Page 173 of Rush of Jealousy

“What have you ladies been talking about?” Graham asks from the corner of the room. He says each word slowly and with hesitation. He leans against the wall and places his hands into his pockets.

I pull back from his mom and look at his sad eyes. He looks like he has been through a war. He moves over to me with caution and reaches his arms out for me to walk into them. And I do. He is my safe place. He hugs me to his chest and rubs my back.

“We were just chatting, Graham,” Donna answers him, without really answering him at all.

“I see that. About me?”

“Surprisingly, son, this world doesn’t revolve around you. Maybe we were chatting about butterflies and rainbows,” she says sarcastically. And I instantly like her a bit more than I did a few seconds ago.

I laugh at his fake disgust expression, earning a tickle to my sides. I twist out of his arms.

“Seriously though,” Donna says, “I like this girl. So do not jack this up. Understand?”

“Okay, okay,” he sighs, obviously a bit embarrassed that his mom is being so blatant with her unsolicited opinion. I look up to examine his face. The slightest pink has reached his cheeks. Not for a second would I have ever predicted that Graham Hoffman would ever be able to feel that emotion.

I like it.

31

I smile up at Graham sweetly—too sweetly. He shakes his head at me and whispers “let’s go” to me. He pulls me toward the stairway and takes me on a tour of the house that he grew up in—showing me all of the new changes his parents have done to update the interior. When we get to the bedroom that is almost entirely black and white, I know that this one is his. A huge potted fiddle-leaf fig tree is in the corner of the room—which adds the one pop of earth color that the room desperately needs to not feel claustrophobic.

“What remodeling did your parents do to this one?” I ask, looking around at the simplistic decor. If it wasn’t for the abundant amount of recess lighting and lamps, it would look like a cave. But somehow it is cozy and inviting—despite the extreme color contrast.

“Not much. This is pretty much the place I spent my teenage years. The only thing that has changed,” he says, opening his closet door and pointing to the boxes on the floor, “is that the teenage mementos are no longer shelved above my bed.”

I turn back to the huge king-size bed that is in the center of the main wall. It is way too big for someone still living at home. “How many girls have been in this room?”

“I lost count. After a bunch of drunken nights I would come home with two—maybe three—at once.”

“Ew! Really?”

“No, Angie. I’m not a whore,” he fake scoffs.

I hit him on his arm. “You are attractive enough to be one.”

His lips curl into the biggest smile. “You find me attractive?”

“You know you are, and you know I do.”

“To answer your question, no one has been in this room other than family and some friends growing up. And the bed got upgraded a week ago when I knew you would be visiting for the holiday, and hopefully more holidays hereafter. A gamble I made on hope.”

“Oh.” Why this is meaningful to me, I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s his subtle planning for the future. Maybe it’s that this future will include me. I am falling so hard for him, and I fear that I am allowing myself to accept his lies because I have already accepted his heart.

I kneel down on the floor and pull out the trophies and ribbons and award certificates. Some items date back to over a decade ago, while other items appear to be from his college days. Graham moves over to his bed and lies back on it while I snoop around.

“See anything interesting?” he asks.

“Wow, you were pretty nerdy,” I say passively, scanning through all of the robotics ribbons and the Junior Engineer certificates. “This is awesome how you seemed really inventive as a young boy.”

I look over to Graham and find him with his eyes closed. He rubs his fingers over the upper bridge of his nose—perhaps to ease a headache. I look back through the box of items and it’s like I am looking into a window of his childhood. But it’s as if I have a bunch of clues that belong to entirely different puzzles, and nothing really fits together as a whole.

I turn a trophy in my hand, looking at the bronze athlete at the top—crouched and ready to pounce.

“I didn’t know you were an All-American wrestler.” It is not surprising that he is good at sports with a stacked body like he has. I just never pegged him for a wrestler. “Is this how you met Dr. Saber?”

He confirms with a nod. “Wrestling was just a high school thing. I didn’t want to continue on in college. I wanted to focus on my studies.” He gives me a smirk, and it makes my core tingle. “I was a bit of a nerd.”

I smile. That makes sense, given how accomplished he is now at such a young age. Some people spend decades making what he has built. I guess if he didn’t have to rely on an athletic scholarship, then he could be more selective with how he spent his time. “What was your major?” I remember reading an article about him, but it lacked any real juicy details.

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