Everything She Wanted

24 Merry Christmas, love

JAXX POV

After Cara's birthday, I have been counting the days until Christmas. Then I could fly back to Manila and be with my girl. If I had my way, I'd leave the country the same day the fall semester ended. However, my dad had other plans. He wanted to celebrate the holidays with his first family and he wanted me to join them, saying that my mom will be with her family in Spain anyway. Her brother was apparently terminally ill so they wanted to spend his possible last Christmas holiday together.

Carmen, his first wife, was actually very warm and open. She had wavy, dark brown hair, and fierce hazel eyes that showed a lot of emotions when she was talking or telling stories. She lived in a beautiful spacious apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, though she was always in Philadelphia spending time with Nicholas, their son and my half-brother. I had visited her home once when I tagged along with Nick one weekend since I needed a change in scenery.

One room in her apartment was half-full of boxes and packing packaging things. She ran an online business selling organic beauty products. She had an office downtown as well where the official business was. She was an advocate of reusing and reducing waste and using less plastics, and best of all, she was vegan for the earth. Not for animal rights.

She was an interesting woman. She accepted me without question and treated me as if I were her son. She always referred to me as part of her family and frankly, I still don't know how to feel about it. I don't hold any grudges against them. If someone was to hold ill feelings, she had the all right because my dad basically cheated on her before they got divorced. But it seems that they're still very much into each other. It just feels weird to belong to two families, to have two people calling me 'son' or any endearment.

Nick was also a pretty cool brother. I felt like he was one of those crazy, younger, hipster titos who smoked and cursed in front of their parents. He owned a bar in Philly and I worked there part-time. He offered me a managerial position but I refused. It demanded too much brainwork. I wanted to work with him to get away from my managerial, financial, and COO work at JAB and in school. I wanted something mechanical, so he offered me the kitchen, waiting, or bartending. I took the bartending post, but he did let me into the kitchen whenever it wasn't busy and I'd fancy cooking the house specialties. I also did not have a permanent shift. I just needed to complete a number of hours per week. So far, I was enjoying the little brother privileges he had given me in his bar, 28°.

I learned he also went to Wharton upon my father's 'invitation'. I think this was my dad's wish that his sons attended his alma mater. He had grown to love the city that's why he decided to move across the state from New York. He also has another bar in Midtown Manhattan, 22°, which was managed by his business partner. The names of his bars are freezing points of different alcohols in Fahrenheit.

Nick had helped me a lot with my homesickness, though I was never going to tell him that. He was still a big brother who would not let me live it down. He was kind of like Seb that way, nice and caring but a real loudmouth who will not forget all the embarrassing moments in your life and would let you re-live it every chance he can.

Like the first time he witnessed that I was being harassed by a group of UPenn college students who was pushing one of their hot single girl friends for a date. Said she needed a fake boyfriend to show off on their homecoming. They did not back down when I said I was taken because I had an earlier conversation with one of her friends to whom I had unwittingly admitted that my girlfriend was across the Pacific ocean.