17

Piper

Weekend Fun - Sex Ed Workshops

The conference was nothing like I thought it'd be.

First of all, it was insanely chaotic. For a bunch of people who prided themselves on running dorms, they ran the day's activities like a daycare, one strike away from getting shut down. There were only enough sticker books for half of the participants, some of the classes were crossed off with marker, and when I tried to open the door to the first workshop I wanted to go to, the door literally came off its hinges.

"Woah there." Adam dove to the side and grabbed it before it could collapse on me. "Damn, Miss Muscles—"

"Don't start," I snapped.

The nerves were getting to me. It felt like I had a brick in my throat every time I thought about the upcoming workshop. And through every event of the day, my phone beeped in my back pocket.

Thomas.

"This is a lot of stuff for one class," Adam complained, holding the box I passed off to him, to give him something to do while he shadowed me.

"You know what low expectations get you?" I asked. "Low results."

"Wow. You should teach a class."

"Ha."

I grabbed the handle of the door to the class and paused, giving it a wary look. Adam pushed past me, opening the door as slowly as he could. But it only groaned as it opened, instead of collapsing entirely to the floor.

"They assigned you one of the good ones," Adam said out of the corner of his mouth.

I rolled my eyes and motioned him inside, taking the box from him.

The room wasn't much. Five rows of chairs, a big desk, the projector at the side, and a place where I could set up my laptop for the PowerPoint. I busied myself with that while Adam hunted through the box.

He held up a dozen condoms between his fingers with a smirk. "Do you want me to pass these out or is this my payment for a service well done?"

For the entire day, this man annoyed me to no end. It'd been one thing after another with him. But despite all of that—and there was a lot of it—I couldn't turn down free help. "Put them on the desks. Thank you."

"No worries. You have to take photos."

"Take photos? Of…you with condoms?" I snorted. "Are you trying to get a sponsorship or something?"

"Hell yeah. Check it, Piper."

Adam whirled back around with bright-colored condoms between his fingers, flashing them like he was posing for one of the thousands of photoshoots I was positive he'd already modeled for. If my ex had one every other weekend, I knew the infamous linebacker of Marrs University had to have his schedule booked and busy.

That would be something I'd have to contend with after the weekend, but at that moment, I couldn't help the laugh that burst out of me.

That was Adam's specialty. Getting laughs out of people whether they wanted it or not.

I finished up with the little goodie bags I made for the RAs while Adam leaned back in a chair in the first row. He propped his long legs on the table and stretched out with his arms behind his head.

"So, this is what you want to do?" he finally asked. "Sex ed classes?"

The easy question caught me off guard, and I stilled over the goodie bags. Part of me wanted to tell him that it was another thing he didn't need to know about me. But if everything went well, we'd be spending a lot of time together.

"No." I bit my lip. "This isn't what I want to do."

"This is just your weekend fun? Speeches on chlamydia?"

Another grin threatened to make an appearance, but I barreled ahead instead, rattling something off from my notes. "Actually, you can have chlamydia for months and not know it. It's how some people lose reproductive—"

"Yeah, I know." Adam stretched forward in the chair. "My high school coach told us all the time. Let me rephrase the question. What do you want to do?"

Did he seriously just say that?

"Your high school coach? The same one that—?"

" Piper ." He raised an eyebrow. "Are you avoiding the question?"

At the front of the classroom, I should've been the one in control. He was the one sitting down after all. I wasn't. He was the one who was supposed to be helping me set things up. I was the one who was supposed to be getting ready to lead a class.

But I had to tell him sooner or later.

"I want to go to grad school," I admitted.

"You want to go to more school?"

"I want to be a—" I stopped myself. "I am a data analyst. But grad school would help me reach the programs I want to work in more than just jumping into the field. Which, usually, isn't the case with my major, but I want to work with specific complex systems."

Adam made a low noise at the back of his throat and nodded, slowly. "Ah. Wow. Got it."

"You have no idea what any of that means, do you?"

"Yep. No idea."

A snicker slipped out of me. A snicker . Wasn't I just angry at this guy? I put my hand up to stop it, but it was too late. A wide smile tugged up on Adam's lips, and even if I set him up for that one, I had a feeling that Adam willingly played ball. We weren't picking at each other. He was teasing something out of me that I wasn't entirely sure I recognized.

"I'm a computer programmer," I explained, taking my clipboard from the box.

"Holy shit." His eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"You're a nerd?"

My pen hovered over my clipboard and I gave him a hard look. "Thank you, Adam."

"No, no, don't get me wrong." Adam held up his hands in surrender. "It's a compliment. You're in the sciences. I didn't know that. I didn't know you did…nerd shit." An apologetic smile crossed his lips, and I wondered for a brief moment if he didn't know how to treat this conversation as much as I did. He cleared his throat. "And you're doing sex ed classes because…?"

"Why do you want to know?"