Wanna Bet?

Part 2

He beat me by 20 seconds. Whatever.

We were at the corner panaderia, my favorite breakfast spot. Their whole wheat pandesal was ginormous and their kapeng barako close to how my Batangueno lola made it. I doubled my usual order, but he insisted on adding a small container of Choc-Nut spread. He leisurely spread it on a hot pandesal and slowly bit in, closing his eyes, like an ad.

"Are you a model?" I asked.

He coughed a little and thumped himself on the chest. Pink stained his cheeks. "Back in my 20s." He sipped his coffee.

Oh. "Is that why you're giving me Breakfast Blue Steel?"

"What? No! This is just really good. Try it."

"I'm watching my sugar."

He held the bread out to me. "I bet a second cup of coffee that you'll love it."

"You know, for someone I met half an hour ago, you're surprisingly familiar. Close tayo?" I softened that statement with a chuckle. I didn't want to scare him off, but it was good to preemptively set boundaries.

"I have a great feeling about you." He pulled the bread back and took another TV commercial bite. "It's really, really good."

"Fine." I tore off a chunk from my pandesal and patted some of the chocolatey stuff on it. He watched my face as I popped it into my mouth, smiling expectantly.

I really didn't want to concede this, but he was right. "Damn."

"Good, yes?"

I walked to the counter and returned with his coffee. "So where do you use those powers of persuasion, when you're not convincing random women to break their diet plans?"

"I'm a corporate trainer." He laughed when I wrinkled my nose. It was a low, rumbly sound that filled the panaderia's small sitting area. "You don't like corporate training? Not even for the free food?"

"Well, okay. The food is a bonus. Sometimes I learn useful stuff too."

He sipped his coffee. "What about you, what do you do?"

This was usually the part where people's eyes glazed over while I described my impressive-sounding title but kind of mundane job.

"I lead a team of knowledge management analysts for a beverage company." I said it quickly to get it over with. "Which sounds impressive, but it's basically correctly filing shit and helping people find said shit, even if our taxonomy makes it super easy to do so."

"What kind of shit?"

"Well, like patents, R&D, super confidential stuff." I leaned across the table and lowered my voice. "I could get killed for telling you this much."

He laughed again, like it was a really good joke. The joke was honestly subpar but yay me for getting that laugh out of him. I was starting to like the sound of it.

"How did you get into that?" he asked.

"I'm a library science grad."

He leaned back in his chair, mouth slightly open, like this was the most fascinating thing he'd ever heard. This was new. People usually looked at me oddly and asked, always with a trace of obnoxiousness, why that course?

But not this guy.

"That's the coolest thing I've ever heard," he said.

I sipped my coffee to cover the slight heat spreading on my face. I wasn't a blusher, but, well––compliments? Not used to them, not very cool at receiving them.

"What about you, how'd you get into your gig?" I coughed, fiddling with my ponytail.

"I did a lot of theater when I was younger. Still do, occasionally. A couple of my mentors were doing this on the side and asked me if I wanted to try it out. Found out I enjoyed it."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. I get to meet lots of people and share what I know. It's not a regular daily thing, too, and every session is different. We even get to travel––last year we did trainings in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia. It's great." He frowned at the face I was probably making. "You're not buying it?"

"I mean, it sounds awesome, the way you put it. I just, personally, don't like interacting with strangers. Every corporate training thing I've ever gone to always has that one guy––"

"––The one who doesn't have a question, really, but more of a comment?"

"Yes! Who finds his life's fulfilment in monopolizing group discussions."

"We're taught how to handle those folks, so if you ever find yourself in a session with my team, I promise you, no monopolizing guys allowed."

Our food was all gone. He collected the used napkin and pandesal sleeves from our table and stuffed them into a paper bag. "But I have a question?"

"Shoot." I drained the last of my coffee.

He leaned across the table, eyes meeting mine in a gaze that was suddenly intense and more than a little hot. "How is this working for you?"

"This?"

"This interaction. With this stranger."

My phone beeped; the alarm to start getting ready for work. Great timing too.

"It's––uh." I managed to close my gaping mouth and pull the gym bag over my shoulder. "I gotta go. It was nice meeting you, Kiko Trinidad."

His eyes crinkled in the corners as he watched me organize my things. "First one to finish 10 burpees buys breakfast tomorrow?"

"Oh, you're so on," I grinned, slapping his outstretched palm with my own.