Serena had never come face-to-face with such grief. “She sounds like she was an amazing mother.”
“She was.” But it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “What about your family? You said you’re an only child, right?”
“It’s always been just me and my mom.” She wasn’t telling him anything he couldn’t have read online if he wanted to look her up, but it still wasn’t easy to admit, “I never met my father.”
“That sucks.”
She looked up at Sean, surprised by his bluntness. But somehow, it helped settle her down a bit. “Yeah, it does. But I’ve never known anything else.”
“Must have been hard for your mom to let her only kid go away to school.”
“You have no idea.” Her mouth felt so dry that she picked up her Coke and gulped down half the bottle.
Soda was another thing she’d very rarely had due to the empty calories and potential bloating from the sodium and carbonation. But as she licked her lips to savor every last drop…wow, all those bubbles and sugar and caffeine tasted so good. No wonder people got addicted to it.
Sean had already eaten half his slice by the time she took her first bite. And when the mingling tastes of the pepperoni and mushrooms and onions and peppers and sauce and cheese all hit her tongue at once, she couldn’t keep her eyes from closing or a low moan of pleasure from leaving her throat.
“Good?”
Sean was clearly amused, but she didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed, not when this pizza was the very best thing she’d eaten in her whole life. Ever.
“So good,” she managed to get out between bites as she concentrated her entire being on her meal for a few minutes. Each new taste was as big a revelation as the one that came before it, and washing it down with Coke felt so deliciously sinful. In fact, it took several minutes for her to resurface and remember that she was sitting in a pizza joint with a gorgeous guy from school. Who just happened to be grinning at her.
“I take it you agree that it’s the best pizza on the West Coast?”
“I’ve never eaten pizza anywhere else, but it’s so amazing I’m sure you’re right.”
His eyebrows went up. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”
She was momentarily confused. “About what?”
“You’ve never eaten pizza before?”
Ugh, her and her stupid mouth. Between feeling increasingly comfortable talking with Sean and the food coma she was quickly slipping into, she’d said more than she should have.
Knowing there was no point in trying to laugh off her comment, she simply said, “My life has been pretty weird up until now. I haven’t done a lot of normal stuff. Especially,” she added, “when it comes to junk food. It’s not exactly true that I’ve never eaten pizza before, just that I was really little the last time I did. My mom would freak out if she saw this.”
“You mean because of your modeling career?”
Serena nodded, hoping he would drop it. She didn’t want to talk about her mom or the career she’d left behind. Not when, for a few precious moments, she’d actually managed to forget all about them.
“So,” he said as he toed her bag on the floor and it didn’t budge, “what’s in all the books you’ve got crammed into this bag?”
Relieved that he’d decided to change subjects, she said, “Nearly everything ever written about the Brontë sisters and their books. I’m in love with the way they use language, with how their books can make people feel so much, from hope to despair, laughter and tears.” On a roll, she told him, “I love that I can learn almost anything from a book—how to build a boat, or speak a new language, or probably even fly a plane. I even love the way books smell. If I were locked inside a library or a bookstore for weeks on end, I’m certain that I would never run out of interesting things to discover.”
She finally realized she was rambling, but fortunately he didn’t look like he minded and his eyes weren’t glazing over.
“Do you want to write?”
“Maybe. Or teach. Or study the origins of language. Or work in a library. Or—” She cut herself off before she went zooming again. “That’s why I’m so excited to be at Stanford. Everything seems possible.”
“Most people would have thought you already had everything.”
She didn’t want to sound ungrateful for her success. And since she still didn’t know him well enough to know if she could totally trust him, she simply said, “My career was great. I worked with a lot of wonderful people.”
“But you didn’t get to live in a library all day.”
Again, he surprised her with how quickly he boiled everything down to the heart of the matter. And how well he understood what she was feeling without her having to say much at all.
“No, I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time in libraries. But now I do.” Which reminded her… “I should actually be heading back to campus. I have a lot of reading to get through tonight.”
“On a Friday night?”
“I’ve agreed to help one of my professors with some new class material he’s working on, so my load has gotten a little heavier.” As they stood up and he slung both their bags over his broad shoulders, she said, “Thank you for the pizza. It was great.”
“You’re not done with me yet,” he said with a grin. “We’ve still got to make the walk back to your dorm.”
“Actually, I think I’ll head to the library to work there until it closes.” Just as she had every Friday night since she’d been on campus.
“Something tells me,” he said as they headed out onto the sidewalk and started walking back toward campus, “that hanging out with you would be good for my GPA.”
“What’s your major?”
“Baseball.” He laughed. “With a degree in Economics on the side.”
“As you might have already guessed, I’ve heard a few things about how great you are at baseball. Are you really going to go pro at the end of this year?”
“I could.” He didn’t say anything else for a little while, and she let him take the time to get his thoughts together. “But—” When he turned to look at her, his eyes were even darker than usual. “—my mom was pretty big on all of us getting a college degree. I can’t help but think if I go pro before graduating, and maybe don’t end up coming back to finish one day, that she’d be disappointed.”