by Tara Frejas
“Say it, Audrey.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I’m not invoking Rule #4.” Her cheeks burned as she spoke. “And...fine. I’d be really thankful if—if you could come to Bella’s party.”
Bella’s seventh birthday party was in full swing when Pio arrived in a pale yellow, cotton V-neck and denims, looking like the poster boy for good manners and right conduct. Everyone present was mesmerized. Audrey could swear a solid ten seconds of silence blanketed their gated compound when the actor sauntered in, a big teddy bear tucked under one arm. She led him through the maze of kiddie tables and balloons and into their house.
Succinct introductions were made: first, to Audrey’s parents, then to her siblings, Vivien and Gene. Audrey noted the shock on her mother’s face when Pio very casually took her hand and pressed it against his forehead. “Mano po,” he said and did the same reverent gesture to the head of the house, who was partly immobile in his wheelchair.
“Kaawaan ka ng Diyos, anak,” Audrey’s mother managed to say. Her father could only grunt and nod.
Vivien’s greeting came in the form of a giddy hug and a “Welcome to the family!” quip that prompted Audrey to pull her sister’s ponytail. “Umayos ka,” Audrey said between gritted teeth. Gene settled for a half-hearted handshake and walked past.
Bella, who came running from the backyard in her bright yellow dress, did a double take when she saw their guest. “Kuya Nick!” she squealed and grabbed on to her mother’s hand. “Mamay, si Kuya Nick!”
“Nick is me from that afternoon teleserye,” Pio explained when Audrey shot him a curious look. Smiling, he crouched down and presented Bella the teddy bear. “Happy birthday, Bella. This is for you.”
The birthday girl giggled and threw her arms around the stuffed animal. “Thank you!” she squealed and hugged Pio as well.
Before anyone could start asking questions, Audrey dragged Pio toward the makeshift buffet table and handed him a plate and some utensils. “Eat,” she said. “And it’s okay to refuse photo ops. Or dodge questions. Or requests to sing karaoke. Spaghetti?”
“Yes, please. With lots of hotdog bits.” He smirked and raised his plate. “Did you cook this?”
“Nope. I’m just the official juice sponsor, remember? This is all mom and Viv.”
“You look so much like your mom.” A fond smile appeared on his face when he said that, and Audrey wanted to tell him to stop. But stop what, exactly? Smiling? Breathing? She was inside the house, why did it feel like the sun was shining directly at her?
“Get some more food, find somewhere to sit,” she told him after forking a generous amount of spaghetti on his plate. Vivien was waving frantically at her from the kitchen door, and she knew if she didn’t join her now, her sister would soon be dragging her away just to gossip. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
“I can sit with your parents at the dining table, right?”
She blinked. “Do whatever you want.”
“Jesus, Viv. Keep it down!”
“I’m just—ohmygodIcan’teven—you lied to me?” Vivien leaned against the sink and dramatically clutched a dishcloth against her chest. “You told me you weren’t dating Pio Alvez!”
“I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, okay? I didn’t want to assume,” was Audrey’s excuse. And it seemed believable too, because Vivien switched to swoon mode yet again.
“He’s so mabango, ate. And so pogi! TV doesn’t do him justice!”
Audrey rolled her eyes. She didn’t know why she did that, but she supposed this was some sort of defense mechanism. Because of course it’s easy to get attracted to Pio Alvez. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
“Wait. Is Pio leaving already?” Vivien asked, looking out the kitchen window. Audrey crossed the room to join her sister by the sink and caught a view of Pio exiting the compound. He headed to his car, grabbed something from the trunk, and walked back into their gate.
From where she stood, Audrey saw Pio return to the dining table with a small tool box. He crouched beside her father’s wheelchair and began to tinker with something on one of its wheels while her mother looked on.
“Is something wrong with dad’s wheelchair?” Audrey asked Vivien.
