Sully smiled, thick dimples in his hollow cheeks, the soft grin pushing up little laugh lines around his eyes, making Dean realize he must have been older than he looked.“You’re probably right,” he sighed, growing comfortable in his chair as it creaked beneath his long, sinewy body.“But ...you never answered my question.”
Dean’s brow furrowed.With all those hard edges and lean angles to admire, talking to Sully was a lot harder than looking at him.“Which one now?”
Sully snorted, creaking gently from side to side as if he’d grown impatient with their current line of questioning.“About why you want to go so bad.To Gravel Gulch, I mean.”
Dean put his beer bottle down and fixed Sully with a studious grin.“Well, if you’d read any of the impassioned pleas I’d sent to your website, you’d know I’m a graduate student who—”
“Bullshit!”
Dean paused.“Which part?”
“Graduate student my ass,” Sully huffed, waving his beer bottle toward Dean’s crotch.“I checked your ID.You only just now turned 21.”
Dean blushed quietly.“Yeah, well, high school wasn’t much fun for me so I kind of, uh, accelerated my studies and graduated ahead of schedule.”
“Why?”
“Why?”Dean huffed.“To get out of high school two years early, that’s why.”
Sully softened, shaking his head so that his faded ball cap glowed a soft neon red from theLucky Sudslight overhead.Their eyes met and he paused before explaining, “No, I get that.I mean, why wasn’t high school fun for you?”
“Have you seen me?”
Sully used the opportunity to give Dean a good once over, making him squirm where he sat.“Yeah, and?”
“I mean, not exactly Big Man on Campus material, you know?”
Sully cocked his head so that his jawline on one side became more prominent.“No one tried to stop you?Friends?Girlfriend?Parents?Counselors?”
“Why would they?”
Sully shrugged.“Lots of learning happens outside of the classroom,” he said in a low, slow grumble, as if auditioning to be the nextLucky Sudsspokesperson.“Lots of fun, too.”
Dean glanced down at his beer, surprised to find himself picking at the label nervously.“Hardly anyone noticed, actually,” he said, peering at the little pile of label scrapings he’d already made, almost subconsciously.“One of my counselors tried to warn me, about missing out on my high school experience, but...”
“But what?”
“Butmyexperience of high school?”Dean croaked, hardly believing he was spilling his guts to some honky-tonk hunk in the middle of the day, a cheap beer in his hand and country music warbling just overhead.“Was something I couldn’t wait to miss out on.”
