how it goes.”
“Fair enough.”
I turned my laptop so we could both see it. “It seems to work best if we take turns asking the questions. But we both need to answer each one. Do you want to start?”
She nodded took a deep breath. “First question. What is your favorite holiday, and why?”
“Christmas, because I like getting presents. I like giving them, too.”
“Very deep, Corban. I feel like I know so much about you now,” she deadpanned.
“Just answer the question.”
Her mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. “Halloween, because ever since high school, my friend Nora has picked matching costumes for us. She dresses me up and I get to pretend to be someone, or something, else.”
“Why do you want to be someone else?”
She glanced at the screen. “That’s not the next question.”
“I know. I’m just asking because I’m curious.”
It took her a moment to answer. “I suppose because it’s fun to pretend. I’m different from my friends, but when we’re all dressed like cats, or witches, or zombie prom queens, I feel very included. Which, when I think about it, is an odd sentiment, because they never make me feel excluded.”
“Zombie prom queens?”
“Nora does an excellent job with her costuming.”
God, she was so cute. “Okay, next question. What career aspirations did you have when you were a child?”
“My mother was a school librarian, so for a long time, I thought I’d do that.”
Hot librarian indeed. Even hotter when she wasn’t angry. Although she was hot when she was angry, too.
I looked at the screen so I’d focus on the question, instead of how good her boobs had looked with her shirt partially open. “When I was five or six, I wanted to be a race car driver or a firefighter. But when I got a little older, I wanted to be an astronomer.”
“And now you’re a data analyst and psych researcher.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point I stopped looking at the sky and started looking at the people around me.”
“People are so fascinating.” She leaned forward and her voice was passionate. “So perplexing, and yet so many human behaviors follow discernible patterns.”
“Exactly. You can even see it in the data. You’d think distilling human behavior into numbers would take the humanity out of it, but it’s the opposite. When you realize there are things you can predict if you understand the patterns, everything gets more interesting.”
“Yes, I know. When I was an undergrad, I came across a meta-analysis on the psychology of friendship formation and I couldn’t believe how much the data supported my own casual observations and experiences.”
We blinked at each other, the air still buzzing with our shared excitement. Almost simultaneously, we both adjusted our glasses—again—and looked away.
I suddenly wondered if this was the worst idea I’d ever had. Even worse than fucking Hazel in the copy room at work. Although, to be fair, that hadn’t been an idea as much as following a primal instinct and letting my inner sex beast take over. But we were only on question two, and this was already getting a little intense.
I’d done this before. I knew these questions inside and out. But answering them, especially the early ones, had never felt like this. It was like walking into a maze I’d thought I’d solved—the route to the exit memorized—and realizing all the walls had moved.
But it was too late to go back now. Wherever this led, I was committed.
22
Hazel
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie
This wasn’t going to work.
I’d already decided before even catching a glimpse of Corban’s questionnaire. Oh, I was answering his questions. I was even being honest. But it wasn’t going to create, or accelerate, intimacy between us. And it certainly wasn’t going to make me fall in love with him.
Fifteen questions in—halfway through—and I was holding strong.
Mostly.
The initial questions had led us to discuss things like our most prized possession, our fears, or lack thereof, when it came to public speaking, and whether or not we liked spoilers when we watched movies or TV shows. Incidentally, we agreed that the thrill of discovery was worth the anxiety of not knowing the ending, even when the storyline was dramatic or tense.
I could sense the methodology behind the questionnaire. Some were easy to answer: What do you find relaxing? I’d answered baking; he said rock climbing. Seemingly innocuous tidbits of information