Thirty-Four

"OK," she finally said. “Let’s do it. Fine.”
He was watching her face closely when she was deliberating. He blinked. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes," was her answer.
"Shall we kiss to make it official?"
She gave him a look that could have hurt him, but she couldn't run away when he bent down to kiss her lips like he was punishing her for it.
When he pulled her closer to him, she couldn't even say anything. She just closed her eyes and thought that, from the outside, he was being kind and thoughtful to his ‘girlfriend’ whose mother had just had a very terrifying stroke.
And that was what was needed for the charade.
Except he’d always kissed her like this. Like he was always hungry. Like he truly thirsted for her lips.
Then he lifted his head and hugged her close to his chest.
For a moment, it felt like they were in their own world. Or maybe because the nurses were now very quiet. She could feel the wave of their shock from where she was standing, held in Eric’s arms.
"Ate ...?"
She stiffened.
*Drat.*
She had flinched, but Eric didn’t. Not even a tiny movement of surprise.
And she realized that Eric knew Tommy had been there all along!
In contrast to how she and Enrique acted when her mother caught them earlier, they did not immediately split up. He lifted his head, and her forehead fell to his chest.
She closed her eyes.
She was scared to look at her brother and see on his face what he was thinking. During the kiss, she knew he was already there. She could tell by the sound of his call.
*Please don't judge me. Please.*
Enrique still had his arms around her when he finally turned to look at the new arrival. “Tommy. Chairman Castro.”
“Uhm…” Her voice was choked up. The Chairman was also here? Damn you, Eric!
Tommy wouldn't be alone, of course! She moaned to herself. There was no way to stop this act from reaching their neighbors at this point.
"Senyorito Enrique," Chairman Castro said in an uncomfortable way. “We heard about what happened so I brought our young Tommy here.”
"Don't worry, Tommy, your mom is fine," Enrique told him.
"What are you doing to my sister?" Tommy asked in a voice that sounded like a child about to cry, but also had enough defiance in it that he sounded older and brave in contrast.
"What a good boyfriend would do to comfort his woman," was Eric’s answer.
Tommy's voice was full of surprise when he spoke again. "Boyfriend…?!"
Enrique sighed.
But when he spoke again, he did so with a smile, not the sound of boredom she had expected.
"It's all out in the open. Since your mom already knows, I don't see why we should keep it from you. Yes, your sister and I do love each other. I love her, and I want everyone to know that. But she is still ashamed of me and doesn't want anyone to know. She said no one would believe us.”
She tapped his chest with her hand. "Eric! Really?" Even though she knew he was just pretending, she almost melted when he smiled tenderly down at her.
"Everyone who knows your sister knows how lucky any man she chooses will be,” he continued to say to Tommy even when he watched her face, like he meant to memorize every nook and cranny, every blemish, and was counting all her pores while she continued to glare-all at him. He grinned at her like it amused him to no end. “I'm not stupid. I found something valuable and I'm going to keep it.”
Before she believed his flowery words, she found her voice. "Whatever. But I will first talk to my brother. I'm sure he'd rather know about Mama's health before anything else.”
He didn't miss a single step. He bent his head and gave her a sweet, familiar kiss on the forehead. And somehow, this was more damning than the kiss on the lips.
Because she ached at this tenderness.
She wanted everything to be real.
"Go ahead," he said in a soft voice. "I'll speak with the Chairman. We will go see if there is anything else that needs to be done for your mother’s stay here." He reached out to touch her cheek. "Don't worry anymore, I'll handle everything."
Since she had just lost her voice again, all she could do was nod.
He let her go. She hugged herself out of habit, then reasoned to herself that the AC in that part of the hospital was to blame, and that it wasn't because she missed him as soon as she wasn't in his arms.
Enrique briefly touched Tommy's shoulder as he walked by him.
Tommy looked at the hand for a second before giving her a look that shouted how betrayed he felt.
When Enrique and Chairman Castro turned the corner of the hallway, sister and brother started walking toward each other.
"This is... Tommy…"
He said accusingly, "You're not his type, right?"
She tried so hard not to laugh that it hurt. "You do remember you're talking to your older sister, right?"
He nodded awkwardly.
"You don't believe what you saw, too?" She sighed.
He gave a head shake. "It’s not that. I can't take you seriously. I was sure he liked you and I told you about it but you said he didn't. And now you're both telling me you’re together and kissing in public? You are impossible, Ate Yna! How am I going to believe you?"
