Table for Two
Prologue
Some people fall in love all at once.
At least, that's how the stories usually tell it.
One glance across a crowded room.
One unforgettable conversation.
One perfect moment that changes everything.
Lianne never believed in that.
Maybe because she spent most of her waking hours talking to people she had never met. Eight hours every night, five nights a week, she answered emails, joined meetings, and solved problems for clients who only knew her through a webcam and a profile picture.
You'd be surprised how much of a person's life could exist behind a screen.
And how much of it couldn't.
Adrian believed in routines.
Not in a boring way.
Just... quietly.
He liked arriving ten minutes early. Drinking the same coffee. Taking the same route home. Replying when he said he would. There was comfort in knowing what tomorrow looked like.
He didn't think that made him predictable.
He thought it made life a little easier.
If someone had asked either of them that Tuesday afternoon what they wanted from a dating app, neither would've had an interesting answer.
"Conversation, maybe."
"Let's see."
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing worth writing a novel about.
Because that's the funny thing about ordinary days.
Most of them don't announce that they're about to change your life.
They just begin like any other Tuesday.
One person waking up at four in the afternoon.
Another packing up his laptop before six.
One person walking through familiar streets in Silang.
Another sitting in traffic somewhere in Alabang.
Two routines.
Two different clocks.
One message.
It wasn't love at first sight.
It wasn't destiny.
It wasn't even good timing.
It was simply two people who, without meaning to, started making room for each other inside lives that were already full.
Neither of them knew it yet.
But years later, if someone asked them where everything started...
Neither would remember the exact date.
They'd remember something much smaller.
A notification.
A question about carbonara.
And the strange feeling that talking to a complete stranger somehow felt... easy.
Maybe that's how some love stories begin.
Not with fireworks.
Just with someone who quietly becomes your favorite notification.