Lina takes my face in both of her hands and gives me one more kiss, and I fill it with passion and trust and heaven and tongue.
“One minute left,” she tells me after pulling away, but I’m mesmerized by the indentations I’ve left in her shoulder from my teeth. I trace it with my finger.
“Thirty seconds,” she says, and I reluctantly grab the condom by the base and pull out.
I give her one more peck on the lips. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” I tell her, and secretly myself. I can’t help but give her a big hug, wrapping her in my arms, because I’m a big sap and I feel full of feelings.
“Me too,” she whispers, then “we have to move,” to my dick, which is currently hanging pleased yet sad and droopy and out of commission for a while between us.
One last peck, and we both move to our respective bathrooms, and I manage to get cleaned up before I hear tapping on the front door again.
I walk over and swing the door open to my daughter, who is holding two travel mugs with pride. “Wow,” I tell her, so very impressed, taking them from her hands. “Great problem solving. That was a really smart idea you had, to pack it in travel mugs.”
She nods solemnly, taking all the credit. “Sorry I took so long. We couldn’t find them.”
“No worries. Thank you so much for this, Frankie.”
Frankie wedges herself into the house. “Are you ready to go? We should hit the road soon.”
“Where are you trying to be so quickly?” I ask her, taking a sip of the surprisingly well-made coffee.
Lina walks out into the living room, radiant and glowing. I enjoy a brief moment of smug satisfaction that she looks like that because of me. “Hey, girl,” she tells my daughter.
“Morning,” Frankie screams, running to wrap herself around Lina’s waist. “I brought you coffee, Tita Lina.”
“Thanks, gorgeous,” she replies, squeezing back, and this image, at eight in the morning on a Sunday, of Lina hugging Frankie in the kitchen and holding a coffee that Frankie made for her is just a little too much. Especially considering the events of last night and our conversation minutes ago. I experience a spike of panic, of fear, that I’m making a really big mistake, but then Frankie is asking Lina to do her hair and Lina is dragging Frankie into her bathroom and Frankie is screaming at me to pack so I don’t really have time to have an anxiety attack.
* * *
The seven of us are all standing in the driveway, standing around our cars, chatting and laughing about nothing in particular. No one wants to be the first one to pop the magical vacation bubble by saying goodbye and driving away, so we’re lingering, but it’s become an hour long linger at this point. I, for one, am certainly not ready to leave Lina and this whole Relaxing thing we’ve been doing, so I twirl my car keys around my finger and bring up new discussion points and stalling tactics in the way a parent of a five-year-old can be a professional at.
Frankie is all but tearing her hair out, doing the cataclysmic whine thing.
“Okay,” I finally relent, after a final round of hugs. Lina sneaks a pinch to my butt during ours. “Get in the car, Frankie.”
“Thanks again, Tita Gloria,” I murmur to her, bending down for one final hug. “We did really need this. All of this. I appreciate you.”
She squeezes around my waist, because that’s how short she is. “Mahal kita,” she says simply, then blows a kiss to Frankie and slips away.
I make eye contact with Lina one last time before she ducks into Ollie’s rental.
“Call me later?” she mouths, holding her thumb and her pinky up to her ear, like it’s 1999 and I’ll have to call the landline when no one is using the internet.
“Yeah,” I say, and we pop our magical vacation bubble.
FIFTEEN
Lina
“Are you alive in here?”I call into my mother’s kitchen.
Mai narrows her eyes at me from three feet away, sitting at the dining table in the kitchen and drinking tea. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” she deadpans.
“Don’t joke about that,” I say, striding in and dropping my bag and wrapping her in a big hug. “I missed you. What can I get for you? Do you need groceries? Did you go to church already? I can take you.”
“You can start by giving me a few more hours of peace by myself, going upstairs, and unpacking your things,” she says with a squeeze. “I made dinner already. Come back down around seven.”
I’m already moving around the kitchen, washing spare dishes in the sink, opening the fridge, making sure the cabinets are filled with food.