Oh my god, her brother could rant. She grimaced. “Yes. I can’t believe it, either, believe me.”
“You are impossible!”
“I know. I’m sorry. That's why I told him to keep it a secret—no one would believe us. He obeyed at first because he didn't want our neighbors to talk about me and make me feel bad. We won't be able to act normally around them.” She's really become good at lying. Dammit. "He didn't want people to wonder about how we'd even met."
"The neighbors asked me why he was at the house because they said he had carried mother to his car and she didn’t look good. What happened to Mama?"
She closed her eyes and scowled. "She caught us. Eric and I were cuddling in the kitchen, and he kissed me and she saw us. We thought she was still napping and…”
He didn’t say anything. Yna opened her eyes to look at him. It was clear that he was trying hard not to say anything.
"I'm so sorry, Tommy. That wasn't what I wanted to happen. I didn't mean for Mama to get hurt.”
"Ate, no…” He then put his head down. "I know you didn’t mean that to happen. On the other hand, if she ever finds out about my theft at the bar and what you did to save me, she probably wouldn't just have a s-stroke..."
She pulled him close and gave him a tight hug.
"Stop. I thought we said we wouldn't talk about what happened that night again? Now, everything is good. Señorito... Eric will help us with Mama. At least for now. You have work, I have work, and we have a nice place for Mama to stay when she gets out of here. Everything is fine. God hasn't stopped caring about us. Okay?”
He looked so sad when he raised his face that she was about to smile until he spoke.
"If he hurts you again, I will hurt him back. I'm not sure how yet, but I will. Ate, I really don't want you to be his girlfriend, but he got to me when he said all those things about you being a treasure. Which is true. He is so lucky. So I'll give him a chance if he can see that.”
She tried not to blink as she stared at him. "Uhm. Okay. You do that."
He kept staring up at her. "Ate, do you really like him?"
She didn’t know why she suddenly felt ridiculously happy. “Y-Yeah. I know it's stupid to want the attention of an eagle when I’m just a chicken—”
He grinned and giggled like that tickled him.
“But I don't know how to stop it." She squinted. "He's kind of... really... hard to get rid of."
Tommy looked at her pityingly, like he agreed with her, but he didn't want to touch it.
Then he hugged her back. “It’s going to be alright. If it doesn’t work out, me and Mama are always here.”
She almost lost it.
He sounded so fatalistic. Not that she could blame him.
"You won't cry on me, right?" she asked.
He blinked quickly and said, "I'm not going to cry!"
She again messed up his hair. "Don't worry about things you shouldn't be worrying about anymore. I'm fine," she lied again.
But Tommy was now looking past her, and she knew that Enrique and Chairman had returned.
When the two men got close, they both turned around.
"She is comfortable in her room,” Enrique told them with a smile. "You can both go see her now."
The smile grew on Tommy's face. He seemed to want to run all of a sudden, but he looked at her first.
Enrique said in a soft voice, "Go ahead. The doctor said she could wake up at any time. You can talk to her, it will keep her from having to think too much. On this floor, it's room 204. We will follow you both. Go."
She nodded. "Okay." She reached out to hold his arm because she was thankful but she stopped herself.
But he saw the movement, grabbed the hand, and kissed her knuckles before letting go.
"Go," he repeated in a soft voice.
With a hot face, she walked beside Tommy.
She kept her face down until they passed the very quiet nurses' station, and then they walked faster to get to their mother's room.

ENRIQUE watched the siblings leave in silence until they reached the end of the hallway, where they turned and disappeared.
Then, he and Chairman Castro walked slower to catch up with them.
"How long are you going to pretend, Senyorito Ric?" the older man asked with a mix of teasing and sarcasm in his voice.
"You know I'm not making this up?" he asked.
"The real question is when will Arianna realize you're not pretending. Senor Sylverio will see the same thing right away when he sees you with her.”
He shrugged. "He'll just have to let things happen as they should."
The chairman gave a short laugh. "I think he'll be very happy with how things are going. He likes her. She’s very different from that other woman you used to bring here, and he didn’t like how that one acts around others when you’re not with her. He’d told me once she reminded him too much of your mother, not to speak ill of the woman. Señorito."
He groaned. "Thank you for supporting me, then. I'd hate for us to disagree about this. I have so many plans for Arianna and her family, and I don't want anyone to mess this up.”
"If that's the case, don't let it reach your mother. She will mess this up.”
His heart went cold at what he heard. “I won’t let her toy with my life again.”
To this, the Chairman didn’t say anything anymore.