made me want to open up, to spill my few secrets and give him all my credit card numbers. How did he do that?
“Sounds like you enjoyed teaching.”
“I did. Very much.”
“I’m glad. I’d be a terrible teacher. I’d never have the patience for it. I’d rather be in boot camp.”
“Does that mean you didn’t enjoy school?”
He appeared introspective for a moment. “I suppose I enjoyed it as much as I could. I mean, we moved around so often that I didn’t have a solid group of friends, so school wasn’t always my favorite place. But those times when I got on a team, a team for just about any sport, then I was happy. And I must say, I had a couple of teachers who went out of their way to help me a few times, and I still remember them. I have a ton of respect for teachers, and I probably owe an apology to a few of them. If my memory is accurate, I was an obnoxious teenager.”
“Some might argue that’s redundant,” I said. “But I’ve found, for the most part, that students want to learn, and if it seems otherwise, there’s probably a reason.”
Leo nodded with understanding. “So I guess the big question then is why did you stop teaching and run for mayor?”
That was a hard question to answer because sometimes I still wasn’t sure. I’m not a spontaneous person, so the compulsion to enter that race was sort of a personal mystery, but I gave Leo the most honest answer I could. “I guess after thirteen years of teaching I just needed a change, you know? I wanted to challenge myself while still helping out the community. Our principal isn’t going anywhere any time soon, so there weren’t a lot of career path options. And honestly, I didn’t really think I’d win.”
The conversation moved on to other things, and the twenty-minute boat ride seemed to pass in an instant. Before I knew it, we were walking into Stella’s Pizzeria. It was warm and smelled of fresh crust and melted cheese. My stomach rumbled so loudly that Leo burst out laughing. So much for being ladylike.
“Pizza choice says a lot about a person,” Leo stated as we stared up at the wall-size blackboard covered with menu choices.
“How so?”
“Well, plain cheese says you have no imagination and boring taste buds. Sausage, garlic, and onions indicate a selfish disregard for the people around you, because you don’t care about your breath.” He smiled over at me, as if gauging my interest. “Pineapple says you didn’t really want pizza in the first place, and meat lover’s says you’re a dumbass who thinks the rules of cardiac disease do not apply to you.”
I chuckled at his assumptions. “That all sounds very scientific. How about a veggie supreme?”
He rolled his eyes. “That says you’re on a diet and feel guilty about eating pizza, which is just going to ruin everyone’s evening.”
I liked veggie pizza but I sure wasn’t going to admit that now. “I see. So just out of curiosity, what kind of pizza do you usually get?”
“Me? I’m a purist. Pepperoni because, come on, what’s a pizza without pepperoni? And black olives because I’m exotic that way.” He laughed at his own humor, and I laughed along with him.
“Well, now I feel a lot of pressure to make the right decision because you’re going to analyze me. See, I like pepperoni but prefer green olives. What does that tell you?”
He pondered this for a millisecond. “Green olives. Hmm. It tells me you don’t care about feeling bloated with all that salt. I like a woman who doesn’t agonize over that.”
My hand went to my stomach, and I sucked in my gut out of pure reflex. “Well, I didn’t, but I will now.”
Leo laughed again. “How about we go crazy and get both black and green olives. I’m ready for an adventure like that.”
“Okay, but don’t judge me if this pizza doesn’t live up to your Chicago standards.”
Leo placed our order and got us a couple of beers to drink while we waited. Speaking of bloating. Nothing said I don’t feel sexy right now like the aftermath of having pizza and beer—not that I had plans for trying to look sexy later, but in the rare event that I had hoped to look sexy, the pizza-beer combo was probably going to ruin it. Plus, I should have suggested someplace nicer, more, dare I say—romantic? But the time constraint had thrown me,