Heya! I’m a week late but here’s more from the Buqo YA bundles! From Bundle 3: Finding Fairytales, I choose CP Santi‘s When Cocoy Became Kikay. The synopsis:
Cocoy’s not-so-secret dream is to one day become a gun-toting, ass-kicking secret agent. But she has another dream—and this time, even her best friends don’t have a clue—she dreams of being with someone.
Problem is, she finds out that Jaime Arguelles—a.k.a. the guy she’d been secretly crushing on for years—likes girls who . . . well . . . like pink.
To Cocoy’s logical mind, there’s only one solution: it’s time to go girly. After all, how hard can it be?
Here’s the EXCERPT:
“Since when did you start having a lablab, Coy?” Dags lifted a brow.
So much for keeping secrets. “So I like someone. Big deal.”
“Is . . . is it a guy or a girl?” Paulo asked tentatively.
I turned incredulous eyes toward him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dude, whichever way you roll . . .” Dags shrugged.
Oh, c’mon. True, I was a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of girl and I hung out with guys, but that didn’t automatically translate to such gender assumptions. Sure, I loathed boy bands. And I loved basketball, camping, and shooting more than the average girl should. Living with my dad hadn’t exactly encouraged girly pursuits. But still.
I sighed. “Dude, if I were gay, I’d tell you. But I’m not.”
“So, who is it? You have to tell us,” Paulo protested. He stood to tower over me, arms crossed over his chest.
“Aw, Coy, aren’t we friends?” Dags cajoled as he strummed the first notes of “Maalaala Mo Kaya.”
I sighed. Paulo, Dags, Joel, and I had been friends for years. The four of us were the only ones crazy enough to take up a dare issued by our neighborhood playmates—to see if a manananggal indeed left the lower part of its body at the abandoned Siangco house on Lilac Street.
Over the years, our friendship had been further cemented by bruises and scraped knees, basketball games, camping trips, fish balls, turon, and buko pandan royale, day-long village-hopping bicycle trips, and innumerable fries and Coke floats.
I never kept secrets from them. Usually.
“So who is it?” Paulo asked again.
Fine. I cleared my throat. “It’s . . . it’s Jaime.”
I counted five seconds of absolute silence.
Dags frowned. “Jaime?”
“Jaime Arguelles?” Paulo bent over, laughing. “Cocoy, you are so predictable!”
You can read the rest of the story by purchasing the bundle on Buqo! This story is included with five other stories by these amazing authors:
Anne Plaza
Si Anne Plaza ay mula sa Lungsod Quezon at nakapagsulat ng isang chick lit novella, ang In Over Her Head (2013). Ang Fall for Grace ay ang una niyang kathang YA romance. Nagtatrabaho siya bilang isang marketing associate para sa isang ad agency at malimit siyang nagsusulat kahit hindi pa tapos ang kanyang shift. Nakahiligan na niyang magbasa ng Tagalog romance novels (noong kapanahunan pa nina Helen Meriz, Jo-An Solis, Gilda Olvidado, atbp.) at nakapag- publish na rin ng apat na akda sa ilalim ng My Special Valentine.
Kat Sales
Writer :: Thinker :: Problem Solver
Ana Valenzuela
Ana Valenzuela is a graduate of AB Literature from UST. She has written for several magazines and online news blogs.
Cassandra Javier
Cass is a cat lady who graduated with a degree in Broadcasting and has worked as a copywriter, a researcher in an IT company, a call center agent and was even a trainee for a time in a television network. She writes articles for a living. When not writing articles, she writes novels, fanfiction, short stories and whatever she may think of. She loves TV series, movies, music, and is a very big bookworm. She’s also addicted to butterflies, faeries and Ice Cream.
C.P. Santi
C.P. Santi is a Filipina author based in Tokyo, Japan. She is a wife to an engineer/musician/jokester and a full-time mom to two energetic boys. She loves cooking and baking, and enjoys feeding people, gorging on chocolate, watching J-doramas, belting it out in the karaoke box, and running around the house playing tickle tag. She also loves dreaming up stories about the people she meets.
In another life, she is also an architect and academic.
Her first book, Be Careful What You Wish For, is a contemporary romance based in Tokyo.
Dawn Lanuza 