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WHEN SON MET ALICE again, it was high summer and he was drenched in it.
It was because of rain instead of the beating sun though. Not even the cute kind of rain that fell in light pats and spattered as dewdrops on the curly mop of his hair. It was rain and thunderstorms, the kind that was loud and consuming, something only a tropical depression in Metro Manila could bring. And he had been running in it, racing through it. Without an umbrella, because of course he left his in the car. And without a car, because of course his trusty Corolla decided to conk out and stall on him tonight.
Tonight, when he was running late for a gig.
“Son.” He heard the stern rumble of Kim’s voice in his head. Only their band leader boss man could make his name sound like a mother’s reprimand.
“I know I know,” Son muttered at the lashing rain as he pelted through it. Their lead vocalist Jill used to be his comrade-in-arms when it came to tardy times such as this, but since she’d gotten together with her boyfriend Shinta it had been months of perfect attendance from her. The band could hardly believe it.
Shinta’s love must be magic, Son thought for the nth time, cackling.
“Focus, man, focus,” he said to himself in unison with Kim’s voice in his head. It was 11 minutes to sound check and he was two blocks away from where he was supposed to be.
Sprinting in the rain was no fun, thank you very much, not at all that heady mix of heroic-romantic as it looked in those movies he loved. Son was learning this the hard way tonight. There were puddles every few meters, and where he’d swerved closer to the danger side of the road to sidestep an open manhole, there was some flashy SUV with overgrown, muddy tires screeching and sending muck his way.
Son waved his fists and sent curses flying, aimed in the general direction of the knotted traffic. Lightning and thunder kept lighting up the sky, making him jump. He paused at a stop light, clutching the chest of his soaked shirt and catching his breath.
And he was back to running.
Two minutes to call time, Son made it. Thank the maker of the universe. He stood in front of his destination—Doozy Book Café and Bar—staring at its colorful sign, hands on his knees. Waiting for his heartbeat to match the steady blink of lights streaming out the glass door.
Tonight his band was playing for one of Shinta and Jill’s rare productions, the band’s set to open an hour of live music followed by a one-act play. Shinta and Jill called it Labor Day Hurray. Son didn’t really get it, but he thought it sounded cool and liked it right away.
He looked down at his drenched jeans and mud-caked Vans. Not presentable for a bassist reporting to work, this drowned man look he was sporting. He pulled at the hem of his wet white shirt, checking the faint ridges of abs-in-progress stamped on the fabric as it clung to his long torso. Eleventy million crunches to go but we’re getting there!
He was laughing and shaking his head at the endless ping-pong of his thoughts when he saw her. Her.
Alice.
The rain had eased up and the wind had shushed down. Somewhere the traffic light was green and the rampaging trucks and cars were nothing but a blur of slush, honks, and lights. The air felt heavy, cool yet deadened by whirls of pollution and smoke. Son saw her first through his rain-soaked curls. He pushed his hair away from his face and saw her again. Saw her whole, too there to be a figment of his unanswered dreams. Alice was across from him, inside the bar, soaked in light and looking back at him with dark, round eyes.
Was that shock or delight or plain recognition in them? Son would take the last if that was all it was, the littlest scraps of it, no question. He hadn’t seen her in four years. She had not allowed it. And now she was here, beautiful and real. Looking at him like she still knew him.
“Alice.”
This time Son said it out loud, and the way the letters wrapped around his tongue, their sound vibrating through his bones, made him move. Made him jolt. Heart pumping in excess, thudding against his eardrums, his hand reached out and his mouth opened into the widest grin in all known history of his life. He leaped forward.
His forehead thumped against the glass door first.
Followed by the high bridge of his nose.
His palms thudded flat on the surface. It couldn’t have been two seconds.
Pain came swiftly.
From inside, it was shock on Alice’s face; Son was certain even through the haze of physical agony that overcame him. Her eyes grew rounder and her mouth formed an O, and then she was laughing and rushing towards him, and the pain and shock and embarrassment didn’t matter anymore.
***
“DOES IT HURT?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“It feels like my face is broken. Is it broken? That can’t be, I need it.”
“No, your face is...” Alice sighed, as if giving up. “You’re fine.”
She was looking at him now. Properly. No more of her gaze that scanned every other random part of his face, or the top of his curly head, or going past his shoulder, to where Shinta was talking to a fellow actor, or to the front of the room where Kim was tuning his Stratocaster. Gaze straying everywhere. Never catching his eyes.
