“Are you up for it? Because, Keegan, if you do want to bail, I—”
“No. I really understand why you’re doing this, and it’s a good thing. Feels like I’m doing something much more important than I typically do in my life.”
“I’m glad you see it that way, because this is a cause that means a lot to me and to the citizens of Parlaisa.”
He still hadn’t discussed anything all that personal with me, particularly about his private life and those things I’d discovered about him in Google searches, so there were still elements of his world and past I was waiting to hear from him.
“If you have a minute, I have a few questions I’d like to go ahead and ask you,” he went on. “But you are with your friends at the moment, so I don’t want to take up your time.”
“No, we’re just chilling around the apartment, which we would be doing twenty-four seven anyway.”
“Okay, just some quick things to kind of give me an idea of what we can prep for the interview questions.”
“That makes total sense. You know, I’ve done some plays and stuff, so I’m good at learning lines.”
“Well, that’s good to know. What plays have you done?”
“Senior year of high school, I was John Proctor inThe Crucible, and then I did some plays last year in our college program. No major parts, mainly side characters.”
“Any musicals?”
“Nah, I can’t sing at all.”
“Can’t sing.”
The way he said that made me ask, “Are you writing that down?”
“No, I’m just kidding,” Owen said, which got me laughing.
“I like your laugh,” Owen said. “It’s very pleasant to the ear.”
“Is that something you’re rehearsing to say?”
“No, I meant that. You have a very lovely laugh. I even noticed it despite everything that was happening. You have this one you do when you’re uncomfortable, and your face is really red. It’s adorable. That’ll be a good thing to have come up during the interviews, I guess.”
I laughed again.
“Yeah, that’s the laugh,” he teased.
“If you’re trying to embarrass me, that’s a very easy thing to do.”
“Don’t make it so adorable, and I’ll do it less.”
His words were a challenge, but at the same time, seemingly a compliment.
“So, aside from everything on your Facebook page—”
“You’ve Facebook-stalked me?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No, I guess… I mean, I do that with everybody. Of course, you don’t exactly have a normal Facebook profile, just that page that of course I tried to stalk, but it only has regular images, not really anything all that personal.”
“Most of my personal stuff is easily found through a Google search, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“Yeah, I have.”
“So you know quite a bit more about me now.”
