Ate Irene’s words continued to linger in Jay’s mind as he headed back to the ballroom. He was almost holding on to them a little too hard, tugging them to keep him grounded. He found himself still holding on to his silent phone, keeping his sister’s words close.
Tonight wasn’t the night to make bad decisions. Kissing Mara Barretto, who had love in her eyes, who wanted something that lasted, would definitely be a bad one.
He walked into the ballroom, wondering why the sound quality of the music was suddenly so good.
The newly wedded couple was in the middle of their very first dance.
It looked like a scene from a fairy tale, if fairy tales ended in Tagaytay. A gentle fog made the dance floor look like it was a cloud. And floating on it, David and Marina held on to each other, all happy smiles as they swayed to the music. The music was played by a string quartet, and singing along with it was—holy shit?—the cast ofHanggang Ulap, the musical that Marina proclaimed to be her favorite.
Budget who? No wonder everything was wonderful and romantic. Freaking Erin Javier was singing, and, yep that was Ramon Figueroa with her, duetting the musical’s Big Love Song. But as extravagant as it was, it somehow suited the newly wedded couple to be over-the-top. They both looked really happy. Flashed the kinds of smiles that you made when you forgot anyone was looking. Jay held up his camera and took a photo. It looked even more radiant in black and white.
“Here I was thinking you hated weddings,” Scott said, moving to stand next to him, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. The bar was apparently open.
“I don’t hate weddings.” Jay scoffed. “I just don’t think they’re for me. What David and Marina have. You and Ava, Mon and Olivia. Things that last? I can’t have that.”
He knew how to deal with things that weren’t tangible. Other people’s money, stock markets, boredom, feelings. Even his personal life held nothing permanent. The coffee machine he thought would bring him joy for years to come would end up in Irene’s stash because he didn’t actually like it. Conclusion? Things that were meant to last, well, not for him. He wouldn’t even know the first thing about truly loving someone.
Thank you for being my last stop before the one, Selena had said in her post. Five years ago now, holy shit.Your good luck kiss really worked.
The last stop before the one. That was just the way his metaphorical cookie of a life crumbled.
“Hay nako.” Scott sighed, taking a sip of his whiskey. “Here na me, you not yet.”
“What?” Jay spluttered a laugh. That made absolutely no sense. Scott shot him a look of total seriousness, though. Even in the darker corners of the ballroom where they stood, it was a look that said, “Pay attention. I am about to drop Knowledge on you, dummy.”
“Papunta ka pa lang, pabalik na ako,” Scott said. That made way more sense. “You think you’re the first person to think you don’t deserve love? I went on a whole emotional, spiritual journey to Bali to finally decide that I was in love with Ava, and that I was worthy of her love. Mon went to New York thinking he was going to get a job, slept with Olivia and realized he was on the journey before he knew it.”
“That sounds like Mon,” Jay conceded. Although he was sure there was way more nuance to his friends’ journeys than that.
“Even Teddy made the choice to stick to his guns when he asked Andi out to that date the first time.” Scott looked entirely too smug at the mention of Mon’s usually reclusive business partner. Teddy had been the one to ask Andi out first? Bravery, as Ate Irene said.
“My point being,” Scott continued, unaware of the myriad of Jay’s thoughts, “we make a choice to love someone, all of us. And choosing someone means you know you deserve love. Want it if you want it, push it away if you don’t. But it’s not because you don’t deserve it. Everyone deserves love, Jay. And everyone who loves you is lucky, because we get to have you.”
Yeah, those were tears that sprung in Jay’s eyes. God, Scott was really, really good at this. Give the man his FAMAS Award already.
“What happened with Mara?” Scott asked. The woman in question got up from the family table and shuffled through the tables of wedding guests to stop and lean against a post, watching the couple. Jay could see her profile, and she almost looked…sad? Wistful? Her face was heartbreaking. What the hell had he done to make her upset earlier? What he really wanted to do was take her into his arms and tell her it would be okay. “Did you fix it?”
It would be okay, because he was going to do whatever he could to fix it.
“Not yet,” Jay admitted, his hand loosening its grip on his phone. “But I will.”
SIX
“Defamation! Cyber libel! Emotional damages!” Mara listed, holding out a finger for each offense as her father listened carefully. Martin Barretto had the kind of listening face that was a mere tilt of his head, eyes gazing at his daughter above the frames of his reading glasses—he had been in the middle of doing his daily sudoku on his phone when Mara barged in and asked if she could sue someone. “What else?”
“Moral turpitude?”
“That can’t be a real word,” Mabel remarked from Mara’s other side at the presidential table. They were just finishing up dinner when one of her dad’s friends sent a DM inquiring about why Mara was expressing suffering on the internet via meme. With the way the internet worked, the photo had come from Instagram, then was meme-ified on X before it showed up on Facebook and Viber several weeks later. Which was why the boomers were only finding out about it now. It was difficult enough to explain that one of David’s friends was trying to make fun of her, but more so when Martin asked his daughter if she was angry with him.
Was she? She was certainly feeling something. Something hot and fiery that made her want to growl and scream and sue him, apparently. But was that necessarily anger? She’d more or less forgiven him for all of that earlier.
“Also, Pops, we can’t sue Jay,” Mabel added, leaning forward a bit so she could speak to her father. “He’s your future son-in-law.”
“He isnot,” Mara snapped, shifting in her seat to glare at her sister.
“What about the curse, Ate?” Mabel asked. “You kiss him, and you end up marrying him!”
“That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how his kiss curse thing works.”