This time she did, and Son made sure he gave her his best smile in return.
“You look good too.” He’d been taking in all he could since they sat together—her dark brown eyes, the slope of her nose, her red-painted lips, the lines drawn over her body by the delicate fabric of her dress. How he wanted to come closer, feel her warmth, take in more of her. She was a scene in breathing technicolor.
Alice slid a palm’s span away from him on the plush pink couch they shared, not even bothering to be cool and subtle about it. Son wanted to grab her hand and hold on. He couldn’t believe it. The last time he’d been this close to her felt so long ago, and now she was here, so close he could touch her.
Son reached out and pinched her elbow.
“Eurghh!” Alice shot him daggers, yanking her arm out of reach and sliding further away. “Why?”
“Sorry.” Son couldn’t school the silly half-grin spreading across his face. “Just checking you’re not a hallucination.”
“I half-carried you in after you forehead-bumped the door, didn’t I?” Alice glared at him. “A hallucination does not bear load.”
“Your strength is impressive. I thank you again for saving my life,” he said with a low dip of his head. “Now where have you been, young lady?”
“What? I was here first.”
She was, that was true. She was performing tonight too, as Son had learned after his sopping wet self had cornered Shinta and Jill for an explanation. He made his friends enlighten him on how they managed to bring forth a girl he’d always longed to see, then thanked them profusely. He wanted the rest of the details straight from Alice’s mouth, though for now he had more pressing questions.
“You know what I mean.” He inched closer, then stopped, very much aware how Alice leaned a bit further back. “I always ask for you whenever I’m home in Hagonoy and you were never there. Did you really not come home all those Christmases? Or for summer break back in college? Or for Lent?” His voice rose a pitch in disbelief at the last holiday. It was the most sacred to his mother and hers, he knew it well. “I can’t believe your mother would let you off the hook for Lent.”
“I come home whenever I can.” Alice was munching on her words. “College was hard, okay?”
“Tell me about it. I took Math 100 twice.”
“Pre-calculus? Me too!” Alice burst out, hands flapping.
“Wasn’t it torture?”
“The worst. Math is mean.”
“I know! Now hold it, don’t you try and distract me.” Son moved his knee, and this time when it bumped against hers, Alice didn’t shift away. He wondered if she felt that familiar jolt of electricity too, a sharp current passing through them it made him sit to attention. He heard his voice come out lower, softer on its own accord. “You didn’t come home even for All Saints’ Day?”
That’s our day.
Son almost said it but he swallowed the words. Alice had dropped her gaze again.
That was the last time he saw her, talked to her like this. All Saints’ Day in their hometown of Hagonoy in Bulacan province. They were settled on chipped plastic Monoblocs, straddling the divide of his family’s cemetery lot and hers. A pair of wide-eyed, flush-faced eighteen-year olds talking about music and plays and anime and the second biggest trap of life called college.
It was at that same spot, two years prior, when Son first talked to Alice too, beyond the passing hellos and ‘did you want the last egg sandwich?’ exchanges at the canteen. He had gone to the same schools with her from kindergarten, had seen her every day for as long as he could remember, as it was for children in small towns, until Son was sent to the city for high school.
But it wasn’t until All Saints’ Day when they were 16 that he saw the chance and summoned the guts to talk to her. Finally, properly. Eyes catching eyes, words flowing between them. Building a fast friendship after school year upon school year of him containing himself to nodding and wiggling his eyebrows at her during flag ceremonies. Admiring her from a distance but never being brave enough to come too close.
She used to wear her heavy hair up in a Sailor Moon bun, pigtails trailing behind her as she ran around the quad in her starched uniform. That was Son’s favorite look.
Not anymore, he decided.
Today Alice had her hair down, thick and dark, select locks tucked behind one ear. The skirt of her dress was pleated, in a deep dark green, printed with tiny dots and petals. And she was looking at him, talking to him. Seeing him again.
Alice today was his favorite Alice.
Son angled forward, licking his lips, eyes eager. She didn’t seem as if she was going to answer his question so he chose to try another one. “So, Alice. How are you doing?”
He whispered, because he had come close enough to do it. Catching the butterfly-wing flapping of her lashes. The breaths stealing out of a small gap in her ruby-colored mouth. He flashed her a new smile. His fabric conditioner commercial smile. Something he’d picked up from Shinta, possibly without his friend’s knowledge. It usually got him whatever he wanted.
