Chapter 9: First Warning
Alex sat on the edge of his bed, one leg was swinging lazily while the other was tucked under. His notebook lay open beside him, filled with notes scribbled halfway through the week. Notes about pricing, urgency, persuasion, and oddly, how to judge a customer's mood by the way they touch tomatoes.
He chuckled.
Spending the week with Raymond had been... interesting. Way more than he expected. He thought he'd just be shadowing him, maybe learning how to pitch or something. But instead, Raymond had taken him deep, like deep into the market.
Literally.
Alex had learned more in five days than he had in months of YouTube tutorials, both from standing in open stalls with paper and pen and watching Raymond close three sales in under five minutes. This he did while joking and hustling like it was the most natural thing in the world
Still, it had been a week. His feet hurt. His clothes smelled permanently like crayfish. And he wasn't sure if the lady who kept calling him "small fine boy" was flirting or trying to sell him something.
Just then, Emma poked her head into the room.
"Yo, Mr. Entrepreneur," she said while leaning on the doorframe with a smirk. "You gonna tell me what all this Raymond business is about or what? Are you being paid or are you just his personal market escort?"
Alex rolled his eyes and laughed. "Market escort you say, I do those market surveys alone. But seriously, at this point, I feel like I should be the one paying him. I've learned more about life this week than in my entire life."
Emma laughed and walked in. She lay on the other end of the bed. "So basically, you're in a mentorship-slash-manual labor situation. Good to know."
"Character building," Alex said and raised a brow while smiling. "Also, you wouldn't believe how many deals go down over vegetables. It's wild."