Songs to Make You Stay (Playlist Book 3)

by Jay E. Tria

  “Does that have anything to do with why you’re not here right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  After Jill had left, Shinta had scowled at the ceiling for a good two hours or so. Then he rolled out of bed, slumped face first on the cold, tiled floor, and called Son for two things—to ask if Jill had made it to the airport and safely to Cebu, and to ask where he could buy a guitar.

  “It’s a peace offering,” he elaborated. “Or you know, something for her to remember me by.”

  “Are you guys breaking up?” Son’s words rose to a screech.

  “No! No, no, no. No.” Shinta couldn’t say it enough. “It’s only a fight.”

  “Oh good. That would totally end my world. You guys are my favorite ship.”

  Shinta’s grin came easily despite his dank mood. Calling Son was always a good idea. “Thanks, man. That’s a weird thing to say, but it feels good to hear it.”

  “Are you getting her a guitar to replace Julia?”

  “Not really.” Shinta knew she loved that guitar. It was her first, and she’d owned it for years. “I just thought she might be happy having an option.”

  “Something that’s not a gift from Kim, her ex-boyfriend?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Understandable,” said Son with a laugh. “So what was the fight about?”

  Shinta could almost see Son rest his chin in both hands, eyes wide and curious as he waited for the juicy answer.

  “I have to go away for work. For a year.” He needed to stop downplaying it. “Not just a year, really. Maybe two years or more. To California, for starters.”

  “Wow. You’re going big time.” Son let out a sharp whistle. “And you’re so screwed.”

  “I know.”

  “And you think buying her a thing will help? I know I’ve never had a relationship that made it past my birthday, but I don’t think that’s how you salvage this.”

  “I don’t know what else to do.” Shinta clenched his teeth. “Other girls I’ve dated don’t usually last longer than the first big fight.”

  “Oh.” A few seconds of static from Son’s end. “If you go back to what I just said, you’ll realize I may not be the best person to talk to about this.”

  He did. “It’s okay. I called you because I like you.”

  “Aw, that’s sweet, man.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Ooh, wait I’ve got one: Something’s got to give.”

  Shinta waited. A loud rapping and some muted shuffling came through Son’s line, but his elaboration didn’t. “Great.”

  “You’re welcome,” Son quipped cheerily. “Oh, and another thing. Come over here and see her.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to see me?”

  “Then at least you’ve made it known that this really is just a fight. Now don’t you see the noodle shop yet?”

  Shinta stopped in his tracks, finding a line of bicycles littering on the sidewalk and more dangling from the store’s ceiling. Beside it was what looked like a tiny bungalow, marked by a red-and-gold sign over the door and matching paper lanterns hanging from the edge of the low roof. “I see one now.”

  “No sign in English? Cleanliness looking questionable?”

  “Yes, and very.”

  “Okay, turn right. First building you’ll see.”

  He did as he was told, finding himself facing a sign-less guitar shop, fronted by a grimy display window. It looked smaller than most of the others he’d passed along the way. “I’m here. Thanks, Son.”

  “Good. I have to go because someone’s knocking on this portalet’s door like her life depends on it, and we’re playing soon. You fix this ship, you hear me?” With that, Shinta was at the end of a dead line.

  He dropped his phone back in his pocket and pushed the glass door open, sending the tiny tin birds on the wind chimes chirping as he entered. A guy with a handlebar mustache nodded at him from the counter a few paces away.

  “Hello,” Shinta greeted. “Is Ramone here?”

  Handlebar Man scowled at him. “If Son sent you, tell him we don’t care if you buy a truckload of gear. We’re not giving him any more free strings.”

  Shinta stepped back, muffling a chuckle with a short cough. He bobbed his head at the man, pointing toward the display. “I’ll just look around.”

  He turned on his heel, finding himself face to face with a floor-to-ceiling array of electric guitars. They hung from what looked like a wall of amplifiers stacked together to form a Great Wall of Gear. He stepped closer, finger poking a tiny switch on a yellow guitar’s gleaming body.