“Oh, right. The right wheel’s kinda unsteady. I already told Gene to fix it, but he probably forgot.” Vivien approached the kitchen door and watched Pio work. She sighed. “Men who know how to use their tools are so dreamy.”
“Why’d you have to say it like that?”
Vivien shot Audrey a look. “Why, what mental image did I conjure for you?”
Heat shot up Audrey’s cheeks so fast it was almost dizzying. Vivien cackled.
“Can they see us from here?”
Magnificent strokes of pink and orange filled the horizon when Pio stepped out of the Alonzo compound later with Audrey in tow. A phone call from Cleo was his excuse to leave, and she found it necessary to walk him to the car for a quick debriefing.
Also, her mother sent a few (four, to be exact) dishes for Pio to take home, and Audrey volunteered to carry the Tupperware-filled paper bag for him.
“Yes. From the kitchen window. I suspect Viv is there, pretending to wash dishes.”
Laughing, Pio pulled open the trunk of his car and deposited his toolbox there, right beside a well-worn duffel bag that looked like it was about to burst at the seams. Audrey noted the presence of shoeboxes and a bunch of what seemed like freshly laundered clothes packed in a transparent plastic bag.
“Tell me if you want to kiss, give her a tiny heart attack or something.”
“I think her heart’s had enough.” Audrey laughed. She raised her voice when one of the party guests began singing an Aegis song at the top of her lungs. “She practically melted on the floor watching you fix dad’s wheelchair.”
Pio walked over to the passenger side of his car and paused to look at Audrey. “How long has your dad been like that?”
“Twelve years?”
“And that wheelchair’s been with him since then?”
Audrey handed him the paper bag when he finally opened the door. “No. I bought that wheelchair around five years ago, replacement for the one donated to us by a neighbor.”
“You might need to replace it again, though. That was a temporary fix, what I did.”
“You didn’t have to do that, but thanks.”
He placed the bag of food on the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. “That’s just me. I see something broken, I get an urge to fix it,” he said and scratched the back of his head. “Backstage habit, I guess? I mean, you never know when a loose screw or a broken prop could hurt anyone.”
“So is that what this is—when you volunteered to help me? Did I look like a broken prop to you?” she asked, chuckling. He didn’t look amused.
“Broken, maybe. But a prop? Never.” Pio leaned close and pressed a goodbye kiss to her hair. “You’re the heroine of this story, remember that.”
“And you?”
He stepped back and shrugged. “Who knows? That’s for you to decide.”
ELEVEN
T wo things were on Pio’s priority list today.
One: Send Erin a “Thank You” ice cream cake to make it up to her for being absent yesterday.
Two: Help Audrey repaint the walls of her apartment.
He would add a third, but it was proving to be a tougher thing to accomplish. It being not get a boner while holding the chair Audrey balanced herself on so she could paint the hard-to-reach areas near the ceiling. He had volunteered to do it himself (he really did), but she refused to delegate this task and asked him to start working on the kitchen walls instead.
Like he was going to let her balance herself on an unstable monoblock chair. Christ.
“If I had known this would happen I’d have brought a step ladder,” he grumbled, staring so hard at the roller tray by his feet he could bore holes on it.
“I’m almost done, sto
p grumbling! Didn’t you say yes to this?”
Indeed. Last night, as soon as Audrey asked if his offer to help her repaint her apartment was still valid, Pio quickly ditched the idea of sleeping in and said yes. So maybe he brought this upon himself.
“I just thought a self-respecting former set designer would be more cautious than this.”
Her laughter was bright, but it didn’t help ease the humidity in this room.
“And I thought a seasoned theatre dude would be more appreciative of how I improvise,” Audrey chuckled and playfully shook her knees so the chair would wobble. An expletive flew out of Pio’s lips as he tightened his grip on the back rest. He looked up at her with a frown.
Fuck those droplets of sweat on her neck. And the thin film of moisture on her toned legs, which, by the way, were staring right at him, thank you very much. Because of course she would wear the shortest pair of shorts imaginable. Not that he had a say on anything she wore, really. He would be a hypocrite to complain.
