Adria's Choice

Chapter 8

Karyl pouted at me. "I can't paint him while I'm still miffed and worried about our future, bes." She said this as if I should have thought of that myself.

I rolled my eyes. "You drama queen. Fine." I reached for my bag and rummaged around it, looking for the envelope with the voucher to Manila's newest and premier spa that our features editor Blake handed to me earlier that afternoon. He said he already had plans with his boyfriend tonight and it looked like I needed it. Unfortunately, my version of Karyl's evil glare didn't even make him blink. "Here. Knock yourself out."

She squealed and jumped on my lap to hug me. My chair buckled but unlike the other times she did this, it didn't even tip over. Huh. Looked like my secret jogging days were paying off. "You're the best! Thank you, thank you!"

I had a niggling suspicion. She didn't even open the envelope and she was already thanking me? "Wait. You knew about this!"

She didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. "Of course! I saw Blake hand it to you earlier, and I asked him about it. "Ta-ta!" With a flutter of her fingers, she was out the door.

I shook my head at her retreating back and waited a full thirty minutes for her to leave before I headed to where John and Lexie were waiting.

"Sorry I'm late," I said as I sat down. Lexie immediately bussed me on the cheek, then handed me my favorite Starbucks food—a ham and cheese croissant, and a mocha Frappuccino—saying they were from John. Her plate was already wiped clean. I knew without asking that she'd had a bagel slathered with cream cheese. Her cup was already devoid of green tea.

John looked at me and then at Lexie. I already knew what he was going to say, but I wanted to hear him say it. Judging by Lexie's bemused expression, she knew it, too. But I had to give credit to John, he didn't balk despite his constipated and nervous look.

"Yes, I'm going to propose to Karyl. And I need your help to pull off this surprise."

Lexie and I squealed in excitement for about five minutes, which John, long used to Karyl, patiently endured.

Lexie and I turned to him and spoke at the same time. "Did you talk to her parents already?"

John puffed up his chest and looked proud of himself, like a cock who just won the fight. "Of course!"

"You totally peed in your pants," I teased.

Without batting an eyelash, he said, "No. They'd never let Karyl marry someone who still wets his pants." He grinned. "But I peed for five minutes straight right after they left."

It was some time before Lexie and I could stop laughing.

"So, what's the plan?" I asked.

— OoOoOoO —

So that was how I found myself in Boracay on Valentine's Weekend, with Karyl and Lexie. I asked Karyl to hang out with me and Lexie, since it was another Single's Awareness Day for both of us. I had to guilt Karyl into coming, and after several days of persistent whining and insisting, with John telling her that he had an out-of-town conference that he couldn't miss, she finally caved. Heartbroken though, that she thought she wouldn't get to spend Valentine's Day with him.

If Karyl weren't my best friend and I didn't love her, I would have berated her. Instead, I said all the appropriate responses and even went on a drinking spree with her the night before, drunkenly declaring all manner of insults upon men, while she whined about the lack of balls of certain boyfriends.

Needless to say, we were both fast asleep in the plane even before it lifted off the runway, having had only three hours to shake off our tipsiness. We were jolted awake when the plane suddenly dropped down to land on the teeny airport. I don't know how anyone's pants could stay dry after that. Lexie was as cool as could be, sleeping beside Karyl by the window, with her black sunglasses covering her puffy eyes.