Chapter 53 Chapter 27 (i)
FAE
“This is gonna be good for you,” Pam said next to me, her forefinger dancing in the air with expressive gestures. “Go get him, girl!”
Joana and Kacey nodded, wide smiles splitting their faces.
“What’s important is you don’t look miserable anymore, and you’re distracting yourself,” Joana added.
‘Go get him?’ Gotten already. ‘Distracting?’ We’re married.
But of course, I didn’t say those. I felt guilty, but I have to pace this one day at a time not just for them but for me, too.
“So, does he have any clones?” Kacey asked. “I’ll move on with you, friend.”
The four of us giggled like idiots.
“Have you really moved on? That fast?” Joana insisted. Clearly, even though she wanted me to be happy, she was struggling to keep up with the speed of events.
I smiled and looked for Jigo again, seeing him returning with the tray of drinks.
“No, it’s him. It’s all because of him. If he hadn’t come along, I probably wouldn’t even be leaving the house right now. I definitely wouldn’t have thought I could be happy again after Carl,” I confessed. “I’m... I think I’m in love with him.”
“Are you happy?” Pam asked, unusually serious. Same when I looked at her. Concern was all over their faces now.
Without the slightest hesitation, I nodded.
“Then we’re happy for you!” Pam said, hugging me, and Joana and Kacey joined in, squealing excitedly. They were thrilled for me and seemed to have recovered from the shock.
Once we got past the initial awkward chat after Jigo returned and we were all drinking, the mood relaxed quickly. We weren’t just talking; we were dancing to the party music in the spaces next to our table at first, until my friends pulled me to the dance floor, envious of the clubbers’ energy and the party vibe created by Jigo’s talented VJ.
Jigo was a dancer. I’d never seen him in clubs before, but at parties and family occasions, he always made time to dance with the seniors because ballroom dancing was always part of the program. With his dancing skills, girls lined up to be led by him to the dance floor. And however stoic he may seem outside, he’d always been kind and affectionate to younger girls in the circle, treating them like cousins.
He danced with me on my eighteenth birthday.
Okay, I’ll admit I got a thrill from it back then. I was in denial for a long time because to me, he was a celebrity who could make you giddy but who you knew you’d never meet in person or be friends with in person.
Of course, it was normal for rich kids to go through dance lessons as part of their social skills training. Carl went through it, and even I had had regular lessons until my late teens, despite being raised by a single dad. Jigo took more extensive dancing classes, too, sometime in his younger years, including ballet.
But Jigo moved and grooved differently than his other friends. He was so natural and so sexy. Dancing was his scene. When he opened nightclubs far from his family’s usual ventures of hotels and real estate, no one was surprised. I heard that his grandmother, Lola Leah, worried about the reputation of clubbing being connected to party drugs and booze. But so far, five years since Incubus I was established in Quezon City, there hadn’t been any problems. It became famous quickly and was followed by II and III.
We were at Incubus II now.
Like before, Jigo’s clubs were the favorite hangouts of celebrities and other famous people. Honestly, I felt that based on the reactions of the clubbers when Jigo was on the dance floor, his Adonis-like charisma had a lot to do with the popularity of his nightclubs.
“My god, why did you bring us here just now?!” Kacey shouted at me while she jumped to the beat of the remix of ‘The Real Slim Shady.’
I laughed, but because I was watching Joana and Pam do pelvic pushes to the ‘Please Stand Up’ part of the song while partnering with each other. “It’s my first time too!”
‘Drop That Low’ had Jigo dropping his butt to the floor, dancing in front of me. With his intense gaze on me. I laughed again, then twirled in front of him with my hands raised above my head. I fell into his arms when I completed the spin, and I brushed against his body in the next step he led me into. An intimate version of the Tango dance, his arm wrapped around my waist as he circled one of my hands around his neck.
“Babe, you dance so well,” he said close to my ear.
“I’m drunk,” I replied. I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t dance, but I was relaxed and giving my all. I was so much better behaved when we were dancing at the cotillion, of course! “And it’s because I’m dancing with you.” I was getting drunk on my husband, on his movements, on his touch, on his warmth, on the smell of his sweat and cologne. I loved all of it.
“If Carl had brought you here before, we would have danced and you would have been mine a long time ago. We’d have avoided all this trouble!”
I laughed again in his embrace. “You wish!”
His hold tightened, and I suddenly realized that my feet were off the floor while our faces were level, and he kissed me hard on the mouth.
The shouting and laughing, the jumping and grinding of the clubbers around us continued. But it felt like we were in our own world, inside a bubble. And nothing could touch us or bring us down at that moment.