Love in All the Right Places (Chick Lit bundle) (6 page)

Chapter Seven

“YOU KNOW, you can actually be pretty agreeable when you want to be,” he mused out loud, on their way back.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Min Hee retorted. “Smart
and
charming. You must be such a hit with the ladies.”

Gio tried to keep his expression serious. “I don’t know. Is that why you’re always around?”

He turned just in time to see Min Hee open her mouth. But no words came out, only strange, strangled sounds. She opened and closed then opened it again. “You are infuriating,” she said finally, but she looked amused.

“I’m also free,” Gio informed her.

Min Hee pulled down her sunglasses to look at him with wide eyes. Gio belatedly replayed what he had just said. “I mean, I’m cheap. As a guide. You don’t have to pay me or anything. Not free like I’m single.”

She just smirked.

Gio had planned on ending the tour when the day ended. He remembered Min Hee mentioning that she had done this before so watching the sunset wasn’t new to her. But they were already on a boat in the middle of the sea anyway. It didn’t matter how many times she had done it before; it was still a great way to watch the sunset.

She turned her face up against the afternoon sky. Her face looked golden in this light. Her skin was just a tiny shade darker than it had been this morning, as evidenced by the light marks her bikini strings revealed whenever she fingered them. He was hopeless against girls like her—talking or flirting—but this afternoon wasn’t as bad as he feared it would be. Certainly he had done his best to make it pleasant for her. Sometimes, he even caught her looking his way but when he tried to smile, she’d immediately turn away. As they sailed back to White Beach, Gio thought they were probably giving someone on the shore a great scene: a local outrigger silhouetted against the fiery red sky. Travel ad moment.
Conquering your fear. More fun in the Philippines.

He turned to say goodbye but Min Hee had other ideas. “We’re having dinner, Mr. Museum,” she said as they approached the dock.

The tide was low and the boatman had suggested docking elsewhere so they would have an easier time getting ashore. The only problem was that Gio still had to bring Min Hee back to her resort by tricycle, instead of hopping on a nearby boat to cross to the mainland.

“Sorry, Min Hee, but I really have to get going,” he told her, his eyes spotting
Marina I
nearby. “But I’ll make sure I get a tricycle that will bring you home safely.”

Min Hee shook her head. “Change of plans. You called the shots the whole day. Now it’s my turn.”

Gio was amazed that she still had the energy. “Aren’t you tired yet? We still have tomorrow, remember?”

“Dinner,” she said firmly. “Besides you said you were free, right?” When Gio looked surprised, she grinned. “This is my way of paying you back.”

He tried to wave the offer away. But the boat had dropped anchor and Min Hee was already making her way off, her towel and bag slung on each shoulder. “Well?” she asked him, turning back to see if he was following.

He had a second to decide. “Coming.” Then he gathered his towel and the rest of their things, and scrambled after her.

* * * *

They got off at D’Mall instead of her resort because she insisted. “I have an idea,” she announced as they walked down the path. D’Mall was the center of activity at White Beach. Near the highway, where they had gotten off, were stores that sold things like beaded trinkets and tie-dyed sarongs. Walking west towards the beach, the shops gave way to busy restaurants and pubs. The lights were all lit and people spilled out of the narrow lanes into the shops. Loud reggae music played out of one particular store, punctuating the island air with a personal soundtrack.

“I’m not liking this,” he teased her.

She ignored him, pulling on his arm instead. “Trust me, this is a good one. Besides, I’m the boss now.”

Apparently, Min Hee had little need for a guide here. This seemed more like her territory than his, even if he was the local. She brought Gio to a store that sold shirts and dresses. “When I said I was free, I didn’t mean I was impoverished,” Gio reminded.

“Hush.” She took a printed shirt off the rack and held it against him. It was black and white but had printed palm fronds over it.

“Min Hee, you said dinner, not shopping,” he said.

“Mr. Museum! We’re still having dinner,” she pointed out. “This is just a side trip. We’re working up an appetite.”

“I’m not buying a shirt,” Gio informed her. “I don’t need a new one and you won’t be buying me one.”

Min Hee put her hands on her hips. “You wear a uniform to work. This is the first time I’ve seen you out of it and you put on a white shirt that says 25
th
Class Reunion? Ugh. I’m guessing that because you’re not ancient yet, it belongs to someone else.” She softens her expression. “Come on, you don’t have to buy it. Just try it on. It won’t hurt. Plus I give very, very good fashion advice. For free.”

“Are you turning me into your project?” Gio laughed. So maybe he had horrible fashion sense. That wasn’t a crime.

“You could say that.”

He pushed the shirt back. “But no palm fronds.”

In the end, he gave in and tried on two shirts for her. One was a white shirt that was a few sizes smaller than what he was used to wearing. The other was a deep blue short-sleeved button down. Neither one seemed to be his style but Min Hee seemed to approve.

“How about this one?” Min Hee asked, pulling out an off-white polo shirt with a lizard print over the chest. She held the shirt out across his shoulders and they studied in their reflections in the mirror. But Gio wasn’t exactly looking at how the shirt fit him; his eyes strayed to the girl in white beside him. For a moment they seemed to be in matching outfits, a surefire way to distinguish Korean couples from the other tourists on the island.

Her eyes flicked to his face in the mirror, as if reaching the same conclusion he did. She immediately stepped away, averting her gaze. “Here,” she murmured instead, as she handed him the shirt.

Gio reached out to take it from her when they heard loud Korean voices walking into the store.

They were standing near the back of the shop, where the solitary fitting room was located. Min Hee craned her neck and peeked past the clothes rack to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals. Then without warning, she pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and then backed into the dressing room, tugging him along with her.

