I sit my mug back down on the table in front of me. No matter how many times I blow before I take a sip, it's still too scolding to actually drink. I was doing it more to have something to busy myself with. To gather my thoughts before Taylor says anything else to me, since he obviously isn't leaving anytime soon. Not that he asked if I was okay with him staying. I'm not okay with it, but I'm not not okay with it. I watch him as he's sitting across from me, a large hand wrapped around that mug, the other arm slung up over the back of the booth. He's eyeing me like he wants something.

"So tell me about yourself Miss Quinn," Taylor says, breaking the silence.

"Why?" is how I picture myself responding, but it oddly comes out sounding more like, "Why would you want to know anything about me?"

"Well considering I spend more time with you than I usually do with girls, I think I could go off course a little. Would it be such a bad thing if I knew more about you besides your name?"His brows separate and raise upward on his forehead. I didn't expect the response to burn, but the way he spits it is almost like he wants to start a gun fight. 

"If this is you trying to 'take me to dinner first'," I say, adding air quotes around the dinner comment. "Let me go ahead and tell you I am not interested."

Taylor isn't hitting on me, at least I don't think so, but this nice guy act has ulterior motives, I can feel it. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least the tiniest bit disappointed in that fact. But the last time a guy wanted to get to know me it was the first therapist my dad sent me to. He only wanted to get to know me because he was being paid a hundred dollars an hour to dig deep into my psyche. To make me talk about all of my issues until he found the root of all the evil in my life. We only lasted two dates before I had to dump him. It's not you, it's me, was never more accurate, considering all of his comments somehow insinuated that all of my actions were bound to be repeated rather than actually attempting to help me heal. No wonder my father seemed so scorned when I refused to go back.

It's always been easier to just keep people at surface level. A form of self protection I keep in place at all times. Like a blanket over my barbed wire wrapped soul, threatening to stab anyone who gets too close or threatens to disturb the equilibrium I've found there. 

"I am capable of not having sex with every girl I meet, Capt. but I am glad to know that you think so highly of me. I'm actually trying to get to know you, okay?" This time, his words are a cease fire. They come out almost like a plea, a truce to this little war we've created. 

Gabi's voice rings in the back of my head telling me that I don't have to change who I am overnight. Like with Alyssa, it's a marathon, not a sprint. I can move this one inch at a time. Taylor does have a point, though. I like to act like we're all business at the tutor center, but with someone like him that is virtually impossible. His attention span is shorter than a child's, his curiosity almost mirroring one as well.

"Twenty questions," I offer. Chalking it up to this whole ridiculous night, leaving me willing to put myself out there. 

"Man. Brings back some good memories. Haven't played that since middle school when I would use it as a way to ask the girl I liked if she liked me back," he says with a snort, pulling his mug to his mouth and taking a sip.

"Do you want to get to know me or not?"

He hesitates for a second but then gives a tight lipped nod. "But I have some stipulations."

"Are you serious?" Normally I would be the one to demand structure, guidelines. Maybe this is Taylor's new way of fucking with me. Trying to beat me at my own game.

"As a third down conversion," he deadpans. "Every game has rules. This is no different. Besides, you strike me as someone who likes to get their way no matter what."

Damn him and his ability to read me. Something I didn't think were possible outside of Gabi, but she's spent years honing in on the task. I consider Taylor's statement again, trying to spin it in a way to make it seem like it was my idea to make rules, but unable to come up with an argument. Instead I say, "Fine, lay out these rules of yours."

"Okay first, you can't answer a question with a question." He counts it out on his finger, starting on his pinky. I nod, fair enough.

"Second, you have to be honest," he says as he puts up a second finger.

"How will I know if you're being honest?" I counter.

"I'm from the south, honey. I'm a man of my word." I roll my eyes at the use of the pet name, but he skids right over it and continues.

"Thirdly, you can't ask another question until you have answered what was asked of you."

"Nope."

"Nope what? Scared of the hot seat?"

"Is that your first question?" I ask, eyeing him.

"Rule number one!" He shouts with wide eyes as a huge smile spreads across his face.

