We stood on the stage and plugged our instruments. Behind us, Jaxx adjusted his seat and the drum kit. Women in beautiful, expensive designer gowns and men in tuxedos, coats and ties, and barongs filled the room. Little boys in their dressy tuxedoes and little girls in their frilly dresses were either seated properly or running around, chasing one another. My gaze followed Justin as he waved to one of the pretty brunette flower girls who blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear. 

Charming. That boy is going to give Cara a lot of headaches, I chuckled.

That night, the stage was not in Camachile Sky but at the marina in Pier Sixty in New York. It was our friend's wedding, and we obliged to play a couple of songs for them. After all, no one is too old to be in a rock band. 

The sun dipped into the horizon, leaving the sky a beautiful palette of indigo, pink, and flaming orange. The wispy clouds captured the striking colors, giving a gorgeously picturesque background worthy of a front-page in Digital Photography. There was a joyous yet calming vibe despite the groom's nerves being worse than mine when I had a panic attack.

"Alright guys, you ready?" Seb grinned from ear to ear. I nodded while Chino gave him a thumbs-up sign.

Jaxx did a little drumroll and nodded. "Ready when you are, chef."

Seb took everyone's attention, strummed the guitar, and started singing. I absorbed the cheerfulness and contentment of the people present to witness the love shared by the newlyweds. They were deliriously happy, and Seb was a sap for choosing the songs, though I particularly liked the one we're playing.

This is how it's supposed to be, I thought, grinning.  We all deserved to be happy. 

Cara was taking a video of the show, watching her two boys on the stage. Jaxx was all smiles looking at Justin, who was busy concentrating on playing his little drum kit beside his dad. He looked to him every now and then, and Jaxx would encourage him even though his little hammering was drowned by the sound of our guitars and his dad's drum beats.

Even though still single and very much picky, Chino had crawled out of his shy shell and started dating. Val was still Val, trying to move on from her recent heartbreak by having fun, though she was not reckless this time.

Seb patted my back, signaling my turn to sing and I nod. We've practiced this song several times, but the lyrics still have not lost their effect on me. It triggered a funny little emotion inside, something warm and comforting and melancholy at the same time.

"There were so many reasons that we shouldn't have met, I coulda turned right when you turned left, but the world's got a funny way of stacking the deck, don't forget," I sang.

From the first time I heard it, it reminded me of Azure Eyes. Of all the ways to stack the deck, his card had to end up right beside mine. And no matter how you look at it, a king and an ace was always a good combination.

But not us, apparently. I sighed internally as I continued to play for the guests. I had accepted the ending of our story. It was not what I had hoped for, but it was the best one, I guess.

"Too much heartache, too many nights, so many coulda, woulda, shoulda, but I never tried," I accidentally belted that one out wrong because it was true; I did not try hard enough.

Maybe it was for the best. We were both not in a good place at that time. Perhaps he was just one of those people who was meant to be part of my life temporarily, who was meant to make me realize who I was supposed to be, then leave. Change me drastically, drive me to the edge, push me into my crisis, and pull me back out again.

And leave.

It hurt like hell to let him go. It was years ago, but my wounded heart splintered, and it felt like it would never be whole again. One of those splintered pieces, a big chunk, would never be mine again.

But that corny cliché reminded me that loving didn't always mean you had to fight the odds to keep a person. Sometimes you had to fight yourself to let them go and wish they lived a happy life. He wished me that happy life. I could only pray he was happy as well, wherever he was in the world. 

Before the smile on my face turned bittersweet, I brush the thought of him to the back of my mind. It was not the time to reflect on my past and the shoulda, woulda, coulda's that I never tried. Tonight was all about love and a happy ever after we all thought was never going to happen, but did. 

The bride and the groom were dancing clumsily to the chorus and I could not suppress my smile. Everyone had the same look on their faces as they watched the couple. The crowd was filled with so many happy people with nothing but love and delight on their faces.

This is how it's supposed to be. Crazy lucky SOB. I smiled at the groom who twirled his wife a few times before dipping her and planting a kiss on her neck. The party erupted in cheers, glasses began to clink, and the ladies, more than the men, asked for another kiss for their cameras.

Their happiness was contagious. When I looked away, all I could see were beaming faces. Even the usually stoic faces of Jaxx and Chino were covered in grins that were threatening to wrap around their heads. And despite leading the song, my own Cheshire smile was plastered there from he beginning of the set and faltered only when my eyes landed me straight in the sparkling deep blue waters of Boracay.

It wasn't even summer, and I was hundreds and thousands of miles away from the Philippines, but why did it suddenly feel so hot? I was at both ends of the thermometer at once: my face was burning, but my feet and hands were freezing.

Perhaps it was the heat in my face or the fear and puzzlement that gripped my heart, or maybe it was just the bright blue waters of the ocean drowning me. Whatever it was, my mind stopped functioning and I swore I heard the telltale whirring of a CPU that just hanged. 

Ace.exe has stopped working. My hand stopped strumming midway, my mouth went slack and my throat was immediately dry. Even my eyes refused to blink.

What the hell was I seeing? Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

"It's like faith, God, or the Big Bang. It's just one of them things that you can't explain," Chino sang my line to the mic in front of me. 

This snapped me out of my non-responsive state, but it did not stop me from acting like a flabbergasted fool. Chino looked at me straight in the eyes and shook his head while a cheeky grin was plastered on his face.

"Get your shit together, Ace!" Seb shouted, laughing uproariously. Val was with the single raucous ladies, hooting and wolf-whistling.

My senses only returned when Jaxx smashed the cymbals. I did not miss another beat getting back to the task, but Chino took over singing, as it was clear that from that moment on, no coherent word was going to come out of my mouth.