  Take a walk, swim in alcohol with friends. Kiss another girl like you mean it. These were things he did if he wanted to forget, if he wanted things to end. But what Shinta wanted now was to fix things, which explained why he felt the urge to be in a place like this. To be surrounded by things Jill loved. Maybe then he’ll get a spur of inspiration that would lead to the answer.

  Shinta fell back a few paces so he could look at the dozens of metallic creatures in their full glory. Jill could live in a place like this forever. She could spend whole days standing in front of this wall, admiring the colors and the streaks of glitter on the bodies, scrutinizing the girth of the strings and the feel of the frets. Shinta could stay with her, providing sustenance for the body, in all possible aspects.

  “Okay, you’re all pretty but you look the same to me.”

  He squeezed his temples between the heels of his palms, taking a slow pivot until he spotted something familiar. “Hey, I know you,” he said to a seafoam green Les Paul. Suspended beside it was its spicy red twin. Shinta looked to the counter, squinting until he read the name on the guy’s shirt. “Excuse me, uh, Joel. Do you mind if I try this one?”

  The guy spared him a look. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Joel the Handlebar Man gave a small shrug. “You know the Golden Rule,” he said, pointing to a sign perched on his counter. You break it, you buy it. No, really. Go ahead and touch it. I beg you, please.

  Shinta took the red guitar carefully off its hook and found a short stool to sit on. He looked over the thing in his hands, his long fingers skimming the length of the slender neck, his right palm caressing the cold, red surface. A creature of metal. Metal strings, metal body. Maybe there was plastic or wood in there somewhere too. He was clueless, and it was hard to tell.

  The guitar was small but it felt heavy in Shinta’s hands, as if it knew that he had never held one before. Not in a way as intimate as this—with him sitting on the plastic stool, the guitar pressed against him, his spine arched toward it as he struggled with balancing it on his lap. He pressed his fingertips against the strings, the skin there complaining against the razor-sharp steel. Metal against flesh; his flesh was soft and it protested.

  Shinta tried the only chords he knew, four fingers positioned on frets two and three. G, C, G, C. He strummed, his right hand big and awkward, his thumb bumping against the heaviest string. The off-key gong it caused was enough for him to know he wasn’t supposed to do that.

  He tried again—up down up down up down. Jill and the rest of the guys made it look so easy. His mind replayed a clip of Jill dancing with Julia, nimble fingers flying along the guitar’s neck, hips swaying, subversive to the beat, feet leaving the ground.

  “And so very sexy.”

  Joel craned his head toward him. Shinta cleared his throat, waved his hand as an apology, and returned to his strumming. Up, up, up, down, down, upupupdowndown. Two frets and two chords. Seemingly simple, but a change in the direction of his strums, the flick of his wrist, and the song was torn wide open, replaced by a sea of sound he didn’t quite know.

  Shinta laughed, the sound booming and heavy. Joel tripped over the counter door as he hurried to his side, likely afraid that Shinta was a crazy person who could damage the unpaid-for instrument.

  Shinta smiled up into his panicked face. “I’ll take this one.”

  Octo
ber 12, Monday, morning

  Shinta read the shock on Jill’s face when she saw him blocking her way to Departures at Cebu’s Mactan airport. But there was a smile there too, joyous and absolute, unlike the one she had left him with yesterday in his room.

  “I know you,” Jill said when she reached him.

  The rest of the band streamed past them, Kim, Miki and Ana, and Nino giving Shinta varied degrees of nods and lifted eyebrows before they disappeared through the doors. Son was flashing him a friendly leer and two giant thumbs up. But these barely registered in Shinta’s head, busy as he was pulling Jill by the collar of her shirt for a kiss.

  “I’m sorry,” Shinta said right before his lips found hers, and again the second he’d released her.

