“We both went to an Ivy League college?”
“Looks that way.”
“What did you go for?” she asked, grabbing his hand. “Oh, wait, if it was expected you’d be a doctor then it’d have to be science based. Biology?”
“Ding, ding, ding,” he said.
“Now more things make sense.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“You just seem so smart. I mean, I know you’re smart, but you seemed more than that. Brainy, I guess. Knowledgeable about so many things. I figured it’s because you talk to so many people and just absorb things, but the truth is youarebrainy.”
“Can I confess something to you?” he asked.
“I’d love that.”
Her smile just made his heart pound faster than Thumper’s feet. Was this what he’d been missing in his life? From his personal life and any type of relationship with a woman? Someone he could sit and talk to?
He thought he’d never know what genuine love was until Jonah’s tiny fingers wrapped around his thumb.
“I was often called Brainy Dean.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I wouldn’t like that. My father called me all sorts of things and none of them were a compliment.”
“I don’t think Brainy Dean is a compliment.”
“I wouldn’t be insulted if people said that to me. I’m smart and they knew it. I knew it. I liked knowing that I was good at something.”
He frowned. “You’re good at a lot of things.”
“It’s hard to think that when you can’t catch a ball, no one laughs at your jokes, you can barely find clothes that fit you, that are too short or too baggy half the time, you wear thick glasses and have braces. I’m quirky. I didn’t mind being told that. But the other things, it was hurtful.”
He pulled her close to him, tucking her under his shoulder.
Times like this, when she opened up. It was another side he never saw coming.
“I bet no one says those things to you now.”
She laughed. “No one in my family does anymore. My mother, she can’t get out of her own way. I think she just went along with everyone else and now she’s just critical. Not mean, just nothing I do is right to her. At my age, she thought I’d be married with kids too. Like that is the life plan every thirty-year-old should strive for.”
He wasn’t sure why this hadn’t popped into his head before. “Do you want kids?”
“I’d like to have kids, but I want to find the right person to have them with first.”
“I never thought I’d have kids.”
“What? Really?”
“And I’ve never said that out loud before. I think I just didn’t have that great a relationship with my family. I’m not close with Willow. She’s ten years younger than me. Most families have drama so I won’t bore you with it. Then when I started at Pulse, I was like, it’s hard to have a life outside of this.”
“But you are making that happen.”
He snorted. “Not that great. It’s why I’ve been single. For years it was difficult to have any kind of relationship with the hours that I work.”
“Why not look somewhere else for another job? One that might be more flexible with time?”
His nose twitched. It’s where things got tricky.
