Keeping the Distance (I Heart Iloilo Book 1)

by Clarisse David

  It was ridiculously hot tonight. The heat burst from the ground and mingled with what was supposed to be moist July weather. All the stars were out in full force. She took it as a good sign.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Almendra!” She waved at their elderly neighbor who was getting some air on the veranda. The smile on her face too big to be contained.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Mrs. Almendra shouted back, fanning herself with one hand. Her shock of white hair stood out all over her head.

  “Somewhere really nice!”

  And she laughed. Melissa continued running, not caring that her carefully measured waves were turning into a frizzy mess. She could always weave the strands together into a trusty fishtail braid. It wasn’t a big deal. Getting to Lance was.

  She stopped when she was near the vacant lot. His car was already in sight, parked near overgrown weeds. The windows were tinted, so she couldn’t see him inside.

  “Mel?”

  She turned around and found Hunter standing under a streetlight. The yellow light cast half his face in shadow, two plastic bags full of groceries in his hands. The strap of her purse slid down her shoulder as her veins turned ice-cold.

  He could ruin this for her. He could run to her father and tell him about the red car and the boy waiting inside it. It would be so easy. Things would be over before they even started.

  “Hunter.” His name sounded like a plea coming from her lips.

  “Where are you going?” Hunter took a few steps forward. The plastic bags bumped against his legs.

  Melissa heard the telltale opening and closing of a car door. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Lance had stepped out of the car. She wanted to close her eyes and whisk the two of them somewhere else, somewhere where getting caught didn’t have serious consequences.

  “I’m going out with Lance,” she said, surprising herself with the calm in her voice. “But my father can’t find out. Please don’t tell him.”

  Hunter’s eyebrows drew together as he looked at Lance over her shoulder. His eyes drifted back to her, understanding dawning in them. “I won’t tell.”

  “Thank you—”

  “But as your friend, I have to tell you to be careful.” Hunter glanced at Lance again. She could read the expression on his face like the well-worn pages of her favorite book. Wariness. Suspicion. Indecision. His shoulders fell, releasing tension he’d been holding in. “Promise?”

  “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  Hunter nodded as if that was enough, even if she knew it wasn’t. For what she hoped was the last time, she turned her back on Hunter, the boy who had been a part of her life for so long he blended into almost all of her memories. Lance stood waiting for her, the sleeves of his black button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows. His hair was a calculated mess like always.

  As she approached, he walked over to the passenger side and pulled the door open for her. With his hand on the small of her back, he guided her onto the seat. She could’ve turned on a light bulb with all the electricity flashing between them.

  “Glad you didn’t change your mind,” Lance said, leaning over her. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. It made her shiver. In a totally good way. He shut the car door and got inside.

  When the car swerved onto the street, she saw Hunter still standing under the same streetlight, making sure she was safe. She mouthed her thanks at him and buckled her seatbelt.

  “Are you sure he’s not going to get you in trouble?” Lance asked, his eyes on the road.

  She shook her head. “No. I trust Hunter.”

  Lance didn’t say anything, but she could tell there was something wrong with her answer by the silence that followed it. His jaw hardened, and he didn’t glance in her direction, not even when they had to stop for a red light.

  During one of Mr. Rodriguez’s lectures on energy, he had stated that it was indestructible. Once it was generated, it had to go somewhere. Maybe that was the explanation for why this date was turning out to be such a disaster. She and Lance had built up all sorts of expectations about this night, and it was blowing up in their faces.

  Unable to take the silence anymore, she cleared her throat.

  He continued to ignore her. They had reached Diversion Road by that point, a long stretch where most drivers took the chance to speed up. They could go on not speaking for a few more minutes.

  “Where are we going?” She finally broke the silence.

  Still no response.

  “I want you to know I have pepper spray in my purse,” she said. “Just in case you plan to act like this all night.”

  One corner of Lance’s mouth rose. He was halfway to a smile. He glanced at her, his hands sure and confident on the steering wheel. “It’s nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You sounded so sure about trusting Hunter.” The ghost of a smile vanished. His face turned serious. “Do you trust me?”

  Wanting to trust him was like standing on a sandy beach. She wanted to strip off her clothes and dive right in, but she had to dip her toes in the water first. To see if it was too cold or too hot.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she returned the question. “Should I?”

  Lance didn’t say anything at first. He stared out at the road ahead, like he was weighing the significance of every word. Finally, he said, “Whether you want to murder Mr. Rodriguez with one of your headbands, or you need someone to get you a cola Slurpee at one in the morning, I want to be the person you trust so much you won’t think of calling anyone else. Small things. Big things. It doesn’t matter.”

  She shouldn’t make the first move. She knew that, but she couldn’t think of a better way to respond to the speech that found the chinks in her armor and crawled right in. She reached for his hand and interlocked their fingers so tightly he couldn’t let go if he wanted to.

  He didn’t want to. Lance’s fingers curled around her own, even tighter than she imagined possible. The smile he’d been holding in escaped and brightened up his entire face. It was so blinding she almost raised one hand to shield her eyes.

