Songs to Make You Stay (Playlist Book 3)

by Jay E. Tria

  Miki remembered the call he got that night. He remembered being silent for one whole minute after Jill told him the flight plan and asked if he could pretty please send Julia and her luggage to this address in Roponggi Hills. Jill had to drop the call before he could reply because she was boarding the plane.

  She came back after a week with this supernatural glow.

  But now Shinta was making her wait. He was supposed to fly right back into her arms after shooting a movie for two months, but other commitments cropped up, one after another. And now he was one month late.

  These actor problems.

  “This is what you get for falling for a movie star,” Miki lectured. “Why can’t you be happy with a common man?”

  She snorted out a short laugh. “Is that it? You think I brought this upon myself?”

  “Yeah, you believe in your romantic comedies too much. You like it when the girl gets the impossible guy.”

  “Isn’t it the guy who got the impossible girl in this romantic comedy?” She cocked one eyebrow, lifting her chin in a haughty smile. But she was biting down laughter, unable to contain even the slightest self-compliment.

  Yes, I know you’re gorgeous, Miki almost said out loud. Even though you don’t like to think it. “The movie star gets the impossible girl, apparently. In this world that I live in.”

  She was laughing now. Jill punched his shoulder and hopped off her car, stumbling when her feet hit the gravel. “Come on.” She straightened up, dusted off her jeans, and led the way to the bar. “We’re late. Kim the Dictator doesn’t like it when his band isn’t complete at least ten minutes before the set.”

  “So that’s all Kim is to you now? The demotion would hurt him, you know. After all you’ve been through.”

  “Shut up, Mikhail.”

  “I mean, seven years!”

  “Hating you right about now.”

  She stomped past him, her long strides easily covering the rows of cars in the parking lot. Miki had to jog to keep up.

  “Hey, Jillian Marie,” he huffed when he caught up to her.

  “What?”

  Miki smiled, their eyes level, walking at pace with her now. “I like it when you’re happy.”

  She gave the inside of his arm a long pinch before she grinned back. “I like it too. Very much.”

  “Try to keep the sap to yourself though,” Miki went on, rubbing his arm. “The dictator doesn’t like cheesy songs.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad.”

  Together they crunched through a few more meters of stone and soil. Makati was usually wet and humid from sudden blasts of rain that time of year, same as the rest of Metro Manila. But that night, the monsoon clouds were absent in the blank sky, missing—like the stars. So they were left with the standard, unforgiving heat.

  Miki wiped the sweat off his upper lip with his thumb as he walked, and soon the racket of Commute Bar’s patrons welcomed them. He pulled open the braided metal gate and Jill rushed past him, giving quick nods and shy smiles to the crowd, thrilled to see the indie rock goddess in their midst. Miki intercepted a few air kisses, pushing Jill’s back to move her faster through the horde. With his free arm, he reached past her and wrenched the door open, ushering her through.

  Jill’s face collided right smack on Nino’s broad chest.

  “Late!” he hollered, hands on his hips.

  “Oomph! What the hell, Nino?” Jill shoved Nino away, shooting Son an evil glare before he even spoke.

  “Ooh someone’s in a mood tonight,” Son teased, his bass guitar dangling from his neck. He held both hands up as Jill stomped past him.

  “I thought you were no longer heartbroken?” Nino grumbled, taking his seat behind the drum set.

  “She couldn’t find her star,” Miki said when Nino turned to him for answers.

  “Ahhhhhhh,” Son and Nino chorused, bobbing their heads in unison.

  Miki thought he heard a long buzz of choice curse words sputter from Jill’s mouth. But she was standing with her back to him, adjusting her pedals, so he couldn’t be sure.

  Somebody had turned on the lights. Flashes of blue, green, and red waltzed across Jill’s face when she stood up and turned to face the room. The crowd had risen from their small circular tables and rickety wood-and-iron stools, Nino’s practice swings and the sound of feedback luring them to the stage.

  Kim had been focused on tuning Julia. Now he pivoted to face them, both hands holding out the vintage seafoam green Les Paul electric guitar to Jill.

