Keeping the Distance (I Heart Iloilo Book 1) Read online

  Keeping the Distance

  Clarisse David

  Keeping the Distance

  Copyright © 2017 Clarisse David

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Settings, names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events and characters, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, visit http://www.clarissedavid.com.

  Cover Photography: Darlyn Herradura

  Cover Models: Carl Melvin Villarojo and Majandra Catedrilla

  Cover Design: Daniel Tinagan

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Sign up for my mailing list!

  Chapter One

  The moles on the back of Melissa Ortiz’s neck resembled the Big Dipper, a cluster of seven stars that sometimes graced the night sky.

  Lance Ordonez noticed this wonderful accident of nature during Mr. Rodriguez’s soul-deadening introduction to the wonders of gravity. Or was it inertia? He was on the verge of losing consciousness when his gaze wandered down from the long hair piled on top of her head to the moles that dotted her tan skin.

  It was strange that he never noticed them until now.

  His and Melissa’s last names were right next to each other when arranged alphabetically, so they’d sat next to or behind one another since Grade One, forever orbiting but never colliding.

  He watched her uncap her pen, her gaze darting from the blackboard and back to the notebook that lay open in front of her. Mint green nail polish tinted her nails. Tendrils of hair escaped from her loose bun and made their way to the tips of her ears.

  When she bent down to retrieve a thick textbook from her backpack, he took the chance to study her profile, her head framed by chalk equations written on the blackboard. He studied the eyebrows that arched gracefully over dark eyes, the mouth with the full lower lip that had never smiled in his direction.

  With a jolt, Lance realized Melissa was pretty. No, not the type that would make him stop in the middle of his morning runs on Iloilo River Esplanade, his gray running shoes scraping against the pavement as he skid to a halt. He realized Melissa was pretty the same way he sometimes caught himself singing along to a song he didn’t even like on the radio.

  The knowledge sneaked up on him.

  Lance was in a state he liked to call In Between Girlfriends. His last relationship with Samantha Ferrer imploded two weeks ago when she asked him to be her date to her cousin’s beach wedding in Cebu.

  Instead of telling her he didn’t want to get serious, he simply decided to stop answering her calls.

  And texts.

  And messages on all his social media accounts.

  He had no regrets. It was a good thing he took the easy way out with Samantha, because she definitely went overboard with the post-breakup messaging.

  Melissa, on the other hand, didn’t seem like the type who would do that. He didn’t know what she was like, but he was going to find out. Her being the principal’s daughter only upped the stakes.

  His eyes wandered from her white blouse to the maroon skirt that ended just below her knees. The school’s standard uniform for girls. She looked great in it, he decided.

  His mind made up, he slid his forearms up the wooden desk until his mouth was almost touching her ear. She smelled like lavender. The scent clung to the back of her shirt.

  “How about you and me on Saturday night?” he said, his voice low.

  According to popular opinion, if a Greek god had a lovechild with Superman, it would look just like him. He even made the white button-down and navy blue slacks he was forced to wear every day to Saint Agnes Catholic Academy seem cool. The sheer beauty of his face alone made any attempts at resistance futile.

  Plus, he was co-captain of the basketball team. If this sad excuse for a school had a social pyramid, he would be on top of it.

  There was no doubt in his mind that she was going to say yes.

  He waited for the flattered flush to spread all over her neck, but it stayed the same tan color. Instead, Melissa’s back stiffened by such a tiny fraction that he would’ve missed it if he wasn’t so close to her. Her pen stopped in the middle of copying down an equation.

  “Excuse me?” She craned her neck by the tiniest bit.

  The movement drew his eyes to the curve of her neck. It was graceful and smooth, and he wondered how it would feel under his fingertips.

  He cleared his throat. “I said, do you want to go out with me this weekend?”

  This time, she swiveled around to face him, eyes full of questions but somehow still unreadable. She tilted her head as if seeing him for the first time. “The last time you spoke to me was back in Grade Nine. You asked to borrow my calculator.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to come to my senses.” He unleashed the full power of his grin on her. Bright, even teeth on display.

  That grin worked like a charm on the female service crew at McDonald’s who always gave him an extra helping of fries, on the cashier at the theater who offered him discounts, and on the rest of the female population in general.

  It did not work on Melissa.

  “I only remember because you left my calculator in the cafeteria,” she said, the powers of his grin flying past her head. “One of the janitors found it and gave it back.”

  Without another word, her pen started flying across the page again. The ink wasn’t black like they were required to use for all their notes. It was gold.

  He continued to stare at her, grin frozen in place. What the hell just happened?

  This was an entirely new, not to mention unwelcome, experience.

  Instead of slouching back on his seat and pretending nothing had happened, he slid his forearms even further on his desk. He tapped Melissa on the shoulder. She didn’t turn around, but her hand stilled its movement across the page.

