Martini Kisses (epistolary) ✔️

n a r r a t i v e (part two & three)

part 2

The ride back home feels light. Almost like a dream.

Kai can feel her contentment and happiness singing through the air between them.

Milly's fiddling with the ring, an equally light and bedazzled smile painted on her face as her gaze keeps tracing the notes engraved on its cool surface.

He gives her a brief look and smiles too. That was what he'd been hoping to achieve when he planned this surprise for her.

To bring back what she lost.

To celebrate her presence in his life as much as she celebrates his.

To give her new things to remember. Happy things.

Happy things with him.

Kai reaches out a free hand to take hers, and Milly immediately intertwines her fingers with his like she's already so used to doing that. Maybe she is.

Because he is.

"Happy?" he asks, and she turns to him, eyes bright, lashes fluttering, cheeks pink with a happy and content flush. He's said it before and he'll say it again. She's much too beautiful for her own good sometimes.

"Not just happy," she corrects with a laugh. "I feel like I'm floating right now."

'Di lang ikaw, he doesn't say.

His smile stretches out into a stifled grin, mirroring hers. Her high spirit's contagious. And sweet. It's seeping into him like melted honey.

Squeezing her hand, he presses a kiss to her knuckles as an answer.

The euphoric silence returns and hangs over them again, and he can feel the warm caress of her gaze on his face as he drives them back to Manila.

When he asks why she loves to do that - watching him - Milly only shakes her head and says it's because she loves watching him.

No real reason why. She just does.

Kai lets it go. Doesn't press for answers.

Because he understands.

He does it too.

Watching her.

Also for no real reason at all.

He just does.

part 3

Milly's still glowing when they make it back.

She almost feels like a wind gliding across the hallway as they pad their way back to the penthouse, with her hair flowing behind her back, the silk of her black dress following every move that her legs would take.

There's a lightness to her steps that he had only ever occassionally seen. Not a happy bounce but something similar. Something more elegant and very Milly.

The tune of Heaven rings through the hallway and makes it to his ears as she hums the chorus. It doesn't stop even as she pauses in her steps and waits for him to catch up to her, her arm instinctively reaching out and looping around his to maintain skin contact. Her head's pressed sweetly against the side of his shoulder blade when they continue on their way.

She's being very affectionate with him right now. Milly's always been, it's part of her nature, but there's a notable difference in this one. A notable sweetness. A child-like honesty and delightfulness blanketing around her that he's only experienced once. There-before. In Baguio.

After she agreed to be with him officially.

The elation.

This bliss.