I bite my lip to hide the effect it has on me. Something I've tried not to notice, but failed at every time he smiles. It may begin on his lips, but quickly expands to fill his entire face until his green eyes are creased at the corners. His face was created for the act of smiling. A smile that no matter what, makes you want to smile in return. A mirror that demands you answer.

It's the reason I find myself biting my lip around him constantly. If Taylor notices my extended effort not to give in, he doesn't show it. Instead he clears his throat and interlocks his fingers on the table in front of him. Watching, waiting for my answer.

"I'm not scared, I just–" I pause, "Believe it or not, I don't care for people to know things about me."

"Why don't you want them to know you?"

"My turn, Cowboy," I say, pointing at him in warning. "What's your favorite color?"

"Are you serious?"

"Are you answering my question with a question, Rule Master?" I challenge.

"Forest Green," he responds immediately.

"Very specific... I respect it." I wonder if he knows it's the perfect way to describe the shade of his eyes.

"I'm a simple man. I know what I like and I like what I like," he says with an ease that is envious. I feel a flutter that begins deep within me and threatens to surface the longer I think about other things Taylor might like, but luckily I'm able to shake it quickly with a deep breath.

"Your turn" I nod his way just as a waitress returns to take check on us.

"Chocolate or Vanilla?"

The game continues for what feels like ever, going way past twenty questions from each of us. I remember glancing at the clock on the wall at one point and noting it had been an hour since I had sat down, cursing under my breath that Taylor's smoothness encroached on me and also into my mind. He is cocooning me and trapping me in this booth. I may have suggested the game as a way to shut him up and quickly agreed to his rules, but the questions and answers have flown from me like a running faucet.

Taylor too, has shared a fair amount about himself. Things that I knew from my research on him. Grew up in Texas and has played football his entire life. But also things I didn't know, like the fact that he was raised by a single mom, and has one younger sister. I envied the easy nature in which he talked about them, wanting to share and claim them as his own. The complete opposite of myself and my parent and sibling. But maybe Taylor already picked up on that at dinner the other night because he doesn't waste any of his questions asking me about my family.

"What are you going to do someday when the charm doesn't get you what you want?" I ask after the waitress returns to check on us for the millionth time. I'll have to make sure I tip her heavily when we leave. Although, with the way Taylor keeps winking at her, I'm pretty sure our check has already been taken care of.

"I'll be a multi-millionaire, I'll just buy my way." He says it with a smirk. 

"Too bad you can't make money off your ego, you'd already be one." I slide the shake to my side of the booth. Taylor ordered it after question three or four for himself, but I quickly stole it from him. I take a swig and let the chocolate indulge my senses.

"If the NCAA didn't have rules and I could make money off my likeness, I would have been one in high school," he says, pulling the shake back to his side and taking a big drink of it. He's not afraid to share food and drinks with people. I learned around question ten or eleven, but I could have guessed that given our shared bottle of beer on the balcony. I could, however, have continued to live my life without knowing that he views it no different than sharing other body fluids with others. No amount of ick could keep me from a Harry's milkshake, though. 

I snort at his comment and the way he is so sure of himself, once again envying the way he can be so casual and confident all the time.

"I believe it's my turn Miss Quinn?"

I'm lost in my own head, forcing him to repeat himself. 

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"I told you, my roommate we—" I begin, but he cuts me off.

"Not here," he says pointing to the table, "but here, State. What brought you here?" He asks again, pointing towards the windows at the front of the building that looks on to one street of the campus.

I wonder if he's serious. The game thus far has been full of silly monotonous questions followed by laughs and sarcastic comments about the answers. Like Taylor said at the beginning, the game is for getting to know your crush for the first time. A text sent on your flip phone, heart thrumming as you wait for their reply. Dancing around it, but secretly wondering who will brave the first serious question. Who do you like? 

I shake the thought from my head. This game is different, we aren't middle schoolers acting on hormones. Yes, Taylor is attractive like the heartthrob in my favorite teenage drama series. And yes, his playful personality has a way of slowly making any other previously conceived narcissistic notions about him disappear, but the questions between us are that of acquaintances looking to pass the time. No earth shattering truths to be confessed within the bounds of this game. 

