Page 85 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

He dressed for the occasion, wearing an ironed pair of khakis, his usual blunnies, and a white, button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Her heart thumps and she doesn’t realize she’s smiling back until she puts her hands to her warm cheeks.

“Wild running into you here,” he says when he gets to her side. His eyes are bright as he hands over the sprinkled cone.

“What are the odds?” She takes a bite of ice cream, but she can’t take her eyes off Evan.

“To think I would have had to eat all this ice cream by myself. Good thing I ran into you.”

Dalisay can’t help but laugh as they walk together, side by side, along the pier. They don’t say anything, not while eating their ice cream, but Dalisay’s mind races. It’s been months since they’ve been together. Looking at Evan, her heart swells. He squints against the sun, his eyes landing on the sightseeing boat on the horizon, and he points out Alcatraz, the famous island prison, in the distance. But Dalisay only has eyes for him.

She manages to get her ice cream down to a manageable level without it dripping down her hand just as they reach the end of the pier and take a break to lean on the railing.

They both lean on the railing, standing in companionable silence. A seagull hops along the rail toward Evan, eyeing his ice-cream cone, and Evan turns away from the bird. “Don’t even think about it, mister.”

Dalisay doesn’t know where to start. It’s been so long since they’ve spoken. How can she possibly start over?

“How’s Tallulah?” she finally asks. She wishes she could have had a better opening line, but it’s the best she can think of.

Evan waves his elbow in the hungry seagull’s direction and says, “She’s good! She’s happy and healthy. That’s all I can ask for.”

“Good! That’s … really good.” Dalisay’s heart feels tight in her chest. Is she making this awkward? She tries not to blush as she notices she’s been tapping out a rhythm on her hips with her free hand this whole time. She sees Evan’s eyes dart down to look at her hip, and a smile lifts one corner of his mouth. She forces herself to stop. She knows it’s a nervous habit. God, she is so obvious.

“How’s Little Luis?” Evan asks after a long moment.

“Happy! He passed out almost instantly after getting home yesterday. You knocked your task out of the park. What happened at the zoo? You said something about you being banned?”

Evan bows his head and laughs. “Ah, yeah. I climbed a fence trying to get Little Luis’s balloon after he dropped it.”

“What!”

“I didn’t want people to think I was being a bad parent! You should have heard the way he was screaming. I had one job!”

Dalisay doubles over laughing. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, and she wipes them away. She hasn’t laughed that hard in a long time and it aches in a good way. She’s glad to see Evan’s smiling too, despite himself. “You could have just gotten him a new one.”

“You know kids and balloons. To him, it was like losing a limb.”

“I’m not sure it was worth it,” Dalisay says, lips curling in amusement.

“Tell the zoo people that … Who even monitors lifetime bans anyway?”

When Dalisay and Evan dissolve into laughter again, imagining Evan’s face on a poster with an “x” through it at the zoo entrance, the seagull takes a stab at stealing Evan’s ice cream.

“Aha! Nice try, mister,” Evan says, holding it out of beak’s reach. The seagull flaps its wings, annoyed, and takes off.

Laughing together significantly lifts Dalisay’s mood, and any anxiety she might have had melts away. She’s happy, and for the first time in a long time, she can finally admit it.

“I liked your gifts,” she says.

“You did?”

“Didn’t throw a single one out. Except I think Lola used the map of Kyoto as wrapping paper.”

Evan barks out a laugh and Dalisay smiles. “How about the leche flan?”

“My mom said it was good.” Evan looks pleased at that. “I have to ask—the serenade. How did you rope Daniel into it?”

Evan’s cheeks go pink again. “Daniel and I … we’ve actually become friends.”

“Really? Since when?”

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