  “Hey, thanks,” Jill began, reaching for it. “I meant to do that…”

  Kim gave her a small smile and a tiny shake of his head. “Happy to do it. Ready?”

  Jill swung Julia’s strap over her head. “Yep.”

  Kim turned to all of them once with a nod. Then he spun right back, mouth on his mic, one hand high in the air for Nino, their official beat master, to see. “Let’s go!”

  Miki bumped his shoulder against Jill’s, the pair of them exchanging grins as Nino struck his drumsticks together.

  “Ahonetwothreefour!”

  They were on song three when he walked in.

  Kim usually spotted him first. He had developed a sort of zoning instinct for Shinta over the years. He knew when Shinta walked into a room, and even swore he could smell him when he sat too close to Jill. But Kim was busy with his turn on the mic, singing out the words Jill had written for their new album. And he was busy with the mob that was pressing against him, the small army of foot-size speakers on the floor his only line of defense.

  So Miki, strumming his guitar in the safe pocket of space between Son, Jill, and drum set, saw him first.

  The door was pulled open and there Shinta stood in his off-duty clothes. A white shirt bearing some slogan in Japanese. Dark jeans, backpack, and striped sneakers. It was a good disguise, if only he could cover up his face too. A handful of girls already stopped dancing when they saw him standing there.

  “It’s a starless, long quiet/ But I just can’t catch sleep/ I’m wide awake and I wait/ My soul knows you’re worth it.”

  Jill’s voice reverberating from the speakers jerked Miki from his fixation. Somebody had turned on a new light and it danced on her face. Warm yellow twirling with the blue, green, and red beams flashing on her skin. Her mouth was caressing the mic, beads of sweat dotting the length of her neck and the strip of abdomen revealed by the shirt knotted around her waist.

  Miki swallowed a groan. When the hell did that happen and whose bright idea was that knotted shirt thing?

  Jill swung Julia behind her, leaving the guitar duties to Miki and Kim. Both her palms now pressed on the mic as she launched into the song’s last verse.

  “When the light comes I know for sure/ You’ll be here and I’m no longer alone/The dark will warm, and I know/You’ll never leave me all alone.”

  Miki felt murmurs surf through the crowd and realized a moment too late that Shinta had reached the stage. He took Jill by the exposed band of skin on her waist and kissed her as the last word of the song left her lips.

  Nino was finished with his last beat, but he was on his feet, pounding on his drums, as Son let out a long whistle. The thumps hammered inside Miki’s ears as he stood rooted to the floor, in full majestic view of Jill kissing Shinta back, her fingers knotted through his hair. He let out a low groan on his mic, but the sound was drowned by the calls and hooting from the crowd.

  After what seemed like a dark, spiraling eternity, Shinta pulled back. Miki felt heat return to his fingers. He turned to Kim. He obviously saw Shinta now, if the way he was staring at him was any indication.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” Miki heard Shinta say.

  “Hem, hem,” Miki said into his mic, averting his gaze from the guy who was living the dream.

  Jill and Shinta left soon after Trainman’s set. Shinta allowed himself to be teased, pinched, hugged, and harassed by Son and Nino, his ardent fans. Then he took Jill by the hand and led her away from the
heat and racket of Commute Bar.

  Shinta’s arm was around her waist, her hand inside the back pocket of his jeans. Miki watched them walk toward the parking lot, his seat on the curb hidden from view by patrons spilling out into the streets. From where he was, Jill didn’t look too annoyed with Shinta anymore, a month’s worth of tardiness be damned.

  “I thought the Japanese don’t like public displays of affection,” Miki said to Kim who was seated beside him.

  Kim took a long gulp of beer before he answered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He kept his gaze on the low brick building in front of him.

  “Well he’s not really in Japan, is he? I guess the rules are bound by geography.”

  Miki thought he understood why someone wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off Jill. “Or he’s just horny.”

  Kim burst out laughing. “Aren’t we all?” He threw a suspicious look at the bottle in Miki’s hand. “How many have you had tonight? That comment is way out of line for you, boy.”

  Miki shrugged and downed the contents before the bottle was taken from him. Some conversations required alcohol. “Remember that time you punched a guy in the crowd because he was staring at Jill?”

