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RCReadathon2020

Writing Now

Hello Ever After: Favorite Alarm (The One Where Kris and Ringo Helped Me Process)

Posted on August 29, 2020

It started with anger and a seemingly inevitable dive into hopelessness. We’re all wading into bleak waters these days, and sparks of joy can be hard to come by and take so much to grasp. Tara Frejas has a more coherent origin story for the Hello Ever After series. For me I learned it from her and Mina V. Esguerra, and then Mina shared her draft of the script. It was Ben and Naya from What Kind of Day, and it spoke of anger and love and pushing back.

It wasn’t difficult to start from there. I was at work then, because even when the world stopped our work did not. I guess like Ben, I was an essential. I opened a blank document and just alt+tabbed my way into finishing the script before lunch break.

I wrote Ringo and Kris (from You Out of Nowhere) in quarantine because of things I needed to process. How it’s scary, stepping out of the house when everyone else was staying in. How I had to, because I was a cog in a wheel and the wheel needed to turn.

Ringo was a corporate finance boy who actually liked his job but I knew despite that he’d feel cracks in his shield too, that innate positivity and drive to thrive that powered him. It’s weird driving out and seeing no other vehicles on the street, apart from the motorcycle of that policeman parked there to enforce the rules. (Whether those rules would keep us safe and alive or if that was even the goal was debatable.) It sucked to live away from the woman he loved, not be able to see her, much less touch her in ways that have been part of him now.

Kris, cookie shop boss, could stay in, because she had no choice, because her business was forced to close. And when the rules allowed her to open again she was left to her own devices, figuring out how to keep her staff and operations safe and their source of income running. And the cookies still needed to taste great.

In the script Ringo talked about how he had an epiphany, of how he had running water to come home to, and electricity, wifi, and security, because people were going outside and staying apart from their families to show up to do the work. He had to do his part too. It was such a Ringopiphany to have, and I thank him for that. Kris didn’t mind either. She just felt a little worried about how much she loved him.

Hello Ever After Episode 7: Favorite Alarm. Shooting with (from upper left) direk Tania Arpa, me (dying inside author), actors Raphael Robes and Gab Pangilinan. Photo by Mina V. Esguerra

Rap Robes and Gab Pangilinan were great as Ringo and Tita. I was virtually useless during recording, which was expected (I expected it, yes, I knew my limitations), and I just stayed there breathing on the mic (lol again SORRY) and watching art happen. I didn’t realize we’d run into trouble with bougainvillea (bogambilya). The ad libs stressed me out a little but they turned out great. I could never have come up with what Ringo ~did to that policeman.

Thank you to the Hello Ever After team, Mina V. Esguerra, Tania Arpa, Tara Frejas, Miles Tan, Layla Tanjutco, Ana Tejano. Thank you Jef Flores for the Jesus music.

If you watched Hello Ever After Episode 7: Favorite Alarm, thank you. If you haven’t yet, please see below. You’re welcome? Lol.

And please check out all the episodes currently up on the Romanceclass YouTube channel kilig.pub/youtube. Hit like and subscribe, please and thank you, and watch out for more to come. Next watch party is on Friday, September 4, 7PM for Bianca Mori‘s Kalad-Quarantine.

We’re angry, and at times devastated, but always there’s love, landi, and hope.

Episode list:

June 26th, Make Good Days by Mina V. Esguerra (What Kind of Day)
July 3rd, We Will Be Okay by Celestine Trinidad (Ghost of a Feeling)
July 10th, Safe Space by Miles Tan (Finding X)
July 24th, Happy Endings, Please, and Thank You by Tara Frejas (Like Nobody’s Watching)
July 31st, Lab Notes by Six de los Reyes (Beginner’s Guide: Love and Other Chemical Reactions)
August 7th, Midnight Melodies by Carla de Guzman (How She Likes It)
August 21st, Favorite Alarm by Jay E. Tria (You Out of Nowhere)
August 28th, No Giving Up by Ana Tejano (Keep the Faith)
September 4th, Kalad-Quarantine by Bianca Mori (Chasing Waves)

Content warnings: set in the present time with the pandemic, community quarantine, thoughts of isolation, mention of COVID-19 deaths, mentions of parent with chronic illness, and film script with themes of sexual assault and suicide.

