Sweet on You

by Carla de Guzman

  “Oh, it’s you guys,” she said, turning away from them again to go back behind the counter.

  “Ah, I love the hospitality of a café,” Sam said, making Kira giggle as they took their usual seats in the café.

  Kira and Sam were her most regular of regulars. Kira had opened Gemini Chocolates about a year prior to Sari and Sam taking over their areas of the family business, and they usually got together like this just to support each other and complain at each other. Like a little Girl Boss support group, which was why they were here.

  “Sari, you look like you’re in a bad mood,” Kira announced, leaning over the counter to look deeply into Sari’s eyes. “It doesn’t suit your café’s new floral aesthetic.”

  “Trust me, Kira, Ate Sari would be last person in the family to develop a floral aesthetic.” Sam rolled her eyes.

  “No, I’m fine.” Sari shook her head, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling at her friends like nothing was wrong. “I’ll make your coffee. Kira, the beans today have a chocolatey note, you might like it.”

  “M’am, I really should—” her barista started, but Sari ignored him and pushed the button on the grinder, moving around the space to make her friends their coffee orders. Kira had the biggest sweet tooth in the world, and her favorite coffee was a caffe mocha that was heavy on the mocha (made with her chocolates, of course), with just a little bit of milk to make it creamier. She made Sam a hot Americano, this time with the darkest roast she had on hand.

  But as Sari brought their drinks, she saw Gabriel standing outside his shop, just in her view. Almost like he’d noticed her watching, he turned and smiled at her through the window, giving her a flirty little wink.

  Sari blushed. A fierce, hot blush that spread from her cheeks to her toes. Then she realized that Sam and Kira were watching her and she knew she was busted.

  “Oh my God, look at you, getting your flirt on with the Baker Boy next door,” Kira teased, resting her elbows on the table, and her chin on her hands after Sari set down her drink before she greedily gave her mocha a sip. “Mmmm. I thought you despised him. Just last week we were erasing his specials board to write dirty baking jokes.”

  “Well, I ran out of jokes, and we really couldn’t top ‘I’m into roll play.’”

  “‘I’ve got big buns, hun,’ ‘I want you to want me, I knead you to knead me...’” Sam listed, and stopped when she realized Kira was smiling adoringly at her and Sari was narrowing her eyes at her. “What?”

  “Anyway, I...don’t despise him,” Sari corrected, raising her voice slightly because “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” was playing, and wasn’t the universe amazing at being ironic? “Does it annoy me that people assume we’re courting each other? No. Do I think he should get over himself and order coffee that didn’t come in a packet? Yes. Do I also think a lot about sitting in the fire escape with him...sharing...mangoes? Yes.”

  “Is that a euphemism for something?” Sam’s nose wrinkled when she asked.

  “No, it’s what actually happened.” Sari was unwilling to tell them any more than that. “But we’re supposed to be talking about other things right now. Like Sam moving away. What I’m supposed to do with my empty room. What Selene could possibly mean by dropping by on such short notice. Kira’s issues with Santi.”

  “Who’s Santi?” Sam asked. “Oh, oh, the guy who owns Villa and that really amazing Italian place?”

  “Overpriced Italian place, you mean.” Kira rolled her eyes. “I swear, if I find out he’s a Taurus, I would not be surprised, at all.”

  “The guy who looks like the Grim Reaper from Goblin, yes.” Sari grinned, enjoying Kira make a face like she did not completely disagree with Sari’s assessment. “He’s really nice too.”

  “He is not,” Kira insisted, turning to Sam and clearly looking for someone to help her out. “He is standoffish, and a bit rude, and he won’t let me eat pesto with regular pasta. At the Christmas Party, he also...”

  “He also what?” Sam asked curiously.

  “Nothing,” Kira stammered, but her cheeks were way too red for there to be nothing. “And Sam, your sister is not dealing well with your moving away.”

