Of (Heart)Beats and Bylines [Completed]

Chapter 10

Author's Note: for the reads and votes, thank you all so much! You inspire me to go on.

Feel free to share your thoughts too! :)

The Monday traffic was bad from morning until after lunch.

It was 2 pm and I just arrived at the office from this morning's field work. 

"Flowers for you again, Ms. Mendoza," Andy teased.

At my desk is a floral bunch made up of roses and a selection of filler flowers and greenery wrapped in jute paper.  It was something you'd typically see in a flower shop. 

I checked the tag. It was from John but there was no dedication whatsoever.  Still, it was something that I appreciated; a nice treat at the start of the week.

"Your lovelife's on a roll," teased Dennis, another reporter but from a different beat. 

"Hindi naman nanliligaw yung isa," I reasoned, addressing it more to Sir Andy.  I didn't even have the guts to say his name so I can avoid intrigues.  He is from our rival paper after all.

So now I have two bouquets on my desk.  I made a mental note to trim the ends of the sunflower arrangement and change its water.  I wanted to stretch its life for as many days as possible.

I untied the string on the mason jar; a move I should have made as soon as I got the flowers.  Have other people seen it?  Possibly, since my cubicle was wide open.  The last thing I want is to be the subject of office gossip. 

With this realization, I took out the tag from John's as well. 

I went to work right away, still thankful that I have my old computer back.  At least I could work much faster now. There was no damage on it but our IT team had to make sure of this, especially since my computer contained plenty of confidential files.
 
After I emailed my articles to my boss, I checked my phone.  There was a message from John.

Hi. Im in the building.  Want to have dinner?

Ok. See you at the lobby at 7. 

~~~~~

"How's your project with our IT?" I  asked in between mouthfuls of fish and chips.

"Malapit na matapos."

Our IT Department works continually on archiving our previous issues.  But with decades in the business, it was increasingly becoming more difficult. It entails powerful machines that can store massive amounts of data.  Hence John, being our IT supplier, is working just as hard as our IT in upgrading our archiving process.

"May nanliligaw ba sa iyong iba?" John asked out of the blue.

"Huh?  Wala."

"E kanino galing yung isang bouquet?"

"Wala yun.  May nag apologize lang sa kin kaya nagpadala ng bulaklak.  Natapunan nya ako ng kape accidentally just before my interview with a senator."

"Oh," he replied.

"Bakit mo naman natanong?"  I added hesitantly.

"Hindi pa ba obvious na nanliligaw ako?"

I smiled.  I guess I just needed to hear it straight from him. 

John and I enjoyed the rest of the night.  We had a light, enjoyable exchange of thoughts  but it was nothing as stimulating and as engaging than my chats with RJ.

I haven't heard from him since we had dinner last Friday.  It's better this way.  And I already have John.  Well sort of.  I just need to get to know him more.  We don't have common friends and being only our IT supplier, my co-workers only know him on a professional level.  I have never met any of his family and friends either.  I've come across his LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.  For the latter, he posts about his views on national or international news and never about his personal life.  He says he has long given up on Facebook and he's never had Instragram.  

He is two years off of my ideal five-year age difference cut-off.  I'm 23 and he's 30. 

But I like him.  He's stable and is not on the aggressive side.

He is a safe choice.

"Yes, that's right," the voice inside my head said.  "So why did you bring home the flowers from RJ and not the ones from John?" nagged that same voice as I stared at the sunflowers at my bedside table.

The edges of some petals and leaves are beginning to wilt. 

Maybe because I just like the color... 

Maybe because sunflowers are such happy flowers.  Yes, that's it.

"Maybe because I'd like to keep the mason jar", I whispered oh-so-softly, kidding myself tons.