Alice swallowed her breath, full lips pressed into tense lines, and if he’d waited long enough, Son was pretty sure she was all set to run.
“Bassist to the stage, please. Bassist to stage. If I call you up here one more time I swear to Thor I will smite you.”
Son’s eyes snapped up to the front of the bar where the band’s drummer Nino was glaring at him.
“Get your wet ass up here,” Nino spat out. He spun towards his drum kit, then swiveled back to holler a last order at Son. “And bring my beer.”
Right. Work.
Son grabbed the two bottles by his feet with his left hand and held Alice’s wrist with his right. The contact was a welcome zing. A soft, warm touch he’d missed, one he wanted more of. He squeezed gently.
“Watch me.”
He was asking, not saying. He paired it with a confident little smirk for balance, and a swagger to his hips he hoped her eyes would follow as he walked to the stage.
***
“MY GOD YOUR FACE LOOKS horrific,” Nino said the second Son reached him. Nino, the guy Son considered his best friend among best friends.
Son thrusted the summoned beer bottle into Nino’s hand and clucked his tongue. “I don’t get it. Why would you say something so untrue? It’s a waste of a lie.”
“You bruise like a ripe mango, man,” Nino went on after a short draught of alcohol, resting the bottle by his sneakers. His long, muscled limbs were now folded and settled in behind his drums. “And your face high-fived a glass door. Your entire face is a bruise.”
“It’s not. You lie. I checked. It’s not that terrible and anyway.” Son grabbed his bass guitar from its stand and resisted the urge to check his reflection in the mirrored surface behind him and lose this battle. “That was a while ago and it hardly even hurts now, nothing feels broken. And didn’t we already agree that it’s the door’s fault for being too clean? Kim, why are you allowing the drummer to do this to me?”
“Because we’ve been calling you up here for five minutes and you weren’t budging.” Kim leveled him a signature Kim look, eyebrows meeting in knots, dark eyes boring at Son and forcing him into an admission of his wrongs.
Son raised both hands and backed up into his corner of the stage. Who was he kidding? There was no winning this after all.
“The look of love is sweet and sticky,” Jill said, mouth in an amused tilt. She patted Son’s arm as he passed her. She was already in front of her mic, glittery pink guitar pick out, seafoam green Gibson cradled in her hands. Prompt and ready, as was her new normal. “You’re drowning in Miki’s shirt by the way.”
“I know.” Son looked down at his fresh dry clothes, all borrowed from their guitarist Miki down to the pizza-print socks. Because Miki was the kind of guy who carried around spare clothes and would lend them to you, no question. The faded jeans fit Son well enough, but the black shirt’s sleeves fell loosely over him, hems grazing his elbows. “Miki’s got shoulders like boulders. So sexy.”
“You can keep the shirt,” Miki said, shooting him a thumbs up from behind his mic.
“Thanks, man. I love you.”
The lights had been bright and steady around them, the chorus of ‘You Turn Me On I’m A Radio’ pouring from the speakers. The song died, Joni Mitchell’s throaty hums put to pause, and the lights dimmed, warm yellow beams zeroing in on where the band was huddled, leaving the rest of the bar in low shadow.
A lone figure stepped forward towards them, tall and lean, all beautiful proportions. Son had long been a fan of Shinta’s Japanese celebrity face, for as long as he had been a fan of Shinta’s Japanese celebrity filmography, and he continued to be now for whatever the man chose to pursue. Son reached out to their friend for a high five, but Shinta’s fingers fell lightly on Son’s forehead instead. As if he was checking, well, a bruised fruit. Son sighed.
Seeming satisfied with his inspection, Shinta stepped back and beamed at Son, then at the rest of the band in turn. “Guys, you’re cute and I love you all but you’re holding up our show.”
Kim dropped a final test strum on his Stratocaster, nodding once. “What the producer man said. Nino, you know what to do.”
Nino jumped a little from his stool and bared his teeth in a wide grin—all part of the opening ceremonies. Arms and elbows spread out, his drumsticks rose in the air. “Ahonetwothreefour!”
***
SONGS YOU COME BACK To is available in your favorite ebook retailers and in print through romanceclassbooks.com.
More books in the Playlist Series: Songs of Our Breakup | Songs to Get Over You | Songs to Make You Stay