Writing Now

First Sunrise by the Beach

Posted on August 26, 2020

Written for #RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge. Kris and Ringo are characters from You Out of Nowhere, a book from Romanceclass Flair.

Prompt (that I asked for): Kris and Ringo at the beach, may or may not be during Summer Crush

***

“Kris, wake up.”

“No. Kris, don’t wake up”

“We’re catching the sunrise. You promised”

“Doesn’t sound like me.”

“It’s the first sunrise I get to see where I’m not headed for the office.”

One cheek peeling off the pillow. Lashes unsticking. A bleary eye opening, staring at him through a mess of soft curls.

“That’s too sad and precious,” her voice rasped.

It was sexy, her forcibly woken voice. Her voice was always sexy. But to Ringo this one was special, because it meant she was awake enough to fulfill a sunrise promise with him.

He was crouched in front of their hostel bed so he could level her face. He had been stroking her back the way one would touch a sleeping tiger. Gentle, fleeting touches, fingertips trailing a dance on her nightshirt. Enough to be persistent but not annoying. He wanted a date at dawn, not a kick aimed at his eager face.

Kris shifted and he saw her mouth, pressed together but in this angle looked close to that soft curve it shaped when she was amused at him.

He took it to mean he could approach his tiger, his tita.

Ringo leaned his weight on the bed, dropping his head so his nose carved a line along her neck.

“I know.” He inhaled deeply. “Mmm essential oils.”

A whack on his face. He chuckled.

“Ok I’m up.”

“Hurray.”

Ringo stood back as Kris crawled out of bed, bare feet padding on the wooden slats on the floor. She stripped off her nightshirt on her way to the small bathroom, and Ringo had to swallow an instinctive grunt of desire and pin his hands to his sides to keep himself from grabbing her naked waist and throwing her back to bed.

They could have that meal later, after sunrise and breakfast.

Kris emerged, face damp and shirt thrown over a black bikini. His shirt, the blue one he wore to work, with the crisp collar and long sleeves that went past her wrists.

He walked towards her, sipping her lower lip for the day’s first kiss as he helped her do the buttons. A change in usual procedure but they were chasing a sunrise. He must focus.

Kris was melting against him, hands winding around his nape as she returned his kisses. A soft moan and she drew back from him, heading for the door.

“Sunblock, your sunglasses, keys, water bottle, money for breakfast.” Ringo lifted his hand that was carrying their wet bag, enumerating the contents before she asked. “Did I forget anything?”

“You have spreadsheets for brains. We’re good.”

Kris breezed through the door, Ringo right behind her.

Outside, he took her hand, plodding down the stairs in their flip-flops in the pre-dawn darkness. Their hostel was not beach-side but it was only a street across from the sea. They passed a sari-sari store, yet to open, and the small roadside restaurant Ringo had been eyeing for bagnet over rice. He knew what he would recommend for breakfast later.

“I know the sun isn’t out and that is the point but I did not expect it to be this dark.” Ringo gripped Kris’s hand tighter, tucking her to his side as he looked left and right twice over before they crossed the empty road.

“Probinsya streetlights going for ambient, barely there lighting.”

Kris yawned as they trod on, past a line of hostels and through a side street, and then they were wrapped by the sound of rushing waves, urging them onward.

The beach was even darker, the walk on the sand a challenge with flip-flops so they removed them, feeling the cold grains slide between their toes.

Kris chose a spot in the sand and they sat there, facing the dark horizon, the rumbling sea.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Did you bring a jacket too?”

“Right here.” Ringo edged closer and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against his thrumming chest.

Kris sounded a snort-sigh hybrid. “Why are you cute?”

