Page 82 of Chasing Mr. Prefect
“And you must hate Miss Mikayla so much,” I quipped.
The kuyas laughed out loud beside me while Miss Co’s eyes went wide with hardly-suppressed delight.
“Miss Mikayla, ampotek,” Kuya Chip said.
“I don’t like it when someone bullies our bunso,” Kuya Chan said, eyes narrowing. “No one calls Cholo nasty names under my watch. Except maybe me and Kuya Chip.”
Kuya Chip chose that moment to ruffle their youngest brother’s hair, which made Cholo even more pikon.
“That’s for not telling me and Chan about your problems,” Kuya Chip teased as Cholo struggled.
Kuya Chan and Asher joined in as I awkwardly watched. Cholo caught my eye, as though asking for help, then remembered we were supposed to be fighting. He looked away before I could say anything.
“Um, they need me at the ticket booth,” I simply said, already starting to feel out of place. They all turned to stare at me. “Nice seeing you all today.”
“So formal naman, Lavinia! It’s not like you’re breaking up with us, too, right?” Asher commented, and everyone else in the circle except Cholo laughed.
“Who’s breaking up?” Cholo demanded and Asher looked at Chan.
“Ha.No thousand bucks for you.”
“Payment at the booth. No ticket, no entry,” Cholo scolded before storming off. His siblings just shook their heads behind him.
“Look at our bunso, marunong na magmaktol!” Kuya Chan said before turning to me. “Ikaw, sell us tickets!”
As I mannedthe booth and helped with ticket selling, I realized I never fully understood how popular our event was with the college crowd. The line was long and we ended up selling tickets until after 11 p.m.
We only managed to stop when the others dragged us inside at quarter to midnight for the laser light show.
Upon entering the dark hall, I let my teammates go ahead. I explored the place with narrowed eyes, looking for Cholo’s blue button-down shirt, but it was impossible. With all the laser lights and smoke it was a wonder I even managed to find the stairs to the makeshift balcony.
Cholo was in the middle of the platform, dancing on both left feet. Kuya Chan was on his side, but it was Kuya Chip who saw me and waved me over.
“Finally!” he teased, patting me on the shoulder. “You’re late. Cholo was just showing us his dance moves.”
“You call this dancing?”
“Oh, give him a break, he deserves it. He’s been studying his ass off to get medals since age four,” Kuya Chan replied. Even in the darkness, I noticed how red the three of them were around the ears. “Where are Asher and Ate Ania?”
“Getting more vodka, probably,” Kuya Chip replied as his youngest brother swayed and caught his arm.
“Woohoo!” Cholo said, shaking Kuya Chip off. I was worried he might fall over when he resumed his dancing.
I wanted to laugh. Cholo sure was good at a lot of things but his list did not seem to include dancing. For a moment, I was tempted to take my phone out and start recording.
“Nakarinig lang ng vodka, o,” commented Asher. He squeezed over to us, as the balcony was getting more crowded as midnight neared, and handed bottles to his family members. “When did you get here?”
“Just now.”
“Good. We were considering giving him away already-ouch!” he complained since I gave him an evil pinch on his belly. “Cholo was not kidding about those pinches!”
“Ano, how’s Choleng?” said another person and I saw Ate Ania reaching a hand over to Kuya Chip from our other side. She smiled when she saw me. “Yay, Vinnie’s here! Did you see it na?”
“His dancing?” I asked. “Yeah, masagwa.”
“Not that, gagi,” Ate Ania admonished. “Chip, show her.”
“Cholo, we’re going to introduce you to someone,” said Kuya Chip and I was about to protest when Asher signaled me to shut up. “Lika, dali!”