Dani wasn’t sure what she expected Harper to say; she only expected more of a reaction than what she’d gotten. “Have you ever been in the closet?”

Harper smiled. “God, no. What you see is what you get. I knew I was gay from the start, so…I didn’t try to hide it.”

“And your family? Did they treat you differently?”

“No. I have two older brothers and growing up, I always tagged along with them on their adventures. Classic tomboy,” Harper said. “I think they would have been more shocked had I been straight.”

“Did anyone ever call you Scout?” she asked as she picked up her hamburger again.

Harper laughed. “You mean other than my grandmother? Yeah, when they felt like picking on me, they’d call me Scout.” Harper reached over and stole a french fry from her plate. “So you? Growing up? Did you know you were gay?”

Dani nodded. “Yes. Only I fought it. Constantly. Steady boyfriend in high school. Well, once my father allowed me to date, that is.”

“You sleep with him?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess…quarterback of the football team?”

Dani felt a blush cross her face. “Am I that predictable?”

“Head cheerleader?”

Dani sighed. “Yes.”

Harper laughed lightly. “Well, you have the look of a head cheerleader. Isn’t it some rule that the head cheerleader and the quarterback date?”

“I don’t know that I had the look of a cheerleader back then,” she said as she tucked her hair behind her ears. “I always kept my hair fairly short.” She looked at Harper’s hair. “Not as short as yours, but certainly not what I have now.”

“They make you grow it out for the movies or what?”

“Yes. Well, they didn’t make me, but it was suggested. The first movie, I had extensions put in to make my hair longer.”

Harper nodded. “What about college? Did you still date guys?”

“Of course.”

“And the gay thing?”

“I ignored it.” She met her gaze. “Until I couldn’t.”

“The discreet affair?”

“Yes,” she said. “Traci.”

“What happened?”

“She was dating this guy named Jason. I was dating Brock.” She shook her head. “He was a jerk. Anyway, Traci and I…well, we ended up…in bed one night.” She leaned back, remembering that night well. They’d been out on a double date and the guys had gotten plastered on cheap bourbon. Neither she nor Traci had been in the mood to deal with them and had ended the night early. She still didn’t know which of them initiated the first kiss. She looked up at Harper. “Traci called it experimenting.”

“She wasn’t gay?”

“Oh, she was. But her family was even more conservative than mine. Her father was a Baptist minister and she was frankly terrified of him. So she called it experimenting.”

“How long did that last?”