  “You know, I can show you a really good time.”

  A flush crept up Melissa’s neck and soon spread all over her ears and cheeks. Before he could enjoy that flush, a shadow fell over the two of them. He looked up and almost melted under the heat of Mr. Rodriguez’s glare.

  “Get out of my classroom, Mr. Ordonez,” Mr. Rodriguez said, the vein above his bushy eyebrows turning bright purple.

  Lance didn’t even flinch. One corner of his mouth tilted up, and he gifted Mr. Rodriguez with a mocking salute, causing the teacher’s face to turn an even deeper shade of red. Getting kicked out of class during the first week of the new school year was nothing new to him.

  What he wasn’t expecting was, for Mr. Rodriguez to transfer his death ray eyes to Melissa. “You, too, Miss Ortiz. If the two of you want to discuss your personal lives, I suggest you do it outside my classroom.”

  Lance stopped in the middle o
f stuffing his never-been-used notebook into his Adidas backpack and waited for her reaction. The look of horror on her face was like a right hook in the gut. Swift and merciless. A flash of guilt made his nerves seize up, but amusement pushed it aside when he saw her attempt to sputter out an explanation.

  She had so much to learn about dealing with power-tripping Physics teachers.

  He couldn’t think of a more perfect teacher.

  ***

  Melissa had never been interested in meditation or yoga, because she liked to think she was the type of person who didn’t need to be.

  Some other girl grabbed the last pair of the gold flats she’d been eyeing for months? She didn’t even blink.

  The waiter spilled Coke all over her notes? Fine with her.

  As the principal’s daughter, Melissa learned long ago to reign in her temper.

  But there was something about Lance that lit up a spark of rage inside her.

  As she glanced at his angel face, her eyes flicking to the L-shaped scar on his eyebrow that stopped him from being too pretty, memories from Grade Nine flooded her mind.

  Once upon a time, she had not been immune to his charms. Her heart had been ready to start a cheerleading squad when The Lance Ordonez went up to her and asked to borrow her calculator. He’d left his at home. She’d barely been able to utter three words when she handed hers over to him, their fingertips sliding over each other’s.

  Imagine her surprise when her father, the principal, delivered a lengthy lecture about how she couldn’t leave her stuff lying around. They weren’t rich, after all. Imagine how her heart plummeted to the depths of her stomach when he pulled her calculator out of his pocket. One of the janitors found it abandoned on a cafeteria table amongst chocolate wrappers and empty soda bottles.

  In a nutshell, Lance made Melissa very, very angry on a good day.

  Today was not a good day.

  Slinging the strap of her light pink backpack over her shoulder, she slowly walked out of the room. There was a part of her that still hoped Mr. Rodriguez would change his mind, but no dice. He resumed his lecture, pretending she wasn’t even there.

  Her classmates huddled in their seats without saying anything. Camille Velasco, her best friend, was the only person who dared to meet her eye, pushing the strands of her chin-length hair behind one ear.

  The look on Cam’s elfin face said it all. Your father’s going to find out.

  I know.

  She was an angry crier, but she told herself not to cry now. Her father was surely going to find out she got kicked out of class before the next period even started. There was no point.

  That, however, didn’t make the tears any easier to hold back.

  Her taking the last step out of the classroom was synonymous with a gong sounding to announce her death sentence. The row of gray lockers lining the empty hallway stared back at her mockingly.

  “Hey, Melissa!”

  She’d forgotten about Lance.

  Almost.

  His footsteps echoed across the green-tiled floors. She didn’t turn around, but her feet stopped in the middle of the hallway seemingly of their own accord. “Yes, Lance?”

  “If you agreed to go out with me, we wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of class.”

  Like a piece of string tugged too hard, Melissa’s patience splintered apart. She whirled around, ready to blast him to pieces with her fury. All she managed was a surprised squeak when she found her nose almost buried against his chest. He was standing a little too close and staring down at her, eyes dancing with what could only be mischief.

  He sure knew how to wield his pretty face like a weapon.

  “What do you mean?” she said, hating that her voice sounded shaky.

  “Logically speaking, our conversation would’ve been over if you said yes after I asked you out.” Lance stuffed his hands into his pockets. “If our conversation was over, Mr. Rodriguez wouldn’t have heard anything.”

  At that moment, Melissa wished she was the type of person who was great at banter, who could think of putdowns in a snap, but nothing came out when she opened her mouth to speak. Not a damn thing.

  The right words never came at the right time. In the end, all she had to say was the truth. “I don’t have time for this, Lance.”

  “You underestimate my charm.” He winked at her slowly, like he had all the time in the world. “By the time I’m done, Melissa Ortiz, you’ll be begging me to ask you out.”

