Reading time

As I quietly sit in a café somewhere in downtown Makati reading my Freakonmics book, I slowly look up to reach for my African Fusion tea latte and as I do so my eyes meet at another pair with hazel eyes flecked with golden sunrise staring directly at me. I blink nonchalantly and slowly sip my latte and boldly continue to stare blankly at the eyes before me. He stood up and walked towards me with no indication of any hint of a smile but his eyes had been telling me a story in that moment. As he got closer to my table I started to focus on his features surrounding his eyes. I noticed the shape of his nose slightly skewed to the right. I then proceeded to look at his masculine cheek bones and angular shape of his jawline and as I was trying to picture the man behind the desert storm eyes, I realized my own eyes had stopped wandering and had been staring at his lips for a moment longer than usual. I quickly looked up at the man and there he stood a couple of feet before me and the once mysterious eyes that were staring back at me had a new sparkle behind them. My first thought was, “how cheeky is this man?,” considering he was the one staring at me from the beginning. But then I caught myself and stopped at the thought because I too was guilty of leaving my own eyes as it had rested on his lips. I was definitely not embarrassed but my guard was on full alert. He opened his mouth and uttered the words, “Hello, I couldn’t help but stare at you sitting so peacefully reading your book and I wanted to know if I could get to know the woman with the smiling eyes.”
The first thoughts that jammed my brain were, “Huh? Is he just cheesy or should I call the security guard for having this man stalk me in this café because it has happened on quite a number of other occasions in my life and the other thought that proceeded was to give him an answer that would decide his consequence from the outcome of his response to my question.”

I looked at him and then looked away and acted as if he wasn’t there for a brief moment and slowly I sipped my latte. I blocked his presence out as much as possible and without looking back at him I spoke one word, “Why.”