“Yeah. I’ll drive back early tomorrow.”
“Was your dad happy to see you this time?”
“He’s always happy to see me. He’s buttering me up so I’ll come work for him.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that without sounding like a dick, so I’ll keep quiet.”
Lauren leaned her head back. “I have a question that might make me sound like one, but I’ve been wondering about it for a while.”
Andrew chuckled. “Nothing could make you sound like a dick. What is it?”
Lauren wasn’t so sure. “Well, when you mentioned Alva, I remembered something she said at Thanksgiving. About your ex-girlfriend wanting you only for your money.”
“Are you asking if I’m rich?”
“No. I couldn’t care less about that.”
“I know you don’t. You’re asking about my ex, then?”
“Was she talking about Caroline?”
“Probably. I never asked more about it, but I don’t think it’s true. I mean, my dad’s farm does well, and as an attorney I’ll make a decent living, but nothing over the top. Caroline was far from perfect, but I don’t think she was a gold digger. None of my sisters ever liked her, so I’m sure they were just being catty and Alva overhead.”
“Gotta be careful around kids,” Lauren said. She’d picked up on that fact quickly, during her time at Children’s. “How long were you together?”
“Six months. We broke up a month before I met you. I should have known it wouldn’t work, with the way my sisters felt about her. Caroline disliked them as much as they disliked her, which was the main reason we broke up. I realized I didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t get along with them.”
“I can’t imagine someone not liking your family.”
“And that’s one of the many reasons I like you so much.”
Lauren smiled widely, thankful that he couldn’t see her and she didn’t have to hide her emotions. Maybe they should restrict their interactions to phone only until his fourth cycle was over, at which point she could jump on him and kiss him all over.
“Curiosity compels me to ask if you’ve been in a lot of relationships,” she said.
“Only one other that was serious. We dated for a year in undergrad, but went our separate ways, as usually happens with college romances.”
Lauren snorted, and Andrew paused. “What was that?”
Lauren scrunched up her nose. “I just…had a bad experience in college. Saying Will and I went our separate ways would be putting it nicely.”
There was a beat of silence. “Something tells me I’ll want to kick someone’s ass if I say this, but I’m going to need more information.”
Lauren flopped onto the bed on her back, looking up at the ceiling. “There was this guy I met in undergrad, Will Gearhart—”
“Hold up. Did you say Will Gearhart? Like, pro football player Will Gearhart?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone’s heard of him. Six years ago he was the first round NFL draft pick. He’s on my fantasy team.”
“Yeah.” Lauren was unimpressed with those stats. Will’s success on the field was no concern of hers. “Anyway. He was kind of an unusual college athlete…his major was Biochemistry. He said he wanted to be a doctor if football didn’t work out.
“He and I shared several upper level science courses our junior year. I knew who he was, of course. He was KU’s star quarterback and generally recognized by all females as the hottest guy to ever grace the halls of campus. We ran in completely different crowds, and he didn’t know me from Eve. But one day, about a third of the way through the semester, I walked into the organic chemistry lab we shared, and there he was, waiting at my table.
“He told me my partner had dropped the class, and that he asked the professor if he could switch partners to be with me. Said he noticed me on the first day and had been waiting for an excuse to talk to me.
“I was so flattered, it didn’t occur to me to be skeptical of his motives. He was smooth as butter. He said nice things to me, made me laugh, touched me in—”