Oh my God.“With like…you and man parts?”
“Cadavers? We only used those once, if I recall correctly. Or maybe twice. It was a really long time ago.”
“Ew. What? Really?”Is he serious?! Cadavers?
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“No. I’m pretty sure my biology teacher would have ended up in prison if he’d made us dissect a human cadaver. Now quit tryingto distract me from the fact that you hooked up with dudes in high school.”
Tanner nearly choked again. “Whoa, who said anything about me hooking up with dudes?”
“You did. Literally two seconds ago. I asked if you experimented, and you said yes.”
He looked confused. And then something clicked. “Oh…you thought…” he laughed. “Definitely not. Your modern lingo is weird. You really think I would have screwed around with guys in high school? That would have gotten me a date with the executioner.”
“That seems extreme.”
“It was a different time back then.” He coughed. “In the…90s.”
“You went to high school in the 90s?”What the hell? That would make him like 45 years old! Or had he been some weird genius baby?
“No?” It looked like he was doing fast math in his head. “No. Stop trying to sneak in extra questions. You wanted to know about my high school crush, so I’ll tell you about her. Her name was Sapphire. She didn’t go to my school, of course, but whenever I got a chance I’d slip away from school to go meet her down by the river. I’d bring her scraps from lunch and teach her how to read.”
I laughed. But when I realized that Tanner was totally serious I turned it into a cough.What kind of backwards place did he grow up?
“We were going to run away together once I got enough money, but my parents didn’t approve.”
“So your parents forced you two apart?”
He looked off into the distance, his eyes starting to water a bit. “You could say that.”
“I’m sorry.” I wanted to reach across his desk and give him a big hug. I’d never seen him look so sad. But he had a bad habit of running away every time I touched him. And the last thing I wanted was for him to leave. If he wanted a hug, he’d come to me. I shifted in my chair to put my hands beneath my thighs, so I wouldn’t be tempted.
He forced a smile. “What about you? Who was your boyfriend in high school?”
“Boyfriend? Ha. Good one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say that for my high school superlative, I won quietest.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s literally the worst superlative. They might as well have voted me biggest nobody. And anyway, I should have won best hair. Some girl with a pixie cut won it instead of me. A pixie cut!”
“Well that’s ridiculous. Your hair is amazing. But I don’t think being quietest means that you were a nobody. If you were a nobody, no one would have even known your name to vote for you.”
Huh.He did kind of have a point. I’d never really thought of it that way. But I still hated it. “I guess.”
“So no boyfriends?”
“Nope.”
“The boys in your high school must have had exceptionally bad taste.”
I could feel my cheeks flushing. “I dunno…you haven’t seen any pictures of me in high school.”
“Sure I have. My PI was very thorough with his report.”
