Get to know the delicious, gorgeous Hayden Thompson!

I’m watch­ing Leah and Hay­den hug, as she’s about to leave and give him pri­vacy for his sit down with me. He kisses her cheek and tou­sles her hair and she smiles up at him – God, he’s so much taller than she is — and she reaches for the door han­dle.

“Wait,” he says. She stops and turns around. From the ground next to the chair she just sat in for her inter­view, he picks up her Burberry purse. “Don’t for­get your bag.”
Leah takes it from him and gives me a bash­ful smile. “Thanks, Den. Talk to you later,” she says. Another quick hug, and she’s gone.
CL: Nice to see you, Hay­den.
HT: Call me Den. What’s doing, CL?
CL: Shall we get started?
HT: Let’s rock it.

Favorite color:
“Pur­ple,” he says. Final. No ques­tion. Why, I ask. “It’s a good color,” he says.
All right. Mov­ing on.

Favorite sea­son:
“I like win­ter. It doesn’t get all that cold in Phoenix, or in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, where I’m from, but it’s chilly enough to need to wear lay­ers. It’s a nice change from the mil­lion degree heat we have most of the year.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?
Hay­den rakes his hair out of his eyes, tuck­ing it behind his ear. “I like where I live,” he shrugs. “I’m a sim­ple guy. I moved here to go to ASU for my degree in design, and love it here. It’s a good place to put down some roots.”

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?
He half-smiles, and I can tell from the mis­chief that’s danc­ing in his eyes, he’s not going to give me the answer I want. “I’m really proud of being a busi­ness owner. I’ve always wanted to be self-employed. My design com­pany is some­thing I’m really proud of.”
Way to avoid the ques­tion, Den.
“Fine,” he says, with a hint of amuse­ment in his voice. “When the Red Sox won the World Series.”
I sigh.

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?
Hayden’s half smile turns into a full one, and I know he’s in his ele­ment. He’s a guy’s guy, all gad­gets and elec­tron­ics and cars and sports. From his pocket, he extracts an iPhone. “I love this thing. My iPhone is my world.” He’s flip­ping through things, and throw­ing out words like “apps” and “e-readers” and shows me his cal­en­dar, how he can buy movie tick­ets on it and a pic­ture he took of Leah. “Pretty cool, huh?”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?
“I don’t know that I would. I don’t need much. I have my car, my place … I think I’d leave most of it in the bank. Maybe take Bowen shop­ping, she’d like that. And buy my par­ents a new car. They need one so bad.”

What’s one place you feel the most peace­ful?
He raises an eye­brow at me like he’s try­ing not to ask me where I’m get­ting these frilly ques­tions. “I don’t know! I guess I like Bowen’s kitchen. The chairs at her table are comfy, and she always has killer snacks. That’s pretty peaceful.”

Favorite movie?
“Indi­ana Jones. Lucas makes clas­sics. Indy, Star Wars … that’s pure gold, CL. Pure. Gold. Indy on DVD is what got me through col­lege. Honest.”

Favorite lyric from a song?
Hay­den looks at me like I’ve asked him to spell a thirty-letter word. “How can I pos­si­bly answer that? There are far too many amaz­ing lines.” Pick from your top-ten, I tell him. He bites his bot­tom lip in thought and I can’t help but notice he and Leah have that habit in com­mon. “I’m going with old-school Bon Jovi here, CL. Wanted Dead or Alive. ‘I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back / I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back / I been every­where, and I’m stand­ing tall / I’ve seen a mil­lion faces and I’ve rocked them all.’ God,” Hay­den says, shak­ing his head. “The man is a genius.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog per­son?
“Dog!” he says, as quickly as Leah did. “I can’t do cats.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one per­son:
“As for a book, I’d take Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read it when I was a kid, for school, and it stuck with me. Maybe it would give me some sur­vival ideas,” he chuck­les. His laugh sends goose­bumps fly­ing down my arms, and I’m caught up in the melody of it. He’s divine. “For an album? That’s a tough one. I’d have a hard time nar­row­ing it down between Bon Jovi, Cold­play, Jour­ney and Sina­tra. I know, I have music ADD. Okay, and I can bring a per­son? I’d bring Bowen. Leah’s some­one you want to be stuck with on a desert island.”
Why, I ask.
That mis­chief is back in his eyes again. “She’s good fun,” he says, and leaves it at that.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?
“I don’t have mine with me,” he says, with a frown. “But I’ll ran­domly pick, and I have a feel­ing Bowen put some girlie crap on there. I bet Spice Girls or Brit­ney Spears would play first, to embar­rass me.”

