My family lives by many rules. Somewhere near the top is the belief that if you don’t have leftovers, then you’re a bad host because your guests have left hungry.
From the living room, Dad hacks out a cough that rattles the house just as I’m getting ready to warm up the bistek and pancit. I’d be concerned he was dying if he didn’t follow it up with the combined gagging-spitting sound.
The doorbell chimes, and my mood dampens further. If having dinner with my parents wasn’t bad enough, I’m officially about to spend an evening with two families playing matchmaker.
“Go welcome them,” Mom snaps before the doorbell even stops ringing.
I swallow down a sharp breath and use the short journey between the kitchen and the entrance to mentally prepare myself for the rest of the evening.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to be part of the song and dance of meeting someone from church’s son, while he and I both pretend we aren’t hating every second of our existence. It doesn’t get any easier.
Silver lining? At least this time I know who they’re attempting to marry me off to.
Tita Agnes’s boisterous voice can be heard throughout the entire house as she rambles in Tagalog about how Dad looks—skinnier, apparently. I haven’t paid enough attention to notice.
I slow my steps around the corner, readying for the tornado to hit.
Her comments to Dad immediately cut off when she sees me. She practically bulldozes Dad to the side and crushes me to all four-foot-something of her. “Hello, beautiful girl,” Tita Agnes croons, giving me one too many cheek-to-cheek kisses.
I prefer greetings that involve zero physical contact. Still, my lips pull into a smile of their own accord, and I can’t help blushing a little. I’ve always liked her. She’s the opposite of my mother in every way: cool, laid back, and says things that don’t make me hate myself. Truthfully, she’s the dream mother-in-law.
Mom isn’t the biggest fan of her, but the two husbands have started playing tennis together, and the logical solution to simultaneously handle their single offspring and quieten their wives’ incessant bickering is to play matchmaker.
Agnes bats my arm and points an accusatory finger at me. “I haven’t seen you in church or any of the gatherings in months! Where have you been, and how did you get even more pretty, eh?” She taps my cheek that hasn’t really lost its childlike roundness.
“I’ve been busy with work,” I say, trying to look guilty about it.
I’ve been dodging meeting them at church for the past couple of months—actually, I’ve been dodging going with my parents to church and the many Filipino gatherings for a few years now.
“Ah.” Agnes tsks, giving my forearm a solid squeeze. All this touching is making me a little ill. “You work too hard.”
This, I am at least genuinely guilty about. She probably doesn’t want to hear about all my extracurricular activities.
“Christine is in the kitchen,” Dad tells her in Tagalog.
She motions me to say hi to the rest of our guests before scurrying off to make my mother suffer a little bit.
I offer my hand to her husband, Tito Jacob, exchanging a respectful hello before moving on to the real star of this event: Jacob’s son, Thomas.
“Hey.” His lips pull into an overly enthusiastic greeting.
Oh no, he might actually be into this whole idea.
Jet-black hair, deeply tanned skin, freshly shaved facial hair, and a crisp blue button-down shirt. Thomas isn’t that much taller than me, which is saying a lot, since I consider myself vertically challenged. But he’s still tall compared to me.
He’s... I mean, Thomas has a face. Is it attractive? Well, it’s not terrible.
He’s not Leo, that’s for sure.
“Hi.” I smile politely at him, accepting his extended hand to sell this entire performance.
We’ve known each other since we were in diapers—in the sense that our families hung out in the same crowd and attended the same events every couple of months—but we’ve never had intimate dinners between us.
Growing up, he was always just “Jacob’s son” to me. At first, I knew him as Snotty Thomas because I’d never met someone so prone to getting a cold. Then he became the Thomas who wasobsessed with gaming. He and his group of friends didn’t let girls join other than to hang out and watch. Joyce and I thought we were far too cool for them anyway.
And then he became just Thomas.
Now? Thanks to Mother, he’s Thomas, Tito Jacob’s son, who’s a good boy that just came home from university and got a good job at a big accounting firm in the city.
