Chapter 5

By evening, I had six business cards, four investor meeting requests, and a clip of my speech with fifty thousand views.

Ramon called from the hospital. "Hija," he said, and his voice was wet. "I watched it on my nurse's phone. I cried in front of a twenty-two-year-old nurse. Do you know how embarrassing that is?"

"Sir—"

"You showed it. I'm so proud of you." A pause. “Tell me, have you met the Legaspi boy?”

"Sir? Opo. Same hotel kami, um. Mahabang kuwento."

"Same hotel." Something in his voice sounded almost pleased. "Good. Be kind to him, Luna. “He bears more than people realize.”

He hung up before I could ask a single question, which, for a man supposedly in agony, was impressive.

I stared at the phone. Then I caught myself searching the crowd for a particular tall figure in a charcoal suit.

Tigilan mo 'yan, I told myself.

I watched his presentation and I had to admit, grudgingly, that he was extraordinary. No notes. No pacing. He simply stood in the light and talked about the glass towers that had made his family rich, and the ones he wished he had never built, and the slow, honest work of trying to build better. The room loved him. I felt a strange, ugly twist in my chest and refused to name it.

That night was the networking gala at seven p.m.

All afternoon, clouds had been stacking up over the Koolau mountains, gray and heavy, and a warm wind was pushing at the palm trees.

Tumayo ako sa harap ng salamin suot ang dress.

It was deep green, simple, with a neckline that dipped just enough to be dangerous and a hem that skimmed my knees. I bought it two years ago for Paolo's cousin's wedding and never worn, because Paolo said it was a bit much.

I turned slowly. It wasn’t. It was exactly enough.

From the cookie tin, I took two tiny crescent moons I'd crocheted on the plane, no bigger than my thumbnail, strung on silver hooks. My lucky lunas. I put one on.

May kumatok sa p***o.

"Luna? Are you—" Alexander pushed the door open. Rule four said knock, and he had knocked, technically, and then walked in.

He stopped.

My hair was down. I had curled it loosely, and it fell past my shoulders in dark waves. My lips were a soft, deep red. I stood with one earring in my hand, frozen, caught.

Alexander said nothing.

The silence stretched until it became a physical thing, pressing against my skin.

"You said knock," he said at last, and his voice sounded rough, like he'd swallowed gravel. "I knocked."

"You didn't wait."

"No." He swallowed. "I didn't."

We looked at each other across the room, and something shifted, quietly, with no announcement, the way a floor shifts before an earthquake. Naramdaman ko muna sa tiyan ko, tapos sa lalamunan, tapos sa bawat lugar na dinadaanan ng tingin niya. I was suddenly, acutely aware of my bare shoulders. Of the distance between us. Of how few steps it would take to close it

"You look," he began, and stopped, and started again. "Luna. You look—"

"Don't."

"I wasn't going to say anything inappropriate."

"You were thinking it."

"I was thinking several things," he admitted, with a short, helpless laugh. "Most of them, inappropriate."

Heat rushed up my neck. I turned back to the mirror and fumbled with the second moon, and my hands wouldn't cooperate.

"Let me," he said.

"I can do it myself."

"I know you can." He crossed the room. "Let me anyway."

Inabot ko ang hikaw.

His fingers brushed mine as he took it, and I felt the contact all the way down my spine. He turned the tiny moon over in his palm and. "You made this?"

Tumango ako.

"It’s beautiful." He said it like he meant the person, not the thread.

He stepped behind me. In the mirror, I watched him lift his hand, sweep my hair gently over one shoulder, his knuckles grazing the back of my neck. Huminto ako sa paghinga.

He worked the earring into place with a tenderness that was almost unbearable. His breath was warm against my ear. In the mirror, his eyes lifted and met mine.

"There," he murmured.

Walang gumalaw sa amin.

His hand lingered at my neck. Not holding me, just resting there, as if he had forgotten how to let go. I could feel his heartbeat, or maybe it was mine. Hindi ko masabi.

"Lex," I whispered. That was the first time I called him that. I wasn't sure if it was a warning or a plea.

"I know," he said, very quietly. "Competitors. Rule five."

"Yes."

"We shouldn't."

"No. We shouldn't."

He didn't step away. I didn't turn around. In the mirror, his gaze dropped, only for a heartbeat, to my mouth, and rose again, dark and burning.

May kung anong bumukas sa dibdib ko, isang pintong ipinako ko eleven months ago.

And then the lights went out.

The entire suite plunged into darkness. Thunder cracked somewhere over the mountains, long and low, at umalingawngaw ang sabay-sabay na ungol mula sa labas, as if the whole shoreline had exhaled at once.

I gasped and stumbled back, and my shoulders met a solid wall of warmth. Lex's hands closed on my arms, steadying me. I felt him against my back, the rise and fall of his chest, the heat of him through the thin green fabric of my dress..

"Transformer, maybe," he said, close to my ear.

"I can't see anything."

"I've got you."

Three words. Quiet. Unremarkable. And somehow, in the dark, they landed in the deepest part of me.

I turned in his hands. I couldn't see his face, only the shape of him, the glint of his eyes in the little light the storm let through. His hands didn't leave my arms. They slid, slowly, up to my shoulders, and rested there.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

"Luna," he said, and it sounded like a question.

I should have stepped away. Dapat hinanap ko ang phone ko, binuksan ang flashlight, and said something sensible regarding the gala.

Instead, in the dark, with the whole island silent around us and the rain beginning to hit the lanai like handfuls of thrown pebbles, I lifted my face toward his.

My lips were barely an inch from his when the emergency lights flickered on, harsh and white and humming.

Nagkalayo kami na parang napaso.

I pressed a shaking hand to my mouth. Lex dragged a hand through his hair, breathing hard, looking at me with something I couldn't name, something that looked like hunger and fear and wonder all at once.

"The gala," I managed. "Mali-late tayo."

"Yes." He didn't move. "The gala."

Neither of us did.

Outside, the storm leaned against the windows, and far below, Waikiki began to flicker back to life, one light at a time, as though the island itself had been holding its breath.

I knew, with a sinking, thrilling certainty, that every rule I'd made was already broken. I just hadn't decided what to do about it.

I also didn't notice, not yet, that I lost one of my earrings. Somewhere on the dark carpet, one tiny cream-colored moon had slipped away, waiting for someone to find it.