Sweet on You

by Carla de Guzman

  “What do you want for Christmas?”

  Sari tossed her now flesh-less mango cheek into the bin in the fire escape. Then she looked at him, a tiny smile playing on her lips like she was trying to see if he was really asking her. Gab didn’t think he had the answer to that.

  “You.”

  He choked on a mango.

  “You giving me the address to the magical mango farm,” Sari added. “It’s in Zambales? I want specifics.”

  “I’m not that generous.” Gab managed to regain his composure long enough to come right back. “But I will think of something nice. Something I can give to you. Something I can wrap in a bow. As a neighborly—no, a friendly gesture.”

  “Ah, so our relationship is progressing, is it?”

  “Don’t you think it is?”

  “Oh, I do,” Sari agreed, nodding, and oh, was that a blush he could see on her cheeks?

  They lapsed into comfortable silence, and Gabriel couldn’t help but steal a glance at Sari. She had her arms crossed over her chest, the scent of coffee wafting over to him from where the breeze passed her. Christmas was knocking on their door, so close he could taste it, and there was a nip in the air that you could only get from the highlands. Not cold enough to put on a jacket, but noticeable enough that he didn’t feel the desire to jump into a swimming pool anytime soon.

  Sari’s lips were lightly pursed, as if caught in between filtering her own thoughts and saying something to him. Her creamy skin looked like it needed a good kiss, and he wondered what it would feel like to place his lips on that little pulse point on her neck. Would she taste like coffee? Sugar?

  He wanted to kiss her again. It had been six hours already.

  “Go on a date with me?” he asked, because he really wanted to spend time with her outside of the fire escape, outside of the Laneways. He wanted to keep making her smile.

  “Why do you keep asking me out?” she said instead, chuckling like the question was ridiculous. Gabriel frowned, immediately hurt by the question. It wasn’t a rejection per se, but he would have thought that she would want to go out on dates with someone she was sharing kisses on the fire escape with. Or maybe he was missing something? His sisters did always say that men could be dense about a lot of things.

  “Is it making you uncomfortable? I’m sorry,” he said quickly, because that was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to make her blush, and smile, he wanted to see her kilig, not scared or uncomfortable. “I’ll stop if it is.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s...it’s actually very flattering,” she admitted, and he could have sworn he saw her cheeks warm as she looked away from him. “Even if it’s not real.”

  “Why would you think that it wasn’t real?” he asked suddenly and sharply, and he didn’t mean to change the tone of the conversation so quickly, but Sari had touched a very sensitive nerve. “Did you think I wasn’t serious?”

  Her eyes widened, although he wasn’t sure if it was surprise. Great job, Gab, you’ve officially freaked her out because of your insecurities. Sari is not your father. He didn’t know why, but the voice of conscience in his head sounded like his sisters. All six of them.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes still a little wide, wary and cautious. “It’s just that everyone here keeps asking if we’re together, they think we’re courting each other, and we’ve kissed, but last week I was planning your murder, I... It’s getting confusing, to say the least.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “How is it confusing?”

  “No, how were you planning on murdering me?” He was genuinely curious. “I’ve planned many a murder on our cat whenever he thinks my pant legs would make good scratching posts.”

  “Oh, you know. Just the standard baking accident, surely that super sharp knife wasn’t meant to go into his chest, that kind of thing.” She shrugged, and he liked that she just went with it. “I don’t exactly have a frame of reference for being asked out on a date that...frequently. You seem very sure of what you want.”

  Relief whooshed through Gabriel so quickly that he had to laugh.

  “When you know, you know,” he told her with a shrug, as if life was that simple. “You know?”

  “Not really. I could be a snorer,” she said. “Or really bad in bed. I could be a cat person, when you are clearly a dog person.”

  “Are you?”

  “Bad in bed?”

  “A cat person?”

  He didn’t miss her cheeks burning pink before she looked away from him. ”No, but that’s not the point, is it? How do you know?”

  “Know what, Sari?”

