"I'm not in a hurry to get back. Actually," he leaned toward me.
Oh my God, Tucker Mills is going to kiss me. It was like every childhood fantasy coming true. Expect better. Because if possible, Tucker was more of a stud now than he had been in school.
But instead of kissing me, he pulled out two beers from a bag that was beside mine on the floor. "You pointed out that we don't really even know each other." He handed me one of the beers. "How about we change that?"
I looked out the windshield at the snow falling. "Even your truck won't be able to make it through this soon."
"I live in the next neighborhood over. I can always walk."
I didn't want to protest. This was probably the best thing that had ever happened to me. "Okay." I twisted the cap on the beer off and tossed it at him.
He caught it with his free hand and smiled.
"I see you've still got it." I took a sip of my beer.
"Except I wasn't a wide receiver. I was a quarterback. So..."
"I heard about what happened with your knee. Tucker, I'm really sorry."
He sighed. "Wow, that seems like a million years ago. Honestly, I don't think I ever really wanted to go pro anyway. I like what I do now. And what about you? What do you do?" He opened up his beer and took a sip.
"I work at the Kennett Chronicle."
"Well, look at you. A hot shot writer."
I laughed. "I'm far from a hot shot. Most of my stories don't even make it to print."
"What was your last one about?"
"It was about this nerdy girl who had a huge crush on the most popular guy in her class." I quickly took another sip of beer. Did I really just say that out loud? I was already nervous around him. Maybe I shouldn't be drinking on top of that.
He laughed. "That's very cliché, you know. You probably should have written about how the popular guy had a crush on the nerdy girl, and how he was too stupid to do anything about it at the time. Maybe then your story would have been picked up."
I laughed. "Yeah, and maybe it could have been about how the girl gets a makeover and suddenly turns beautiful? Maybe there could be some kind of weird bet about making her prom queen or something too?"
"Do you like making things cliché? You have it all wrong. The girl wouldn't need a makeover. She was beautiful the whole time."
"Right. There's a reason why no one writes about that. It doesn't happen."
He shrugged. "Did you really have a crush on me?"
I could feel my face turning red. "No. I mean, yes." God. "Obviously. I mean, look at you."
"Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"Are you kidding me? I'm not...you're not...I mean, you were dating Cynthia like all of high school."
"Cynthia." He laughed. "God, Cynthia was the worst."
"I never really got why you were with her. You always seemed like such a nice guy. And she was so..."
"Cold? Yeah. She was such a bitch."
I laughed. "Yeah. She was." I had always stared at them, wondering why on earth he was with her instead of me. In my juvenile mind I had convinced myself that we would have been the perfect couple.
"I can't believe that you had a crush on me."
"Of course you can. Every girl in our class had a crush on you."