I still haven't answered and don't. Instead I take another long sip from the milkshake, pulling the straw in and out of the cup a few times. If I've learned anything of importance from Taylor, it's that his patience is unmatched to anything I've ever experienced or expected from someone like him. No matter how long I take to answer, he waits patiently, doesn't even begin twiddling his thumbs in a passive aggressive way. Or by sounding a fake buzzer when thirty seconds had passed the way I did, before his lack of reaction was enough to make me stop.

"When Ryan Quinn wants something, he gets it. I would have figured that you would understand that better than anyone. I mean you could have gone to any school in the country and he got you to come here didn't he?" I say, finally. That single beer must be going to my head. That, or Taylor slipped something into my coffee making me unable to be anything but truthful with him. 

"Are you letting it slip that you looked me up?" He fakes coy, but it's me who blushes. 

I would never give him the satisfaction of knowing that I have ever typed his name, let alone thought about it any time outside of our regularly scheduled programming. "It's more common sense. Good football player," I say, pointing to him. "Good football school." This time I point in the general direction of the campus. "I can only assume my dad just had to have you."

"You think I'm good at football?" Taylor flashes me another smirk.

"Now you're just fishing for compliments," I tease. 

"Sometimes you just need to hear you're making a difference."

I laugh out loud at that one, earning me a full belly laugh from him in return. It's the first time I've heard that type of sound come from him and it's instantly my favorite. 

"So what's your biggest fear?"I pause for a second trying to decide how to answer his second serious question in a matter of minutes. "Or is answering my questions your biggest fear?" he adds before I have a chance to answer.

"I'm not intimidated by you or your questions," I lie. "I'm thinking—" I press a finger to my chin, pretending to be deep in thought when really I'm thinking about how to avoid this one.

"Being able to admit your biggest fear to someone you barely know says a lot about you."

"How so? I mean couldn't I just lie about it? Tell you I'm deathly afraid of spiders or something? Then you still wouldn't know any more about me than you do now," I snap.

"It tells me how you handle situations. Being able to admit your fear is being able to face it," Taylor retorts.

A memory pops into my head as I consider Taylor's words. We lived in Florida at the time and used to spend weekends at the beach while my dad was on the road for football. Week after week I would play in the sand and just watch my brother's play in the water. I was terrified to get in because one time I got swept under by a wave. I had inhaled enough salt water to make my nose burn the rest of the day, and I swore I could still feel it twenty four hours later. The ocean had traumatized me in a way only a child can feel. When something scares you once, all of a sudden the sheer thought of it makes you uneasy. But when you're younger, you struggle to conceptualize things. The guessing leaves you fearful. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life right on the fringe missing out on the fun. 

Until one day my mom walked up and took a seat beside me in the sand. "It's about time you get back in there," she had said. I shook my head and probably said I couldn't. "You can. You're choosing not to."

I just remember being upset because for once, she didn't get it. 

"Rynnie, the ocean is a lot like your life will be," she continued.

I pondered this for a second wondering what it meant. My literal thinking mind made me ask, "Wet and salty?"

She laughed before responding, "You can't predict the ocean. You could spend the whole day in calm waves, easily finding your footing in the sand and the next second you're being drug under the by the current. But no matter which one you get, you have to get back up and keep trying to find your footing again. You have to learn how to appreciate all the waves, big and small. Life is all about how you handle the things thrown at you." I think at that moment I brushed it off, never took the time to really understand what she meant, or just too preoccupied with minuscule things to let her words matter.

She had no way to know that her life would be cut short and mine would in fact be like those waves. My life has been a constant of getting dragged by the currents, unable to look back to the shore and see the vantage point I picked out when I got in. Threatening me to drown, sink, and die.

"Well Cowboy, I actually think it's my turn so, you first. What's your biggest fear besides fireworks and guns and not having access to a gym to keep up with all of that?" I wave my hand up and down his body, half expecting him to throw our rules back in my face instead of answering.

"I'm afraid of failing. In football, in school, my family. Everyone sets these expectations for me and I worry that I can't measure up to them." The words come out without hesitation, as if they were already cued up on his tongue ready to divulge his truth to me, to prove to me that his response to trouble is always to fight. 