But this heat is short-circuiting his brain, and behaving himself was becoming more difficult by the second.
“And, done!” she announced and jumped off the chair. With care, Audrey placed her roller brush on the tray and admired the work she had done so far. The wall adjacent to her front door was now a serene stretch of teal. “Hmm, looks good.”
Pio mumbled his affirmation and moved to the kitchen, busying himself with the tools that waited for him there. As he rolled the brush along the wall, he counted backwards from one hundred and took deep breaths. All right, easy. We’re good.
“See, if we started at the same time, the kitchen would’ve been done by now too,” Audrey teased as she ambled into the kitchen and walked past him. A brush of her oversized cotton shirt against his elbow, and he was on edge again.
Shit.
A gust of cool air hit his back when Audrey pulled the fridge door open, perhaps to grab something to drink. He flinched and shivered. “Jesus Christ.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing.” Pio cleared his throat and continued running the brush along the wall. Up, down. Up, down.
How delicious would it be if he could pin Audrey against this wall and—
“No, damn it.”
“Pio—is everything okay?”
Why did it feel like she was whispering into his ear? She wasn’t even anywhere near him.
“Oh my god, you’re all red!” she exclaimed upon seeing his face.
“It’s probably the heat. Yeah. Just...can I have a glass of water. Please?” The last word sounded like a pathetic squeak. He would have laughed at himself if his body weren’t reacting to every single thing now.
Audrey handed him a glass of water and watched him empty it in one swig. The lines on her face spelled concern. “Are you gonna be okay? I can switch the aircon on for a bit?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Let’s just get back to work.” Pio placed the empty glass on the counter and focused on the wall. Just the wall. That needed to be painted. No more immature thoughts, Pio.
“Okay. You can get more water from the fridge if you need it.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about me.”
But she lingered there and watched him work, perhaps with that look on her face. The one she would always wear while watching the film monitors during a shoot. The one Pio took to mean as “What is wrong with this shot? How can I make it better?”
“Are you going to micromanage me?” he asked, feeling as though his neck burned under her gaze. “I know my way around paints and brushes too, you know.”
She got off his back then, but not before leaving a trail of laughter behind her.
Audrey was right. Her apartment was small. It was only three in the afternoon, and they were already done painting everything except the bedroom.
That didn’t mean Pio wasn’t exhausted as heck.
Resting his back on the newspaper-covered floor, he closed his eyes and let Audrey’s Sugarfree playlist soothe him. That and the heavenly smell of bacon frying in the kitchen. With a sigh, he quietly congratulated himself for surviving the morning. He should probably treat himself to a round of drinks tonight.
Something touched his arm, and his eyes fluttered open to the vision that was Audrey’s sweet face. She dropped an orange hand towel on his chest and said, “The floor is cold, Pio. If you want to nap, the couch is just there. It’s in a strange angle now though, but I don’t think you’d be the type to care much about feng shui.”
Pio craned his neck for a look at the couch. It was pushed to one side of the room together with a huge brown box marked X. “Nah, I’m good.”
“I hope you brought an extra shirt because...” her voice trailed off when her eyes grazed over his torso, or, well, the old gray shirt that now clung to his skin in places.
He sat up, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. “Yeah I did. It’s in the car.”
“Good.” Audrey pursed her lips and looked at him like she was waiting for him to say something else. Or was it she who had something to say? And had she really been sitting this close to him all this time or...
“Thanks again for agreeing to help out today. I’ve already hogged your weekend, sorry.”
“It’s not a problem, really.”
“Really? Because you were acting a little strange earlier.”
He wiped his face with the towel. “Sometimes I’m not a morning person, is all.”