He smiled against her hair. “I have successfully recalibrated you to love me.”

“That you did.”

They settled in silence, only the sea was loud, the waves against waves against shore making scary sounds. Ringo looked up and spotted dots of stars but thought the sky was lightening somehow, slowly, by gradients. He returned his gaze to the rolling sea, waiting for the first spark of sun at the horizon. Kris’s hand squeezed his arm around her. He held her closer.

“Are we supposed to do anything?” he whispered. It seemed like a moment where he should whisper.

He heard her smirk.

“Am I boring you?”

“You can sing out of tune to liven things up.”

She turned her head to glare at him. He kissed the tip of her nose, then the pucker on her lips.

“You’re not supposed to do anything,” she said. “You’re just…here.”

“The way you are here.”

“Yep.”

Kris looked back out at the sky and sea. It was really looking lighter now, like budding morning. Unburdened by anything. A fresh start.

“I like it,” he decided.

“Thought you would.”

He buried his nose in her hair, their hands clasped where she held them. They must have been quiet a while, and there it was. Ringo didn’t spot the first ray of sun, though he had been paying attention. The sunrise just happened. Lazily, at its own time. Drawing streaks of lights and colors as he and Kris watched, the dawn’s avid viewers.

The sky was pink shot with oranges and grays now. Ringo nudged Kris’s ear with the tip of his nose.

“If we stay quiet like this for a bit longer we’ll hear your stomach rumbling. It’s a very specific krokrrrrkk sound, it’s almost musical.”

Her head whipped back to face him, his intended response.

“You, kid—”

“Yes, tita.”

He kissed her, and they kissed, because this was his first sunrise by the beach and because he loved her always.

End

Note:

#RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge thread this way and here too for more ficlets of your Romanceclass faves.

Jill-Rhys fic that no one asked for here. Shinta preparing for Jill’s 30th birthday party here.

Writing Now

Something Meeting by Six de los Reyes

Posted on August 26, 2020

Written for #RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge. Sort of. Jill is a character from the Playlist series, starting with Songs of Our Breakup. Rhys is a character from Six de los Reyes‘ book Just For the Record and also appears in anthology Summer Crush.

Prompt: No one asked for this but follows this first meeting and we suppose this is now canon.

***

They handed over the payment at the same time.

To which the lady behind the fresh juice bar looked at them odd as they each tried to one-up each other and pay for the other’s fruit shake. But Ate Fruit Shake was having none of the shenanigans and left them both to deal with whatever this was, momentarily moving on to the next customer and letting them decide instead whose money she should take.

Rhys’s eyes flashed for a second of eye contact.

In response Jill clicked her tongue. “You’re ruining the moment.”

“You,” Rhys muttered under breath, “are ruining the moment.”

“I’m just trying to pay for our drinks.”

Not pancakes tonight because it didn’t have to be pancakes. Instead they met at some street food fair and it was a little bit of kwek-kwek here, some barbecue there, a piece or two or four of fishballs and squidballs and what have you. And then fruit shake after. Mango for Jill. No sugar. No milk. Just mango. Rhys’s avocado shake, with the milk and the sugar and all the good stuff was waiting, and arguing meant more talking and less fruit shake-ing, so Rhys curled her lip and accepted temporary defeat. The war was far from over, and sometimes it was wise to lose a battle. Strategy. It works.

Besides, they’ve been outside long enough, and there were too many people out, and it was time to go find somewhere quiet to sit. Find some calm. Make sure the rest of the band boys—Jill’s Trainboys and her own whatever—wouldn’t find them before it was time. Tonight they were playing at this open air stage thing, one after the other as they usually did. Trainman and then Arabella, and then Rhys. Earlier, Jill had sent her a message, “They have fruit shake here.” Easy.

Now they sat together on the curb some walking distance away from the venue. Walking was nice. The outside air could be nice, too.

“I don’t understand,” Jill said, showing Rhys her screen. “Or maybe I do and maybe that’s worse.”