  “She’s just going to miss Kylo.” Sam waved a hand dismissively, because one should never underestimate a Tomas sister’s ability to compartmentalize and push aside their own emotions. “Don’t worry, Ate. You can visit him.”

  “Oh my God.” Kira shook her head. “The emotional constipation is clogging up my space. You Tomas sisters need to talk. Your star signs aren’t exactly harmonious as it is.”

  “We’re fine,” Sam, the Pisces, insisted. “Right, Ate?”

  “We’re always fine.” Sari, the Capricorn, nodded.

  Kira shook her head, and just like that, Sari knew something was wrong. Immediately she blamed her parents, just because it was the quickest thing to do. They never thought to encourage Selene, Sari and Sam to talk to each other, because they never talked to each other. They were always gone, never really around to love their girls the way they needed. By the time their grandmother had stepped in, the damage had been done.

  And now Sam was leaving, Selene was far away, and Sari was going to be left alone in their grandmother’s old house. The fears she’d had before she talked to Gabriel came roaring back with a vengeance.

  “Well, what are you not fine with?” Kira huffed.

  “How about the fact that people don’t like staying here?” Sari said, choosing the least of her problems now that she was being forced to think of the bigger ones. How funny that she used to think that Sunday Bakery was her biggest problem. It wasn’t a problem at all now, it was...it was nice, having a place like that next door. “I think sales could be a lot better if people linger, because they’ll order more.”

  “Ate...you know how people stay at a coffee shop to eat?” Sam said, her words chosen gently, and already Sari was bracing herself for whatever point she was going to make.

  “Sure.” Sari gave a terse little nod.

  “And that your food sucks? Your pastries, especially?”

  Sari nodded again, although she did it very slowly and reluctantly.

  “And given how well you and Gabriel are getting along now, a solution to your issues presents itself?”

  “Does it?”

  “Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  “No,” Sari admitted, dropping her forehead onto the table. “This café is slipping away from me, just like everything else in my life.”

  Kira made a sound that was somewhere in between a buzzer proclaiming a wrong answer and a cow’s moo. “That’s a lie, and you deserve to admit to yourself that this is what you want. Close your eyes and picture it. Sari, what do you want?”

  “I...”

  “I don’t see you closing your eyes.”

  “Right.” She did just that. Closed her eyes and imagined her café during her favorite time of day. Late afternoons meant that the sun hit her windows just right, filling her open space with warm light. She imagined herself standing at her favorite spot in the café, right in front of the espresso machine, with a perfect view of the entire space that was hers. Just that was enough to make her happy, but the daydream wasn’t complete quite yet.

  In her vision, she was holding a latte, bending down to the pastry case to pick something to eat. It was merienda, after all.

  The door opens, the bell rings. Someone walks into the café, a white box with gold lettering balanced perfectly in the person’s hand. Maybe “Pasko Na Sinta Ko” is playing, because she loves that song, even if it’s the saddest. She looks up, and the warmth of the sun spreads from her fingers to her toes, and she’s so happy she’s practically floating on air, because Gabriel is standing right in front of her, holding up a box from Sunday Bakery, his smile so warm and his dimples so deep that it makes her feel warm and happy.

  “Mer
ry Christmas,” she hears him say, as he opens the box for her, revealing a whole brazo de mercedes cake, just for the two of them. And it is that feeling of being loved, of being wanted and desired, that fills her heart with happiness.

  “Oh boy,” Sari said right away, opening her eyes, shaking her head, her hands, her entire body because she was tense and confused and nervous over her own imagination, and it wasn’t fair. “Ohhhh boy.”

  She liked Gabriel more than she’d thought she did. A lot more.

  “She’s blushing! By jove, I think she’s got it,” Sam laughed. “A Christmas miracle!”

  “What, what did I get?” Sari asked, suddenly aware that her hands had flown to her face. She quickly lowered them and stuffed them in her pockets.

  “Does that mean I can eat this with my coffee now?” Kira, her Scorpio rising showing up as she asked, whipping out a white box with gorgeous gold lettering stamped on it. Sari’s heart actually skipped a beat. It looked just like the box from her vision.

