You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Troy took the bait. "Where did you go to school?"

"San Jose State. I'm originally from the L.A. area but I wanted to get away from home while still taking advantage of the instate tuition. What about you? Are you in school?" Eden asked casually.

He didn't respond for nearly thirty seconds. "Nah, I'm trying to pursue an alternative career path. This helps pay the bills while I get it off the ground."

Alternative career path? That was a cleverly worded way of saying he was a starving artist of some sort.

"Actor, musician, or artist?" she blurted before she could stop herself.

It wasn't as if she could see any facial expressions with the mascot head on but Troy seemed surprised  based on the limited body language she could see. "Musician. How did you guess so quickly?"

Thank goodness he didn't seem to be offended. "It was the way you worded that. Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's fine," Troy said quickly. "So, what did you get your degree in?"

Eden sighed, the reality of her situation crashing back down around her. "Chemistry. I'm supposed to be in a lab right now but the job market sucks so here I am. I graduated back in June and now it's February and I'm still working here."

"Chemistry? That's cool! It suits you."

"Really?"

No one had ever told her that before. She got a lot of dumb blonde jokes about lab hazards from people in college, including one of her ex-boyfriends. People didn't typically see someone like her being the intellectual type based on looks alone and she hated it.

You can't judge a book by its cover! Which is kind of a stupid saying because covers were exactly how people judged books without having any other information to go off of but she couldn't think of a better one.

"Yeah. I'm sure you're a lot less prone to lab accidents than I was during high school chemistry. Those Bunsen burners were a hazard," Troy said with a laugh.

Eden smiled. "Don't tell me you were one of those kids setting things on fire behind the teacher's back."

"No, but my lab partner was. I'm not a big fan of open flames. I was usually in charge of mixing things together and handing them to him but I didn't always get the measurements right."

"Measurements are pretty important," she snickered as she imagined what sorts of things could have gone wrong in a high school chemistry lab. She sobered immediately afterward. "I miss lab work. It was such a huge part of my life."

Troy hesitantly reached out to set a giant paw on her shoulder. "Hang in there. I'm sure you'll get a job soon."

She couldn't believe this guy she had only talked to one other time was encouraging her like this. It was sort of weird but sweet at the same time. Normally she only got this sort of thing from Ezra or Aubrey.

"Thanks, Troy. You're a really nice guy."

"Glad you think so," he replied lightly. "My break is up though so I should get going. See you around, Eden."

And see him around she did. Their breaks somehow managed to line up multiple times in the next week. They talked about a variety of interesting topics and she couldn't help but wonder how a guy who hadn't gone to college could be so well-spoken.

Not only was he a solid conversationalist, he was funny too. She found herself laughing around him more than she did around anyone aside from Aubrey. Which was strange because she still hadn't seen his face this entire time.

It was company policy not to take the costume head off anywhere but the inside of the breakroom to maintain the illusion but Troy didn't even take it off then. Wasn't it horribly uncomfortable? He should at least be able to relax while on his breaks.

"Hey, what's your favorite candy?" he asked one day out of the blue.

Eden answered without hesitation. "Jolly Ranchers. Call me crazy but I only like chocolate in small doses. Things like chocolate chip cookies are fine but I can't straight up eat a chocolate bar. I've always been more of a fruity candy person."

"Fruity candy, huh? Do you like sour ones too?"

"Oh yeah! I love sour candy. One time, my brother and I had a contest to see who could keep a Warhead in their mouth the longest. He spat his out after about fifteen seconds but I finished mine no problem. What about you? What candy do you like?"

"My favorite is Twix but Sour Punch Straws are a close second," Troy admitted.

Eden laughed. "Those hardly even count as sour though! Anything that's sweet underneath is kind of like cheating. They still taste good but I don't think they can rightly be classified as sour candy."

"Well, we don't all have tongues of steel like you."

She snorted at the phrase 'tongues of steel.' He had the funniest way of wording things sometimes. It certainly kept their conversations interesting.

"I'll have to tell my brother about that. It might soothe his still wounded pride," she joked. "Being able to handle sour or spicy things better than him is my one advantage so I have to lord it over him as much as possible."

Troy's tone was skeptical. "I highly doubt that. He might be a lawyer but that doesn't mean he's better than you at everything. There are a lot of awesome things about you that I'm sure he doesn't have."

Eden's face pinked. He hardly knew her; how could he say something like that so earnestly? He didn't know Ezra either beyond what she had said about him. What did he know?

His break ended then so he bid her farewell and left her in a muddled state of mind. She was sure he meant that as a compliment but it was one of the weirdest compliments she had ever received and she wasn't sure why that was.