Good,I thought, resisting the urge to fist-pump. If he camped out at his mansion every night, I wouldn’t have to worry about sharing a room with him. His unhealthy obsession with work was finally doing something worthwhile. For me, at least.
Before long, we made enough progress to reveal what the room must have looked like when Topher was a kid.
Posters of the periodic table and math equations adorned the walls, along with gleaming medals and scores of trophies. I could almost picture a younger Topher, lost in his world of numbers and science. A stack of books screamed “child prodigy,” with titles like “Advanced Calculus for Beginners” and “Quantum Physics Made Simple.”
“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t realize I’d stumbled into the headquarters of a future Nobel Prize winner.”
Topher glanced around. “Yeah, well, I guess I was a bit of a nerd.”
I pointed to a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. “You’ve got the entire universe up there, literally.”
“I was really into astronomy for a while. Thought I might be an astronaut until I realized I couldn’t handle the idea of being stuck in a small capsule with other people for months.”
“So, instead of exploring the stars, you decided to conquer Wall Street?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. But I am looking into buying a spaceship.”
I stared at him, half expecting him to be joking, but the look on his face was completely serious. “Wait, you’re actually trying to buy a spaceship?”
“Yep. Space tourism is going to be the next big thing.”
Right. The sheer disparity between our lives would be laughable if it weren’t so unsettling. There he was, casually discussing the purchase of a spaceship while I was skimping on groceries to keep the lights on.
Before I could dwell too long on the absurdity of it all, Topher said, “I think we’ve got the room in good enough shape. Let’s move these boxes out so you can bring your stuff in here.”
I blinked, shaking off the lingering haze of disbelief, and nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
I started unpacking my things. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to begin with. A couple of small suitcases filled with clothes and mementos, a handful of books, and a small box of papers I’d been avoiding.
“This is all you brought?” Topher sounded astonished.
“Yeah, well, I’m a woman of simple tastes.” I tried to sound breezy, even though the reality was far from simple.
His eyes lingered on the box of papers, and before I could stop him, he reached out. “Here, let me?—”
“Don’t touch those!” The words flew out of my mouth like a reflex.
He jerked back, startled, sending a few papers fluttering to the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”
“It’s fine,” I snapped, quickly gathering the papers and shoving them back into the bottom of my suitcase. My hands were shaking, and I hoped he didn’t notice. “I just... haven’t had time to deal with them yet. I need to go through them at some point.”
The truth was, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready to go through those papers. Every time I even thought about sorting them, I felt that sinking feeling in my gut, like I was about to uncover something else about my parents that would disappoint me even more than I already was.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on that right now. We had bigger fish to fry. Or, more accurately, a house to transform. Mrs. Brodie was going to be discharged soon, and this place needed to be more of a “recovery haven” and less of a “quaint disaster zone.”
That meant Topher and I would have to, heaven help us, work together.
I cleared my throat. “You know, if we’re going to pull this off, we need to get to know each other better. There’s no way your mom will believe we’ve been dating for six months if we can’t even answer basic questions about each other.”
He looked up from the box he was sorting, clearly not thrilled with the idea. “Okay, fine,” he said with a sigh, “ask me a question.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope, only child.”
“Same here.”Great, two only children. We’re probably both used to getting our own way. This should be interesting.“What do you do for fun?”
“I like to go all out on my rowing machine, pushing myself to the limit until my muscles burn.”
