Chapter Two

“Jay, delete these pictures!!! I swear, I’ll kick your sorry ass if any of these get posted on Friendster!”

Jay winced as Markie kept screaming from the bedroom. She just woke up and found the digital camera he’d left on the nightstand. He’d taken pictures of her while she was sleeping on the way to the restaurant and when he’d carried her to his bed. She was beautiful in each of them of course, but Markie always insisted on never publishing any of her unflattering ones.

He continued stirring the sauce of the pasta he was making and turned the volume of the disc player several notches up.

“No, Jay, you do not have a screaming woman in your room who sounds like a wife barking orders,” he mumbled to himself, moving to the upbeat Santa Claus is Coming to town song that filled the entire kitchen.

“Jay! There are pictures of me drooling!”

He smiled and dusted some parmesan cheese into the pot.

She was cute when she was ticked. He liked it despite the remote possibility of finding several broken pieces of what used to be his camera in the room. He had it on the Arabic language setting so she wouldn’t figure out how to delete those pictures but knowing Markie, she’d probably just throw it against the wall to accomplish her purpose.

He shook his head. He knew women were complicated but he might have acquired the actual blueprint of their species.

On the other hand, he seemed to be the blue print for martyr guys who did not know better.

He still doesn’t know what’s he’s doing with her. Three months ago, he thought he’d finally gotten a grip –that his life away from Markie could finally start after fifteen years of postponement.

But she walked in again just when he thought he was ready to finally walk away.

He didn’t know what else to do when he saw her in Earth, with eyes betraying the memories he knew were running in her head then the moment she found out about the cookies and wondered if he was married.

It was still there. He saw it.

But Markie had always been the kind of girl who went wherever life took her, with no thought to permanence or the future. She wanted everything yet possessed nothing. She walks in only to always walk out.

But he couldn’t turn his back on her.

He was sincere when he told her that night that he wanted their friendship back. If he couldn’t love her in that way, he wanted to at least protect her.

From whom?

Herself.

Because in the last fifteen years he knew her, he saw the pattern: Markie destroying everything she’s trying to build.

And right now, she was in a good place in her life. She was successful, rich, healthy and alive once again after everything that happened to her in New York.

She was his only best friend and the mother of his child –weren’t those reasons enough to let go of the past and be there for her?

Many things have changed yet so much still remained.

His commitment to her was one of those.

“Jay, how do you delete pictures in this goddamned camera?” she demanded as she walked into the kitchen, barefoot, still wearing her pretty yellow dress, her hair mussed and her face contorted into a pouty frown. “Why the hell is this in Arabic in the first place? I don’t understand it!”

He smiled and quelled the tug in his heart. “That’s the point there exactly. Pasta?”

Her lips curved into an exasperated pout as she slid on top of a bar stool. “Yes, please. Jay, I swear, if you don’t delete these, I’m going to dunk your camera into the lake.”

He rolled his eyes and set a plate before her. “Hmm… Where have I heard that before? Oh right, that was before you threw my cellphone into the pool after I missed your seventeenth birthday.”

She bit her lip to conceal a guilty smile. “Only because I was drunk and pissed at you for not showing up.”

“I tried, you know. But we were on an environmental trek on an island when the typhoon hit the province and we couldn’t ship out,” he retorted, scooping some noodles into her plate. “I figured I’d rather miss that birthday than all your other birthdays.”

She pouted. “I did say I was sorry, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, after I got confined in the hospital for dengue.”

Her face crumpled with guilt. “I’m sorry! I was so immature then!”

He raised a brow at her. “And the difference between then and now is?”

She laughed and grabbed my arm. “Jay! Stop it! I’ll buy you a new phone, if you want.”’

He shook his head in mock resignation. “Nope, my phone is working just fine.”

“Alright. Then what do you want?”

He narrowed his eyes, staring off into the distance as if thinking long and hard. “Hmm… My head supervisor is off for the holidays and guests will be pouring in starting tomorrow. I need someone who’ll man the main counter for any concerns.”

She pouted even more. “But I thought you didn’t want me to work on Christmas.”

He shrugged so casually. “Oh, yeah sure. I didn’t mention anything about you. I was just mumbling to myself.”

“Jay!” she giggled and hugged him from behind, her face, pressed against his back. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it!”

He almost couldn’t breathe. Not because Markie was hugging him too tight but simply because she was hugging him. She’s hugged him plenty of times since they patched up three months ago, only because Markie has always been that way, touchy and sweet, but everytime she did it, she pulled his heart and wrung it like crazy.

God, this was madness.

“I’m sorry for throwing your phone into the pool five years ago and for being such a brat,” she murmured into his back, her hands locking together in front of him. “I’d love to help you with the restaurant’s preparations for Christmas.”

He smiled and put his hands over her own. “You’re forgiven and thanks. Just don’t wear your scanty clothes, okay? I don’t want wives bickering with their husbands because of you. It’s Christmas, for crying out loud.”

She giggled and nodded. “Yes sir! I’ll look like a boring doormat starting tomorrow.”

He took a deep breath, looked at their hands and told himself to move along before he could do anything they’d both regret. “Now, go eat. The sauce is getting cold.”

She happily slipped back on top of the stool and mixed her pasta. “You’re always feeding me.”

He smirked and twirled some pasta with his fork. “You never seem to have complained. Except when I serve you ampalaya.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Eew! That’s icky. I don’t know how you can handle it.”

He turned to her and grinned. “I handle it the way I handle you.”

Her brows furrowed. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that eating ampalaya is like dealing with you. The experience isn’t all that sweet but painstaking instead. But you eat it anyway, because it’s good for you.”

She pursed her lips, looking like a sixth grader wondering about whether man really landed on the moon or not. “Are you saying I’m good for you?”

“Nope, definitely not,” he stated flatly