He shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve never been officially tested. I can read quite quickly too. My dad died when I was in fifth grade. And my mom spent all of her time working to put me and my sisters through school, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time figuring me out. And we didn’t have a lot of money, so I spent more time reading than watching the single television we had in the house. No cellphone until I earned money to buy my own and pay for a plan. No computer outside of the ones we used in school. No video games. Pretty boring, huh?”

I felt an instant connection to Brendon in that moment. “Well, my dad died too. Three years ago. Then I moved to Texas to live with my grandparents until I graduated. I didn’t have a phone either until I bought my own … which my grandparents didn’t let me do until I was eighteen. So I’ve literally had a cell phone for less than a year. Now who’s boring?”

“Really?” Brendon smiled as if my confession, albeit a little sad and pathetic, made him feel some joy.

“However, we did have a computer in the house. I had one from the school that we could bring home. So it’s not like I didn’t have internet access even if it was monitored for appropriate content.” My nose wrinkled.

“No internet porn for you.”

That made my face heat a bit. Just the word porn did that. “No.” I returned a nervous laugh. But I had seen porn. Once … okay twice. My friend Kat lived with her dad, and her dad worked nights so he was always sleeping during the day. Kat thought it was fun to check out her dad’s browser history on the computer; he wasn’t only paying bills and ordering socks from Amazon while Kat and her younger brother were at the Christian academy. Worth noting too … he taught the teen’s Sunday school class at church.

“Have you taken the bar exam?”

“Nope. I’ve taken a job with a law firm here in Denver, and they’re adamant about helping me study for it. But honestly …” He winked. It wasn’t a Fisher wink, but it was still adorable in its own way. “I’ve got this.”

Confidence.

Man … what I wouldn’t give to have had even half of his confidence. And direction. That was it more than anything. A sense of direction imparted a certain level of confidence. I didn’t know if gap-year kids had as much confidence.

We ordered food and chatted for over an hour. Brendon’s mom lived just outside of Chicago. And his two younger sisters still lived there too.

“Enough about me. Tell me about your mom? Why were you living with your grandparents after your dad died?”