All this sudden desire for new things she blamed on one person alone. If he hadn’t quite literally danced his way into her life, she wouldn’t have started questioning things, or let Sam’s words rattle her so much.
Gabriel had unstuck some part of Sari’s world, and she didn’t like it.
She should like him, really. She liked guys who knew what they wanted out of life, who were go-getters and unapologetic about it. She liked guys who knew how to smile, especially him, with his dimples so deep that whenever her staff gossiped they called him “dimples next door” like Sari wasn’t aware of how well that name suited him and—
She spotted a pair of white boots with blue tassel trimmings amidst her sister’s belongings. She grinned as a plan began to form in her mind.
Chapter Eleven
Hours later, with apologies left unsaid, Sari and Sam’s day continued. The best thing about having sisters, Sari liked to think, was that most of the time, it was all about what wasn’t being said, you know? Without talking about it, or sitting down to parse and break it down, Sam and Sari were okay. She liked that about them.
So when Sam walked into Café Cecilia that morning, Sari felt it was only part of her usual routine. She was already behind the counter, showing her new barista how to clean the espresso machine when her sister went behind the counter to give her a huge hug.
“Thanks, Ate.” Sam squeezed her tightly.
“I didn’t do anything, I just gave you boxes for your stuff,” Sari protested, moving out of the hug and to the front of the counter to give her and her sister some room.
“But they were exactly what I needed.” Sam launched herself into Sari’s back and hugged her even tighter. “You’re the best. And I’m sorry I didn’t text last night. I thought you were out having fun, and I wasn’t really worried about you.”
“Is that a compliment to my being responsible, or do you really care so little about me?” Sari turned and pinched her sister’s nose lightly so she knew she was joking, before she shrugged out of her grasp and jogged up the stairs to the coffee lab. She needed to retreat a little from Sam’s emotions, mostly because she didn’t want to feel emotional about this. She was the older sister, it was part of her job to be supportive.
So she was moving away. Sari was going to be fine.
Besides, she had something bigger afoot.
“Ate, why did your busboys just tell me that you’re at war with Sunday Bakery next door?” Sam asked, a cookie in one hand and coffee in the other, as the door to the coffee lab opened with a slam. “There was also something about ABBA? And bananas being made sex-safe.”
“Don’t ask.”
“So you are at war with Dimples?”
“His name is not Dimples, it’s Gabriel, and I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sari singsonged, pulling a random book off the shelf from the daybed, and pretending to read. It was one of her favorite historical romance novels, where an older spinster sister tells the viscount off for pursuing her younger sister, but then ends up falling for the viscount himself. Good stuff, but Sari couldn’t seem to absorb a word of it, mostly because her sister wasn’t supposed to follow her up here.
“You’re acting weird.” Sam slipped into the space next to Sari on the daybed, making a grab for the book. Sari deftly moved it out of the way and casually glanced out the window. As she expected, she had a perfect view of the street below. More importantly, a perfect view of Sunday Bakery’s doorway.
“I’m not. What time is it?” she asked casually, as she very subtly checked her shared window with Gabriel to see if he was there. The kitchen lights were on, but her curly-haired air band mate was nowhere to be found. Maybe he was downstairs at the shop?
“Five minutes to nine,” Sam said. “What are you looking at?”
“Just trying to picture this scene I’m reading. The viscount is playing some sort of competitive sport on a huge field, and I don’t know enough about white people sports to understand it,” Sari said almost immediately, closing the book like she was worried Sam would press for more information.
But Sam was like a fish to food when it came to possible chismis and simply tilted her head at her. Finally, she seemed to realize something and asked, “What did you do while getting boxes for me?”
“Nothing!” Sari lied. Sam narrowed her eyes at her and Sari sighed. “Fine. Something. Just a thing. A quick little stopover.”
“A stopover that would have nothing to do with the person who works on the other side of that window?”
Sari laughed, and she knew that her sister was looking at her like she’d just grown a second, third, and fourth head. She was aware that she had never been this excited, or this weird about something, and had never gone this long without telling Sam what she was planning.
“You are freaking me out,” Sam said, half amused and half horrified, at least in Sari’s ears. “Ate, seriously, what is going on?”
“What’s going on is that I am having a little fun.” Sari shrugged, so without care or concern that she thought she rivaled Queen Victoria’s “we are not amused.” “And I’m not boring.”
“You are boring,” Sam said good-naturedly, squeezing her sister’s arm before she paused and studied her. “This is the wildest thing you’ve ever done in your life, isn’t it?”
“I’ve done wilder.”
“Stealing a 1.5 liter of Pepsi from a party when you were super drunk is not that wild.” Sam rolled her eyes. “And really? You don’t see the un-wisdom of this?”
“Un-wisdom?”
“Avoiding it isn’t going to stop me from asking.”
“Mhmm.” Sari knew she was being a little too chipper as she put the book back in its place on the shelf and walked to the espresso machine.
“Ate,” Sam sighed a long-suffering, exasperated sigh. Sari was a little sister to an exasperating older sister herself, so she knew the sound. “But you realize that you’re pikon, right?”