Gio had to steady himself against the walls of the narrow room so he didn’t crash into her.
She was so near but he doubted that she had any idea what she was doing to his insides.
She hadn’t seemed to notice how closely they were standing.  Her hips brushed against his shorts. He smelled the faint scent of vanilla. “Uh, Min Hee?” he asked.

“Shhhh!” she said, putting a finger to her lips in irritation.

He needed to steady himself. It was better to talk than to keep pressing closer to her in this cramped space. So he dropped his voice, but not the topic. They had seen plenty of Korean tourists the whole day; Boracay was swarming with them. “Do you know those people?” he whispered.

He had a feeling she was already glaring at him behind her sunglasses. She put her finger to her lips again, still oblivious to his nearness.

“They won’t see you in here, you know,” he stated the obvious. He could feel his upper lip prickling with nervous sweat. “And why am I even here?”

“I don’t know, why are you?” she whispered back.

Gio looked down at her, where her fist was still clutched around his shirt. They were standing very close. “
You
pulled
me
,” he said in a low voice.

That was when she looked up at him. He could barely make out her eyes through her dark glasses, but her lips parted—in surprise or in retort, he never knew. He suddenly had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

“Sir?” a new voice interrupted. “Sir, only one person at the booth at a time.”

Gio felt his neck go warm. “Uh, yes. Uh, I just dropped something,” he said, immediately stepping out of the fitting room. “Sorry, my uh, sister needed my help,” he explained lamely, switching to the local dialect.

The woman nodded straight-faced, but Gio had a feeling that she wasn’t buying it. So he just avoided her eyes and moved away. He tried to look busy picking out new things from the racks and then handing them to Min Hee—anything to keep from recalling how her shoulder had pressed against him, how her soft hands made mush of his insides. It was a good distraction. Finally, the group eventually left and he called out to her, “You can come out now; they’re gone.”

Min Hee stepped out, still wearing her sunglasses, the pieces of clothing he had found partly obscuring her face. She didn’t seem to care that she looked silly. She looked uncertain, as if she didn’t quite believe Gio when he said the coast was clear. But when she saw for herself that the other tourists were gone, she finally straightened up. He noted that her cheeks were flushed. For a moment, Gio entertained the thought that their brief contact in the dressing room had affected her as much as it had him.

“You okay?” he asked. Before he knew it, his hand was already touching the back of her neck, like he would when he’d see Toni or his mother worried. She didn’t seem to notice either, because he was rubbing it slowly and she didn’t protest.

Snap out of it
, he told himself when he realized what he was doing. He quickly dropped the hand then cleared his throat. “Now will you tell me what that was about?” he asked as they returned the shirts back into place. “You’ve been acting strange the whole day.”

She was quiet at first. Not being able to see her eyes, Gio couldn’t even guess what she was feeling. But at his question, she squared her shoulders. “
The scheming mother of my love rival, who wants her daughter to be part of a multi-million empire and hopes to get me out of the way,” she fired back.

Gio rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but Min Hee defended herself. “What? It can happen!”

“And what, she traced you all the way here?” he teased.

“That’s what she hires Special Police to do,” she added in a stage whisper.

He let himself entertain that thought. This time he pictured Min Hee through the crosshairs of an assassin’s rifle, just as she was crossing a busy park on the arm of her rich fiance. Then he frowned. He decided that was the scenario he liked least of all.

When the last shirt was back on the rack, she turned to face him. “But hey, do you mind if we take a rain check on that dinner? You’re right, I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll just go straight back to my room and rest.”

Gio nodded. Despite his earlier reservations, he was a bit disappointed now. “Will you be okay?” he asked, unable to keep the concern from his voice.

Min Hee took off her sunglasses and grinned, her charm back in full force. “I always am, Mr. Museum. What makes you think I’m not?” Then she patted his arm. “Don’t worry. Today was a good day. I mean, I don’t think you’re
that
boring anymore.”

* * * *

He was in a relatively good mood when he got home. Despite being tired from the swimming and the sightseeing, he really couldn’t complain. His Lola Lising had gone to bed earlier so it was just his mother doing the interrogating tonight. “Isn’t today your free day?” Mama asked. “Where have you been?”

“Had to go to Boracay,” he explained, giving her a quick kiss as he entered the house.

“Oh, Gio.” His mother sighed. “You’ve been coming home later and later. Are they asking you to go on overtime? You know you don’t have to take side jobs any more. We can get by on what we have now.”

It made Gio feel a little guilty that he wasn’t telling her the truth. He didn’t even know why he didn’t correct her assumption. It would have been easier to assure her and admit that he’d shown a friend around, not taking on extra part-time work. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep secrets from Mama. But his mother was the family’s number one worrywart, not Lola Lising. She had, after all, taken on the task of caring for her mother-in-law and her children.

But as with the rest of the women in his life, the less that Gio told her, the better. Telling her would have just given her another thing to fuss about.

“By the way, Toni called,” Mama continued. “She said she couldn’t reach you earlier.”

Gio just nodded. He leaned over and gave his mother a kiss on the forehead. “Stop worrying, okay, Ma?” he said kindly. “You worry too much about me. I promise you, I’m fine.”

Once he had reassured her, he headed to his room and turned on his computer. Even if it was already late in the evening, he couldn’t help but check his notes and files on Anding Torres. There was no mention of the artist girlfriend anywhere, so maybe Genrose’s grandfather had gotten it wrong. He made a mental note to check elsewhere before moving on to other tasks. He was accessing some online archives and finishing the exhibit text when Toni’s video call came through.

“Hey, Kuya! Where were you today?” Toni asked. He could hear music playing in the background.