Rhys seemed to have a bad habit of picking up excess baggage along the way to wherever she was going, and this was nothing new. On Jill’s phone screen was a series of photos, one after the other storyboard style although the narrative remained to be seen.

Baggage A, Michael Brian admiring himself and his muscles in the mirror.

Baggage B, Son admiring Michael Brian admiring himself and his muscles in the mirror.

And Baggage C, Steven admiring his screenshot of Son admiring Michael Brian admiring himself and his muscles in the mirror.

At the very end of it was a link to another single they seemingly dropped out of nowhere. Just because they can. Because Mikhail Learns to Brian has a brand, apparently. That brand is chaos and energy. And dragging unsuspecting band boys to supervise and offer input. At least the new song was good. Not that Rhys was ever worried. It was bright and effervescent, with a backbone of kicks and snares like a moshpit stomping on the sand and a guitar riff like a color wheel against the cloudless sky.

“Adequate,” Rhys said, answering Jill’s silent question. “The song. Traindude helped, didn’t he? I told him not to.”

“Miki had no choice. He said it was, and I quote, not a democracy. Your boy helped, too. Kenny. ”

“That’s because the intern is a fan of Bread Cheeks.”

Jill tilted her head in thought. “Your intern is a fan of Steven?”

Rhys grunted to confirm. “And I don’t have boys.”

“Gotcha.” Jill swiped through the photos and chuckled under her breath. She flipped her phone again to show Rhys her screen. “Of course. Only a matter of time.”

The latest update was a photo of the Shinta standee, beaten and bruised but never defeated, endorsing the latest release. “Your boy is aware of this?” Because that would be a massive headache, more than the usual because Shinta Mori did not come cheap.

Jill shrugged. “He consents to it. You, as the company, do not need to worry about that.”

Rhys grunted and bit into her sugarcane straw. In the distance, she heard Michael Brian and Son calling out for Adrian and Kim. “That can’t be good.”

Jill’s smile burst into a laugh. “But interesting for sure. Here is safe enough distance, I think. We are past the point of intervention.”

Rhys’s teeth clamped harder on her straw. Then after a moment she pulled out her phone and found about a dozen or so messages in various stages of panic and disbelief. “Thanks for the avocado shake.”

“Sure,” Jill answered. “This was nice. You going?”

Rhys tilted her chin up for another flicker of eye contact. “No. I don’t have to go.”

“Cool. And the song is more than adequate.”

Rhys smirked. “Wait ‘til you hear the next one. I will be in touch.”

End

#RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge thread this way for more ficlets of your Romanceclass faves.

Writing Now

and then they were roommates by Six de los Reyes

Posted on August 26, 2020

Written by Six de los Reyes for #RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge.

Jett is a character from Feels Like Summer. Rhys is a character from Just For the Record. They both may or may not appear in other de los Reyes band/summer romance books near you.

***

Jett was testing her patience.

But that wasn’t new. Anyway, Rhys has had her whole life perfecting the art of not giving a flying fuck and that included ignoring any and all distractions to maintain her mien of No Fucks Given. At the moment, Jett was very much challenging Rhys’s cool but that was the thing about having roommates. More often than not, they were purpose-built to utterly demolish one’s concentration.

“Stop looking at me.” Focus? Laser sharp. Rhys kept the tip of her pencil on the page. Mostly, she accomplished scribbles. Scribbles counted as lyrics too, didn’t they?

“I like looking at you….work,” Jett teased. “I like watching you work. You get this knot on your forehead that makes you look like a pissed off gremlin.”

Even without looking up, Rhys just knew Jett was smirking at her. It was given away by tone in her voice, that sweet, sticky quality of Jett’s voice that reminded Rhys of condensed milk on toast. “Bite me.”

“Can I, really?”