“Take that back,” Sari almost snapped at her.
“I will not, because you are!” Sam insisted, leaving a bit of dirt on the floor when she stomped her foot. “The littlest things set you off. Just like this morning! You remember when we were kids, and Kiko Villa cut in front of you to get birthday cake, then you tripped him and broke his nose?”
“I was seven, and you are too young to remember that.”
“The sight of all the blood scarred me for life. And you also get really, really mad when you’re driving.”
“Traffic here is just as bad as in Manila! You try sitting in traffic for an hour just to get to something two kilometers away.”
“And you cry every time you don’t get your way.”
“Okay, now we both know that is not true.” Sari’s voice was low as she glared at her sister. Sari knew that look on her sister’s face. When it came to gossip and drama, Sam was like a bloodhound and could smell it a mile away. She also loved sussing out the truth, especially when her sisters were trying not to give it to her. “I cry when I get mad, and that’s a very different thing. I can handle this, I can handle myself. It’s just Gabriel Capras.”
But it wasn’t just Gabriel Capras, was it? It was the way he got under her skin, the way he made her roll her eyes at the stupid pranks he pulled. Looking at Sam now in the midst of Sari’s planning of this last prank, she saw it exactly for what it was. It was distraction. Distraction from her feelings about Sam leaving her, distraction from her feelings about everything else. It was diversion. But most importantly, it was fun. She liked this, she liked being challenged like this, in ways that she didn’t really expect. Who would have thought the boy next door with the impossibly sweet smile would be the one to get her to feel this way?
Sam gasped dramatically like she’d seen Sari’s lightbulb moment, and it took all of Sari’s willpower not to roll her eyes. She took a sip of her freshly extracted coffee a
nd looked at her sister over the rim of the mug, trying her hardest to keep the smile off her face. She was also trying not to look like she was buzzing in anticipation, because she was.
Sam had always been able to read her like an open book, no matter how much Sari tried to keep it shut.
“You’re enjoying this,” Sam accused, leaning back against the bookshelf. “I’ve never seen you smiling like this.”
“I am not smiling,” Sari snorted, but she could feel it in the way her cheeks were starting to hurt. She couldn’t help it. The anticipation of a successful pranking was just too much.
“You’re smiling, and you like being devious.” Sam shook her head and laughed. “I love this new side of you, Ate. It’s cute. Even if this is the weirdest courtship ever.”
“Courtship? What...?”
“I didn’t think adults did ligawan like schoolchildren.”
“I am not making landi, and this isn’t ligawan.” Sari scowled, and she was pretty sure she looked like a schoolchild when she did so, but whatever. She was not flirting and this certainly was not a courtship. She was engaged in a prank war, she was a few minutes away from winning. “I’m facing a challenge. And I never back down from a challenge.”
“Sure you do. You back down every time Ate Selene comes into town.”
“That’s—”
“Different? It’s really not,” Sam laughed, shaking her head. “I know you, Ate. It’s not wrong to admit you’re having fun. I like seeing you have fun. This whole secretly devious side of you is wildly fascinating. And I have no doubt you know the limits to this. Just...remember that you’re pretty short-tempered, and Gab doesn’t know this about you. Don’t let this go too far?”
“There is no such thing as too far in a prank war,” Sari huffed, and almost on cue, a booming sound filled the air, followed by the discordant tinkling of an instrument. A bunch of instruments. Then, a small group of young children in bright yellow and blue uniforms came marching into view, all of them with serious expressions on their faces as they beat their mallets and sticks against drums and lyres to what sounded suspiciously like “Bahay Kubo.” Sari hadn’t heard “Bahay Kubo” since she was in pre-school.
“What the heck?” Sam sighed, and Sari knew the exasperation of a younger sister more than most, but decided that she was going to ignore her for now. “Where did you even find a drum and lyre band at six in the morning?”
“I hired the one from the public school near the house on my way from getting your boxes,” Sari half laughed, half shouted, swaying along as the band changed tune to “Hooked on a Feeling,” which she didn’t even know they could play. Girls in pigtails, blue and yellow tassels and shiny white boots twirled tasseled batons in the air, and a huge crowd began to gather in the perimeter of the performance, taking video as they wondered who this was supposed to be for.
Sari gave in to the urge to sing along, and start dancing. Sam looked a little terrified.
Then he came out of the café, and honestly, all of the trouble, the explaining and re-explaining she went through to set this up, it was so worth it, seeing the confusion, exasperation and surprise on Gabriel’s face. Sari giggled with glee as she curled her fingers closer around her coffee cup, ignoring the way Sam rolled her eyes.
Her sister was right. She was having fun. She liked setting this up, she liked sneaking around and getting Gabriel to make that face he was making right now.
Very slowly, his curly head turned and he looked up, almost like she’d told him that she was going to do this, told him where she was going to watch from. There was a crinkle in the corners of his eyes, and his Lipa-famous dimples were on full display. The sight of him made her queasy and giddy at the same time, and she didn’t know if it was guilt or excitement. “Hooked on a Feeling” was still playing when he pointed to her, turned his finger around and made a “come here” motion with it.