What soothes you?
The smile in his voice fades a bit as he speaks, and it’s replaced by a soft­ness. He crosses his legs at his ankles and brushes a strand of hair from his ocean green eyes that seem to be a bit darker now. “When I’m stressed,” he says, look­ing down at his knees. “I go to Bowen’s and we watch a movie. We sit together on the couch, and I always put my arm around her. I dunno. There’s some­thing sooth­ing about sit­ting with her and watch­ing a movie. Calms me right down. Go fig­ure.”
And I decide at that moment to be a crappy jour­nal­ist and not push him for more info, and let his words hang in the air between us.

What do you want your life to be like in five years?
Hay­den looks back up at me. “Like it is right now. I want to have my com­pany still doing well, maybe get a big­ger place, have the Pon­tiac paid off … I still want to have break­fast with Leah at IHOP every Sat­ur­day morn­ing. I want to go shoot pool and have a beer with Gary and the guys.” What about mar­riage and chil­dren, I ask. He stops for a minute, and then nods. “A wife and kids would be the best. I want kids, for sure. And I want to be mar­ried. If that hap­pens in the next five years, great. If not, I can wait. I’m only going to do this once, and I want it to be right.”

What are you most afraid of?
“This is going to make me sound like a wuss, but los­ing Bowen. She’s my anchor. For the past eight years, she’s been my best friend. I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her. Can we lay off these seri­ous ques­tions for a bit, CL? Shit!”

Fine. What’s your favorite dessert?
“Cheese­cake. Oh, man, I love cheese­cake! Not as much as I love pan­cakes, but cheese­cake is up there.”

If you could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?
“I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, or France. The food would be amaz­ing. And before you ask, yes, I would absolutely just go to eat.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?
Hay­den grins. I see how he works. Ask him life ques­tions and he shifts in his seat. Talk to him about food, and he comes alive. “Choco­late Chip Cookie Dough,” he says, and his stom­ach growls. “Man, I’m hungry!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of cloth­ing?
“My Chucks,” he says, glanc­ing down at his feet with ado­ra­tion. His clas­sic black and white Con­verse Chuck Tay­lors have seen bet­ter days, but they are def­i­nitely well-loved. “Jeans and t-shirt and Chucks. They’re the best.”

Last one, Den. What’s your favorite mem­ory?
And just like Leah did, he gets quiet again. He looks down at his Chucks and takes a deep breath. “What did Bowen say?” he asks. I tell him he needs to wait and read it for him­self. No free­bies from me. He chuck­les at me and nods. “Fair enough,” he says. “The first thing that comes to mind is the first Dbacks game I took Bowen to. She wasn’t a big ball fan before then, but I got her going. That was fun. But I think my absolute favorite was the year we all went out to the beach for New Year’s Eve. We had a fun night.”

I bite my tongue, I don’t want to give any­thing away, but I have a feel­ing that Hay­den and Leah have no idea just how much they’re on the same wave­length. I just smile at him.
“This is great, Den,” I say, scrib­bling notes.
He stands and pulls out his phone, and I can see he’s check­ing his text mes­sages. Leah’s sent him a cou­ple dur­ing our inter­view. He laughs to him­self and types back at a speed that must be world-record level. When I’m done scrib­bling notes and he’s done tex­ting or buy­ing a Volvo or what­ever it is he can do on that phone, he smiles at me.
“This was fun, CL. Thanks for the inter­view,” he says, his man­ners impeccable.

“That’s my line,” I joke as he gives me a hug.

I can hear his phone beep in his pocket, and he laughs again. It’s from deep within his chest, and it vibrates through me. It’s impos­si­bly sim­ple to get caught up in him.

“I bet­ter run, that’s Bowen. She’s dying to know what we talked about and she said some­thing about post-interview pan­cakes, so …”

His laugh is con­ta­gious as I let out a gig­gle. “Have fun,” I say and give him a wave as he walks out the door.

When he’s gone, I decide to take a break. Mark isn’t due for a few hours, so I’ll go grab some lunch and meet up with him for Twenty Ques­tions later.