“I still don’t understand why you call me that.” And no, he wasn’t pouting. Definitely not.
“It’s your own fault. I told you to watchGoblinand find out.” Kira tut her lips, biting off the bar itself before she handed it back to Santi, who winced before he snapped off a piece from the opposite end of the bar. “Or do you Virgos not have sixteen hours free from work you definitely don’t have to do?”
“It’s like you’re speaking another language.” Santi sighed, shaking his head and trying not to laugh. Because this was the first time in the entire wedding that he was actually enjoying himself. “So how do you know the happy couple? I’m sure we’re not related.”
“Lucky you,” Kira said, giving him a little wink. “But like most of my custom chocolate clients, I know the couple because I matched them. We were blockmates, me and Kit and Cla. He had a crush on her since orientation,and I told him her favorite cake was Swiss Chocolate from Becky’s. Cla’s birthday was on a Monday, and he went to Becky’s fully expecting to get the cake and win her heart, but they were closed, and Kit wasdevastated.”
“Kit, devastated?” Santi echoed, because he couldn’t imagine his cousin, second or not, so lost in the throes of love that he would be devastated, with italics implied. He also couldn’t imagine being as open to, well, everything as Kira. So in touch with everyone she met that she could claim the title “matchmaker,” without a problem. It was fascinating, and terrifying to know that she’d held other people’s feelings in her hands, and helped them along.
What would she do, he wondered, if she was faced withhisfeelings?
“On the verge of tears, or at least that’s how I remember,” Kira said, waving a hand at Santi as if to scold him for interrupting her. That was when he noticed that her lips looked very soft, and slightly more pink and shiny than usual. It made her look prettier. As if she wasn’t already. “Anyway, he starts knocking and begging Becky’s to open up for him, because heneedsthis cake. And I had to stall Cla from going home somehow, because she couldn’t go home without knowing how Kitty felt!”
“They should put this story on the back of the dinner menu,” Santi deadpanned.
“I told the story for the same-day edit, don’t worry. Andthen,” Kira said, because he was sure at this point that she was both ignoring him and making the story much more dramatic than it should be. “Just when Cla was about to give up on me, because tutoring me in Math 10 is no easy feat, there he was. Kit, his grin wide and happy because the people in the shop were actually baking in the back and they took pity on him. I passed Math 10, they fell in love, and then they lived happily ever after.”
Santi doubted that it had been that simple. But far be it from him to correct someone who had actually been there.
“So they will.” He nodded, looking around at the spectacle before them. For all his complaints about weddings, he really did enjoy them. Liked the idea of two people pledging to be together, through the best and the worst of times. To commit to each other, and just...love them. For as long as they were allowed.
He sighed. It didn’t seem like it was for him.
“But matchmaking sounds like a terrible marketing strategy,” he said, turning his attention back to Kira and those eyes of hers. “You wouldn’t have known that matching them all those years ago would mean business for you.”
“I didn’t, but it makes making chocolate for them now extra special,” Kira said, and her face just...lit up. “And I must be doingsomethingright with my businesses, because one of us had to go behind my back to open up a store on the Laneways, and I’m looking at you, Mr. Silent Partner Kuno.”
Santi groaned. She was never going to let him live that down, will she?
The Laneways was a row of old warehouses in Lipa that, by the Luz family’s renovating and Kira’s operating, had turned into a lively, profitable retail space that commanded more foot traffic than most of the other open-air commercial spaces in Lipa. Santi’s decision to financially back Sunday Bakery without telling Kira had rightly earned him her ire, because everyone knew he was behind it the moment Sunday Bakery opened its doors.
But it was okay. He actually didn’t mind it. It made him feel like he was part of the Laneways somehow. He felt more welcome than he had that first day he showed up at Hotel Villa with Vito’s money, and ready to work.
“Real G’s move in silence.” He quoted Lil Wayne, only because Gabriel sent him the meme. “Like lasagna.”
Kira blinked at him for a moment, her face completely shocked and still before he saw her lips curl up, her eyes light up, just before she started to laugh. Really, really laugh, laugh so hard that she had to grab the sleeve of his jacket to keep herself upright.
“So glad I could amuse you,” Santi noted.
“Oh my god.” Kira laughed, and there were tears in her eyes, that she carefully wiped off with her fingertips. “Is this the kind of dry humor that won over all the local suppliers in Lipa?”
“It was my winning personality,” he said dryly, sending her into another fit of laughter. “Goes well with that Batangas tapang I keep hearing about.”
That was how Santi managed to get a foot in the door, through sheer force of will, and speaking to each and every local supplier he could find. Batangueños didn’t mince words when they accused him of having a short fuse, too demanding, too much of a perfectionist. But hey, they still became his suppliers. Even if they weren’t quite his friends.
“Well, I suppose it worked. Everyone keeps flocking to Villa, and I can’t open social media without seeing someone post about it, or get married there, or talk about the food,” Kira noted, and Santi let the pride swell in his chest. Because he deserved it, didn’t he? After three years of working on the hotel, making it beautiful, making it a place people wanted to be in, and spend their time in, he deserved to agree that it was a good idea. “You made it way, way bigger than anyone could have imagined.”
And yet it isn’t enough for Vito Santillan,Santi thought, pushing that aside immediately. Something he could process later on, preferably never.
“And everyone who isn’t in Villa is in the Laneways,” he pointed out to her instead, and she laughed.
“SM and Robinsons found shaking,” she joked. “I’m surprised you ended up in Lipa, actually,” Kira continued, taking a bite of the chocolate before passing it to him. “I would think your family would love someone as good as you here in Manila.”
Santi winced, sure that the sudden bitterness in his mouth wasn’t the chocolate, because the pride that had swelled in his chest had instantly deflated like a balloon. He was about to tell her that his family was the whole reason why he was in Lipa in the first place, but was interrupted by a woman with a headset walking into the ballroom and seeing them.
“Hala, errant guests!” they exclaimed. “Excuse me, you shouldn’t be in here.”
“It’s a wedding reception, everyone will be in here in about an hour anyway,” Kira pointed out.
