“Oh,” she says, her voice soft and breathy. And Christ, I really wish we were having this conversation anywhere but on the road. At the same time, the need to focus on traffic is making it easier to be honest with her.
She clears her throat. “So, anyway, you asked me to go to one of your shows?—”
“No, I wouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, sometimes you go anyway, with Hannah and Sophie. It wouldn’t be much of a date, and you already know performing makes me nervous.”
“All kinds of performing?”
I shoot her an incredulous look. Is she…
Could she be asking me if my dick works?
She must realize what that sounded like too, because she starts laughing. “I mean, like…speeches. You know, for work.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll have to try my new NPC trick if the Nikola people like me.”
“Did you make a speech when you got your honorary PhD?”
I dart another sharp glance at her. “Were you snooping?”
It’s an accusatory question, but I’m mostly amused. I hadn’t thought she’d be interested enough to poke around. Otherwise, I would have left some fun surprises for her.
“How do you know I wasn’t just grabbing another roll of toilet paper? It was in the bathroom closet.”
“Good point.”
“Whywas it in the bathroom closet?”
“When I got that call from the dean, I felt like bugs were crawling across my skin. People shouldn’t get things like that if they didn’t put in the work. It wasn’t right.”
“You don’t like praise, do you?”
“Not if it isn’t earned. People devote years of their lives to earning doctorate degrees. I’m sure I could have earned one, but I chose not to, so I shouldn’t have one.”
I can feel her observing me. I glance over, our eyes meeting for half a second, and then she says, “So what you’re saying is that you have integrity. I’d like to praise you for that, but I have a feeling you’d object to that too.”
“You’re right.” I adjust my glasses. “Now, let’s change the subject and focus on the lie we’re about to tell two unsuspecting people.”
She laughs softly, without much humor. “So if you didn’t ask me to one of your shows, what did we do?”
“I wouldn’t want to choose something boring like a restaurant. That’s not much of a date either.” I churn the options over in my brain for a moment, as if it’s a scientific question worthy of research. “Let’s say we challenged each other to the Mountain High Marathon.”
“You know about that?” she asks, incredulous, which makes me laugh.
“Nora, I was unpopular. I wasn’t incapable of hearing.”
The Mountain High Marathon wasn’t a race in the traditional sense, but a challenge for high school seniors to complete before graduation?—
You were supposed to do it with a girl. Climb onto the high school’s roof in the middle of the night, take a selfie, and then watch the sun rise over the highest hill on campus, cleverly named Hi-Hill, before going to Waffle House. It wasn’t difficult. It was basically an excuse for people to make out.
“Did you do it?”she asks.
“I’d prefer not to implicate myself in a crime. You might get pissed off at me and turn me in.”
“Hey, if I didn’t narc on Nathaniel and his stock of homegrown drugs, I’m not about to narc on you for breaking school rules twelve years ago.”
