Page 96 of What Are The Odds?
She slid down my body, eyebrows arching when she noticed the strain against my jeans. A smirk played at her lips.
“I missed him as well.”
“Good. You should get reacquainted. Stat.”
Giggling, she stepped back. I took the bag from her shoulder and threw it in the backseat. After holding open the passenger door and helping Grace inside, I rounded the car and hit the road. I already had all heater vents pointed at her. The air had a bite today. It was strange driving along familiar roads with Grace in the passenger seat. While I’d gotten used to having her in Philadelphia, it’d take time adjusting to Colorado as well. She kept her focus out the window, taking in as many details as she could. It was a fifty-minute drive from the airport to home. On the way, I’d sped. Now, I cruised. I wasn’t in a rush anymore. I reached my hand over the console, resting it on Grace’s thigh.
“How was Chicago?”
“Cold.”
Grace had pulled a first place in the 100m freestyle, second in the 200m backstroke and first in the 400m medley relay. I’d watched the live stream. It wasn’t the same as being there, but it was better than nothing.
“We tried deep dish pizza.”
“And?”
She screwed up her nose. “Normal pizza is better.”
As we got closer to home, there was more to show Grace. My high school. The rink. The park where I’d kissed a girl for the first time. Her eyes were wide as she took it all in, like she was truly excited to be seeing it all. I only hoped one day we could do the same thing where she grew up. I wanted to know everything there was to know about Grace Hughes. When I pulled into my gated community, Grace went still, and her jaw practically dropped once she caught sight of my family home. I guess it was impressive to see. Particularly with the mountains in the background. It had the sentiments of a cosy cabin, but it was a lot more than that. Seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms to be exact. There were two pools, one indoor and one outdoor, as well as a hot tub and cinema room. It was too much for four people. Even more now that Lana and I were both at college. But my parents had always been the type to desire the nicer things in life. Hence the Tesla we were in. Will’s parents were the same. Our dads had gone into business when they were younger. An apparatus they’d designed when they were in college as part of a freshman class had been bought and patented. They’d used the profits to start a security start up. And here we were, six-hundred employees across twelve states later.
“The car should have been a red flag,” Grace said, turning in her seat. “Your family is rich?”
I shrugged. “We’ll go with extremely comfortable.”
I knew Grace didn’t care about my family’s money. It was clear on her face she’d been clueless about it. I guess we’d never covered the families in-depth enough to know what our childhoods had been like. Maybe she had a house as grand as this. Maybe she didn’t. I didn’t fucking care. She could live in a trailer park, and I’d still want her. Even once I parked, Grace made no effort to get out the car. She was clearly nervous. It was adorable.
“Come here,” I said, gesturing to my lap.
She shook her head. “No way.”
“Why not?”
“Because we both know what’ll happen if I climb over. I don’t want your mum catching me dry humping her son in the front seat of her car.”
God. Now she’d said it, that’sallI wanted to happen. Apart from the mum part. Yuck. I settled for leaning over the console and kissing Grace.
“Don’t be nervous, Hughesy. My family are going to love you.”
“And if they don’t?”
“It doesn’t matter because I–”
I caught myself before I could finish that sentence. Was I about to say what I think I was about to say? I willed my brain to reboot and finish the sentence in any other way that didn’t contain the wordsloveandyou.
“Am obsessed with you,” I managed to get out. “And nothing anyone says could change my mind.”
I cleared my throat.
“Ready?”
*
Grace’s eyes seemed to widen for each room we walked into. First the entrance. Then up the staircase. Then along the hallway. I was taking her straight to my room to put her things down, and maybe get a little action, before going to find my family. A mini hallway ran straight off my bedroom door. One side was lined with dark built-ins and the other led to the bathroom. My bed faced a textured charcoal wall with an inbuilt desk and huge TV. Grace walked straight to the cap board. Mum was an interior decorator. After forgetting to include specific shelves for caps in my walk-in, she’d created crafty boards that had all my hats on display. It was as lame as it sounded.
“This is cool,” Grace said sarcastically.
She then crossed the room to look out the floor to ceiling window. It gave an amazing view of the surrounding landscape. Particularly the mountains.