  He was beautiful. She had to tell him.

  “You’re way too pretty.” The words sounded more like an insult than a compliment.

  Lance burst out laughing, never letting go of her hand the entire time. He pursed his lips. “I know, right?”

  “If you were a girl, I bet you’d be prettier than me.” She was laughing now, too. At the silliness of the conversation. At the feel of his hand in hers, like it had nowhere else to be.

  He shrugged, as if to say she didn’t have to point out the obvious.

  She smacked his shoulder with the hand that wasn’t holding his.

  They drove like that for a few minutes, fingers interlocked and silly grins on their faces, until Lance swerved and the car wound its way into Smallville. He took another right turn and parked the car near an already closed bank.

  They were having dinner at Atria, a one-story outdoor mall full of restaurants and kiosks. After turning off the ignition, he sprinted out of the car and opened the door for her.

  Trepidation bubbled up in Melissa's throat. She was on a date. With a boy who claimed to like her. With the one all the girls wanted. She looked up at his face as she unbuckled her seat belt and sighed. He was here, and as far as this night was concerned, he was hers.

  They walked up the tiled steps, passing a fountain flooded with blue light. They passed groups of people eating on outside tables. Two kids, a boy and girl, ran past them, giggling the whole time.

  A respectful distance remained between them, but her heartbeat stuttered whenever their hands brushed. She couldn't take his hand. Not now. Not in such a public place.

  "Have you tried any of the restaurants here?” Lance asked, tilting his head down at her.

  "Cam and I come here from time to time," she said. "She loves Seafood Island."

  Melissa wanted to ask him which restaurants he'd tried, but then, she
remembered that he might've gone with one of his numerous ex-girlfriends. The question vanished from the tip of her tongue.

  She turned the corner, Lance by her side, and stopped dead. Mr. Rodriguez sat inside a Singaporean restaurant with his wife and two kids, spooning soup into his mouth. Only a glass wall and several tables separated them. Before their teacher could glance in their direction, she grabbed Lance's arm and pulled him behind a kiosk selling comic books.

  "What's going on?” Lance craned his neck to get a better look at what had freaked her out so much.

  She held his face between her palms. His skin felt so warm that it took her a second to refocus. "Our nightmare of a teacher is in there having dinner with his family."

  Lance scratched the back of his neck. "It's not a problem. We'll eat somewhere else. There are plenty of restaurants here."

  "I don't think that's going to work."

  He didn't understand. There were plenty of restaurants in Atria, in the entire city, but there were also plenty of people who could see them. Word could get back to her father. She slowly removed her hands from his face and placed them behind her, safe where they couldn't reach out and touch him.

  “Oh.” His expression said it all. “I get it.”

  They walked back to the car in silence. She couldn’t even say they were walking together, because Lance stayed a few paces behind her the whole time. She glanced at him over her shoulder. He was taking in the sights around him. The couple their age who were sharing a banana sundae outside an ice cream place. The cluster of girls huddled around a clothing stall. The girls stared at him, bursting into giggles as he passed. An unpleasant lump formed in her throat.

  Instead of feeling alive on a joyous Thursday night, Atria now felt suffocating with all the people running around, the heat closing around them like a chokehold.

  Lance was still a gentleman when they got to the car, opening and shutting the door for her. Once he got inside, he didn’t turn on the ignition right away. They sat in silence as awkwardness bloomed between them, like some kind of poisonous flower.

  This was it, wasn’t it? He was going to drive her home, forget about her, and move on to another girl who wasn’t so terrified of her own father. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe—

  “I’m in the mood for a hamburger. And fries.” Lance turned to her, adorably tugging at one ear. “What about you?”

  Her sarcasm decided to check out just then. She looked down at the purse on her lap. “That sounds wonderful.”

  ***

  If this were another lifetime, another girl, Lance wouldn’t have minded being a dirty, little secret. In fact, he would’ve relished it. He would’ve liked secret rendezvous at a vacant lot a block away from her house and coded messages that no one else could understand. It was exciting.

  In theory.

  In real life, though?

  Not so much.

  As Melissa sat beside him on the passenger seat of his car, he took a deep breath and attempted to sort out his thoughts. They both held cheeseburgers in their hands, two large orders of fries and large Cokes on the dashboard in front of them.

  He had imagined better things for their first official date. The chicken wings and steaks he’d had in mind for the night turned into the drive-thru at McDonald’s. And the cozy bistro? It was his car parked in an alley behind a Chinese private school. At least, it was private, the sleeping old lady in the sari-sari store about fifteen feet away their only witness. He could give it that much. No one was going to run off to Mr. Ortiz to tell him his precious daughter was with unsavory company.

  He could feel her eyes on him as he chewed, but every time he glanced in her direction, she stared down at her purse. At her feet. At the streetlight glowering down on them like a spotlight. Anything but at him. He placed his half-eaten cheeseburger on the dashboard and forced the words down his throat.

