The Boyfriend Puzzle (G)

Relaxing felt weird after the last week.

Jasper had been doing a great job of taking care of me—cooking, talking, checking in. We’d spent the entirety of yesterday making origami we found on the internet. To be fair, my ninja star looked awesome, but I was just so bored of being a couch potato! Was it great cuddling with my Sunshine throughout the day? Of course. Did I like being treated like a glass pane? Not particularly.

At the very least, I now had time to process all the shit that went down. First on the docket, why the hell was Jasper’s mother such a douche? Seriously, her son was the epitome of courtesy, but mommy dearest couldn’t keep her cool for a single interview. On that note, why did she bother showing up? Lacy had said something about an unknown message, and that person could very well be the one responsible for the doxxing bullshit. But if they could afford to send two entitled bitches off, they had to at least have some money. . .

“Gracie, how do you want your eggs?”

“Egg-quisite, my love.”

It was a terrible pun, but Jasper’s cooking always put me in a good mood. Well, except for yesterday when he’d burned the lamb. It wasn’t like him to mess up a meal, but I guess even Jaspers make mistakes. I mean, after we’d cut off the bad parts, it’d tasted good. My only real issue was how profusely he apologized afterwards. It was like the weight of his mistake was crushing down on him, but that felt more like something I would do.

Let’s hear it for anxiety!

“SHIT!”

I jumped for the stars as Jasper reared back from the stove, steam quickly filling the kitchen. I stood up for a closer look, curious to see what had my Sunshine yelping like a puppy. He was muttering angrily, so why couldn’t I find anything wrong?

“You okay, Jasper?” I asked.

He blinked as if shocked to see me. “I’m fine. I just spilled oil on them, so I’ll have to make a new one.”

“That’s fine,” I said, letting inspiration take me for a ride. “Hey, why don’t we make pancakes?”

He smiled for me. “Yeah. I’m good with that.”

We had a lot of fun getting shit set up. Because of my general inability to operate a stove, Jasper handled the hard parts. All I had to do was get the ingredients—flour, butter, other normal stuff. Unfortunately for both of us, I can’t find my way around a kitchen regardless of who owned it. Half our prep went like this:

“Jasper, I can’t find this thing!”

“Did you check in that super obvious place over there?”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“I found it.”

That said, everything was going smoothly, and I got front-row seats to my boyfriend at work. I admired his slight smile, that absurdly perfect physique. His eyes were soft as he stared the food into submission, like a teacher leading a child to the correct answer. He looked sweeter than the syrup waiting on the counter, and I became lost in the moment.

I could imagine us doing this same thing years from now. I would have a pretty ring on my finger, and he’d have one to match. I’d be humming one of the tunes from my glory days as we just existed for a while. Ivy had asked about children, and I wasn’t opposed to the idea at all, but I couldn’t imagine them just yet. For now, I settled on fiddling with my imaginary ring.

Ding!

“Was that mine or yours?” I frowned. “Jasper?”

His hand had frozen, his eyes haunted. Had it been something I said? But if that were the case, he would have just brushed it off as he always did. Was he expecting a text? If he knew this was coming, why did he look ready to bolt? Whatever the issue was, he seemed to resolve it himself as his shoulders relaxed again.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

My boyfriend was breathing heavily, eyes wild. His hands shook as they lifted the device from the counter. He looked like me when my anxiety spiked, but Jasper didn’t have that.

. . . Did he?

“No,” he said. “No, no, no—FUCK!”

He was pacing around the room, terror etched into his features. What was on that screen that could turn the most laid-back man I’d ever met into such a frazzled mess? I had to do something, but I couldn’t think of anything as he ruffled his hair into a frenzy. Shit, I’d always been the one who needed to relax. How the hell did people calm each other down?

His phone met the couch as I crept towards him, still dinging. It was like a twisted beat against his panicking form, driving him to pace faster. If he didn’t chill out soon, he would walk a hole into the carpet. Was that how people said that phrase? Shit, focus, Gracie! Your boyfriend needs you right now!

What did Jasper do when I got like this? He usually tried to calm me down—point me to something different. I couldn’t count the number of times he’s shocked me to reality just by saying something random. Which word should I use, though? Trampoline, frog, music. . .

“Singing frogs on a trampoline!”

Jasper chuckled. “What?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about.” Fuck, I was so bad at this. “We already know frogs jump high, and there was that one movie where they—wait, is something burning?”

“SHIT!”

We ran to save the pancakes from the cruel hand that fate—we—dealt them. Jimmy in the corner was salvageable, but Frankie was a lost cause. Poor Lori met the floor as we rushed to plate whatever we could. I watched Jasper as we worked, concerned to see stress once again coating his features.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

He blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just annoyed is all.”

He didn’t look ‘annoyed’ to me. He sort of looked like me after a bad recording session: fuming with self-rage, yet still trying to act like I wasn’t mad. I guess it made sense on some level—cooking was kind of his art, after all. But he hadn’t been this hard on himself after the lamb, so what had changed? More importantly, why was he lying to me about it?

“Okay,” I said slowly. “What about the—”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

“That.”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal,” he said casually. “My number just got leaked.”

“WHAT?!”

‘I tripped on a ledge.’ ‘I choked on air today.’ Those were the sort of things I thought of as no big deal. A shit ton of lunatics spamming my phone would have me spiraling up a storm! How the hell was he so calm during this? But then, he hadn’t really been calm, not before. Why was he so determined to pretend otherwise?

“Jasper, that’s a pretty big deal!”

“Nah. I figured it would happen eventually.”

“Besides,” he put the surviving pancakes on the table. “This narrows it down, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” I blinked. “Hey, don’t change the subject!”

“Think about it: you know I’m not exactly a social butterfly.” He smirked. “Now we know the culprit is either in my contacts or working for the phone company. Boom! Progress!”

“Jasper, that’s not the point!” I said. “You can’t just brush this away: they have your number!”

His smile wavered and I froze. If he really was feeling anxious, I probably shouldn’t push him like this. Then again, he’d spent the last week pushing me to deal with my feelings properly. Even though it hurt, even when I felt like locking the bad things in the vault of ‘productivity’, he hadn’t let me go.

He had to hear this.

“Look, Gracie,” his voice was shaking. “This really isn’t that big of a problem.”

Ding!

“So they got a phone number. I can just change it!”

Ding! Ding!

“Goddamnit!”

He ran to the couch to silence his phone. I watched his expression morph from irritation straight to discomfort. I rushed to his side, reading over his shoulders. The things people were writing were horrific, and my concern for Jasper grew as he just brushed it all to the side. His face grew blank, like a film of ‘meh’ took over. I’d seen that before, though—when Camila was leaving after the dinner, once he’d finished assaulting the wall post-interview.

The day he’d come to live with me.

Had he been carrying these feelings this whole time? But Jasper always looked okay, and he insisted he was. Had he been lying to himself, too? Did he even realize he was two steps away from a panic attack? Was he aware that his entire act—the brushing off, the ignoring the problem, the fucking subject changes—were only making it worse?

“Jasper.”

He needed to listen to reason.

“I’m fine, Sky. I just have to—”

“Jasper.”

This wasn’t going to be easy, but he had to know.

“Dancer, it’s okay. I’m—”

“JASPER!!!” I grabbed his hand in my own, letting all my worry for him be known. If he wouldn’t admit the truth, I would have to say it for him.

“You’re not okay!”