Violent was not the word to describe the way Rhys crossed out an entire verse, not even close. A closer approximation would be determined. Because she was determined to maintain her bubble of peace and quiet. Rhys kept to herself. She’d built herself a tiny nook in their shared apartment just for writing or composing, and one would think the many, many sticky notes and vinyl stickers spelling out mild to overt threats would keep the uninvited away. Unfortunately, Jett apparently gave no fucks either.

“How are the mangoes?” Jett asked.

From the corner of Rhys’s eye, she saw Jett stretch out languidly across the yoga mat. No yoga was being done, just for the record. The mat was there so Jett could lie on the floor as much as she liked when the weather was relentlessly hot like this. In a muscle shirt too large or just right. Terrible. “Like mangoes,” Rhys answered, stuffing her mouth with fruit.

Sweet. Sticky. Tart.

“Don’t mangoes increase the length and intensity of your orgasms?”

Rhys choked on the mangoes.

It seemed like the only appropriate response. It was totally undignified and the blood rushed to her face and she felt the tingles behind her ears. Naturally, Jett was in one of her giggle fits, throwing her head back and exposing the smooth column of her neck. Rhys wiped her lips with the back of her hand, conjuring the willpower to ignore Jett and focus on her lyrics. But it’s too late because now Rhys was too distracted.

“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Rhys said, composing herself.

“That’s what the scientific method is for,” Jett shot back, “someone should test out this hypothesis.”

That was most definitely not an invitation.

Was it?

No. Rhys decided it was not. Jett was just being Jett—impossible. Forever the harbinger of conflicted and often disastrous emotions.

“Go test your hypothesis then,” Rhys mumbled, picking up her pencil and pressing the lead against the page. “Over there. Don’t bother me. I’m busy.”

“You’re the one who had mangoes. It stands to reason that you be the test subject for this experiment.”

Snap.

What were the chances Jett did not notice the lead of Rhys’s pencil breaking off and falling to the floor? Yeah. Fun.

“Are you volunteering? It sounds like you’re volunteering. You’re volunteering, aren’t you? You can do the thing where you say something but mean the opposite.”

Oh, yeah. Jett noticed.

“I’m not volunteering.”

“Is that code for I should just go over there and kiss you?”

Yes. No. Maybe. “Just get your mangos and—what are you doing?”

Jett rolled over to her stomach and pushed herself up on all fours and crawled toward her. Rhys busied herself with flipping the pages of her notebook, trying and failing to plug in her headphones, anything just to pretend whatever was happening was not happening but it was too late. Jett was pulling herself up next to Rhys, the fabric of her muscle shirt grazing the sensitive skin on Rhys’s thighs.

“You didn’t really answer how the mangos are.”

“I did,” Rhys mumbled, pushing the plate toward Jett and away from her.

Jett leaned in too close, and Rhys inhaled the citrusy shower gel they shared. “For science.”

Just on principle, Rhys refused to let her eyes shut when Jett closed the distance between them and softly traced the outline of Rhys’s lips before grabbing the collar of Rhys’s shirt and pushing her against the backrest without hesitation. The kiss was warm but cool, and the only reason Rhys’s instinct was to recoil was because melting was not an option.

But anyway, the kiss was sweet and it was sticky, and resistance was maybe probably futile so, like, what was even the point?

“You’re right,” Jett whispered into Rhys’s lips. “Tastes like mangos. Now how about that other hypothesis?”

End

Prompt: Friends sila na may secret crush sa isat isa. Flirty banter ang mode of conversation, pero friends lang daw sila.

Also a prompt: This quote from an essay I was reading the other day: “Don’t mangoes increase the length and intensity of your orgasms?”

And i imagine Jett blurting it out during a casual conversation between “”friends””, habang nananahimik yung isa, deep in thought, umiinom lang naman ng mango shake or nagsnack on sliced mangoes while scribbling song lyrics on a notebook.

The essay: https://www.autostraddle.com/anatomy-of-a-mango-skin/

#RCReadathon2020 Prompt and Pairing, Please! Challenge thread this way for more ficlets of your Romanceclass faves.