  In the end, he couldn’t stop himself.

  He had to ask.

  “Why won’t you tell your father you’re going out with me?” The words flew out of his mouth. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  Melissa looked at him with eyes that pried him open. In a voice so low he could barely hear her, she said, “He won’t let me go out with you again. And I don’t want that.”

  Lance swallowed. Her words took him by surprise, so he grabbed his Coke and took a sip to cover it.

  The thing was, her hiding him from her father ate at him, like the nasty flesh-eating fungus he’d once seen on TV, but he didn’t want to stop this, whatever was going on between them even if it didn’t have a name yet. Not having a choice made him want to slam his fist against the steering wheel.

  Then, her fingers lightly touched the hand he’d unknowingly curled into a fist. She made the fingers uncurl and relax with her touch, lightly tracing the lines on his palm. He let her.

  “When I was little, I used to love being the principal’s daughter,” she started. “I got to see Papa at school and at home. I was never alone, and I felt so, you know, proud that my father was the principal. He even made want to be a teacher someday. It felt like an honor to be his daughter.”

  “And now?”

  “It’s still an honor. Don’t get me wrong.” She shot him a look. “But sometimes, he expects too much. I try to get everything right, but it always feels like I forgot a step or missed something.” The beautiful girl in the passenger seat turned to him and gifted him with a smile, one so sad he wanted to kiss it away. “What about you? Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  “About myself?”

  She nodded.

  “My mother left when I was six,” was the first thing he said. He didn’t know why. He had only shared this with Jace, and even his best friend didn’t know all the details. “Sometimes, I tell people, I tell myself, that I don’t remember her, but I do. I remember that she left when things got hard, and that I don’t want to be that person. The one who leaves when things get hard. The thing is, I’ve been that person for years.”

  “What if things get harder?” Melissa whispered. The numbers on the dashboard lit up her face as she laid her head on his shoulder.

  What if things get harder for us? The real question hung unspoken between them.

  He froze, letting her get comfortable. She smelled like lavender and mint shampoo. Looking down at the tangle of curls and at the white headband still stuck in her hair, a certainty began to spread through him. He could tough it out. For her. He didn’t want to be the person who took the easy way out anymore.

  “Lance?” she prodded.

  He smiled, letting the slow, easy smile ease take over his face. “You can always superglue me to my chair, so I can’t leave.”

  She straightened up so quickly she must’ve gotten whiplash. She narrowed her eyes at him. Jabbing a finger at his chest, she said, “You started the whole thing and you know it.”

  He wanted to kiss her right then, when she was angry and hot coals burned in her eyes.

  He did just that.

  Grabbing the finger she’d jabbed at his chest with one hand, he wound the other around her neck and pulled her closer, their lips meeting halfway.

  Yes, Lance had kissed a lot of girls. At the movies. At his house. In this very car. It had never felt like this. None of the prior kisses made him feel like his heart had been blown up and reassembled afterwards for further destruction.

  He ran his tongue over her bottom lip, even nibbling on it a little. Tentatively, Melissa’s hands made their way up his chest and around his neck. She raked her fingers over his hair and inched closer as if she wanted more.

  He, on the other hand, was burning up with the need for more. He pressed his tongue against hers, and finally let his fingers slide against her silky hair, something he’d been wanting—needing—to do for as long as he could remember. He pulled away, because the need for more threatened to swallow him whole.

  When they broke apart, he leaned his forehead against hers and whispered, “Or you could
kiss me. That also works.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  "It must've been some kiss, huh?" Cam shoved a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth and grinned.

  Melissa darted from her bed and shut the door to her room. Leaning against it, she widened her eyes at her best friend until they started laughing. "Shut up and help me."

  "Fiiiine." Cam finished off the rest of her ice cream in two bites and placed the empty bowl on her bedside table.

  They started stringing up fairy lights above her desk. Melissa made sure the clutter on the surface looked like a calculated mess, the origami figures made from colorful construction paper front and center and notebooks with pastel covers stacked on one corner. Once finished, they stepped back to admire their handiwork.

  Cam tilted her head to view the whole thing from another angle. "Our backdrop looks perfect. I think we're ready to start filming."

  "I think so, too," Melissa said, feeling nervous for the first time.

  Cam grabbed her still-folded tripod from the bed and started getting everything ready. From her perch on the wooden chair by her desk, Melissa watched her fiddle with the camera settings, trying to get everything right. Her palms began to sweat, so she grabbed her ukulele from the foot of the bed to settle her nerves. She started tuning it until the strings hit the right notes.

  "Seriously, Mel, it must've been some kiss if you decided to film a ukulele cover all of a sudden," Cam prodded once again as she attached her camera to the tripod.

  Melissa's gaze fell to the ukulele in her hands. A part of her regretted telling Cam about the kiss, like keeping it to herself made it more vibrant somehow, more real. But how could she possibly not tell anyone without exploding? She had kissed Lance, and it had been a-freaking-mazing. His lips must've been made of fairy dust and angel wings. They sure looked like it.