“Uh-huh. If you need a little Spanish tutoring, hit me up.”
“You speak Spanish?” I ask doubtfully.
“You think I’m a meathead, don’t you?” He gives me a satisfied smile, like he finds this pleasing.
“I don’t think about you, period.”
“Right. Except all night long at work when you glare at me, roll your eyes, and stare at my arms.”
I scoff. “No wonder you’re always so cheerful, you live in an alternate reality.”
There’s a beat of silence. “I’m not always cheerful.”
“Um, okay,” I say, not sure what to make of that.
He clears his throat. “So tell me about this grad school thing in Spain.”
“It’s not actually a grad program, but I’m not going for the degree anyway. I’m going for the life.”
Reeve nods. “Yeah, I can see that, especially for you.” His words are surprisingly gratifying. It’s the first time anyone has heard my plans and not felt the need to share all the reasons I shouldn’t do it. “You’ll end up falling in love with some rich foreigner and living your weird, artsy lifestyle in Paris or some shit.”
“You can stop right there. Falling in love is the last thing I want to do.”
“Finally something we have in common.”
“Yeah, I’m not about that. I’m about being free and trying something new. How bad can it be? Even if the art thing doesn’t work out, at least I’ve gotten out of here and lived.”
He’s silent for a moment. “I always thought it would be cool to live abroad. Not gonna happen for me, though.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. If I played football on any other continent, I’d be playing soccer.”
“You don’t have to play football,” I point out.
“Football is my life.” He stares straight ahead. “Nothing else matters.”
“I know you love it and all, but isn’t it pretty stupid to base your entire life around a sport where one little snap of bone could end your whole career?”
His head swivels toward me. “Damn, you’re brutal. How are you going to come right out and say something like that?”
“Like you’ve never thought about it.”
“I’ve thought about how it’ll never happen; not to me.”
“Fine. Be shortsighted. I just think you could be good at plenty of other things.”
“Yeah, right.” He hesitates. “Like what?”
“Teaching. If you could stop yourself before telling your students how much smarter you were expecting them to be, you could be a good teacher.”
“But do teachers have people calling their names and asking for autographs when they walk down the street?”
“That’s your main motivation for choosing a career? That’s even more pathetic than being in it for the money.”
“Oh, right.” He laughs. “Like you can’t fathom the idea of being an attention whore.”
“Iknowyou didn’t just use the wordwhoreto describe me.”
