Grayson
I tuck my phone back into my pocket, wanting to forget about it completely.
I can’t just sit here and keep staring at my phone. That’s sad. I don’t do that. Especially not because of a girl that’s been on my mind for the past two days. I keep looking back at our messages, looking at her name, imagining her reactions to my texts.
Who the hell have I become? I’m here re-reading old texts, and she’s in New York. She’s having fun, and I need to let her do that. Even though all I want to do at this moment is text her, call her, or see her. Fuck. I miss her.
I don’t know why. We haven’t even known each other for that long, but shit, I miss that girl so much. It’s been over a week since I last saw her, and right now, I’m feeling the withdrawals from it.
I wonder what she’s doing in New York. Is she scouring for more potential husbands, or did she just crave a trip to New York? I don’t know. I never know with Rosalie. She surprises me every day. When I first met her, I thought she was a cookie-cutter good girl, but she’s so much more than that.
She’s smart, adventurous, and doesn’t seem to be scared of anything. I like it. A lot. I like how she hums into my mouth when we kiss and how she tastes like candy. How she seems to love the adrenaline of danger like I do.
I once thought we were completely different, but now I think we’re more similar than either of us realizes. I want to know more about her, I want to know everything about her. How she thinks, and what she desires out of life, everything.
I stop myself from pulling my phone out of my pocket and focus on the car instead. Being here clears my head.
“How’s she doing?” Mattie asks, handing me a torque wrench.
I tighten the bolts, making sure it’s all connected. “Needed a new engine.”
“Hmm.” Mattie asses me working on the car. I look up, seeing a look of shock on his face. “You’re good, kid,” he says, leaning against the wall as he watches me.
I’ve done this so many times I could do it in my sleep, but it’s cute that Mattie thinks I’m some newbie wanting to play with cars. I’ve been working on cars since I was seven. I learned to drive by the age of ten, which probably wasn’t the best idea for a kid like me, considering I was a little shit. But fuck, I don’t regret it. Especially because I miss those times so much.
“Who taught you?” Mattie asks, throwing me a rag
I catch it and wrap it around my hand to unplug the drain plug. “My uncle.” I swallow hard.
“Is he a mechanic too?”
I don’t want to fucking talk about this. I can’t look him in the eye. I stare down at the car and change the oil, which gives me an excuse to hide behind here a little longer.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling like there’s gravel in my throat.
“He can’t get you a job?”
My jaw clenches. I’ve been trying to get Mattie to hire me since I came to Redfield, but the bastard won’t hire me until I graduate. Figures, some high school dropout wants me to graduate with a degree to work for him.
It’s bad enough that my parents are on my case all the time about my grades and making sure I attend school, but even Mattie won’t let me work here. It would be a fuck ton easier to make the money I need.
“No, he can’t,” I tell him.
“Why not? If you’re as good as you say.”
I inhale, closing the hood of my car a little harder than I anticipated. “Because he’s dead,” I say, trying to act like it doesn’t affect me.
He shakes his head, letting out a breath. “Shit. Sorry, kid.”
I shrug because what the fuck else am I going to say? It was my fault. I killed him. Yeah, didn’t think so.
He lifts himself off the car. “You heading out of here?” he asks. “I’m about to take my lunch break.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna head back to my place.”
He nods. “Lock up, kid,” he tells me before walking out.
When I’m done, I close the hood of the piece of junk Mattie’s letting me work on and lock up the garage, heading toward the back exit. I get on the bike, deciding to leave my car there. I need to feel the air on my skin right now. I have to keep it here since some douchebags tried to steal it before. Knowing Ben Reed, it was probably him. I know Mattie will keep it safe for me here.
I speed home, remembering when I brought Rosie with me to the lake. How she clung to my body, how she trusted me enough to get on the back of the bike with me, and how she loved the adrenaline, telling me to go faster.
I wanted her to feel how I did whenever I took the bike for a ride, like nothing else in the world mattered but the feeling right there in the moment. It’s the only thing you can concentrate on. When the wind hits your skin and the sound of the engine roars in the air, you feel alive.
