The song enters the chorus, and Frankie takes J-Lo’s part, while DominicandOliver both start snarling all of Ja-Rule’s, and Dominic is rolling his body and dancing like he’s on a PG-rated version ofMagic Mikeor something, and he’sgoodand he’s got fuckingmoves, andwhat the hell is going on?
Georgia comes over to me, laughing her ass off. “Filipinos have what seems to be a genetic predisposition to two things: karaoke and dancing,” she tells me, as if that explains everything.
I glare at Dominic, daring him, when we get up to Ja Rule’s verse.
He smirks at me before dancing up to me and taking my hands, and with what could be considered a PG-rated lap dance, raps every fucking word of the fucking verse and sings it inches from my mouth while looking directly into my eyes, because it turns out he really is good at everything.
I’m both extremely unimpressed and wet.
The entire kitchen continues to sing every lyric, rubbing it in my face.
Mama Flores comes up behind me, rubbing her butt on mine to complete the grinding Flores sandwich, and that’sit.
I grab two wooden spoons from the counter and thrust one to Frankie, keeping one for myself to sing into, and we all take on the next chorus together and do PG sexy dancing, and Dominic and I have our eyes locked, and he’s smiling and this is all too much and not enough, this warm feeling like I’m filling up like a hot-air balloon.
“We have a whole playlist,” Frankie tells me afterwards. “Me and Daddy practice karaoke at home.”
I look over at him, and he’s still looking at me with a soft smile on his face. “Why am I not surprised?” I tell her.
“You should hear us doMy Boo. That’s our best one,” she says smugly.
“I don’t think I could handle that,” I tell them both.
* * *
After Frankie goes down, we meet on our patio without ever discussing it. I bring the glasses, Dom brings the wine.
We turn the lounge chair so it sits parallel to the railing, so that we can both lay our backs on the length of the chair with our feet propped up on the slats of the railing.
We spend the next few hours laughing under the moon, the sound of the ocean our only soundtrack.
My pet rabbit gets some exercise that night.
TEN
Dominic
The next morning after breakfast,Frankie and I are standing in front of the mirror of the bathroom in the main house, next to the kitchen, when she suddenly stops humming Ashanti. “Can you do my hair like Tita Lina?” she asks me.
My fingers are currently straining to hold tension in her hair for the French braid pigtails she originally asked for. “You don’t want pigtails?” I ask, voice muffled, as my teeth are currently clenched around two hair elastics.
“No, thanks,” she says.
I drop my hands and take the hair ties out of my mouth. “Tita Lina usually wears her hair down,” I tell her, hating myself for knowing this. I comb out Frankie’s silky, straight hair with my fingers.
“I hate it,” she tells me, after looking at hair in the mirror. “It looks nothing like Tita’s.”
“It’s not going to look quite like hers,” I tell her gently, as if I am approaching an angry bear, bracing myself for the impending attack. “Your hair is straight, and Lina’s is curly.”
Frankie turns beet red as she takes a deep breath, chest rumbling like the earth before a volcano explodes, prepared to let out an ear-piercing explosion.
“Frank—”
“Hey, girl!” Lina’s head pops through the open door of the bathroom.
The room fills with awhooshing sound as Frankie deflates like a balloon and I let out the breath I was holding onto for dear life.
“I was thinking of braiding my hair today,” Lina quickly tells Frankie. “Tita Georgia, too. I wanted to ask you if we could all have matching braids today.”
