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"I’m a computer programmer," I explained, taking my clipboard from the box.
"Holy shit." His eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
"Yes, really."
"You’re a nerd?"
My pen hovered over my clipboard and I gave him a hard look. "Thank you, Adam."
"No, no, don’t get me wrong." Adam held up his hands in surrender. "It’s a compliment. You’re in the sciences. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you did…nerd shit." An apologetic smile crossed his lips, and I wondered for a brief moment if he didn’t know how to treat this conversation as much as I did. He cleared his throat. "And you’re doing sex ed classes because…?"
"Why do you want to know?"
18
Piper
The Lanky Boy In The Kitchen
For a moment, Adam didn’t say anything. The cocky layer to his words was gone, and without it, he was a little more hesitant. A little more cautious.
"I think…Coach Lawson is going to ask me about you," he said softly.
Oh. Of course.
The more he knew about me, the more he could prove to his coach that the program was going swimmingly. It made sense. I guess I just hadn’t thought about it like that.
"My school’s paid for, even when I transferred." I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked around to the front of the desk, thinking about my phone, which was mercifully turned off in my back pocket. "My scholarships always cover everything. But…I never had the whole college experience. The actual college experience." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "I don’t know if you know but Thomas and I…we were together in high school…"
"I know that."
The past memories, threatening to bubble up, stopped in their tracks. "I thought you said you didn’t know we were together?"
"Sorry." He flashed me an apologetic smile. "I mean—we met at a high school party. So I put two and two together."
"You and…Thomas?"
"You and I."
The soft way he said ‘you and I’ made butterflies flutter in my stomach, but I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I didn’t meet Adam Russell before college.
"Adam, I met you…um…" I wracked my brain, trying to think of the earliest memory of Adam. "I met you at the KYU pool party. The one where you lost your shorts on the waterslide."
I thought he would have laughed, but he pushed past it. "No, Piper. We didn’t meet there."
"Yes, we did?"
"I met you at a high school party when we were sophomores." His voice lowered. "It was at Sullender’s parents’ house. There was a cotton candy machine outside that you tried to fix, but it kept smoking." He paused. "You were wearing this pink dress with a big skirt and these heels you must’ve just been breaking in. You kept wobbling in the kitchen. I tried to convince you to trade shoes with me, and you told me next time you’d consider it."
What?
My mouth fell open. I was stunned into silence.
He’s right.
The pink dress my aunt bought me from a vintage marketplace, the cotton candy machine that we tossed out a few weeks later, and those heels—I hated those heels. And those parties—good god. They were so much work, just for me to fade into the background when Thomas took center stage.
I’d wanted to sit down for a second with how much those heels hurt, but that was only part of the reason why I hurried to the kitchen. The anxiety crept up on me from all those people filling up the house.
