A familiar song filled the air. “Moon River,” playing on a violin. One of her cousins was probably asked to perform for the adults, as standard family reunion practice.
She’d just recognized the song when Santi took those last few steps to her, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. The kiss was gentle and soft, but it seared through her. And while the kiss was good, the hug was even better. Kira was able to bury her face in his chest and smile, was allowed to hold as close to him as he would allow. Santi didn’t tell her to stop, and held her just as tightly.
Air filled Kira’s lungs as she inhaled, breathing in the smell of Santi, so tangible and real. Every bone in her body seemed to melt into him, and it was the sweet, sweet feeling of relief. Relief that she had her answers, that she could finally stop waiting, that she’d managed to do this. Thattheyhad managed to do this.
And strangely enough, it was like she’d lived this moment before, a thousand other times in another thousand lifetimes. All of them with this sweet happiness, with this person. They had both come out of their journeys by themselves, but couldn’t have done it without the other. It was like the end of the movie, when the two leads would reunite, and the camera would pull in close, to capture them in a kiss.
Then there would be a big dance number. Kira had always loved those.
“I told him to take everything,” Santi said. “And he will. But he’s not going to get what really matters.Thisis what really matters. And I’m staying.”
She heard him release a shaky sigh. And she felt his body shake, and her shoulder get wet, just a little. They were both too old for his shit.
“I saved the business,” Kira announced. “The family agreed to give me more time, and I set up a whole supply chain to provide beans.”
“A whole supply chain?”
“You would be so proud. I made a process flowchart and everything.”
He pulled away from her as she wiped at her nose with her sleeve, and his eyes were red-rimmed. Kira looked into the face she knew so well. The one she would get to know more of. She smiled, and this time it filled her whole heart, the one that he held. She kissed him again. And this time, it didn’t feel like a goodbye.
It felt like a promise.
Chapter Seventeen
February 18
Sunday Bakery
The Laneways
Tempering: heating and cooling chocolate to stabilize it, to give it a smooth and glossy finish. Exact temperatures are required, and can be extremely frustrating. But when you manage to make it happen, it’s the best feeling ever. Totally worth it.
“I don’t understand,” Sari said, frowning at Kira from her seat in Sunday Bakery’s dining area. “So do they live happily ever after?”
“Not yet,” Kira explained, shaking her head. “Sari, this is a K-drama. All loose ends have to be tied nicely before you get to the wedding scene. Maybe someone gets amnesia at the second-to-the-last episode. After a car crash! Gasp!”
“Oh god.” Sari, practical Capricorn as always, rolled her eyes. “That sounds exhausting.”
“That’sdrama, girl!”
“Bro! Stop. Hoarding. The chocolate,” Gabriel hissed at Santi before he pulled the plastic tub containing squares of white chocolate Kira had made an hour before.
It wasn’t Santi’s finest hour, coming and asking Kira to explain to him what she had told the board. She let him ask his questions, let him talk while making chocolate, until he ran out of things to say, and she handed him a square of the dayap white chocolate.
“I appreciate your help, Santi, I do,” she’d assured him. “But I’ll come to you if I need help. Now can you tell me if this flavor combination is good, or amazing?”
The chocolate was white, and had a slightly caramelly sweetness to it, made with dayap rinds and a dayap flavoring that one of the titas from Haraya had offered to her as a sample. The experiment resulted in a slightly fruity chocolate, with a gorgeously subtle floral aftertaste, and just the tiniest kirot of sour from the key lime.
There was more than enough left for today’s brainstorming session at Sunday Bakery. Santi and Gabriel were currently fighting over the last few squares from a one-kilo batch they whittled down quickly. Gabriel was vehement on his insistence that it was unfair that Santi felt the need to take away the one thing that was making him happy, and—
“Excuse me, theonething?” Gabriel’s girlfriend asked, and let nobody ever face Sari Tomas’s wrath in a brow-raising contest because they were sure to lose. Sari opened her palm toward Gabriel to give her the tub. “Hand it over, dimples.”
“But, Sari!”
“I can always make more, guys,” Kira assured them, totally amused at her friends fighting over her chocolate. Santi knew that amusement in her tone, she was genuinely happy about their reaction, but god, she’d made something pretty magical.
Santi would have been the first to refute the existence of magic, but maybe the thing about magic was that it was something you made. When you managed to make things align perfectly, when things went the way they should, you called it magic.
