Kate, Finally

by Yeyet Soriano

  Kate, Finally

  Yeyet Soriano

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part 1: Six Nights

  1. The Harbour

  2. The Gate

  3. The Wall

  4. The Bracelet

  5. The View

  6. The Dress

  Part 2: Real Life

  1. The Name

  2. The Ring

  3. The Promise

  4. The Book

  5. The Confidante

  6. The List

  7. The Stalker

  Part 3: Curveballs

  1. The Metamorphosis

  2. The Plan

  3. The Trip

  4. The Test

  5. The Decision

  6. The Dedication

  7. The Workshop

  8. The Toast

  Part 4: Touch Move

  1. The Sin

  2. The Photo

  3. The Ride

  4. The Talk

  5. The Flight

  6. The Search

  7. The Move

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Mercy M. Soriano

  Cover design by Pach R. Urrea

  Cover photo courtesy of romanceclasscovers

  Book design by Miles Tan

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  To all the flawed people who feel they suck at love. Love can take many forms and the imperfect ones are sometimes the best.

  To Tosh, with whom I share the most perfectly imperfect love of all.

  1

  The Harbour

  Layne

  The first time Layne sees Kate, she is with another girl, attempting a selfie, with the Sydney Harbour as background. He is quick to dismiss both women because there are many just like them—young, single, carefree, and living life one selfie at a time.

  He is enjoying a cold beer at a bar near the famous Sydney Opera House while marveling at the view and the cool breeze blowing in the early evening. He can’t blame the girls for taking pictures—the view is spectacular. The beautiful Sydney Harbour is in front of him, the Opera House to his right, and the city skyline to his left.

  He sees her again. This time, she is right in front of him, trying to take more selfies with her friend. Before he can stop himself, Layne volunteers to take their picture. He angles the phone just right and snaps a few shots. Kate smiles at him and says thank you—there is something about her. Then she and her friend walk off to the ferry station.

  Layne meets up with some colleagues for dinner and more drinks. This is what usually happens when he is on a business trip—he eats more and drinks more, such an unhealthy lifestyle. He decides to walk the few blocks from the restaurant to his hotel. The night air is crisp and the walk does him a lot of good. His head clears. He has an early morning presentation for his current client—the reason for his trip to Australia—and he still has some time to go over his presentation slides and have a nightcap at the hotel bar.

  The presentation is as perfect as he can make it, and his beer glass is drained of its contents. He orders another beer and closes his laptop. When he looks up, he sees he is not the only one using the bar as an office.

  Selfie girl, he thinks. As if on cue, Kate looks up and sees him. She smiles distractedly, then goes back to typing on her laptop.

  His beer arrives, and while he drinks, he stares at her. Lit by the screen of her laptop, she is attractive. Not beautiful at first glance, but she has that quality that grows on you the longer you stare. She has beautiful eyes. Her hair is a mess, like it is just growing out of a short pixie cut, but it gives her an I-don’t-care-how-I-look vibe that is strangely appealing. He also sees she is not as young as he initially thought she was. She is either in her late twenties or early thirties.

  “Yes!” She smiles at the screen and then closes her laptop. She is still smiling when she looks at Layne, who has moved a few barstools closer to her.

  “Buy you a drink?” Layne asks. He quickly looks at her hands to see if there are any wedding or engagement rings. She has none.

  Cool, he thinks.

  She looks at him and makes a show of assessing him from head to foot. He notices that she too looks at his hands, maybe trying to see if he was wearing a wedding ring.

  “Sure, as long as you promise to join me. I’m in the mood for shots,” Kate answers with a smile.

  “Celebrating something?”

  “You can say that. I finished something I’ve been trying to finish for the past few days.”

  “Good. Me too.” He motions to the bartender and points to Kate to order for the both of them. She orders six shots of Don Julio Blanco Tequila.

  “Well, you definitely know your tequila,” Layne says with a smile, impressed.

  “Just recently tasted it and I loved it,” she says. “Plus, you’re buying, so...”

  Layne laughs.

  The drinks are poured, the iodized salt served on a small plate and lemon slices on another plate.

  They prepare for the first shot—sprinkling the salt on their fists, each taking hold of a shot glass filled with liquid fire.

  “I’m Kate.”

  “I’m Layne.”

  Layne licks the salt on his fist, downs his shot and sucks on his lemon slice. Already, he feels the heat course down his throat.

  A nice pink glow shines on Kate’s face. God, she’s beautiful, Layne suddenly thinks.

  “I’m from Manila,” Kate says.

  “Same here.”

  They go through the same motions with the salt, shot, and lemon.

  “I like your smile,” Kate says looking at his lips.

  “I like your eyes,” Layne says as he stares deep into her eyes.

  Lick. Shoot. Suck.

  As soon as the shot glasses hit the table, they are already kissing. It is an intensely long kiss that ends in Kate spending the night in Layne’s room. It is one crazy night.

  Layne wakes up alone the next day. He barely makes it to his client presentation.

