Page 5 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“What’s this about making dumb decisions?” Pinky asks.

“You mean in the fae forest”—Riggs points to the battle map—“or in Evan’s real life?”

Rolling his eyes, Evan plops the spoils from their Safeway run—Funyuns, tortilla chips, salsa, beer, the works—on the floor. He knows where this is going.

“There’s a difference?” Pinky asks. Evan lets out aha-ha.

“Evan asked a woman out and got shot down big-time,” Riggs says, getting down to brass tacks.

Shrugging off his bomber jacket, Evan takes a seat next to JM as Riggs recounts what Evan told him while JM sets up his notes. “What exactly did Dalisay say again, before she left?” Riggs asks Evan, as if saving the icing on the cake for last.

“ ‘You may know Milan, but you don’t know Manila.’ ”

Everyone bursts into a chorus of laughter at Evan’s expense, and Evan ducks his head, kowtowing with a smile.

“So, she’s Filipina?” Pinky asks brightly as she twirls her pencil around her thumb.

Both JM and Pinky are Filipino. Pinky grew up in the States, while JM grew up in Cebu City, moving to California when he got accepted to Berkeley, but he goes back every summer to spend time with his extended family.

“Dalisay moved from Manila a few months ago,” Evan tells them.

“Surname?”

“Ramos.”

Pinky repeats the surname over and over. “I think my mom mentioned meeting a new family named Ramos at church. I’ll have to check if it’s the same one.”

“I’m not sure how that will help,” Evan says. “Dalisay seems pretty uninterested. Flat-outN-O.”

“You do have a certain”—JM waves his hand in Evan’s direction—“quality.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, laughing.

“You can just be oblivious, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

JM and Pinky share glances.

“He has no idea,” JM says to her. “Noidea.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’ll change anything,” she says.

“At least he’ll know there was no chance in the first place.”

“And maybe he can know the next time.”

Evan interrupts. “What are you talking about?”

Pinky and JM break out of their side conversation, as if remembering there are other people in the room. “Dalisay is from the Philippines,” Pinky says, “so she probably wants a guy who goes through the Five Stages.”

“What’s that?” Evan asks.

“It’s a tried-and-true courtship ritual in the Philippines going back generations.”

“It’s like the twelve steps, but way harder,” jokes JM.

Evan lets out a dubious guffaw. “ ‘Courtship.’ I only asked her out for a drink. Courtship makes me think of”—he gestures to the battle map in front of him—“this! Medieval times and knights and all that.”

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