he loved.

Except those people were moving somewhere else. So was he really happy, when he was in the middle of it all?

“Teach me, then.”

“What?”

“Teach me,” Mara repeated. Her voice lost all vitriol and anger, and all that was left was…hesitation. She was nervous, and he wondered if this was the first time she’d entertained the idea of someone telling her how to do this.

“Teach you what exactly?”

“Your vast wealth of knowledge in the trifecta. Love. Relationships. Sex.”

She listed them like they were things you could pick up in a single afternoon workshop. As someone who had been dragged to calligraphy, watercolor, ceramics, floral arranging, journaling and gratitude workshops (Ate Irene liked a workshop, okay), he knew that definitely wasn’t the case.

“I want to experience one of each at least once in my life. I’ve liked people before, and I just… I can never get their attention. They can’t see me, or they can’t see me as someone they find attractive. Hell, I signed up for those dating apps and I didn’t match with anyone. And since you feel very strongly that there are things I have to know, and other people feel very strongly about deficiencies in my physical appearance that keep me single—”

“Mara,” he chided her weakly. She ignored him.

“—I might as well ask someone to just teach me and get it over with. Make someone fall in love with me. Have sex. Discover all the ways we can disappoint each other, and I can be satisfied and tell myself it’s not for me. I want to stop wanting it, Jay. And if you think that you’re so good at this that you know why I shouldn’t want it, then teach me.”

She was saying these things like she was talking about trying a food she didn’t enjoy. And the thing was—and Jay knew this—he could do it. Knew it like he knew where the exit ramp to the Skyway was, and that he could easily navigate the car up the ramp.

He could tell Mara what to wear, where to go, what to say when someone came up to her (because people would come up to her, for sure). Show her the little things about dating that he enjoyed, how people played a song and dance of wheedling the red flags out of the other before they committed to anything serious. Show her how he liked to be touched, what turned him on. Encourage her own sexual explorations, whatever her experience. He would be lying if he said that the thought of that didn’t turn him on. Not at all.

But he also knew that it was a bad idea. Because agreeing to do it would mean Mara admitting that there was something—what word did she use?— deficient about her. That there was something she wasn’t doing right. And he didn’t want to validate that, no way.

They cruised through the Skyway in wretched, sixty-kilometer-per-hour silence, nothing but the agonized tones of Yeoeun’s “Let’s Forget It” to accompany them. All that time Jay agonized over what he was going to say, and he could feel Mara’s anxiety grow and grow beside him.

They finally made it to the Quezon Avenue exit. Only a few short streets away from her place, ten minutes if the traffic wasn’t bad. There was a second where they needed to stop at the exit booth, and Jay glanced at Mara. Her eyes were focused on the road, her face blank and placid, like she hadn’t said anything that changed their whole dynamic.

But he noticed her flicking her thumb against her nails, peeling off her nail polish. He reached out and placed his hand over hers, making her stop. He sighed deeply, suddenly feeling bone tired.

“Stop ruining your nails.” He kept his eyes on the road, driving with one hand. “Sayang the manicure.”

“I’ll live, thanks.” Mara gently pulled her hands away.

Silence again, except for when Mara told him to turn from Quezon Avenue, on to Timog, around the rotunda and through a few more side streets. Jay kept his laser focus on the road, further hammering in how easy it was for him to disappoint someone, Mara now included. After everything he said, and everything they had said, ultimately he was too selfless to take her up on her offer, and too selfish to do it so that she could just find someone else.

How very fucked up of him.

“This is me,” Mara announced on a seemingly random street. Jay pulled up in front of a small brick house, tucked away from the street by a black iron gate. The property was definitely worth more than the house—nobody lived in residences in this area without being of some generational wealth anymore. These lands went for hundreds and thousands per square meter. But there was a fond look in Mara’s eyes as she looked at the house, an ease in her posture that told him that the family probably wasn’t going to sell anytime soon.

“It’s lovely,” Jay said, and he meant it. The gumamela planted in front of the house were in full bloom. From the street, he could see a warm, yellow light from the inside turn on. Someone had probably seen them pull up and left the light on for Mara. It was a different kind of comfort, someone turning a light on for you that you could see from the street. It was a totally different world from his Pasig condominium here, and they lived (for all intents and purposes) in the same group of cities.

Mara shifted to unbuckle her seat belt, but Jay did it before she could find the buckle, slowly easing the belt back without smacking her in the face. He heard her breath hitch. Which was fine because he wasn’t breathing at all as he leaned in.

“Jay,” she said. He turned to her, trying (probably failing) to act like everything was fine. They were parked near a street lamp, and he could clearly see the confusion in Mara’s face, her eyes bright as she nibbled at her bottom lip. “Let’s not talk about this ever again.”

His heart sank. Why did his heart sink ? (Because she was upset, and it was his fault, again.)