  “Oooh.” Sam peered over Kira’s shoulder to take a look. “Those are from Sunday Bakery?”

  “Gabbers just brought them out, I had to fight someone to get these.”

  “Boy has a way with sugar, you have you admit,” Sam said, nodding, and Sari immediately felt betrayed.

  “Boy has been bringing out new menu items like he’s trying to impress...somebody.” Kira was doing a great job of trying to pull a reaction out of Sari, who simply looked away and pretended to be really focusing on the flavors of her Benguet coffee. “I mean, have you tried the ricotta bibingka? Holy shit, it was amazing.”

  “What flavors are these?” Sam, who always preferred subtle sweetness and drank her coffee black, seemed suddenly interested in the contents of Kira’s little box.

  Because she was trying very hard to be subtle (and failing), Sari gave the box a quick glance and realized...oh. They were cupcakes. Sari really, really liked cupcakes. Except that her mother had trained her to think that carbs and sugar were not her friends, and if she wanted to keep her body fit, she had no business eating them.

  “He doesn’t usually make cupcakes, so this is a special Christmas box. Lily is dark chocolate, Daisy is strawberry jam, Mindy is panucha—”

  Sari was out of words. One by one, Kira put the cupcakes on plates, placing them all out like gorgeous princesses on parade, catching light and shimmering as they were laid at Sari’s feet. Well, her counter.

  “Panucha,” Kira repeated for Sam. Sari had completely missed Sam asking about the flavor. “You know. Sweet, but really nutty? It makes sense if you’ve met Mindy.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “Panucha? Round disc of sugar? Peanuts, molasses, muscovado sugar, deliciousness...”

  “In cupcake form?”

  “Gab said he saw people use it as a topping for ice cream in Taiwan, so he experimented,” Kira continued, placing one last, milky white cupcake on the table. This one in particular looked like a pearl one would find inside a clam, and was clearly the jewel of the collection.

  “Why would he name the cupcakes after his exes?” Sari asked, perfectly aware that she was nearly nose-to-nose to her table. She couldn’t help it, they were just so...pretty.

  Now it was Kira’s turn to look confused. “Not his exes, dude. His sisters. He’s the oldest of nine.”

  “Oh,” Sari said as Sam’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t that big families were uncommon in the Philippines, definitely not, when the average household had five or six people. It was more because there were very few in their generation that still had that many siblings. How could they, in this economy? “He’s a kuya.”

  Sari remembered the look of love and pride on his face when he talked about his family. He’d mentioned needing to escape, and she hadn’t understood that, but she supposed she did now.

  What else was he not telling her, she wondered.

  “The ultimate kuya, really.” Kira shrugged, refocusing on the cupcakes. “Anyway, Ivy is salted caramel, Rose is birthday vanilla and Iris is peppermint chocolate. He has two more younger brothers, the twins, but they have their own cake flavor.”

  “Oh, the half chocolate, half birthday cake!” Sam exclaimed, and even Sari was surprised. Since when did her sister go to Sunday Bakery often enough to just know that off the top of her head?

  “Can we eat these in here?” Kira asked, indicating the box of cupcakes.

  “I guess?” Sari said hesitantly, waiting for the feeling of being threatened to come back the way it had on the day Gabriel first opened his shop. She looked at the cupcakes, and was relieved that she felt nothing but a strong desire to eat them.

  “So much for a lifetime ban,” Sam laughed.

  “See, problem solved. Coffee, cake, perfect combination,” Kira said casually, taking a plastic knife and cutting the cupcakes into little quarters so they could all have a taste of each flavor. “Want one?”

  “Yes,” Sari said quickly, trying her best to act nonchalant, and miserably failing. “What do cupcakes have to do with my problem?”

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you, my mouth is too full of this amazing cupcake,” Kira groaned, taking a bite off what Sari remembered as the Daisy, the one with strawberry jam from Good Shepherd in Baguio. More than one customer had come into her shop exclaiming over it. Sari’s mouth watered, but she pushed away the desire. Even if she’d all but forgotten why she didn’t want it.

