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"Your family does what exactly?" I pressed, feeling a little curious, remembering the locked door to the third room.
"Why do you want to know?"
"No genuine reason. Just want to be sure I'm not being housed by a drug Lord or brotherhood member."
The only thing he did was laugh. His eyes were still focused on the television screen. I already started saying something about being fine if he didn't tell me, but he cut me short with his reply.
"Real estate."
"Ohhh?"
"Yeah. And oil. We got some good deals on oil sites some decades ago. We've been mining ever since."
"Ohhh." I understood now, but that wasn't my main priority. With more careful aim than I gave a listening ear, I aimed and took a shot with a sniper I acquired earlier. It took him out instantly. Floored, he slouched back into the chair and let out a bubbled breath.
"I also have some personal investments in big shot companies. Some of them are in the Fortune 500."
"Wow." I guess that wrapped up any suspicion that I had of him. I knew that every industry he mentioned was big enough to afford a condo like this. And the car! I'm sure he has more, but the Lamborghini Urus downstairs was humbling. The levels he climbed up in the organizational ladder might not have been much, but the family business must have been strenuous. I knew that much from the finger food shop we owned in Jordan. If he started the business with his family from scratch, I could only imagine the months or years of unpaid labor he put into the growth of the company.
"So... Fortune 500. That's crazy," I had to commend. Fortune 500 is an annual list of 500 of the largest firms in the United States. If he had investments in even one, he'd be swimming in dollar bills by now.
Maybe that's what he did in his room when no one was watching.
"Yeah. My father's words ‘The biggest risk of all time is not taking one.’ I'm following in his footsteps." He recounted, “Although...”
"Those aren't your father's words," I chuckled. He stuck his tongue out at me and gave a cute, boyish smirk.
"Well, he used them often, so...by the way, I'm turning you into a whoopie cushion in this game." He focused back on the television.
Oh no, he isn't!I hit the controls rapidly to regain some lost points. Although, I'd gladly let him win if it meant more time for me to keep staring at his beautiful face. The side view of his sharp jawline was something else.
Chapter 8
All the while we played, we made small jokes with each other and chipped in some serious bits of conversation. Like our religious beliefs - I remember finding it grossly annoying that he cared so much about religion. If there was anything like that, the entity wouldn't have taken my father away. The memories tried to surface, but I pushed them to the back of my head and held them down with a heavy block of weight.
Three hours and two helpings of his delicious frittata later, we got bored of keeping our eyes glued to the television screen, even though mine was on him half the time. He had beaten me enough to think he was playing against a three-year-old and he seized every opportunity for the rest of the day to jeer at me.... like when I clumsily handled a hairdryer he borrowed me.
"Come on tigre! I'm sure this has a better grip than the controllers. How slippery are your hands?" he chuckled when I almost dropped it.
Yes. I had used the 'slippery fingers' excuse.
"You're not a fair person." I shoved him playfully against the wall and tried to move past him, but he grabbed me by the waist and flung me back to the position I was standing in before making me squeal from the unexpected motion.
"Yup. My hands are pretty grippy. I don't see why yours aren’t," he grinned. Feeling a little embarrassed mostly due to the blush that was showing all over my face, I stayed hidden under the hair that he had tussled. The strangest feelings were taunting my body and mind. It wasn't lust, it was... something I never really had time to discover. Maybe attraction? Like? Love...No.
'Did Alessandro just carry me in the air?'
"My hands are grippy," I asserted, trying to rid myself of the awkward feeling of playing with a boy. One I have never really had.
"Really? ‘Because I could have sworn you said they were slippery not thirty minutes ago."
I couldn't see his expression fully through my hair mask, but I could tell he was enjoying making me feel uncomfortable.
"Well, they have a really good grip. Maybe it was your frittatas that made my hands slippery. Has a little oil, you know. Must've gotten on my fingers. But now, they grip well." I held his hands and squeezed hard. Not like it did much to him because he didn't budge.
"Well then tigre, why don't you grip something else and prove how grippy those hands are?"
"Where?" I groaned. All this to prove that I was good in a game he beat me in by more than twenty points. Sigh.