  Chapter Two

  Melissa couldn’t rip her eyes away from the digital clock on her laptop screen. Her wallpaper was an illustration of a Japanese garden in bright shades of green and pink. It was supposed to be cheerful, but it didn’t make counting down the seconds until her father came home any less stressful.

  She was in big trouble. The only question was, by how much.

  Cam sat on her bed, painting her toenails gunmetal gray. She had rummaged through the transparent plastic box that housed Melissa’s nail polish collection earlier, grumbling the whole time that every single shade could be used to decorate a preschool. Melissa chose to take it as a compliment.

  They might’ve been complete opposites on the surface, especially with Cam’s penchant for dark clothing and her love of pastel, but they had been best friends forever. Nothing was going to change that.

  “Your laptop’s going to melt if you don’t stop looking at it,” Cam said, her hand still moving in smooth, even strokes.

  Feeling Cam’s stare boring into the back of her neck, Melissa left her perch in front of her desk and grabbed the ukulele leaning against the foot of the bed. To shut her best friend up and to stop herself from having a full-blown panic attack, she started strumming a few chords. The few chords soon turned into a song, the strains of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” filling the pink and white room.

  Melissa couldn’t even begin to describe how much she loved playing her tiny ukulele, loved all the ways it differed from a guitar. It was mind-blowing how she could play thousands of songs with four strings, only needing to change their patterns and the strumming of her hand. She wished most things were as easy.

  By the time she finished, Cam started clapping, already done painting her toenails. “You seriously need to start recording yourself. Like right now.”

  She sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

  “And I keep hoping you’ll change your mind. I even have all the equipment.” Cam gestured at the camera bag she’d placed on the floor by her shoes.

  Photography was Cam’s passion in life, the one thing she truly cared about. Melissa wished she had something like that, too. She couldn’t make a career out of playing the ukulele in the confines of her bedroom, so she’d decided to major in Education once college rolled around to follow in her father’s footsteps.

  “We can start anytime,” Cam prodded again.

  Her best friend was convinced that she would become the next Youtube sensation the second she started uploading videos of herself singing and playing the ukulele.

  Melissa wasn’t insecure enough to blindly wonder if she was talented. She knew she was good, but was she good enough to willingly subject herself to the criticism of thousands of strangers?

  So, she was saying no to making videos.

  For now.

  “I’ll keep thinking about it.” Melissa returned her ukulele to its rightful place.

  Cam opened her mouth to ask another question, but a knock sounded on her door. The sound reverberated across the room like a gunshot.

  Before she could get up, the door opened, framing her father in the doorway. He was intimidating in a navy blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, hair brushed over his forehead. Exactly the kind of person who could scare teenage boys into arriving to class on time.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Ortiz.” Cam jumped up from the bed.

  “Good afternoon, Cam.” He remained in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob. “May I speak to my daughter for a while?”

  Cam’s
eyes darted to Melissa as she shoved on her socks and shoes. She put on her best parent-friendly smile. “No problem. I was on my way out.”

  “See you tomorrow, Cam,” she said half-heartedly, wishing her best friend could rescue her from another lecture about how she wasn’t fulfilling her potential.

  “See you, Mel.”

  Her father closed the door behind Cam. He took a seat on the chair by her desk and ran a hand through his hair. She sat up straight, staying in place. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach, like mercury pooling at the bottom of a thermometer.

  “I heard you got kicked out of class today.” He let out a long-suffering sigh.

  It was the sigh that did it every time, filling her with so much guilt she could barely breathe. Things would’ve been so much simpler if he yelled at her, but that sigh? It was open to so much interpretation, a blank canvas she could color with the disappointment she imagined he felt.

  “Pa,” she explained, “it wasn’t my fault. Lance—”

  “Mel, we’ve been over this countless times,” he interrupted. “Whatever trouble your classmates get up to shouldn’t be your concern. You’re held up to entirely different standards.”

  What if I don’t want to be?

  She didn’t dare voice the question out loud. Having a discussion with her father was as dangerous as swimming in a twelve-foot pool. The possibility of drowning was very real. In words, not water.

  Backtracking a little, she said, “It’s not a big deal. This is the first time I’ve ever been kicked out of class.”

  “But is it the last?” He inched forward, leaning his forearms against his thighs. “Mel, sweetheart, I know it’s unfair that things are harder for you, because you’re my daughter. People expect more from you, but do you think they’d have such high expectations if they didn’t see potential in you? You could do anything. Be in the honor roll. Even be at the top of your class.”

  She knew what was coming next, almost said the words right along with him.

  “If you only applied yourself,” he continued.

  Didn’t he know she was doing that already, applying herself to being the perfect daughter with everything she had?