“I had a long day, and I’m delirious,” she added. Seemed to sink into her seat, all bluster and bravado and anger gone now that they were so close. The world was still quiet around them, consisting of nothing but the space between them, inside this little mirage.

She’d opened up to him. Said things that he needed to keep safe, that he cared about. Her feelings were so precious and delicate in his hands that he didn’t want them tucked away without proper acknowledgment. She deserved that, at least.

“Mara.” He sighed, without pulling back. He wanted her to know that even if they didn’t want the same things, he understood her not wanting to desire love. To yearn for it, and feel foolish yearning for it. “I can’t let this end like that.”

He wanted her to know that she had nothing to worry about. Because if he could want her so much after one night, someone else—someone else who truly deserved her—would, too.

All she wanted was for someone to look at her the way she hoped for. And Jay knew what he could do to make her feel like it was going to happen.

“So what do you want to do about it?” she asked him.

“I’m going to assume your sister told you about my…thing.” He’d never put any stock in his kiss curse until tonight. But if ten times wasn’t a big enough indicator… Jay worked in finance, and numbers. He knew what they meant, even if he didn’t love it. He’d put his faith in a lot less. “With the kissing and the marrying other people.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Mara smiled. If the change in subject confused her, she didn’t let it show. “But she did.”

Of course she did. Because Marina needed to hear that she was still a good person when she first told Jay she wasn’t interested in him, and Jay told her about the kiss curse to make her feel better.

Most of the time, it helped. He didn’t feel bitter or rueful about it, especially not right now. Right now, he just needed it to be true.

“May I kiss you?” he asked, and her eyes widened in surprise. But she knew what he was really asking her. May I kiss you, so you can find someone else?

“Okay,” she finally said. She sounded nervous. Why nervous? Unless she… Oh fuck.

“You’ve never kissed anyone, have you?”

“Well. Not like this,” she admitted. His face blocked her light just enough so he could tell she was blushing. “Once. High school in an exclusive girls’ school can get confusing. She was very good at it.”

It was enough to ease the tension between them, just enough that Jay could reach for her with the hand that wasn’t anchored on the middle console. Touching her arm, fingers creeping up until he made it to her cheek. His hand cupped her soft, supple skin, and he didn’t know what was louder—his thumping heart or her short breaths. His thumb brushed against her lips in a gentle caress, teasing them slightly open.

Then he kissed her. He hadn’t intended to do more than to press his lips on hers, to infuse…whatever it was about him that made others find love in a single kiss.

But Mara parted her lips more, invited him in. And Jay was lost to the kiss, taking her parted lips as his invitation to take away her longing, to kiss her like there would be no other kiss after him. And he let her take everything she wanted from him, everything she wanted to experience. Her hand gripped the front of his shirt, fingers slipping through the buttons and on to his heated skin. Jay’s lungs constricted, and his heart wrenched. She was very, very good at this.

But as he thought about what else he wanted to do, how he could push this further, he was struck with a mental picture of her with someone else. Someone tall and handsome, with a soft, cheeky smile, who could open any guava jam jar she wanted and stick around for the next morning to have SkyFlakes and kesong puti with said guava jam.

He was kind of picturing Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon filling that role. It definitely wasn’t him, and it made him pull away suddenly, abruptly.

He instinctively raised his hands to stop Mara from losing her balance, and he felt his chest ache when she looked at him in pale-faced shock. After a blink, she cooled and wriggled herself free from his grasp, collecting her bag and exiting the car. With the door still open, she paused and turned to him, bending forward, one hand on the door and another over her cleavage.

Jay tried very hard not to look at the hand covering her cleavage.

“Do you live in Quezon City?” she asked.

“Pasig,” he admitted, and she nodded like he had absolutely confirmed something for her that he wasn’t prepared to admit. He knew what it meant, driving someone to a different city. It was a commitment, in this country with a broken transport system, to drive someone home. It was expensive to take the Skyway, the gas wasn’t cheap. The roads were nuts. But it didn’t matter. You’re home, and you’re safe. That’s what I said I would do.

“You still have a long drive, then. I’ll let you go,” she said, nodding then slamming the door. Jay rolled the window down, because this wasn’t how this was going to end, was it? All his instincts told him to get out of the damn car, follow her to her gate, tell her not to go, tell her that he could be everything she wanted and more. “Night, Jay.”

“Good night, Mara.”

Jay took all of those instincts, balled them into his fists and kept them clamped down. He watched Mara slip her hand through the bars of the gate, wriggle the lock open and walk through and up to the warm light of the home that waited for her. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t give him one last look.

All chances gone.

Just as well. She was about to fall in love with someone else. And Jay would have a squirrel, a bunny and a beagle to keep him company all the way to Pasig.

Alex and Tori are getting married!

See you at the beach.

Shorewinds Hotel, Station 1, Boracay