Page 83 of The Killer Card

I swallow, hard. Too hard. Noticeably. “I wanted to talk to you—”

“I’m sorry,” her father holds up a hand, asking again, “Who are you?”

I hold out my hand to the senator. “Graham Rosales, Sir. I’m a friend of Naomi’s.”

Her brother snorts behind me, but the senator ignores him. “A friend? Of Naomi?” He looks me over, from the Miami jersey to the jeans I’ve owned much too long, to the sneakers tied lazily. “Aren’t you a little…” He appears to think hard about which word to use, finally settling on, “Old, to be friends with my daughter?”

“God,” Naomi rolls her eyes, coming down the stairs. “He’s a friend of Eli and Rowan, Dad. Calm down.” She turns to me. “This couldn’t have been a phone call?”

I resist the urge to glare at her. You haven’t been answering my phone calls, I want to remind her. I refrain, simply saying, “No, it couldn’t.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. “Fine,” then turns to her father and brother. “Excuse us.”

Naomi leads me down the hall, pushing open the door to an office as lavish as I imagine the White House might be, closing the door behind her. Suddenly my hands are sweating much more than they were when faced with her dad in the hall. Especially when she rounds on me, shoving me in the chest hard enough to make me stumble.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She snaps. “Showing up at my house? When my dad is home?! Are you trying to earn a beating?!”

“Please- I mean, no,” I immediately correct. “I just.. Poppy told me you were leaving tomorrow and I couldn’t…”

Naomi crosses her arms, shrugging pointedly. “Couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t just let you leave!”

I don’t mean to shout. I definitely don’t mean to shout at her, but the thought of her not even being in the same state anymore must be getting to me more than I thought because I can no longer regulate the volume of my voice.

“You didn’t even tell me, Naomi! I had to find out from your fucking friends! I had to find out from Poppy that you’re moving to the other side of the fucking country—”

“You always knew I was going to attend Harvard—”

“Eventually! Not now! Not immediately—”

“I’m not starting at Harvard until next Fall—”

“But you’re leaving for D.C. tomorrow! For the next year—”

“I have an important internship. Networking. Making connections—”

“And what about me?!” She blinks, taken aback. Her shock that I even considered myself a factor in her life hurts more than I’m willing to admit. “You were just going to leave and not even tell me you were going. Am I such an afterthought to you?! All the fucking time we’ve spent together, and you couldn’t even give me the courtesy of a goodbye—”

“I expected you would show up tomorrow—”

“Oh,” I release a hollow laugh. “To say goodbye to you with all of your other friends?!”

“Yes—”

“I’m not your fucking friend, Naomi!” I close the distance between us. “I’ve never been just your friend, and you fucking know that!”

“Graham—”

I cut her off with a bruising kiss, snaking my arm around her waist, holding her to me until there is nothing between us except the fabric of my shirt bunching against her toned belly. I kiss her with all the anguish I’ve been bottling up these past several weeks. I kiss her like I can physically anchor her to this very spot for the rest of eternity through sheer willpower alone.

When I pull back, we’re both breathless, her breasts heaving against my chest and all I can manage is, “Stay.”

She tries to pull away but I hold her fast. “Graham—”

“Please, Naomi,” I beg, my hands secure on her hips as I sink to my knees in front of her. I look pathetic, feel pathetic, but I’ve never cared with her. She once claimed to be weak to my begging so I’m going to fucking beg. “Please stay. Stay with me. Choose me. Please… I love you, mi reina, and I need you to stay.”

Nathan warned me. Her fucking brother warned me how this was going to go and maybe I should have just listened to him. But I’ve always been shit at self-preservation. Knowing doesn’t make hope lessen. Knowing doesn’t make the hurt dull.