  “I’m sorry too,” Jill murmured against his cheek.

  He allowed himself a few extra seconds to stand there, oblivious to the passengers flooding past them as he smiled down at her like an idiot. That wasn’t bad for a first big fight, he thought, feeling triumphant.

  “So it gets hotter here than in Metro Manila, huh?” He’d wanted to rip off his shirt the moment he exited the gates and stepped into what felt like a solid wall of humidity and heat. He didn’t think it would have been appropriate though in front of all these fully clothed people.

  “This island heats up like a giant sandbar, yep.” Jill spread out her hands, giving him a half-twirl. “Welcome to Cebu, the Queen of the South.”

  “Such a warm welcome.” Shinta grinned. “I’m up for a tour. Please be my guide?”

  Jill twisted to the doors her bandmates had walked through. “I have a plane to catch.”

  “Stay here with me.” Shinta steadied his hold on her waist, clasping her to him in case she had any delusions that he was going to let her go. “I promise we won’t talk about work.”

  She stayed within the circle of his arms, but her gaze was stern. “But we really should talk about it.”

  “A few days of peace and rest won’t hurt.”

  She turned back to the door leading to her flight. Shinta tried to keep count of the number of times her mind flipped from one decision to the next, each one flashing on her face. Finally, she sighed.

  “Kim will kill me.”

  “I will protect you,” Shinta promised. “Besides he can’t kill you if you tell him via text.”

  “Good idea. But we’ve got to start running now.”

  October 16, Friday, morning

  Shinta and Jill ate up Cebu in four days and four nights.

  They started with sutukil—a local feast of charcoal-grilled giant squid, pink shrimp stewed to a boiling hot soup with lemongrass and tamarind, and fresh white fish chopped and immersed in the sharp acid of vinegar with slivers of ginger. They found a chocolate boutique tucked within the city’s outskirts, and they arrived in time for the afternoon buffet of spicy tablea cake, truffles, and grilled sausage and chocolate sauce on a pizza platter. The meat and chocolate pizza was their favorite, hands down.

  They had lunch at a Parisian café that had plastic, cherry blossom tree décor and an adjoining wine vault. Shinta took a long time staring at the fake tree, and when he had his fill, he and Jill shared a bottle of Merlot and a plate heaving with slices of Gouda and delicate lime macarons.

  After that spread, they swayed arm-in-arm under the high noon sun all the way back to their hotel room, where they lay in bed giggling at the ceiling, and sweating out the alcohol and the sugar rush under the covers. For most of the days though, they walked off the food with treks to museums, old churches, and one time, a visit to the famed Magellan’s cross. Then there was a day trip to the beach that gave Shinta a tan line that threatened to become a permanent tattoo.

  Each night ended with lechon, because lechon was what you came to Cebu for. They ate with their hands, consuming the moist meat of the roasted pig and its crisp skin with dollops of white rice. They had beer on their last night, and only on this night, because they made the mutual decision not to live too fast. Only two bottles each for the perfect buzz—not drunk at all, but looser tongues and lips more generous with kisses—guzzled down while sitting on the deck of a restaurant 2,500 feet above sea level, looking up at stars that seemed almost within reach.

  On that same night, Shinta gave the gleaming, cherry red Les Paul guitar to Jill, wanting it to be the last surprise, and the best one of all. Jill didn’t want to take it at first, saying she didn’t need one, insisting it was too much, and that there was nothing wrong with Julia. But with Shinta’s persistent prodding she gave in with grace and accepted the gift. She christened it Julio, because it was after all, seafoam green Julia’s twin.

  Friday morning found them at the airport, bound for Manila. They had been sitting on steel benches in the waiting bay before dawn had broken, fueled by three hours of sleep. Still, Shinta felt alert, wide awake despite the exhaustion and fullness of the last four days.

  Jill had been silent since they found their seats, earphones stuck in her ears, fingers drumming a restless rhythm on her knee. There would usually be a song on her lips, but today the stout lines of her mouth were still, and her gaze was locked on something Shinta couldn’t quite see.

