Page 111 of Made Better Together

“I know. It’s not fair to make you do that long round trip every time, though.”

He gives me a peck on the cheek. “I don’t mind.”

I’d mentioned to Connor that I would have to leave early tomorrow to work on a paper for my Advanced Sociology class. Accurate. But also, in case we had the dom-sub conversation and it went south, I’d have an easy exit strategy.

Stop dwelling on that. Enjoy the actual date.

He leads me to his car, and we get on the road. It’s a quick trip, eight minutes.

“So how did you get interested in art history?” I ask after he’s done setting up the GPS.

He taps the steering wheel with his fingers. “You know how, hundreds of years ago, many of the great scientists were also artists? Or how artists studied math and anatomy to guide their designs?”

Now I do, after weeks in my class. “Yep.”

“I read a huge art history book that Grace had in her room one summer. Leonardo da Vinci is probably the most famous example, right? His dissections to study anatomy, and all that. I became intrigued at how science and art overlapped and went down a rabbit hole for a bit.”

“How old were you?”

He smirks. “Fifteen. I wasn’t the cool kid like Rawley.”

“Come on. Soccer star, smarty-pants Connor?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I was a beanpole at that age and took myself way too seriously to be the charming guy you know now.”

The thought of Connor as a teen has my mind wandering in a different direction. “Did you date in high school?”

He takes a couple seconds before responding, probably absorbing my change in topic. “Not at fifteen. I had a girlfriend senior year, at seventeen. We were as committed as high school dating gets.”

Okay, so… “You didn’t stay together because…”

“She got into the University of Michigan, and we didn’t want to do the long-distance thing. Then I dated someone at Princeton for a while. It didn’t work out and I haven’t seen anyone regularly in over three years.”

I bite my lip. This could be an opening to talk to him…

Before I can, he turns the tables. “How about you?”

“Similar story. I had my first steady boyfriend in my sophomore and junior years of high school. But lately, nothing. I haven’t dated anyone since Greg.”

“Our Independence Day inspiration last year?”

I giggle. “Exactly.”

We make it to the museum as soon as the word escapes my lips. Date time. Guess my question will have to wait.

“So there’s mainly American and contemporary art here,” Connor explains once we’re inside. “They have an African art collection as well, but it’s viewable by appointment only.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Contemporary. Let’s start at the American Art display and then end there.”

In the first room, most of the paintings capture telling moments of the country’s past—like exhausted-looking dock workers painted a century ago, or a woman crying in a small kitchen wearing 1950s-style clothing. The colors are largely muted, the scenes often wrenching.

“As much as some like to glorify the past, I’m glad we live in the present,” I whisper to Connor in front of the 1950s piece.

“That’s for certain.” He reaches over and brushes my back. “You want to stay in this area? It’s not the most upbeat environment for a date.”

“Let’s keep going for now. I mean, it’s interesting art. Plus maybe the mood will shift in the rest of the collection.”