Fairy Tale Fail

Chapter 12b - You taste like dark chocolate and siomai

"You know what? I love being the not pathetic one. Thank you for inviting me tonight."
   "You're welcome. How bad was I?"
   "You were perfect. Your friends were relieved to have you back."
   I thought Lucas' first night back with his barkada was a success. He was funny and witty, he reconnected with almost everyone, and most likely convinced the entire group that he had recovered and was really back. But then again, Patty wasn't there, so that may have made the transition smoother.
   The conversation with Mark and Lisa gave me a much-needed ego boost, too. I was glad that in that room full of cool people, I managed to hold my own. Or at the very least, I did well enough to not be called a ditz.
   I went from lazy and "not passionate about anything" to confident and smart, in the span of a year. Not too bad, Eleanor.
   Still, Lucas didn't jump back in completely. He told me that he wanted to leave early, and at eleven he started making the rounds of goodbyes.  By this time we were hungry again, and ended up taking out fried dimsum and dark chocolate soft-serve ice cream from a convenience store. We settled in front of his car at the open-air top floor of the parking building, and ate there.
   "You definitely inspired me," I added. "For when I decide to join Charisse and our friends again."
   "What do you mean? You're not ready to do that yet?"
   I thought about it for a minute and shook my head. "No. I still need closure."
   "Ugh," Lucas mocked a shudder at that. "Patty said that to me a lot."
   What was so wrong with that? I needed to know, in no uncertain terms, that something was over. I didn't get that from Don. "Maybe if you actually sat down and talked to her, she would know what you really feel, and you wouldn't have spent all this time avoiding her," I said.
   "I did say how I felt. Very clearly. It hasn't changed. I think you say 'closure' but mean 'another chance.'"
   I stabbed my last bit of siomai with a toothpick and grumbled under my breath. Earlier this evening I started to see myself in Lucas, but really, we were on opposite ends again.
   "But anyway," Lucas said, "I hope you had fun."
   "I did," I replied, serious. "It feels great to be around people who don't think of me as broken. I was thinking that this was why I traveled. If only I figured out that I should just crash strangers' parties, I wouldn't have spent so much."
   Lucas started on his soft-serve ice cream, and for a second I was distracted by how he licked the dark chocolate off his spoon. I was still a bit tipsy from the bar – surely that was why I was fixating on his hands, his fingers, how stubble had grown on his face since this afternoon.
   "Why do you still think you're broken?" Lucas said, and I snapped out of my trance. "You've become happier, right?"
   "I didn't spend all this time alone by choice. He left me."
   "Oh, you were hurt back then, but today it's different. I don't think you realize it yet, but you are completely over him."
   "Stop it," I said. "Stop giving me therapy. Tonight's about you."
   I intended to start a speech about this night being about his closure, so I turned to him, mind somewhere else, and was met with his hand on my jaw, pulling me in for a kiss. His fingers kept my skin a safe distance from the stubble on his cheek, and the result was something playfully light against my lips. He tasted like, gah, dark chocolate, and something faintly umami but that was probably me and the dimsum I had just swallowed. For a moment there I forgot about where I was and all the baggage I had with me. I allowed myself to be that free person again.
   And then I pushed him off me.
   "Seriously?" I said, coughing into my hand. "You think this was the perfect time to kiss me? I tasted like siomai!"
   Lucas laughed and resumed eating his ice cream as if nothing happened. "Your obsession with the perfect moment is cute, but now I know why your friends were concerned all this time."
   "Why, because I actually think things through?"
   "Overthinker."
   "But… but I don't even know you very well. I don't just kiss guys I don't know."
   Lucas set the ice cream cup down on the hood of his car. "What do you need to know?"
   How many ex-girlfriends? What did he think of courtship? Why did he stop going to church? Would he ever go back again? Did he believe in life after death? Was he in the habit of kissing girls not his girlfriend? What did his mom do for a living? Who did he vote for in the last election? All these things I would have found out if I had been his friend just a bit longer, I couldn't possibly unload all of this on him now!
   "What's that tattoo mean?" I said, plucking a question out of the cloud.
   He turned to his left arm and lifted his sleeve slightly, and I saw more of it. Definitely not a Chinese character.
   "It means 'first officer.'"
   "In what language?"
   Lucas smiled and cleared his throat. "When I was younger, my brother and I created this story about a pirate society, like an alternate history for colonial Philippines. We created a language for it and everything. He's an illustrator for comic books, and he's always dreamed of writing that comic himself when he finally had enough cred. I got three tattoos based on our original designs to remind him to go do it one day."
   "That's nice of you," I said. "Where are the other two?"
   He tilted his head a little and grabbed the empty siomai cup from my hands, replacing it with my own dessert. "You know what? I think now is not the perfect moment for you to see the other two. Eat your ice cream."
   I grudgingly accepted the cup. "You are mean."
   Lucas looked pleased with himself. "This is what playing by your rules feels like."

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FYI. Mini Stop (back then) and Family Mart (now) serve dark chocolate ice cream. Hahaha.