  “Know that you like me?”

  She asked him like he held all the answers to a secret she’d been trying to know for so long. Gabriel shrugged like he did this all the time, which he never did. He always had to be the smooth guy, the cool guy, the big brother who knew everything, because he had to be. He was older. People expected him to know everything. Little did his younger siblings know, he was struggling just as much as they all were.

  “You make my cells rise,” he started.

  “What?”

  “I read it in a book. When you find something that makes you incandescently happy, it feels like all of your cells are rising.”

  Sari’s brows met in between her eyes, and Gabriel was sure she’d heard that before. “You got that from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”

  “I did. But doesn’t mean it’s not true. When I see you smile, I want to figure out what made you happy. When you get that little annoyed but amused crease between your eyebrows, I hope I’m the reason for it, because you think I’m funny.”

  “I do.”

  “I want to take away whatever it is that’s making you sad, and I’m not going to lie, I want to kiss you again. It’s been six hours, Sari, I need you to kiss me again.”

  Her cheeks immediately flamed even redder, and Gabriel couldn’t help the little frisson of kilig that ran up and down his system. This Charm Offensive thing was working really well for him so far.

  “Why don’t you come over here and kiss me, then?”

  “Oh, sweetheart. Is that a challenge?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her like he was asking her to make it real. And that actually made her smile. It warmed his heart to know that he was the one to put that smile on her face. “Because you have a bit of mango on your lip.”

  “Oh, I do?” she asked, nibbling at her bottom lip. “There?”

  “Just missed it. May I?” he asked, and Sari nodded. Reaching out, brushing his thumb against the soft skin on the bottom of her lip where a bit of mango still was. Then, he didn’t even know why he did it, he put his thumb against his lips and sucked.

  The effect on her was instantaneous. She sucked in a breath, her eyes wide and dark, before she swallowed. He could almost hear her heart thundering in her chest as she looked at his lips. No. Wait. That was his heart he was hearing.

  His hands were on the sides of her face now, his thumbs brushing against her cheeks.

  “May I?” he asked again, not knowing why his voice was so shaky.

  “Yes.” Sari’s voice was breathless, but Gabriel still went in slow. He touched his lips to where the bit of mango was, as if expecting it to be sweet. Her lips were still wet from its juice as he tasted her. Sari sighed, her body relaxing against his hands, and then they were kissing, a mix of mangoes and sugar, mangoes and dark roast coffee.

  “Gab.” Sari pulled away suddenly. “Gabriel?”

  “Hmm?” He liked the way she said his name, the way she emphasized the last syllable the way they would in old-timey dramas.

  “Go out on a date with me,” she said, and he noticed that her hand was clutched at the front of his shirt, and he liked it. She tugged at him a little, and they kissed again. “I’m going to Simbang Gabi in the morning at the Cathedral. Come wit
h me.”

  “Um,” Gabriel hesitated. His family was still very much on the religious side of the spectrum, but he hadn’t gone to church in forever, even on the important days. A hazard of travelling, he’d said, but really, it was just that going to church reminded him of his family, and he’d needed a bit of space from them. And, he wasn’t ashamed to admit that going to a Catholic mass elsewhere around the world was just not the same as in the Philippines. The songs hit different in Tagalog.

  “I know you can’t make a wish, since you missed at least four days,” Sari said. “But if you’ve never been to the Cathedral, you can check it out. And I heard you can also make a wish if it’s your first time at a new church.”

  “So many wishes, who needs prayer?” He raised his eyebrow. She shrugged. “I suppose I could get Ransom to come in and put the bakes in the oven tomorrow. He’ll hate me the whole day, but he’ll get overtime.”

  “Ransom can have all the coffee he wants again if he comes in tomorrow morning,” Sari told him, and her face lit up with happiness. It was finally happening. He was going on a date with Sari Tomas. Sure, he never thought he would ever go on a date that included Catholic tradition, but then again, nothing about his experience in Lipa so far had been predictable.

