Page 101 of Love Me Boldly

“You don’t. You really don’t.”

“Please, Mama?” Jonah slapped his hands together like he was praying. “Pretty please. I like yours the best.” He turned to Graham again. “It’s awesome. It’s a girl who lives all alone. She has no mom and no dad, and she’s so sad because everyone left her…”

“Really?” Graham asked, and his brows rose on his head while he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes.

I wanted to hide my face and dig a hole and bury myself. When Jonah got started, he didn’t stop.

“Yup. And then a prince shows up, and Mama says he’s super handsome. And he was strong and had all these friends, and all of a sudden the sad girl isn’t alone anymore.”

“Really?” Graham’s voice rose an octave.

“Ugh…” I muttered. “Maybe you should tell the story yourself.”

“No! Come on.” He tugged my hand and yanked me off the couch.

Graham stood behind me, whispering in my ear, “A prince, huh?”

Oh, that arrogant smirk was back. I wasnevergoing to hear the end of this one. It’d come to me one night out of the blue. The story had rattled off my tongue, not fully true because it was a prince in a castle with all the regular fairy tale trappings, but yeah, it was a rendition of sorts of Graham and me.

And I was sufficiently mortified he was hearing this, chuckling behind me.

“What else happens?” he asked Jonah.

“They got through all these battles, and they both get hurt, and in the end, the broken girl saves herself. She learns she has the powers she needed all along, and once she learns that, she gets a whole new life. She and the prince get married and live happily ever after, too, but I don’t really like that girly part.”

“I don’t know,” Graham said, and I couldseehis ego swelling even though he was behind me. “Sounds pretty great to me.”

He had to be joking. I gaped back at him as we reached the landing. He shrugged, like it was nothing.

“What? I like happily ever afters, and I don’t think they’re girly.”

“See,” I said to Jonah. “Happy endings aren’t boring.”

Behind me, Graham laughed and then coughed into his closed fist.

Oh God. I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I glared at him as we entered Jonah’s room. “Don’t…” I warned.

“You said it,” he whispered, with a glimmer in his eye.

“Where should I sit?” He scanned Jonah’s room, which had a full-size bed and a beanbag chair. Jonah plopped down right in the center and patted his hands on both sides of him. “Here and here.”

I paused, frozen, as I realized what Jonah was doing.

I’d never brought a man around him and had only had a couple dates in six years. And now…now he was welcoming Graham into his bedroom, no hesitation, like we were one big happy family, like he’d known Graham a lot longer than a week.

“Trust me?” Graham whispered, and it took me a second to realize it was more of a question.

I peered up at him, the way he was looking at me, like if I wasn’t ready for this, he’d deal with it and wait downstairs or sit on the floor.

But that was exactly why I trusted him. Why he’d always been the prince in my story. He always respected my pace, my decisions.

“Come on, guys! What are you waiting for?”

Graham looked at me, like he was asking the question with his eyes.What are you waiting for?

I nodded at him. I got it. What was I waiting for?

What could be more perfect than this?

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