  Kate

  Australia is Kate’s first foreign travel destination ever. She has relatives in Melbourne and a friend in Sydney. She spends a week with her uncle and his family in Melbourne, goes around the tourist spots, and comes face to face with kangaroos and koalas.

  What she is most excited about though, is her few days in Sydney. She is meeting a friend, a classmate from high school, and Kate is going to see the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge—Number Five on her bucket list.

  It is near sunset, and Kate and her high school classmate Jen have just arrived from a trip to the Mountains—the Three Sisters. As planned, Kate left the best for last, the up-close and personal experience with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge at sunset. They walk and as they do, Kate marvels at how beautiful it all is—the view. She has enjoyed her trip tremendously.

  Her friend Jen loves taking selfies, and everywhere they go, she has Kate pose for a selfie with her. Kate obliges. She also tries taking pictures of the two of them, just so she would have a record of the trip. They are at a place near the Opera House where people converge for cocktails. Kate just loves watching people, wondering what their stories are, inventing stories with them as characters. It is the writer in her. What is more intriguing is the fact that the people around her are multi-racial and multi-cultural. Some are tourists, some are res
idents. Kate’s eye would quickly single out Asians, specifically Filipinos—not intentionally, but just out of habit.

  There is a beautiful Asian woman with a gorgeous Caucasian man. They stand head and shoulders above the rest. Kate imagines them to be international models/celebrities trying to blend in with the crowd, so they could be anonymous and enjoy each other’s company.

  There is an adorable geriatric couple who hold hands as they look over the view of the Harbour Bridge. Kate feels a lump in her throat. Will I ever have that?

  There is an Asian guy, alone, nursing his beer, his long-sleeved light-blue shirt unbuttoned to his chest, the sleeves rolled up over strong arms, his necktie loosened. A corporate zombie who just wants to have some time to himself, Katie thinks.

  “Kate, c’mon another picture!” Jen calls out. Kate smiles and poses with her friend, the view behind them. Then she takes out her phone as well, so she would have the same picture. She is not as good as Jen with taking selfies, so she is struggling.

  “I can take your picture, if you want,” a voice in front of Kate says. She lowers her phone and sees the speaker.

  “Oh, thank you!” Jen answers before Kate can react, using the voice Kate knows from experience means Jen is talking to a guy she considers cute.

  Kate hands over her phone to corporate zombie and he steps back to frame the shot. Jen pulls Kate and settles on a pose with her.

  Kate smiles for the shots—he insists on taking several—all the while thinking corporate zombie looks quite attractive and sexy up close. Corporate zombie has a great body—definitely sports-honed or gym-maintained. He is fair, but a bit on the dark fair side, with a masculine face—thick eyebrows, deep set eyes, a strong nose, high cheekbones, a strong chin, and thick lips. He has thick, wavy hair, cut close to the scalp and styled impeccably.

  “Thank you!” Kate says with a smile, as corporate zombie hands her back her phone. He has a nice smile and very sexy lips. She is checking the shots when Jen pulls her toward the ferry station. They have to catch the ferry to go to their dinner reservation.

  As they walk briskly away, Kate looks back and sees corporate zombie back in his seat, drinking his beer and looking at the view.

  After dinner, Jen drops Kate off at Kate’s hotel. Kate insisted on spending the last night at a hotel and not at Jen’s house because Kate wanted some alone time, to write the last part of her current novel, and to process her thoughts on her trip.

  She has an early flight the next day and after arranging with the concierge the time the hotel car should be ready for her, she goes up to her room to pack. She is all done by 9:00 PM. She fires up her laptop and proceeds to write, but after a few minutes, she sighs. I need some stimuli, she thinks. So she takes her laptop and goes down to the hotel bar. She decides she would write while having a nightcap.

  She has a good feeling she will complete her novel that night and she is correct. She is in the zone, and she doesn’t let anything distract her. From time to time, she looks up to see whoever else is at the bar. She sips from the margarita she has been nursing for the past hour. She sees a guy looking at her from across the bar, and she absently smiles at him, thinking he looks familiar, but she has to go back to the last few paragraphs that needed writing.

  Then she is done. Kate is so happy she says “Yes!” as the document is saved. Then she closes her laptop and she stretches her back with a smile. It is then that she notices a guy sitting just a few barstools from her. He definitely looks familiar.

  “Buy you a drink?” the guy asks.

  Oh my God, it’s corporate zombie!

  She looks at him from head to foot. She is bold after just one drink. She looks at his hands, which she notices are devoid of rings. Single, she thinks, excited.

  “Sure, as long as you promise to join me. I’m in the mood for shots,” Kate says, a bit surprised at her brashness.

  “Celebrating something?” corporate zombie asks.

  “You can say that. I finished something I’ve been trying to finish for the past few days,” Kate says, feeling proud.

  “Good. Me too.” He motions to the bartender and points to her to choose the drinks. Kate smiles naughtily and orders six shots of Don Julio Blanco Tequila.

