A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)(23)

On stepping inside, I realized that, apart from Benedict and my other male relatives, this was the first time I had brought a boy in here. Now that I had, I felt painfully aware of how girly it was and frankly… juvenile. My shelves were still filled with keepsakes from my childhood, silly trinkets and plastic toys, but mostly fluffy animals. I used to collect them… when I was nine.

I was about to clarify that my constantly busy schedule had been keeping me from doing a much-needed clear-out when Josh’s lips curved in a smile. He had just laid eyes on Podgey, a stuffed elephant almost the size of my desk chair, slumped in one corner.

“What?” I asked, defensive.

He coughed. “Uh… How old are you?”

Oh, man. Here comes the humiliation…

“I’m seventeen,” I murmured.

He nodded, his smile broadening.

At least his mood had lifted, even if it was at my expense.

Time for a change of room.

I gripped the handles of his chair and backed him out of the room, even as my cheeks heated to a rosy red. “Well, while we are on the subject of age,” I said, “you really have no idea how old you are?”

There was a pause, then he said, “Eighteen.” As my eyes widened, he clarified, “I’m not sure why I believe this, since I don’t remember my eighteenth birthday. It’s just a feeling.”

“Okay… that makes sense.” When he wasn’t scowling or grimacing, he looked about eighteen to me.

I wheeled him down the corridor toward the spare bedrooms before finally reaching our destination. My pulse was racing stupidly fast as I reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

As I pushed him inside, my eyes were glued to his face. His first reaction was to frown as he gazed around at the elaborate setup I had worked hard on yesterday. And then he looked up at me, cocking his head to one side and raising a brow.

“This is… for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, beaming. “All for you. For as long as you’re with us.”

His hands slipped to the wheels of his chair and he moved himself forward on a tour of the room. He eyed each of the apparatuses closely. He reached out a hand and grazed his fingers over two of the smallest weights. Then he looked out of the main window. It was low enough that he could comfortably see through it while seated, and it was broad enough to be able to get a breathtaking view, even when standing on the other end of the room. And we were so high up that if one blocked out the walls from one’s vision, one would almost feel like they were flying.

“Thank you, Grace,” he said. “When you said surprise, I… really didn’t expect this.”

He returned to the pair of small weights that he had touched earlier. Although they had been the lightest and smallest in the whole of the school’s gym, they weighed down his arms instantly as he picked them up. It looked like it was a legitimate effort to even bring them up to his lap.

But I did not even consider going to help him. This was his playground now. I would be here with him to make sure that he wasn’t putting himself at risk of any serious damage, but otherwise, I wanted him to feel like he was completely on his own here. Free to do whatever he wanted. His fingers tightening around the two weights, his face scrunched, but slowly, he raised them up over his head. They dropped down swiftly, but he pushed them up again and again.

Then he rested, letting out a breath.

I went to fetch some water for him, and by the time I had returned, he had resumed lifting.

“I thought that you could come here in the mornings,” I said as I handed him a glass of water. “I thought it would be more fun than wheeling up and down that same old corridor.” Taking a swig from my own glass of water, I set it down before moving over to the MP3 player. I had no idea what kind of music he might like. I just played the first song that was on there, a pop song.

He didn’t seem to pay much attention to the music, however. In fact, he barely even registered the sound. After he’d finished drinking, I took the glass from him and he continued his gentle exercises.

Rather than just sitting here, I decided to join him. I absolutely abhorred working out in a gym, in truth. I found it mind-numbingly boring, even with my favorite songs blasting in the background. I preferred to jog, walk or climb. But it made sense that I accompany Josh now.

I didn’t fancy weights, but there was a machine thingy that looked fairly interesting. Machine thingy. That spoke of how much I visited the gym. I needed to consult my notes to remind myself what it was called. I lay down on the backrest before reaching up and grabbing handles. I pulled them downward, feeling the muscles in my upper arms burn.

I’d barely pulled down three times when Josh commented, “You’re doing that wrong.”

I let go of the handles like they’d turned iron-hot and stared at him.

He had put down his own weights and was moving over to me. His face was serious, his eyes squinting in concentration, as he eyed the apparatus I was resting on.

“You were craning your neck every time you pulled downwards,” he went on. “You shouldn’t do that. You could hurt yourself.”

I was still staring at him. He was awfully knowledgeable about this for a man who had no memory.

“You must’ve learnt that somewhere,” I remarked.

He nodded thoughtfully, running a tongue over his lower lip. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I must have.”