schedule, and,” I give him a self-deprecating grin, “my grades at school have never been better.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
The smile slips from my face. “Easy?” Of all the adjectives I’d use to describe the last ten months of my life, easy is not one of them – not even close. Painful, lonely, demanding, anxiety-ridden. Fuck easy.
“Your dad sounds like a pretty smart guy,” he muses, not noticing my discontent.
My ire retreats slightly at his faraway look. “Yeah, my dad’s great.” I want to forget the whole easy comment and the bitter taste it’s left in my mouth, so I push the conversation further forward into new territory. “How about your dad?”
His sudden, bitter laugh catches me off guard. “My dad? I don’t have one. Well, I’m sure I have a sperm donor somewhere, but I don’t know anything about him.”
I blink up into the anger on his face. “Oh.” I try to process that in the context of my life and fail. Without my dad, I’d probably be living in a ditch somewhere. “I’m sorry.” It comes out almost as a question.
“Don’t be. My grandmother’s always said it’s for the best. If he’d been around, he might have made me into a different kind of man.” Our eyes meet and I can clearly see he’s not as convinced as he’s letting on. “Not that I’m a saint or anything, but what kind of a guy sticks his dick into an eighteen year old girl without a condom and then disappears.” He shakes his head with disgust. “All my mom knew about him was his name, the one she gave to me.”
After a moment of hesitation, I push his shoulder playfully, hoping to lighten his quickly darkening mood. “That explains the big mystery. Your mom is straight-up Latina, and you . . . are not.”
“You think?” he huffs. “My whole life, I’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. I’ve always been too tall, too blond, too white.”
My brows quirk. “I . . . yeah, okay, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that sentence before.”
“Do I sound like a whiny bitch, or what?” he says with irony. “I guess, I just wish I could have blended in with my family and friends a bit more when I was growing up.”
“And now? Have you finally out-grown your awkward phase?”
“Opal, are you mocking my childhood trauma?”
“Possibly. But I seem to recall very little empathy for my poor little Catholic school girl routine. Anyway, you should be looking at it like you’re getting the best of both worlds. Not something to be crying over.”
“You and your optimism are pretty annoying, you know that?”
I give him an exaggerated smile and he rewards me with a chuckle as he concedes my point. “Fine. Being seen as white certainly hasn’t hurt me at work anyway.”
Surprised again, I can’t help but tease him some more. “Have you been trading on your looks, Scott? You’re not sleeping with your boss to advance your career, are you?”
“What? No!” It takes only a few seconds for his indignation to fade and his voice to take on a dry tone. “I don’t think I’m Dean’s type anyway.”
“But you think Dean’s been doing you favors because of the color of your skin?”
“No. Yeah. No, I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I’m good at my job, but . . .”
He looks . . . vulnerable, not to mention uncomfortable with the turn this conversation has taken, so I back away from the joking around. “If you want my two cents, I think appearances can only take a person so far. You must be doing something right.”
“I guess.” He pushes out a breath and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hanging his head. “I’ve never told anyone before,” he confesses. “That maybe I don’t deserve the job I have.”
“Well, if you put half as much effort into your job as you do your family, I think this Dean guy’s getting a pretty good deal.”
He glances up and I can’t believe the mix of hope and uncertainty in his expression. “You think?”
I nod. “Unless you’ve been screwing up?”
He shakes his head. “Not lately.”
“Lipping off to clients?”
He laughs. “No.”
“Harassing other employees?”
Having caught on to my game, he rolls his eyes, but he’s unable to repress a smile. “Well, when you put it like that . . . thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Secretly thrilled he seems to value my input, I just waggle my eyebrows at him. “Sister Opal knows what she’s talking