  Kim scowled. “Staring at her while he had his hand inside his pants.”

  “You jumped off the stage and punched him.” Miki continued the drive along memory lane. “Jill had to pull you off the poor dude because Son and I didn’t move fast enough.”

  “Then she threw her own punch and broke his nose.” They chorused, laughing as one. Kim met Miki’s empty bottle with his for a toast.

  Miki’s gaze returned to the street. If he squinted really hard, he could see Jill’s lime green Beetle driving off into the dark, humid night. Or maybe he was imagining it.

  “You’re really okay with this?” Miki waved his hand in the air, in the direction of the empty, Beetle-less street, sure that Kim knew what he meant.

  “I should be,” was Kim’s quick reply. “This is actually my doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah it is.” Miki couldn’t hide the accusing tone in his voice.

  Miki was used to seeing Kim and Jill together. He had met them as a couple, a two-in-one deal. Kim had stood outside their Economics 100 classroom on the very first day of freshman year, the rock god with his battered guitar case, day-old hair, and ripped skinny jeans, marking his territory even before Miki had realized he was nursing a fast crush. It was a bitter pill that was easier to swallow.

  Shinta and Jill as a couple was a different monster altogether. Writhing and coiling deep inside his intestines, glowing in its beauty, the two-headed creature lost in their long entwined fingers and mouths moving as one.

  It’s not that Kim isn’t a good looking man, flashed the loyal thought in his head. But Kim was the boy-next-door, the common-man-type of good-looking. And it was good to see a commoner snatch a win and claim the princess.

  It gave Miki hope.

  He turned to his friend. Kim wasn’t at his charming peak now though. His sunken cheeks gave him a hollow, starved look, and the dark shadows under his eyes did not help. He had lost some weight in the past few months, and Miki attributed that to the days he spent with his mother as she underwent chemotherapy, and the long nights he spent with the band as Trainman promoted their new album. He wondered if Kim still knew the happy state known as sleep.

  Seeing Jill with Shinta was likely not doing any favors for Kim’s current well-being. Miki knew it was not helping his.

  “You know, I always thought I was going to lose her to you.” Kim shot Miki a look, a corner of his mouth turning up. “Like the best-friend-to-lover stories in the romantic comedies she likes.”

  Miki choked on the last gulp of his beer. He wiped his mouth and forced himself to cough out words. “Not true. You were always crazy jealous about Shinta.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” Kim threw his hands up in the air. “I mean look at him. He’s trouble waiting to happen. Only he’s the nicest guy. It’s hard to stay angry at him.”

  “True. Really nice guy.” Miki bobbed his head.

  “Anyway, don’t worry about me,” Kim continued. “I still think it was a good idea. Breaking up with her.”

  “I’m not worried about you. I think you let it drag on longer than you should have.”

  “Were you waiting in the wings?”

  Miki answered Kim’s wry, taunting smile with a bark of a laugh. But inside, he wanted to cry. Kim could mope all he wanted, but he had the easier end of the moving on scenario. He had loved the girl, and had been loved by the girl until love wasn’t enough anymore.

  It’s harder to get over someone who was never really yours. You see that person smiling and it breaks your heart two-fold. Once because seeing her happy makes you happy. The second time because you know she’s oblivious to how you feel. And it hits you that you are suffering alone, while basking in her warm light, and it makes it all the more difficult to ignore the pinpricks of pain on your fissured heart.

  “Well you’ve got Ana now,” Kim was saying. “So I’m not worried about you either.”

  “Yeah.”

  Miki must have been silent for too long after that. Or he stretched the word out on his lips for too long. In any case, Kim had turned his head, squinting at him. He heaved out a breath that came from the pit of his stomach. Kim had a tendency to be intuitive, and also to be quite melodramatic.

  “Mikhail.” Kim tore through his hair in frustration, his grim mind probably concocting the worst. “What did you do?”

  Miki dared not look at him. The concrete between his sneakers and the baby cockroach crawling up the sidewalk offered a better view. “About Ana…”

  Read Songs to Get Over You now.