Si Mr. Never Say Die!

Ate dinner at Mr.Kabab in West Av last week with Mr. Never Say Die... Been leaning forward in the passenger seat of his Blue RAV4 for too long and so I rested my hands on the dashboard while inspecting my newly polished fingernails, when He asked "what are you doing Miss?"

The answer I wanna gave him that time was, "trying to get you notice my fresh manicure and ask for a closer look and therefore hold my hand you dimwit!"

But my real answer was of course... "nothing...why? what's weird about what im doing?"

"Can you please put your seatbelt back on?" , he said sounding concerned.

"Fine!", I sniff. Sungit mo naman, hmpf!". I leaned back and snap on my seatbelt. Took out my phone and pretended to be texting someone. For all He knows, I might already be texting another guy and saying "Im so glad you dont make me wear a stupid seatbelt. And for that, you totally win me over this idiot"

Hold-up! Let me make it clear that this isn't like him at all. This guy beside me is not ____... or at least the ____ that I know.

Ok.. seriously, what is going on here? I wanted to scream and ask him " Who are you? and what have you done to my friend?"

"So", he said. "What have you been up to? Did you miss me?"

"Not really", I replied. And it was true. It wasn't like I had been pining for him the whole time we were not communicating.

Given the right circumstance, what we had could be permanent. But I pushed all of that to the furthest-most unreacheable corner of my mind by thinking ~he was never my boyfriend anyway.

He grinned at me and probably thought I was kidding. "Well", he said. " I missed you.Terrribly"

I tried to ignore the funny feeling at the pit of my stomach. I also tried to avert his gaze but he was so near so I just said "Really? well you certainly did an excellent job hiding it"

To that, he actually laughed.

"Come on!", he said staring right at me, his eyes intent - close to pleading. "You stopped texting me too".

He had a point, "Okay", I said.

"0kay what?"

"0kay forget what I said". An awkward pause hung over us until I realized I had to change the subject.

But He insisted, "So, who are you dating right now?"

"Nobody", I said.

"You sure?", He said.

"Yeah, I mean No, I mean yes and no. I don't know!"

"Hayy miss ayan ka nnman sa ganyan.. so there's someone? or something?"

"I think so"

"But it's not official?"

"No! It was nothing like that ok?"

"Why not?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why is it not official?" , he said quickly.

"Because!", I said lamely.

"Because???", he insisted.

"It's just not, alright? It's really complicated than you could ever imagine. Let's just talk about something else please?"

And we did. After a rather awkward start, we pulled off an easy conversation. The ride home was quick and quiet. He took my hand without the slightest tinge of hesitation, like it was the most natural thing in the whole world. Like it was something he had always meaning to do. Like he knew that we were better off as friends because ( like any other time and chances we had in the past ) there is .. already is SOMEONE. I can feel that he knew. I guess he always had.