  “When is your flight back to Tokyo?” Jill pulled her earphones off, turning to him.

  “This Sunday.” I guess our vacation’s over, Shinta conceded. They could talk about work again.

  “And the flight to California?”

  “I don’t know yet. In a couple of weeks, maybe.”

  A smile was moving on her lips, but it wasn’t one of his favorite smiles. “I can’t believe we didn’t think this would happen.”

  Shinta leaned closer, trying to catch the words. “Didn’t think what would happen?”

  “We did not think this through.” She spoke clearly now, echoing words she’d said once before. Words she had spoken to him with a lighter air, months ago on a perfect, sultry morning. “You know it too, don’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “It can’t be amazing like this, and then nothing for a stretch of time. A stretch that has no definite end. That’s not how this works.”

  It took a while for icy air to rise and fill Shinta’s stomach. Her words didn’t feel like the embers of a new fight, not when he first heard them.

  “How does it work?” he asked, tempering his panic.

  “Like you always say. Crazy or nothing.” Jill was fiddling with the controls of her music player, fingers absently swiping the screen. Shinta wondered what her background music of choice was, at a moment like this, when it seemed like she was breaking up with him.

  He shifted in his seat, hitching up his knees until they met hers. He was not conceding to this.

  “Have you ever considered—I mean music being a universal language and all. It transcends space and time and time zones. Have you ever considered maybe trying a different side of the equator? To come with me and stay with me.”

  Her tiny smile inched upwards. “Have you considered doing the same for me?”

  This was the worst possible time not to have a ready answer.

  “I have thought about it,” Jill went on, speaking over his silence. “It’s scary but it’s also exciting. But then my mind keeps going back to how lonely it got sometimes, waiting for you in your apartment in Tokyo last summer. It was amazing when we were together, and I wasn’t really alone for too long. But when I was alone with nothing to do, I’d just be talking to your pictures up on the wall.” She chuckled, the low note sounding frail to Shinta’s ears. “Don’t get me wrong, those were lovely pictures. But as you said, they’re nothing next to the real thing. And if I come with you now, I keep thinking—”

  “That it would be two years or so of that,” Shinta supplied.

  “Something like that.”

  Shinta captured a stray lock of her hair. He twirled, and twirled, and twirled it around one finger, admiring how the strands never tangled, unlike the raging storm of his thoughts.

  “I think we’ve reached an
impasse,” he murmured.

  A deadlock. A road block, a brick wall, with which all argument, all attempted appeals to logic or emotion would be moot. There was no moving forward, and there was no going back.

  Jill reached out to trace the line of his jaw, and tug at a loose lock of his hair, before pulling her hand back into a fist. “I like what I do here, and you like what you do too, wherever that takes you. I think that’s amazing. Most people rarely get to do what they really want. It worked for us as a commuter kind of friendship. But as this? When we both want more from each other? It’s like signing up for a life of agony with no end in sight.”

  “But I love you.” He really wasn’t left with anything else to say.

  Jill nodded. “I know.”

  “And you love me.”

  “Yes but—”

  “Say it. Say you love me.”

  Salt water had gathered in the pools of her eyes, refusing to spill over. “I do love you,” she said, strong and sure.

  “Good. Isn’t that enough?”

  Shinta knew she had a ready answer to that question. He could read it on her face. He could read it because of what he knew of her from the past years. From the new walls she had built around herself after the recent heartbreak she had survived. From the decisions and plans she had learned to make for herself since then. He realized that in the last few months, he had been trying to change that answer.

  But he knew now, with how her first ‘I love you’ sounded like goodbye, that he hadn’t quite succeeded.

  Get down on your knees

  Like baby it makes a difference

  When you flail and grovel

  But you do not do much else

  A genie would be just

  As helpful as a lighter

  When you’re knee-deep in water