“I heard you talking to Erin earlier. About her covering for you? I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you were literally standing outside the door I was painting, and—”
“—it’s really fine, I swear. It doesn’t happen a lot, and, well...I had fun yesterday.” Not a lie. Past the “Hi, hello, oh, are you the new guy dating our daughter?” awkwardness, Pio thought Audrey’s parents were warm, wonderful people who loved to laugh. Vivien was a firecracker who had the voice of a rockstar, and Gene seemed like a diligent bookworm who preferred quiet.
And sweet little Bella was a feisty, affectionate one. She wouldn’t leave Pio’s side after he helped her reach for a toy from the pabitin, so he had Bella in his arms for most of the afternoon. “You have a wonderful family,” he added, smiling.
“Thanks. They’re the best.”
Her eyes were suddenly sad, and he wondered if he said something wrong. Why this sudden shift in her disposition?
“And I was right,” she said, blinking away the melancholy in her eyes. “They loved you. So much that they didn’t bother asking a lot about Lui anymore.”
“Which was kind of the point.”
“That’s true. Viv still wants to murder him, though.”
“Tell her to sign up for a tag team. With me.”
Audrey shook her head and sighed, staring at the loose pink thread on her shirt hem she had been fiddling with. “Thank you, Pio. Really.” Her voice sounded so soft now, it was almost like she didn’t want him to hear what she wanted to say. “When I prayed for something to make life a little bearable after the breakup...I didn’t think it was going to be someone instead.”
Their eyes met when she raised her head, but neither of them breathed a word for what seemed like forever. Pio didn’t mind. There was a smile on her face, and that was enough.
But she had other plans, apparently.
“Can I kiss you?”
Pio’s heart raced. “I’m sorry?”
An embarrassed laugh came out of her as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “You’re free to invoke #4.”
“No, no—I’m not invoking that rule. Am I an idiot?” He ran his fingers nervously through his hair. “I want to do more than kiss you, for god’s sakes.”
She took a second to grasp that information, and another second to maybe weigh the pros and cons. Pio thought she needed more convincing, but Audrey leaned in first and closed the short distance between them. Her kiss felt cautious, the kind that asked if this was okay, if she was even allowed to have this.
Yes, he replied, his hand snaking to the nape
of her neck. Yes, this is okay. You can have all of this.
He heard her chuckle when she pulled away, and he found himself smiling too. Audrey kissed that smile, and it was as tender as the way her fingers rested on his jaw. Soon, her kisses weren’t questions anymore but statements, delicious declarations in bold, brave strokes.
“You didn’t leave the bacon on the stove, right?” Pio asked when they both came up for air. When did he lose his shirt? And why was she still fully clothed? Clearly, he needed to step up his game.
“Of course not.” She traced a path of kisses from his lips, his cheek, his jaw. And when she caught his earlobe between her teeth, his entire body quivered. “You can’t be wanting bacon now, can you?”
“No. We’ll save it for later,” he managed to say, gasping when Audrey’s fingers danced over the waistband of his jeans. Oh, she was a master multitasker, but so was he. As his lips made a sojourn from the crook of her neck to that tattoo below her collarbone, he ran a hand up her back and unclasped the hook of her bra.
She moaned when his hands found their way to her breasts, and Pio muffled the sound with his mouth. He made declarations of his own, matching the intensity by which she kissed him. Audrey wanted this, he knew that now. But whether or not this was leading up to rebound sex was immaterial to him. He had been attracted to her from the first night they met, and he wasn’t going to deny himself this. Not when it felt so good.
“Bed,” Audrey whispered when all that’s left of their clothing was underwear. She got up, grabbed Pio by the arm, and led him to her bedroom.
“Wait. Um. I don’t have any—”
“I do.” Striding over to her desk, she opened the drawer and produced a condom packet she tossed at him. It hit his chest and fell on the floor. In his defense, he was too busy admiring her ass to realize what she had done.
“Please tell me you’ve done this before.”
“Of course I have.” He collected the packet from the floor and followed her to the bed. She was already sitting there like the boss she was—leaning comfortably against the pillows and the headboard, one leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out. He cleared his throat. “It’s just...it’s been a while.”