I looked at the cake. "Am I competing with the whiskey sour too?"
"The whiskey sour and I are still getting to know each other."
That pulled a laugh out of me before I could stop it.
The sound seemed to surprise him as much as it did me.
For a few moments, conversation came easily. Easier than I expected.
I told him that his first legal drink looked considerably more respectable than mine had.
"Should I be worried?"
"Depends."
"On?"
"Whether you think blue is a natural color for alcohol."
His laugh came quickly and without reservation, warming something inside me that had felt tight for weeks. Maybe months.
Kieran shook his head. "Christmas gets weirder every year."
"You sound like someone who's already done with the holidays."
"I'm an education major. Do you know how many glitter-covered Christmas projects I graded during my field placement?"
I smiled. "No."
"A lot."
The way he said it made me laugh.
"Elementary?"
Kieran shook his head again. "Early Childhood Education."
"What made you choose that?"
For the first time since I'd sat down, something softened in his expression.
"I like kids."
A few seconds later, he added, "They deserve people who show up for them. Good teachers can make a bigger difference than most people realize."
The conviction in his voice caught me off guard.
Most twenty-one-year-olds talked about careers in terms of money, opportunities, or stability. Kieran talked about children.
"What about you?" he asked.
There it was. The question I usually dreaded. Once people learned what I did for a living, it usually became the only thing they wanted to talk about.
"I play hockey."
His head tilted slightly. "Hockey?" I nodded. "Like professionally?"
The question was so casual that I almost laughed. Almost.