My throat goes dry at the way he speaks so openly, once again surprising me. I try to think of a snide remark to pitch back to him, scraping to find some control over myself, over this conversation. I've come up with nothing.

"Failure is a big word, Reed. I'm a firm believer that you can't fail if you're trying," I offer, speaking from experience. All I've been doing for the last few years is trying, I am a walking billboard for it. Taylor's eyes meet mine, the green a stark contrast to his dark lashes that blink hard a few times before he responds, "I like that." The side of his mouth curls up as he slings one arm over the back of the booth again. It's not lost on me that he doesn't owe me anything, that he doesn't have to share anything with me. The least I can do is follow rule number two and be brutally honest.

"Have you ever felt frozen in place? Like on Halloween when you freeze little plastic bugs into ice cubes to freak people out when they melt?" I say and he nods, not because he agrees but to keep me going. "I'm like the little plastic bug, stuck in place at the mercy of another force to either let me sit out and thaw, or to keep me frozen right there forever. I'm afraid I'll be stuck in the freezer forever." I don't elaborate further. Honestly, I'm not sure I can put the feeling into words. I'm not even sure what stuck means. Is it an adjective to describe my current state of not knowing what to do or a verb, as in stuck in a singular place unable to break out?

His phone begins to vibrate on the table snapping our attention away from one another, and to the screen. He quickly presses the side button ignoring it and forcing the screen to go black once more. I pick up my now cold mug of coffee and attempt to drink it, just to give myself something to do. I'm afraid that if I allow myself a second to stop and think that I will immediately wish I had a device from Men in Black to erase Taylor's memory, making it void of any truths I've shared with him tonight.

His screen lights up again with a notification, allowing me to check the time as well. It's past two o'clock in the morning? How in the actual hell have I been here for over two hours. I take my chance to leave, standing and announcing my need for sleep

"Let me walk you. Where do you live?" He asks. I hesitate and he adds, "It's the middle of the night, really it's no big deal. You shouldn't be walking alone anyway. The world is crawling with creeps with military fantasies." He points to my outfit again. I swat at him as he stands next to me. I pull out enough cash to cover our coffees and the milkshake and throw it on the table.

"It's the least I can do since I drank all of your milkshake," I say. Taylor doesn't protest, instead he follows me out of Harry's and into the cool night air. I cross my arms in front of me trying to find warmth.

We walk in a new found silence, a stark difference from the easy flowing conversation we shared tonight. I attempt to look in my periphery, to try and catch him looking at me the way I allow myself to imagine he is, but each time his eyes are forward. His brows are pulled tight as if something is troubling him. Maybe he's just as perplexed as I am, at the company he found tonight. Regardless, I don't speak up until we're in front of the sign for my dorm. 

I turn to face him, finding his chest. Once again reminded of his height, I crane my neck upward and break the silence, "Thanks for that."

"Ay Ay Captain," he says, saluting me before breaking into a smile, obviously now over whatever was bothering him. Or doing a good job at faking it.

"You keep calling me Captain. Why?" I ask, almost regretting it as soon as I hear his answer.

"I'm a captain of the football team but you're like the captain of the homework room," he explains. I roll my eyes in hopes that the motion will reverse time and make him forget that I asked, but Taylor only laughs, shoving his hands further into the pockets of his jeans and continues to elaborate. "It's a big deal to be the Captain, Quinn. It means people look up to you. They're counting on you."

I grunt at the last part. "Lord help anyone who deems me worthy to count on. I'm–I'm just Camryn," I say, using my teeth to tug at the skin around my thumb nail. Taylor watches me again before nodding once.

"You got it, Cam-ryn." This time he enunciates each syllable of my name. I bite my lip to keep myself from smiling at the way my name sounds in the southern twang falling from his lips. The nickname may also be stupid, but I can't help the way I want him to say it again.

I return his gesture and nod once in his direction before turning away and heading towards the doors. It's only when I reach the glass, a good ten feet from him that I let my face be a reflection of the smile on his. The kind that starts on my lips but by the time I reach the elevator has spread throughout my entire face, eyes crinkled and all.