A half-pouting, half-scowl of sorts swiftly found a home on Annabel’s features, “you know what Ernesto? I am going to choose not to answer that question.” Mostly because she knew her company had made a valid point, but alas, he was far from the first to make it. The philanthropist was not herself entirely unaware of the irony, or the fact that no– her job certainly did not require her particular level of blindsided dedication. Her own boss often had to remind her to take time off to herself. Caring about your work was, in her case, a double-edged sword; she didn’t know how to turn it off. Sometimes, she didn’t want to either. “I do not think many people want to go get a degree at that point in their lives,” she nodded. Listening with an intrigued tilt of her head. “Though I do suppose it is a little more common nowadays, with online learning, so people do not have to sit in a room with a bunch of emboldened eighteen year olds.” She mused, “–but the how you got there hardly matters if it’s what you want to be doing.” The last part, perhaps, sounding a pinch idealistic of her to say. A laugh parted her lips, shoulders noticeably shaking as Annabel attempted to bite back the noise. “I do, I swear. I have actual real friends besides my Great Dane. I go out dancing, run marathons, cook for myself, watch movies, dwindle away a few hours in a bookshop, go to bars– eat at food trucks.” She gestured a hand with the last addition, grinning as they once again stepped forward in line. “The issue, so I am told, is merely that I do not take the time to do any of that nearly as much as I ought to.”
He nodded as a move to signal that he would not probe any further. The man never did like to ask many questions, yet here he was drilling the poor petite with questions that didn’t need to be asked. Was he really expecting his trip to this town to last longer than a year? Yet the more that the brunette talked, the more he actually understood her. His time as a marine had not required him to stay late and yet he had, there was something about wanting to do the best in his job that many did not understand; satisfactory didn’t make him happy nor was it a level that he wanted to stay. “Valid but unless there is someone there to teach me I do not learn. Not to mention I am more hands-on. At the end of the day I was never much of a school guy. I like where I ended up, as strange as that may sound.” He wasn’t going to get any academic scholarships that had been obvious to his abuelos early on. The man was not the smartest tool in the shed, but he had the common sense to make up for it not to mention the brawn that had done him well in the marines. “Well the how would probably look like I got stuck here to an outsider. No education, low-income family, and no academic desire,” Not to mention a drug addict mother, but he liked to think that he was more than a statistic. “I have a goat so if the Great Dane was the only friend you had, you would be better than I. Also all that sounds like a pretty activity of someone that works too much. Have you ever done go-carts?” The suggestion just fell out involuntary as he took additional steps forward in the line. “So you run once every two months is what you’re telling me? -- is this conversation the most intriguing one you have had? You can say no. I actually kind of want you to say no otherwise we might have to make this a regular thing for your sake.”