  “Well, you definitely know your tequila,” the guy says, looking very impressed.

  “Just recently tasted it and I loved it,” Kate says. “Plus, you’re buying, so...”

  The guy laughs.

  Deep inside, Kate is suddenly thinking about her bucket list. While Number Five on her list is ‘I will see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia,’ Number Six is ‘I will have a one-night-stand with a stranger in a foreign country.’

  Will this guy be my Number Six?

  The bartender pours the drinks and serves the iodized salt on a small plate and the lemon slices on a separate plate.

  They go about preparing for the first shot.

  “I’m Kate.”

  “I’m Layne.”

  No last names.

  Kate licks the salt on her hand, making it slower than normal, then she takes the shot and sucks on a lemon slice. She groans softly as the hot liquid enters her body.

  Layne smiles mischievously and Kate realizes for the second time that day that he has a very sexy mouth. His eyes are also dark and intense.

  Damn, he is sexy! And Dayum! I am on my way to being drunk! No matter, Number Six, Number Six, Number Six.

  “I’m from Manila,” Kate reveals.

  “Same here,” Layne answers.

  As they down their second shot, Kate notices Layne’s hands. There is nothing feminine about his hands. His hands are dark, with thick strong fingers, and veins snaking from the back of his palms to his strong arms.

  They prepare for the final shot.

  “I like your smile,” Kate suddenly says, looking back at his luscious lips. I like your lips more.

  “I like your eyes.” Layne stares deep into her eyes, with his dark penetrating eyes that seem to bore into her very soul.

  Lick. Kate maintains eye contact as she licks the salt from her hand. She has already decided.

  Shoot. She drinks the potent liquid from the shot glass and afterward, she stares at him again.

  Suck. She gropes for the lemon slice and sucks as hard as she could. The shot glass is still in her other hand.

  When Kate and Layne simultaneously bang their shot glasses on the table, they are close enough to breathe the same air. Layne grabs her head and kisses her deep. Kate responds. It feels like the first time she has ever been kissed. His lips are soft, yet they are hard on her mouth, his tongue probing. He tastes like lemons and the sea. It is an intensely long kiss, and belatedly, Kate realizes that they are kissing in a public place.

  Layne looks into her eyes, seemingly asking a question.

  Kate nods. She is thinking of Number Six.

  She manages to grab her laptop and follow Layne to the elevator, where they share another hot kiss. When they reach his room, Layne can’t insert the keycard correctly and they giggle like school children. Once they are inside his room, they both drop their laptops and undress each other.

  God, he does have a great body!

  Not only is it great, he knows how to use it. Kate is dizzy with drunkenness, but she remembers every moment of that night in Layne’s hotel room. Everything Layne does to her, she commits to memory. She has never been made love to the way Layne makes love to her. On second thought, Kate realizes, it is not making love that they are doing.

  There is no love between them, but Kate never thought it can feel that good—to just fuck someone, a stranger, with no emotional ties.

  Someone she will never ever see again.

  She leaves to catch her early morning flight as soon as Layne falls asleep.

  On the plane, she ticks off Number Six on her list.

  2

  The Gate

  Layne

  The motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City are the kings of the road and woe to
the person who stops in the middle of the street to wait for them to give way. Layne has been to Vietnam several times, mostly for work, so he is used to them by now. It is apparently not the case for the poor woman who is stranded in the middle of the road with motorbikes whizzing dangerously close to her.

  Stupid girl, she’ll get herself hurt, he thinks, and against his better judgment, he walks hurriedly to save her. He brusquely takes hold of her elbow and guides her, dodging the motorbikes, until they reach the sidewalk.

  “Thank you! I thought I was going to die by motorbike today!” the woman exclaims.

  Layne looks at her, an admonishment ready in his mouth until he locks gazes with Kate.

  “Oh... hey... it’s you...,” Layne says.

  Kate recognizes him and smiles. Shit, I’ve forgotten how beautiful she is, Layne thinks. It has been three months since Sydney.

  “Layne? Wow, what a lovely coincidence! Thank you for saving me from a humiliating death,” Kate says with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Layne has a flash of an image of Kate, naked, all sweaty, and shining while he was thrusting into her. He blushes.

  “You deserve a treat from me! How about some Vietnamese coffee?”

  Layne smiles. “Oh, Kate, you owe me more than just Vietnamese coffee for that act of heroism I did for you,” he drawls.

  Kate smiles that smile Layne found himself thinking about constantly since they met in Sydney. She takes his arm and links hers. “Let’s start with coffee, and work our way from there, okay?”

  They walk. They pass one of the most recognized buildings in Vietnam.

  “Have you been there?” Layne asks. He likes the feeling of Kate’s arms in his.

  “Been where?”

  Layne points. “That’s the Reunification Palace, the site of the end of the Vietnam War during the Fall of Saigon in 1975. A North Vietnamese army tank crashed through the gate.”