When Bros Pinky Swear

If there's something about my writing process that few people know, it is that I don't write linearly. I won't always start with Chapter 1, followed by 2, then 3, and so on. I write scenes based on characters when they speak to me. Yup, they actually speak to me. So yesterday, I wrote a scene that's the start of the rescue of Diwa from the clutches of Cayetano. Ron talks Fritzso into tagging along to help him with this crazy-assed mission, and his Irish bro is none too happy.

Ron

DECEMBER 2014

EN ROUTE TO THE PHILIPPINES

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In Fritzso’s book, I did what might be the most forbidden thing two bro friends could do, and I couldn’t help but add some levity to our mission.

He stares at me agape—yep, that weird word that could only describe Fritzso’s stupefaction on why the hell I extended a pinky finger toward him across the aisle of the plane while in flight to Manila offering—no, daring him—to hook his in mine.

“What the almighty fuck is that?” I didn’t have to look at him to know he was glaring, his mouth hanging to his chin and he was breathing so much fire I could feel the heat from where I was sitting. I was smiling slightly. Or maybe I was smirking.

So I turn to face him slowly. Dramatically. With a goofy smile like I’m in love with him, I say, “Yubikiri.”

He slaps his hand away from me. Hard.

“Ow,” I cry in my best girly wimpy voice, cringing and waving my hand in feigned pain.

“I know what the fuck yubikiri is, but seriously, dude? We are not two ten-year-old girls in middle school.”

“But you mean so much to me, Fritzso,” I say, batting my eyelashes.

“Keep it up and I will disembark in Manila and get on the next flight back to Hawaii and leave you to your ridiculous James Bond rescue mission.”

God, he looks so serious.

“And that will be the end of our friendship. I don’t care how much I owe you for getting me a dream job in Hawaii.”