  Sari turned to Sam, who was too enraptured with the salted caramel Ivy to say anything more than “Mmmm!”

  “Guys?” Sari asked the general vicinity, unwilling to show how annoyed she was that her friends were ignoring her, refusing to acknowledge that she hated it. But because she would say nothing about how she felt, she was promptly ignored as they shared the Mindy, the panucha cupcake, and became incoherent with exclamations of deliciousness.

  “Just pass me one, please.” Sari reached and took the uneaten quarter of Rose, the birthday cake. She took a bite.

  Oh my God.

  Selene Tomas herself could come to the café and take it all away tomorrow, and Sari wouldn’t have noticed. Not while she was eating this cupcake.

  Wow.

  She didn’t know if it was the fact that she’d deprived herself for the last two years, but she was pretty sure she was taking a bite of perfection right here. Seeing a cupcake with sprinkles in the cake would have given off the impression that it was too sugary sweet, but Rose was not that at all. The soft, moist cake was flavored with malty cereal milk, but was strong enough to hold up the vanilla frosting. Sari had no idea what Gabriel did to the buttercream, but it really did taste like birthday cake, the kind of cake that you got from a local bakery, that had frosting that stained your teeth and sugar flowers that weren’t good for you, but you loved anyway.

  It evoked happy memories, and it actually made her sigh. She knew exactly what kind of coffee would go perfectly well with this, could imagine a whole store of customers enjoying the perfect combination of milky cake and smooth coffee, sweet frosting and medium roasted beans.

  “Damn.”

  She wiped her mouth with the napkin and took a sip of her coffee. Her hand was already reaching for the dark chocolate, but she snatched it back. She didn’t have time for this. Her sister was coming this afternoon, and she needed to not be standing around with her friends eating cupcakes.

  “I have to...”

  “Do you?” Sam asked, mid-bite of the peppermint and chocolate cupcake.

  “Yes,” Sari insisted, turning and leaving them both. She headed straight upstairs to the coffee lab, but hesitated when she spotted Gabriel’s head bobbing around on his side of their shared window. And if Sari was braver, she would walk right into his kitchen and kiss him senseless, admit to herself that she wanted him more than she’d thought, and do more.

  In a split-second decision, she turned, walked into the supply c
loset and closed the door behind her, loud enough that she was sure he heard. She leaned against the door and started to laugh like she couldn’t believe what was happening. You’ve kissed him. Why are you so surprised that you want him so much?

  Why don’t you go over there and do something about it?

  Her phone rang, briefly illuminating the contents of the closet. Oh, so that’s where Sari had left the extra jars for the coffee beans. And the extra mugs. She looked at the text.

  Did I just see you go into the supply closet? This is Gab, by the way.

  Gabriel? Sari picked up her phone and studied the message, the first he’d ever sent. When had they exchanged numbers? Knowing him (and did she, really?) he would have come up to her on the guise of “co-warehouse related issues” to ask, but he hadn’t.

  Sari: How did you get this number?

  Gabriel: The Laneways chat group. I just opened a private chat, don’t worry. You didn’t accidentally give out your number.

  Of course, Sari thought, pressing her forehead against the back of the door before she saved his name on her phone as Dimples.

  No community in the Philippines thrived without a requisite message group these days, and Ate Nessie had one for the Laneways. In the group she shared reminders and upcoming events, greeted the owners on birthdays, holidays and particular saints’ days and very occasionally commented on traffic. In turn, the owners shared community concerns, exchanged goods, or collaborated. It was a fun, lively group that Sari usually had to put on Mute.

  Sari: Smmdrt.

  Gabriel: Is that a typo or are you just happy to see me?

  Sari snorted and rolled her eyes.

  Sari: I’m standing in my closet, trying to convince myself not to walk out and kiss you. Your cupcakes are so good. I hate you.