Sari stuck her tongue out at him in response.
He raised an eyebrow at her. His dimples were at maximum adorability, and had Sari not been the one to do this, she would have immediately floated down to where Gabriel was and bathed in his attention. Because damn, Sam was right. It looked like a courtship. It looked like Gabriel had hired the band to serenade her by her window.
“Are you going to go out there?” Sam asked as the band moved to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” which was just unfair, really, because Gabriel started to dance the way he did whenever he baked, which just automatically brought a smile to Sari’s face, until she realized her sister was staring at her.
“Hell no,” Sari snorted, shaking her head.
“I thought you never backed down from a challenge?” Sam teased, nudging her sister with her elbow. Gabriel was still watching them with the cockiest expression on his face, like he was fully expecting Sari to go outside. Because she was going to have to, wasn’t she?
Oooh, now that was the expression she wanted to wipe off his face. His “hello, Sari, I have you cornered” face.
So Sari put down her coffee cup, made a show of brushing imaginary dust from her black and white checkered skirt. Still carrying the air of a queen, she joined Gabriel outside, all breezy and confident and innocent, because really, what could she do?
“Did you do this?” he asked, jerking his thumb at the kids. Was it just her imagination, or did he look amused? The point of this wasn’t to amuse him. She wanted to...to make him all mad, and infuriated, and, and...
He should stop smiling. Sari could barely finish a thought around a smile like that, and it was dangerous with a capital D with matching flashing neon signs.
She merely shrugged in response, because she couldn’t be trusted to say anything, and he threw his head back and laughed. His entire face lit up with the absurdity of all of this. Because it was absurd, wasn’t it? Sari-sari stores opened next to each other all the time, selling the exact same wares, and petty rivalries like this had never emerged.
He ran his hand through his hair and looked at Sari, and she just...she knew that his smile was all for her, warm and happy. It made her think of hot caramel on cool vanilla ice cream. But he was laughing, which meant that he didn’t hate this. The crowd seemed to sense it too, because they started to cheer at the sight of them standing together at the stoop of each of their shops, as if daring the other to come close.
“Kiss! Kiss!” someone chanted, and everyone started to join in.
“Excuse me?” She scrambled for an excuse without actually saying that this was her fault. “There’s no mistletoe!”
“There’s no what?” People in the crowd seemed totally confused.
“Is that drugs?” one particularly ornery person asked.
“It’s not drugs, that’s probably a contraceptive.”
“Not the outcome you predicted, is it?” Gabriel asked, and he was laughing really, really loudly now. So loud that he could have topped the big bass drum when it came to decibels. “Maybe we should just give the crowd what they want.”
“Hmph. You first.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel. Is it?”
But instead of saying something in response, Gabriel stopped laughing. He never did stop smiling though, and held out a hand for her to take. Sugar particles always seemed to be stuck on his hands, and Sari could see them sparkle in the sunlight. Had she been a more naive person, she would think this a sign. Or a Christmas miracle.
“Don’t you wash your hands?” she asked him.
“Yes, of course I do. Take my hand, Sari,” he said with no force whatsoever. How did he make his voice that deep, and still so warm? It shot through her body, like the caramel in coffee, making her fingers tingle.
God help her, she took it. She didn’t know what possessed her to take his hand, but she wasn’t going to be the one to disappoint their little audience. Very suddenly, she remembered that morning where
they were both on their own sides of the window, dancing together, but still apart. This felt very much the same, but this time, Gabriel was in solid, touchable distance, and she was about to kiss him.
“I brushed my teeth this morning, if that helps,” he said.
“It doesn’t,” she clarified. “So are you admitting defeat? I win?”
“Defeat? Never.” He grinned, and it made Sari’s entire body tingle. “This is me going first.”
“I-is that a challenge?” She hated that she was stuttering.
“Is that consent?”
Sari squeezed his hand, warm and big and much, much bigger than hers. She put on the most unaffected face she could muster, hoping that her cheeks weren’t as red as she thought, hoping that she wasn’t smiling. She probably was, though, because her face always betrayed her, and her cheeks were burning. Honestly. If only she could actually project the level of cool she imagined she had, she wouldn’t end up in situations like this.
Not that this situation was bad, per se, it was just...exactly what she wanted. She never thought she would get exactly what she wanted more than once in this life.
She tugged his hand to pull him close. She was now close enough that she saw him swallow thickly, the only sign that he was nervous.
“This is consent,” she told him. “Make it good.”
With a deftness that she didn’t think possible for a man as tall as him, he lifted her hand and twirled her around, and her skirt flew around her. Sari’s entire world spun and her feet were a little unstable before she felt her back press against his warm chest. In the warm December sun, Gabriel’s chest radiated heat, felt comfortable, and Sari wanted to curl up into it and nap like a cat. She didn’t think bakers had such firm muscles, but hey, she wasn’t about to complain when Gabriel was so in control of the situation.
Sweet on You Page 9
