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“SUZE IS HERE.”
Nino’s head snapped backwards. He swore he heard a joint break off.
“...on my feed.”
He slapped Jill’s arm as hard as he meant it.
“Ow.” She rubbed her point of injury and slid behind Miki without looking up from her phone. “She looks great. Singapore did her good.”
“Let me see.” Son sidled up to her, Nino’s so-called best friend among best friends. “Oh yeah, she grew out her hair. It looks luscious. Where’s her guy though? The fine, tattooed specimen of hot nerdiness. The one who was all over her pictures months ago.”
“Maybe it’s over,” Miki piped in.
“Think so, uh-huh,” Jill agreed.
Nino felt four sets of eyes zoom in to his face, Kim’s included.
He ignored them and pulled Son to his side with an arm around his friend’s shoulder. His grip was maybe a bit too aggressive. He gestured to the crowd below them, to the packed theater lobby. They had been standing here since the musical’s curtain call. Against the railings, on the stairs landing leading down from the second floor orchestra seats, waiting for the legion of theater fans to thin out so they could congratulate Son’s girlfriend Alice for another great show.
Alice, the musical’s lead actress, was still in full costume and makeup, flanked on either side by two muscular guys asking for autographs and clutching her between them for selfies. One had thrown a humongous bouquet of roses at her arms. The other jumped in and hugged her.
“Do you ever wonder if Alice will realize she’s too good for you and leave you?” Nino turned to Son, his face lifted brows and somber twist of mouth.
“All the time.” Son looked serious and determined. Two things Nino didn’t usually attach to him, even as he’d witnessed his friend grow into these two traits in the past year. It was unsettling to watch. “That’s why every day I try harder.”
Nino groaned, shoving Son away. “Get out of my face.”
Kim started laughing. “Dug your own grave, man.”
“Yeah it’s a hobby.”
Kim dipped his head, elbowing Nino’s side. “Is Suze back for good?”
“Ask those guys, my true friends who are stalking her feed.”
“Hey, she tags us if you must know. We’re friendly. And yes she is. Her company assigned her here.” Jill had abandoned her social media feed and was looking at Nino. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. We’re over.”
Nino knew this. It’s been two years. Suze coming back to Manila shouldn’t bother him, shouldn’t get in his head so much he’d lost the desire to go out and date and see new people since he found out about it three months ago. But that’s exactly what he had allowed to happen.
His ex had moved back to the country. The face of the last relationship he’d had, the one he’d failed.
It shouldn’t matter.
“She’s invited to the same wedding you are, isn’t she?” Only Kim could make a fact sound so grim.
To his friend’s benefit, it was a grim truth. Last week, Nino had received the invitation to Jasper and Melissa’s wedding, both good college buddies. The date was in December, on a day too close to Christmas. The couple probably thought they were being cute asking people to show up for them during prime holiday season, else they were testing the bonds of their guests’ friendship.
Nino had accepted the task of singing at the reception—he and the couple agreed to his own surprise version of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ or nothing. It was hilarious and fine. He was looking forward to it. Until he found out Suze was going to be there too.
He didn’t know what to do with the information, with this day forthcoming. He hadn’t seen nor spoken to his ex since the day they called the final, final quits in Singapore. That was how a breakup made sense to him anyway.
I wish you well. Thanks for the memories. And bye.
He felt the weight in the fall of Kim’s words match the dull knot in his chest, none of it making sense.
“She will be there, yes.” Nino scowled.
He wasn’t going to fall back. He was fine. He was going to go to the thing and wish the couple well and sing a Christmas song for them, dammit. He wasn’t going to be kept out of a party all because he was nurturing a dead weight he couldn’t comprehend. But today’s update of the ex making landfall in the country solidified a decision he’d been keeping afloat: he needed a date.
He wasn’t about to go to that event alone. It was a wedding and a Christmas party plus plus with old buddies he’d like to see. It was bound to be epic. Besides, it would be a waste to have nobody to impress with his rendition of the Mariah holiday classic.
Nino took out his phone, pacing away from the noise and his bandmates. He scrolled for the name he’d been pondering on and off for the past two weeks.
Meeting Santana, the sleepy lab rat with the hauntingly sexy voice, had gotten him out of his dating slump. Of course he wanted to see her again. Even before that wedding invitation slid in, and even without that.
That kiss was amazing, for one, too short and achingly sweet as it was. Her no-relationship warning just threw him off a bit. Well, what little he knew about her threw him off, and these were the very same things that kept pulling him back in.
I’m calling her right now. I am no schmuck who will sulk around and wait until the last day before asking.
Her name flashed on his phone. He almost dropped it.
Well, universe. That was fast.
“Hello?”
“Yo, Breakfast Thief.”
He flashed a smolder, a bit peeved she wasn’t there to see it. “Hey, Sexy Elf.”
“Ugh. No. Don’t make me hang up.”
“You’re the one who called me.”
“Touché. But that’s because I need you.”
“Whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It was one date.”
Her groan was long and funny. “Is it impossible to get a straight conversation out of you?”
He laughed. He had climbed back up the stairs, running and skipping steps two at a time, landing on the deserted hall outside the theater’s orchestra section.
Here it was peace and quiet. Here he could hear each dip and rally of Santana’s velvet voice.
“Okay, okay, Cranky McLeggy,” he said. “I’m all yours. You alright? Bad shift? Is it the 2-to-10?”
“Yeah.” Santana sounded surprised he got it, enough to let the new nickname go unchallenged. He gave himself a silent cheer for getting one right. “Almost done. It’s the worst sometimes. Everyone else is bound for sleep and feels like my day is just beginning.”
“Hey, I’m here. I’m still partying.” He heard her smile. Grudgingly. “So, tell me. How can I relieve you of your need for me?”
Her end of the line was dead for so long Nino thought she had really hung up on him. And he hadn’t even gone around to asking for that second date yet, much less the one for the wedding.
When she spoke next she sounded like she was saying something she expected to regret. “I need a band.”