  “So you’ll go with me?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Consider it a date. Seal it with a kiss?”

  “Okay.” She kissed his lips, a quick little smack that made him laugh. “Done.”

  “Ala eh.” He frowned, which made Sari laugh.

  “You’re using it wrong.”

  “You’re incredible, you know that?” he asked her, and he meant it in every sense of the word. He admired her dedication, he was awed at her strength. He loved that she knew when to laugh at the joke, and knew when to challenge it. And she pulled really good pranks. “Even if you never taste my baked goods.”

  “How do you always manage to make that sound dirty?” She laughed, pressing her hands to her cheeks.

  “It only sounds dirty because you think it’s dirty,” he pointed out to her, because he was good at that kind of thing. She raised a brow like she didn’t believe him, and he couldn’t deny that it stung a little. “But really. I’m great at making cake. Children have cried, women have tossed underwear at me in offering.”

  She stuck a tongue out and frowned. “That doesn’t sound appealing. Or sanitary!”

  “I’m trying to give myself a rockstar vibe. Is it working?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “The point is, you really should try my cake sometime.”

  “Only if you try my coffee,” she said before she turned to him and ran a finger across his collarbones, and down the middle of his chest. “I make it really hot.”

  Her voice dipped at that last sentence, and Gabriel could almost see her smiling wryly at him from the rim of a coffee cup, just before her lips touched the dark liquid.

  Her eyes were focused on nothing else but him, kindling a flame of attraction that he harboured for her. Gabriel cleared his throat to get the image out of his head. He’d barely calmed down from the kiss. Kisses.

  “See, it’s dirty when someone else does it to you.” Sari’s tone was light as her laughter before she made her quick escape, heading for her side of the old warehouse.

  “So, date?”

  “Yes! Date!” She waved her hand behind her like this wasn’t momentous. Like it was no big deal, and like she hadn’t told him how much she liked it just a few minutes ago.

  It made him grin like an idiot. The entire place could be in total chaos and he would be absolutely fine. Good, great, happy, utterly fantastic. Nothing could kill his mood, absolutely nothing.

  Not when he’d just kissed Sari Tomas.

  Chapter Sixteen

  December 19

  You know when you have a major deadline coming up, and you know you have to do something about it, but instead you end up completely dithering and doing something else?

  That was what Sari felt like when she went back into her coffee lab after sharing that mango with Gabriel. But the thing they never tell you about dithering, it was fun. It was wonderfully distracting. And God help her, she liked it.

  When did Gabriel become so cute, by the way? He’d popped up on her fire escape like an oasis in the desert, all sexy features and a warm gaze, listening to the things she had to say. It felt so wonderful to have someone be there for her, just...listening. Without telling her what she could have done to make things right, without judging her, and without any agenda. It made her feel important, and seen, and Sari would never forget that small act of kindness from him.

  Her phone lit up to let her know she got a text message, and she felt like she was being reprimanded for daydreaming. She was in the café, picking up a bag of Benguet coffee beans from a local supplier that was looking to partner with them on a blend.

  Selene: Just got to Star Tollway exit. Will be there in a bit.

  Sari inhaled and exhaled sharply. Selene Tomas texted the same way she lived her entire life—efficiently, straight to the point, and with very little emotion. When their entire family was falling apart, the business all but vanishing in an all-powerful snap, Selene had glared the problem straight in the eye and told her sisters exactly what to do, pushing on like she’d been expecting it to happen the whole time. Her sister was a rock, and next to Selene Tomas, Sari felt like single-ply tissue paper slowly dissolving in water.

  Sari’s phone began to ring, and she picked up on the first ring without checking to see who it was.

  “Did you get my text?” Selene asked. “I should be there in like, two hours.”

  “Yup! Just in time for the annual Belen Setup at home.”

  “Don’t you mean the annual belen argument?” Selene chuckled. “What are you guys using as the Baby Jesus this year?”

