When I pull it open, Reid stands there with the room service menu in his hand. “Hey, did you want some—what’s the matter, Emma?”
I shake my head, feeling like an idiot and trying not to cry. “I’m fine.”
He tosses the menu in a chair and his hands go to my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I repeat, stepping back and grabbing the menu. I hand it back to him. “I’m not hungry, but thanks.”
He spots the open laptop on my bed and arches a brow. His voice lowers to a whisper. “Talking to Graham?”
I nod.
He takes my chin in his hand, looks into my eyes, and in the same low tone tells me, “Come talk to me when you’re done, if you need to.” Fantastic—he’s definitely seen the photos.
I nod again, so he’ll leave, and I shut the door behind him once he does.
Graham’s expression is shuttered when I return. “Was that Reid?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he coming to your room?”
My answer slips out before I consider the implications of it. “We’re in a suite.”
He gazes at me silently, sitting back slowly from the webcam, becoming blurry. His hand lays curved across his mouth as though he’s literally preventing himself from speaking. His fingers shift and two words escape. “A suite?”
“There are two bedrooms.” My tone is defensive. He’s questioning Reid sharing a living room with me for one night, while the whole world is viewing photos of him with Brooke pressed to his chest as she gazes up at him, her fingertips grazing his forehead in an intimate caress.
“Awesome.”
“What are you implying, Graham?”
He takes a deep breath. “I’m not implying anything. I just don’t trust him.” He stares away from the screen, silent after this pronouncement, and my screen’s image of him is still too distant for me to guesstimate his theories. His physical withdrawal is easy enough to read, though, even from thousands of miles away.
The constricted sensation that keeps me from swallowing prevents me from replying as well. Not trusting Reid shouldn’t affect Graham’s confidence in me.
Finally, he looks at the screen and leans closer, and I gulp at the lump in my throat, sliding down like a grapefruit in my windpipe.
“I have a research paper to finish and turn in tonight, so we’ll talk tomorrow, all right?” he says, and I nod and whisper goodnight.
*** *** ***
GRAHAM
What did I tell Emma before—that I’m not possessive? Screw that.
During the past three weeks, we’ve spent an hour or more on Skype every night that we weren’t together. She’s relayed stories about her stepmother, childhood acting gigs and Emily, and I’ve strummed my guitar and sung her lines of songs that I might or might not have written, which might or might not be about her.
Tonight we were off in fifteen minutes. Her naiveté about Reid Alexander was pissing me off and I was about to unleash a whole string of assertions that can’t be unsaid.
I’ve watched my parents when they argue. Their disagreements seldom become elevated enough to include raised voices, but whenever my father’s jaw is so clenched that he could grind diamonds between his teeth, he goes for a walk around the block. It doesn’t matter what kind of weather it is, either—I’ve seen him take off in tempest conditions and come back soaked to the bone with an inside-out umbrella. The point is to never say words you can’t take back.
“I thought you were supposed to communicate with each other?” Cassie asked Mom once, years ago, after Dad stomped rigidly out the front door. “Isn’t that what your whole, like, career is based on telling people to do?”
Brynn and I eavesdropped from around the corner. We stared at each other in mute acknowledgement of Cassie’s direct hit. Cassie was often Dad’s advocate, though Mom usually told her to stay out of it. This time she merely sighed. “Yes, but there are exceptions. When you find yourself about to say something that crosses a line, something that could cause irreparable harm, sometimes the best you can do is just not say that thing.”
“Dad would never say something like that,” Cassie huffed.
Mom laughed once, no amusement in the sound. “Exactly.”
I do have a paper due tomorrow, but the body of the paper is done; only the citations page remains. Inadvertently, I’ve instituted my own version of walking around the block, because there are a load of words threading through my skull right now and none of them are easygoing or objective.
I don’t fault Reid for his multitude of casual hookups. I’m a guy—I’ve had plenty of my own and I’m not that big of a hypocrite. What I fault him for are the two times I know of that he actively encouraged a girl to fall ass over elbows for him—as Brooke would say—when he had no intention of sticking around. I could excuse what he did to Brooke as immaturity, if he hadn’t done the same thing to Emma recently. As soon as he doesn’t get what he wants, he’s out screwing as many girls as he can run through.
Emma seems to think that because he’s playing nice at the moment, he’s above suspicion. Like he took no for an answer where she was concerned. But I watched him that night everyone went out—the calculating gaze he leveled on her. If this was two hundred years ago, I’d have contemplated taking him outside and beating the shit out of him for looking at her like that—and that pinky swear thing he did with her would have guaranteed it.