“Nevertheless, I have to insist that—” The woman’s eyes widened when they saw the chocolate bar in Santi’s hands. “Is that a wedding giveaway? Did yousteala wedding giveaway?”
“Um, what?” Kira asked, her voice suddenly high-pitched as Santi groaned. “He didn’t—”
“Stop, chocolate thief!”
He wished he could explain why this was his first instinct, but he really couldn’t. Santi just saw the possible danger, and reacted.
“Run,” Santi said, taking Kira’s wrist and pulling her out of the ballroom, just as the wedding coordinator was about to lunge at them to get the half-eaten chocolate back.
“Keep running!” Kira shrieked as they ran past the other wedding guests, past the photo booth and down the stairs, until they made it to the relative safety of the lobby lounge, Kira laughing all the while as Santi sunk into the plush chairs he’d grown up with.
Sitting in the lounge was so familiar it almost ached. He knew which seats shielded you from which views, and which seats made sure you were instantly visible. He and Miro used to play spy games from the lobby lounge, too. Sure, the face of the lounge changed, but the placement of the seats was the same. The four-member orchestra that played every day still stayed in the same place.
Anyway. Pain he could set aside.
“That day we met in Japan,” he said, and he appreciated that Kira didn’t seem confused by his tangent. “I’d just been fired from the Carlton.”
“What?” Kira gasped, putting the chocolate down. “Why did they fire you?”
“My grandfather and I were arguing about salary advances and raises,” he said, and was surprised to find he could say it without too much emotion. Like he was talking about something that happened to someone else. “We had different opinions on how it worked. The next day, I came to work and my desk was just...gone. My stuff was in boxes, all the files were taken somewhere else. I’m the owner’s grandson, I couldn’t exactly complain to HR about it.”
While Santi had never experienced the need to spend money that he hadn’t earned yet, he understood that sometimes, bills and salaries just didn’t line up. He suggested that the Carlton be a little more lenient in allowing salary advances, proposing that they be just as low or affordable as a government loan. Vito thought otherwise.
But Santi didn’t think that was why he had been so unceremoniously unemployed. Santi didn’t want to seem like the ungrateful grandson—god only knew anywhere else he wouldn’t be in this high a position. So he left quietly, moped quietly, until New Year’s Eve.
“When I came back with the idea to restore Villa, I proposed that we do it together. Santillan and grandsons, working on a project together. When he heard, my grandfather laughed in my face,” Santi told her, and realized that he’d never told anyone else this. Who was there to tell? His family already knew, and nobody else...there really wasn’t anyone elsetotell. “He gave me the money, put the hotel under the Carlton chain and just...left me alone. My accounts tied to the family were cancelled, my cards were cut, and I was sent off to Lipa. They still tell me that Villa’s success isn’t enough. That I am not enough to deserve coming back.”
“Shit,” Kira gasped, and Santi heard himself chuckle mirthlessly. Shit didn’t even begin to cover it. But he was glad someone else said it. “That’s...sorry, but that’s fucked up.”
“Poor little rich boy, I know,” Santi said.
“Rich boys have feelings, too,” Kira pointed out, smiling kindly. “Your grandfather hurt you because he didn’t agree with you. Who does that?”
Santi didn’t have the answer to that, either. Kira turned her head to the windows, three stories high and gave guests the full view of the Makati skyline.
“It’s raining,” she noted, even as the sun was shining, and a rainbow streaked across the sky. “A tikbalang is getting married.”
“Lucky tikbalang.” Santi looked up. It was raining in sheets, but it was a gentle drizzle that felt like mist when you walked through it. He used to hate days like this when he was a child, as rain like this only made everything hot and even more humid when it went away. He didn’t mind so much at the moment, if it meant luck for the happy couple.
“How do centaurs wear pants?” Kira asked suddenly, and she looked like she really was wondering. Santi blinked at her a few times, as he realized just how complicated the question was. “Tikbalangs have horse heads, so obviously they wear pants like everyone, but what about centaurs?”
“How do giraffes wear scarves?” Santi asked back. “And other nonsense questions.”
“Important questions,” Kira insisted, and there was a moment when he caught a glimpse of the neighborhood kid that dominated the roadside. He smiled and leaned forward, picking up the chocolate bar. Only to realize that there was only one serving left. He offered it to Kira, who shook her head.
“You’re the chocolate thief,” she joked, smiling at him. “And it really does make you feel better, no? Eating the chocolate.”
He had to admit, it really did. Surely there was some scientific explanation about sugar and oxytocin and other chemical reactions. But it was also Kira, sitting next to her and being able to talk, in a way that they never got to before, having him consider how centaurs wore pants, or giraffes wore scarves.
It was her making him laugh and roll his eyes, saying impossible things, and her making him feel like he was just a little bit wanted, making him consider that his feelings really did matter.
“I have to say though,” Kira continued, leaning back against her seat, rotating her ankles in her silver heels. “I’m glad you ended up in Lipa. That you brought Villa back to life. That you went behind my back and opened Sunday Bakery.”
“Really?” Santi asked, in disbelief, although he hoped she couldn’t see just how much.
“Really,” Kira insisted, and Santi felt an inexorable pull in his belly, one that led him closer to her. He knew the distance between where he was sitting, and where she was, had played in these spots for a lot of his life. Almost as if it was to lead to this moment, of them sitting together, the chocolate all gone.
“Kira. I moved to Lipa because of you. It means more, because it was you.”
