“It’s fine, I got it,” Jay insisted. He was holding both handles of his family’s strollers in one hand, carry-on bags on his other shoulder and the deflated duck looped around his neck as he held on to the handle of Mara’s case in his other hand. He looked extra ridiculous, and Mara could feel a familiar heat of anger rise from her belly.
“Jay, let go of my bag,” she repeated.
“Why won’t you let me help you?” He sounded annoyed and exasperated. “If I was your boyfriend, you would have expected me to help you.”
“I already asked you to help me, remember? And you said no. Now, aren’t you glad you aren’t my boyfriend, pretend or otherwise?”
She turned away from his flabbergasted face and called a porter over. She could have sworn she heard Ate Irene choke back a laugh. The man was eager to help and quite surprised when Mara made him grab Jay’s carry-on bags and the two strollers. Before Jay could protest, Mara snatched her case from his hand, urging the porter to go ahead of her.
When she managed to make it up on the ramp, fueled by spite and zero self-preservation, she handed the porter two hundred pesos and thanked him. Then she turned to face the Montinolas, who were still standing on the fore of the boat and watching her in varying expressions of confusion (Luna), amusement (Irene) and what-the-fuck-just-happened (Jay).
She grinned at him and used both hands to put her sunglasses on, Horatio Caine style.Yeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Jay rolled his eyes in response. His sass was massive, but Mara’s spite was only just bigger. Because if she was completely honest herself, what she had refused to tell Ate Irene, to tell Jay or anyone else, was the real reason why she booked this trip. Why she thought it was time to use her good luck wedding money.
It wasn’t her sister getting married, wasn’t the first or the second reception. It wasn’t even that it was the busiest time of the year for the studio, or that her parents’ relationship was a daily tightrope walk of other people’s problems.
It was that he’d tried to soothe her with a kiss. A kiss that he knew had to ultimately mean absolutely nothing, but still made Mara feel good. Made her think that it actually agonized him, saying no to her. Made her think sometimes that today,todayit was going to work. Only to realize that she wasn’t a little girl, and she didn’t believe in fairy tales that way anymore.
She had gotten so used to waiting, waiting and hoping. The prince would approach her, everyone said!
But no. Jay had kissed her because he pitied her and thought it would be enough. And the humiliation was, quite possibly, even worse than when he’d made her social media’s favorite joke. So Mara was going to hold on to her triumphant pettiness for a long, long time.
“We’re just waiting on the other group to join us,” the driver of the transport told her when she loaded her belongings into the van. There was a fifteen-minute van ride to get to Station 1, and most hotels booked proprietary third-party services to handle that transportation.
So Mara ended up holding on to her triumphant pettiness for about, oh, ten minutes. Because the doors to the L300 opened to the sight of three very familiar people.
“Tita!” At least Luna was genuinely delighted, waving happily from the open door. Ate Irene was busy speaking to the driver, checking their belongings, and Jay was on the phone with someone, even if his eyes had zeroed in on Mara. The gaze was heated, but she couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing.
“—yeah, we’re here. What do you mean a disaster?” Jay said to the phone. “No, it’s not a disaster. Hold on—want Nong to carry you, Luns?”
The little girl nodded and held her arms up without turning to face him. What followed was a funny scene of Jay hoisting Luna up to the single step up to the back of the van, the girl keeping her arms perfectly straight at her sides like he was about to toss her in the air. Luna giggled and moved to sit next to Mara while Jay kept talking, tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder as he helped Ate Irene load their many, many belongings. “I’m sure it will be okay. It’s Boracay! I’m sure there are suppliers somewhere out there.”
He sat in the spot closest to the door as he helped pull his sister up. Ate Irene’s eyes widened at the sight of Mara and Luna, but they softened at her daughter’s smile, and she sat across from them.
“What a coincidence,” Ate Irene said, “I mean it, though, Mara. I really like you. That—” she jerked her thumb at her brother “—notwithstanding. And not to defend him or anything—”
“Oh, Ate, you don’t have to—”
“—but he really does think that kiss of his is a curse. It’s the first time he’s done it intentionally to spare someone, and I think he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think you would be better off. He can be a real dummy that way.”
Ugh. Her conscience had no voice, but it did feel a lot like a rock weighing her down. She should trust him more, but trust would mean letting go of her feelings, of packing them up and putting them away neatly, never to be felt again. Would he have listened, if she told him, about how he’d made her feel that night?
“Alex. Breathe,” Jay said into the phone, unaware of the conversation about him happening from the same car. “Ate and I will be there in about fifteen minutes, then we can figure it out, okay? Now, who’s the best man? That’s right. You can use me as a stress ball as soon as we get there.”
He hung up and put away his phone.
“Everything okay?” Irene asked.
“Nothing a best man can’t handle.” He smiled at them, but it was a polite, strained smile.
The ride continued on in silence, filled only by Luna asking her mother questions, or Irene fielding questions from Luna that were supposed to be meant for Jay. Mara could almost feel his aura radiating…something from his side of the van.
Thankfully, her hotel was first.
The van pulled to a stop, and the driver grabbed Mara’s bag from where he’d placed it in the passenger seat. Mara made sure he had it by the door of the hotel before smiling at Ate Irene and Luna, waving as she awkwardly shuffled to the end of the van.
It wasn’t going to be easy to alight from the van, she realized.