My eyes scanned the crowd but avoided that one spot where the most meaningful look came from. When I hesitantly relented and glanced, he was still there, staring, smiling, and leaning against a post of one of the trellises. The smile looked good on him. So did everything else about him – his hair, his dimple, the way his tux fit him impeccably.

I quickly looked away like a kid caught cheating on a test. The only thing fortunate about the entire occurrence was that the breeze was cold enough to keep the burning temperature of my cheeks and ears down.

After all these years, he still had the same damning effect on me.

I shoved the thought away as I took off the guitar, fumbling and almost stumbling while getting off the stage. The moment my foot was on the tiled floor, an arm went around my shoulder and hugged me tightly, knocking the air out of my unprepared lungs.

Jaxx pulled back and placed both hands on my face before slapping one side lightly. "Don't do anything stupid this time."

"Huh?" I said dumbly. He didn't reply. Instead, he gave me another crushing hug before pushing me roughly in the direction opposite from where I was initially going.

"Go get him, archer," he said with a smile before walking away.

Step after step to the other end of the room. It was all I was concentrating on. I had no idea where this direction was leading, but somehow I did not have it in me to change my course. There was a magnetic force pulling me forward to my true north. I moved forward, step by step, weaving through the crowd until I reached the trellis where my eyes wandered earlier.

And there he was, smiling timidly, waiting, watching. Damn, he looked good.

"Hey," the corner of his lip rose a little more.

Everything faded into the background. At that moment, it was just he and I once again; there was no one else, just us. And there was this overwhelming happiness pouring in my veins and burning in my chest.

"Jacob. Hey." Finally! Coherent words out of my frazzled brain!

"Sorry, I'm late. Again," he drawled hesitantly.

"New York does that to you, huh?" I chuckled. God, I missed him. I missed him so much!

"So you've noticed. How have you been?" he chuckled.

My heart was wildly and erratically beating as if it had just been jolted back to life. It longed for this human in front of me. Years ago, I did not take the chance when it was given to me. Today, right at this moment, the same opportunity is being served to me on a silver platter. I will be damned if I listened to anything else other than my savagely pounding heart.

He took a tentative step closer. His scent of pine and mint invaded my space and flooded my senses. His eyes were relaxed, and they glistened as the lights around us changed in color. They were blue and vivid and just as beautiful as the day I first met him. His grin widened, and his eyes softened, seeing I wasn't running away.

The tension was thick and palpable, but it was the welcome kind, at least for me. At least I knew there was still something between us. It was the little beacon of light that ignited hope for an 'us'.

I let out a breathy laugh with my realization. Maybe we did have a chance, after all.

When my ecstatic stares became too much for him, he tore his gaze from my eyes and focused on my bowtie instead. With one hand, he straightened my tie, which I made sure did not need straightening. The damn insects ran amok, and my hands were itching to grab the man in front of me and never let go.

My sensibility flew out the window together with my self-restraint. Without so much as a response, my hands made their way on both sides of his face, and before I could stop or think if what I was to do was appropriate, I pulled him closer and crashed my lips on his.

I must have startled him because he did not move for the first few seconds. When he finally did, he did the same to me: he put both hands on either side of my face and pulled me even closer, deeper into the kiss.

It was fervent and sincere. It quenched the yearning inside me. It obliterated the pain and filled that gnawing void I tried so hard to disregard but failed.

Fucking hell, that felt so fucking good. I breathed as he rested his forehead on mine.

"Good God, people! Get a room!" Seb teased. I opened my mouth to give him a foul-mouthed retort but thought the better. Responding to him wasn't worth breaking whatever moment I had with Jacob. Instead, I grabbed Jacob's wrist and dragged him to the other side of the marina, where there were fewer people. I spun around quickly, making sure to avoid his nose this time.

"God, I fucking missed you," I breathed and wrapped my arms around him, to which he immediately reciprocated.

"You don't know long I've waited for this, Ace," he buried his nose in the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply. "You don't know how long I've waited for you."

"Let me guess, three, four years?" I teased as we pulled away from each other. He chuckled.

"There about, give or take a few months," he squinted and scrunched his nose. "But it felt like a lifetime," he declared as he slid his hand down my arm and held my hand.

"I know. I'm sorry. I... I wasn't sure about myself that time," I confessed.

"You don't have to be. I'd do it all over again for you." I melted under his tender, scorching gaze. I studied his face; he looked happy. There was no trace of fear or apprehension in his eyes. The way they sparkled rivaled the city lights reflecting on the Hudson River.

After a lifetime of reluctance, I threw all caution to the wind and let him intertwine our fingers as he pulled me in for another soul-searing kiss—his other hand behind my head, tilting my neck further. By the time he was done, I was practically reduced to a puddle.

God, I feel like a flighty high school girl. Is it acceptable for a full-grown man to feel this way?

Fuck acceptable. I nearly died doing what was acceptable.

A goofy smile lingered on my lips. I savored his warmth on it. When I lazily opened my eyes, he was already looking at me with a look on his face that mirrored mine.

Acceptance. Warmth. Home. This was where I was meant to be. This was where I wanted to be.

"What's with that look?" he cocked his eyebrow, his strong fingers still at the back of my neck while he skimmed his thumb to that spot behind my ear, massaging it. My eyes fluttered close, as I felt giddy all over. 

"I just realized your love is really worth dying for," I told him, bringing up a long-forgotten private joke. He threw his head back and laughed crisply.

"I don't know about that," he whispered, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. He held me tighter. "But yours definitely is."

                            🂮   ♡   ♘     FIN     ♘  ♡  🂮

🎵 Song credits:  Crazy Lucky by Better Than Ezra