"Alright. Like this...no, the shirt looks bad. Maybe this way...", Rúben's attempts at modelling while on the lift were interrupted by the doors opening on the 8th floor.
"Good morning", you said, holding a laugh after finding one of your neighbours doing a photoshoot there at 8 am. Not what you expected.
"Morning", he said, slightly embarrassed by being caught.
When you reached the ground floor, you said goodbye and left. He stayed on the lift to go one floor lower to find his car, but you were taking the bus. And all the way to work, you kept thinking about that funny moment. And about how cute the guy from the lift was. No wonder he was taking photos of himself everywhere. All guys who looked like him probably did the same.
The next day, you thought about leaving in the morning ten minutes earlier than usual so you could grab a cup of coffee on the way to work. Tea wasn't enough after staying up late to grade exams. And Rúben...well, he wanted to avoid being embarrassed again so he also left ten minutes earlier so he could get the stupid selfies done. He actually liked the shirt he
was wearing that day better so it all worked out perfectly...until the doors opened on the 8th floor again and you caught him taking more photos.
"Sorry", you said when you couldn't help but laugh.
"It's ok. I just...I have to do this because of my management. I don't just take photos all the time".
"Management? Are you a model?", you could believe that. But also couldn't believe your luck of living in the same building as a model. Were there more? You were just wondering.
"No, I'm a footballer".
You cocked your head to the side, confused. "I didn't know that was part of the job".
"Yeah...".
"You don't have to make up jobs, really. It's ok to feel cute and want to take a photo of yourself. I'm not judging".
And now you didn't believe him...
"Look", he said, showing you his Instagram profile and then laughing seeing your shocked face. "You really didn't believe me then".
"Well, men lie all the time to impress girls", you said, shrugging and making him chuckle. "I imagine many pretend to be footballers often".
"Probably, yeah".
When you reached your floor, you left again after wishing him a good day and once you were gone, Rúben realised he didn't even ask your name. Too busy trying to justify his lift antics.
But it turned out he didn't need to ask it because you couldn't help going back to his profile while bored on the bus. He was a legit footballer but also...yes, there were all the photos he had to take because of his management. Or so he said.
He had more than 2 million followers so he wouldn't notice one new follower, right? But he did, of course. Rúben was just checking his notifications when he saw a face that looked familiar. And after clicking on the profile, he saw that it belonged to his neighbour that kept interrupting his photoshoots in the morning. It was a private account, should he request to follow you? Sure, he had nothing to lose, did he? Worst case scenario, he'd have to start walking down the stairs. He could always use the exercise.
After accepting his request, you hoped to find him in the lift the following day but...he wasn't there. Of course, three days in a row would be too much of a coincidence but you couldn't lie and say you weren't at least a bit disappointed.
And so was Rúben. He almost thought about talking to you on Instagram but that would have been too much, right? You barely knew each other. He did check your account to see if you had posted something about that day. Maybe it was your day off? It said on your profile that you were a professor but he wasn't sure what your work schedule would look like.
