“It’s notaboutthe spandex, it’s about…Okay, we’re watching it. Tonight. I’m ordering it right now.”
Colin had taken a sip of his tea. “This song was on the radio when I was small,” he’d said, as though the only possible context for a Madonna single was a care home rec-room in the Midlands in the early nineties, and Diwa’s blockbuster needle-drop was an irrelevance he was choosing not to dignify.
They’d watched the film that evening. Colin had sat through the entire thing without commentary, his tea going cold on the armrest, and when the credits rolled, Diwa had turned to him, buzzing, ready for the debrief.
“Well?”
Colin had considered this for a moment. “Hugh Jackman’s fit,” he’d said, and had gone to put the kettle on.
On stage, Colin reached the chorus. His voice cracked on the high note, held on through sheer force of will, and the ballroom surged. Tito Bong was singing along from the front row, his moustache trembling with conviction. Lola Joy was clapping from her chair, tiny and fierce in her red dress, her jewelled comb catching the light every time her head moved.
Diwa watched his omega murder the bridge, miss the key change entirely, and recover with a stubbornness that Madonna herself would have respected.
Then the second verse started, and Colin’s grip on the microphone shifted. His shoulders pulled, his eyes dropping from the crowd to the monitor and staying there. The grin was still on his face, but it had gone careful. There was too muchawareness behind it now, the room suddenly too large and too full of strangers.
Diwa took the steps to the stage two at a time and pressed his cheek against Colin’s so that the microphone sat between both their mouths. Colin’s head turned towards him.
“All right?” Diwa murmured, under the music.
Colin’s free hand reached for Diwa’s hip and pulled him flush against his side. “Shut up and sing.”
So Diwa sang. He was even worse than Colin, truth be told. But Colin’s shoulder was warm against his chest, and the ballroom had decided that volume was an acceptable substitute for actual vocal talent.
He looked out over his family as he sang.
Lakan was on the dance floor with his daughter held tight against his chest, her small hands locked behind his neck, her feet dangling a foot off the ground as he swayed her through the chorus. Tito Bong had abandoned his post at the karaoke station and was singing from the front row with both fists raised. The aunties had formed a swaying line near the dessert table, arms linked. Kuya Maki stood at the back with his arms folded and his chin lifted, and just watching the stage.
Lola Joy clapped from her chair, keeping time with the music, and his mother, she was on her feet beside the long table. Her chin was tipped back, her mouth wide open, and she was giving Madonna everything she had.
Colin’s hand tightened on Diwa’s hip. The last note cracked out of both of them, triumphant and utterly terrible, while around them the ballroom erupted into cheers.
? ? ?
Theballroom crowd thinned out. Children were peeled off the dance floor and carried out in their parents’ arms, their small faces slack with sleep. Tito Bong surrendered the karaoke station at half eleven, having performed “My Way” twice, and retired to the bar with his moustache still intact and his dignity debatable.
Colin had stopped making sense around his fifth Tom Collins.
He was still upright, technically, propped against the back of a banquette with his tie loosened and his eyes at half-mast, but his contributions to conversations had narrowed to a single syllable — “Mm” — deployed with decreasing precision. When Diwa crouched in front of him and said they were going upstairs to their room, Colin nodded once, gripped Diwa’s shoulder, and stood as though the floor were pitching beneath him.
The suite was on the twenty-third floor. Diwa got Colin into the lift, through the corridor, and past the door, which involved Colin leaning against the wall while Diwa found the key card, and then leaning against Diwa while the door swung open into a room that was larger than Colin’s entire flat in Barking. Colin didn’t notice. His eyes were already closing as Diwa walked him to the bed, sat him on the edge, and knelt to pull off his shoes.
“I’m not drunk,” Colin said, to a point six inches to the left of Diwa’s face.
“You’reverydrunk.” Diwa undid Colin’s shirt buttons and eased the damp linen off his shoulders. Colin’s undershirt was soaked through. Diwa pulled that off too, and Colin sat bare-chested on the edge of an emperor bed, swaying, his skin flushed from his collar to his hairline.
“That was a good party,” Colin said.
“It was.” Diwa tipped him backwards onto the pillows. Colin went without resistance, his body trusting Diwa’s hands the wayit always did, and was asleep before Diwa had even finished pulling the sheet across his chest.
Diwa stood over him for a moment. Colin’s breathing had already settled into its deep, even rhythm, his mouth open, one hand curled on the pillow beside his head. He kissed Colin’s forehead, twisted the cap off a bottle of water and left it on his bedside table. When he was sure Colin wasn’t in danger of rolling clean off the bed, he switched off the lamp and headed back downstairs.
The ballroom had mostly emptied. The band had packed up, the lechon trays had been cleared, and the floral arrangements drooped in the warmth. A handful of cousins remained at a table near the bar; Lakan, Pedro, Kuya Len were passing a bottle of something amber-coloured between them. Diwa pulled up a chair, accepted a glass, and let the talk wash over him. Lakan was telling a story about their grandfather and a fishing boat that Diwa had heard a dozen times over, but he always managed to pick out a new angle any time he heard a retelling.
A hand slipped through his arm without warning. His mother’s fingers settled into the crook of his elbow, her grip firm, and she pressed her shoulder against his. Diwa looked down at her. She was still in her dinner clothes, and she looked tired in a way she never let herself look in public.
He didn’t pull away.
She tugged him to his feet and steered him out of the ballroom and through a set of glass doors into a mezzanine lounge that overlooked the hotel atrium. It was empty at this hour, the chairs angled towards floor-to-ceiling windows. The city lights of Makati stretched out below them in a glittering sprawl. She sat with Diwa beside her, close enough that their arms touched from shoulder to wrist.