When I pull up to the apartment, Aiden’s outside, already dressed and heading out of the front door.
I get off the bike, pulling the helmet off my head. “Where you going?” I call out.
He lifts his head, giving me a single glance, before looking back down at his phone. “Out.”
“How informative.” I joke.
“I’m going to the library.” He grins. “To study.”
I snort out a laugh, shaking my head as I walk past him. Yeah, I know what kind of studying he’s going to be doing. “Have fun studying.”
I head to my room, strip off my clothes, and turn on the shower. As much as I love working on cars, I hate feeling grimy, and a hot shower is exactly what I need.
I wrap a towel around my waist when I step out of the shower and use another to dry my hair. My eyes drift to my phone that’s laying on the bed. I wonder what she’s doing right now.
I finish drying my hair and throw the towel to the floor. I pick up my phone and click on the only name that’s been running through my mind all day. She’s alone in the big city. I can’t help but think of her strolling through the city in that cute little outfit she showed me and not getting hit on.
I’m not jealous, I’m just concerned for her. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself as I hear the line ring, and she doesn’t pick up.
The line rings for what seems like forever until she answers, and I hear a breathy “Grayson.”
I let my eyes drift closed as I let out a breath of relief at the sound of her voice. I miss that voice. It’s been way too long since I last heard that voice. “Hey, angel,” I say, smirking at the sound of her laugh when she hears my nickname for her.
“Hey.”
“Are you busy?”
“No, I just got back home. I’ve got to say, I miss New York,” she says with a sigh.
I smile, crashing down on the bed. “Yeah? How was it?”
She sighs again. “It’s my home, so I think I’ll always love it. Shopping in New York is always amazing. Ooh, and I had lunch with Emily Livingston.” I freeze at the mention of my mother. “You don’t know who that is, but she’s a famous designer. It went great, I guess.”
I clear my throat, avoid the subject, and settle into bed, loving hearing her talk. I honestly think I could fall asleep to her voice. It’s so intoxicating, and I wish I could hear it in person right now.
“Did you buy anything?” I ask her.
She laughs, low and breathy. The sound travels straight down to my cock, and I feel it twitch under the towel, but now’s not the time. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll show you when I get home.”
“How was everything with your mom?” I ask her. “Did her attempt to find you a husband work?” I laugh, trying to hide the bite in my tone. When she told me she was engaged back in New York, my heart fucking skyrocketed out of my chest. Joke or not, I didn’t like hearing it.
“No,” she says with a cute laugh of her own. “We talked, actually. My mother knows that’s not what I want. But she got me a meeting with a huge fashion designer, and she wanted to hire me.” She sounds so excited. I wish I could see her cheeks turn pink like they do whenever she grins. “But she wants me to move to Paris, and I don’t know what to do.”
My brows draw together. “You’re moving to Paris?”
“Maybe?” she says, more like a question than an answer, and then, she lets out a sigh. “I don’t know yet, I mean, I want to graduate college, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to start your own fashion line?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I do, but this would be huge.”
I hate the thought of her moving to Paris. But ultimately, it’s her life. I have nothing to do with it, and I never will. I’m just someone she’s using to get the college experiences she’s wanted and nothing more.
“Anyway, she said I had a month to think about it, so I still have time.”
A month until she decides if she’s leaving me forever. Fuck. “When are you coming home?”
“My flight’s tomorrow morning, so I’ll get there at around noon.”
My heart starts to race. She’ll be here tomorrow. “I’ll pick you up.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She tells me, which makes me roll my eyes. I want nothing more than to see this girl, so hell yeah, I’m going to pick her up from the airport and fucking kiss her the moment my eyes land on her.
“Angel?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m picking you up.”
She lets out a breath. “Okay.”
I can hear her smile through the phone, and I close my eyes, imagining what it looks like.
All I can think of is when I’m going to see her again. I know this has to end, especially if she moves halfway across the world. And when this inevitably ends, I’ll be nothing but an experience to her, but she will always be my angel.