  Sari and Sampaguita insisted on taking their grandmother’s belen set when they moved to Lipa. The set used to be a point of pride for their grandmother—always bathed in gold lighting, set up with real straw, a little nipa hut she had made special, and a starry sky background with a bright gold star above the hut. The set featured hand painted cows, sheep, three wise men in gilded clothes on camels, and of course Mary and Joseph smiling adoringly at their newborn son.

  But three years ago, Sam had broken the Baby Jesus, and every year was about finding the perfect substitute. Last year it was a little doll Sari got from a Happy Meal, another year a piece of cotton, but it was always a huge argument between Sam and Sari about who deserved the place of honor in the belen. Selene had never participated in the decision-making, but always wanted to know who won.

  “We’re still hearing opening arguments. What brings you to Lipa so early? Are you staying until Christmas?”

  She winced, because she knew it sounded clingy.

  “Business,” Selene clarified. “Important business. Huge business.”

  Sari bit her fingernail, ignoring the little voice in her head telling her that she shouldn’t do that (the voice sounded way too much like Selene).

  “I’ll see you later, Sari.”

  “See you, Ate.”

  Once she hung up, Sari immediately opened up a text thread.

  Selene just called, she texted Sam. She’s coming!! Did she tell you?

  Sam: Yup. Sorry, forgot to mention yesterday, but you were dead asleep after the Christmas party. She kept asking about the Carlton Hotel’s Lounge Blend. She hates my plan to fix Lola’s house. HA. HA. HA. *holds up sarcasm sign*

  “Hay nako,” Sari said, biting her bottom lip. “I already did that the other day.”

  Sari’s major contribution to the Tomas Coffee Co. was to manage and maintain the coffee that the family produced, overseeing roasting and packing in the facilities in Sta. Cruz, as well as coming up with signature blends for clients who requested it. The café had never
been a major money maker for the company, but it was where Sari’s heart had always been. As their advocacy was the promotion of local beans and the fine robusta beans that Sam grew in their farm, Sari was one of the few R graders in the area to be able to blend fine robusta and arabica coffee to make spectacular blends.

  The Carlton Hotel had asked Sari to come up with something original for the new Lobby Lounge. Something that fit the tastes of the movers and shakers that met in their lobby, they’d said. So Sari came up with the Carlton—a blend of aromatic arabicas, nutty and smooth, with a syrupy hint made strong and sturdy by Sam’s fine robusta, tasting of the woodsy trees Sam interplanted them with. Low in acidity but intense in flavor, it was the perfect fuel for the Carlton’s clientele.

  But if Selene was sniffing around about it, that meant one of two things—either Sari had called it wrong and the Carlton hated the blend, or something else. Lord only knew what that something else could be, if it was enough to drag her to Lipa.

  By the time the afternoon rolled around, any energy she’d managed to get from having secret kissing sessions in the fire escape was gone, eaten away by agitation and nerves. The wind was blowing crazy, skirts and hair flying up, and more than once, a customer came in trying to pat down their hair and take leaves off. Static clung in the air, and she kept getting zapped, and she took it as a bad omen.

  “Two caffe lattes, one Americano and a candy cane coffee,” her cashier called behind her, supposedly to get the barista’s butt in gear to start making the coffee. But, without thinking, Sari stepped in, taking over with a confidence she wished she could feel for other things. Her staff always mentioned that Sari didn’t have to do half the things she did in the café itself, that she could feel free to leave them for a day or two if she needed it. But she conveniently chose to ignore that.

  Coffee, at least, she could make without thinking and not screw up. All she needed were her senses, attuned so keenly to what she had in front of her that it helped slow her quickly beating heart.

  “Two caffe lattes, one Americano and a candy cane coffee for Jay?” she asked, gently placing the takeout cups on the service table without so much as a smile to the customer who picked them up. Sari was about to go up to the coffee lab and toss her phone into the roaster when the café door opened, and she half-expected it to be Gabriel. She whirled, ready with a bright smile on her face when Kira Luz and Sam walked in.