Rosalie
I step out of the car and close the door behind me.
Grayson stands in front of the car, holding a blanket. He opens it up and places it on the floor, sitting on it. I step towards him and sit next to him.
I know he said this wasn’t a date, but this feels a lot like a date. I won’t bring it up, though, especially since he seemed relieved when I accepted this wasn’t a date.
He’s looking out at the view. It’s gorgeous from up here. I don’t even know what part of Pennsylvania this is, but it looks like something out of a painting. We’re high up on this hill, and it looks out onto a patch of green. So much grass. I’ve lived in New York all my life. All I have been subjected to are buildings and skyscrapers. I have never seen something so beautiful as this.
“Wow,” I say. “It’s so beautiful here.”
He nods, taking out another cigarette from his pocket. I’d hated the taste when I’d smoked. It burnt my throat and made me feel fuzzy. I don’t know how he does it. “I used to come here a lot as a kid.”
It’s one of the first things he’s told me about himself. I soak it up like it’s a rare commodity to know anything about Grayson Carter. I’m starting to think he doesn’t share much about himself with anyone, and I feel grateful that he’s willing to let me in.
“With your parents?” I ask.
I don’t know much about his relationship with his parents, other than that he caught his dad cheating on his mom, which is awful.
He shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t say anything else other than take another smoke. I guess sharing time is over. He’s shut down again.
“So, why did you bring me here?”
He blows out smoke and shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly,” he says. “I saw the exit and figured I’d come here, and you were with me, so…” he exhales. “I haven’t been here in a while.”
I expect him to tell me something else, but he doesn’t. I get it. We don’t really know each other, so it’s not like I expect him to open up to me about everything in his life. But I’ve been telling him about mine. Whenever he asks, I tell him everything.
I guess I am naïve in a way. I had no problem getting into his car and letting him drive me wherever he wanted. At least he brought me somewhere with a nice view. It really is beautiful up here.
I should be more wary. After spending so long being trapped in my house, I should be scared to be out with someone I barely know, but I’m not. I crave to spend more time with him, for him to teach me everything he knows and bring me into his world.
“Can we keep this a secret?” I ask him. His eyes widen as he looks at me. “I mean, if that’s okay with you? I don’t want anyone to know about this.” I laugh nervously. “It’s a little embarrassing.”
I look up at him, seeing his throat bob a little. “Who would I tell?” he asks before a small smirk forms on his face. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”
I nod, loving how I’m in on this big secret that no one else knows. It would be way too hard to explain exactly what Grayson and I are doing. Sometimes I don’t have the answer myself. My friends have no idea, and I don’t think his friends have any idea either.
Who are his friends? I know he and Aiden Pierce are close, being roommates and all, but does he have any other friends?
From what I’ve heard, Grayson has a lot of friends of the opposite sex, but not many girlfriends, or any for that matter. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t believe in love, which would explain why he wouldn’t want a relationship.
I know if it was any other girl asking him for what I did, he would have no reservations over it and would say yes in a heartbeat. So, what is it about me that’s so different? He’s said before that he’s attracted to me, so why did he say no? I should ask him, I should ask why he doesn’t want to be with me in that way, but he’s willing to help me with everything else.
I mean, there is nothing in it for him. He gets nothing out of this arrangement, and I get everything out of it. I get the college experience I have desired ever since I left my mother’s house and came to Redfield. I get to live life like Grayson Carter and forget that I’m Rosalie Whitton, even if it’s just for a minute.
“Why did you agree to help me?” I ask him.
He furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… you get nothing out of this. I offered for us to do something else that would be beneficial for both of us,” I say, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. “But you refused. So why help me at all?”
He laughs under his breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Let’s just say you surprised me.”
“Surprised you how?”
He shrugs. “In a lot of ways. The way you’re so good and kind, yet you want to live the life of someone who’s not.” He blows out smoke and stares out at the view in front of him. “You want to live like Grayson Carter,” he muses. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means I want to live life,” I tell him. “You do that. I mean, look at you.”
His head snaps towards mine, his lips pulled in a side smirk, he looks amused at my answer. “Look at me?” he repeats.
I nod. “Yeah. Tattoos, smokes, sells drugs, hooks up with every girl he sees…” Well, not every girl. Apparently, he has morals when it comes to me. “You get the picture.”
“And that’s living to you?” he questions.
I smile weakly. “Compared to my life for the past eighteen years, yeah.”
“What was your life like? Enlighten me.”
I sigh. “You really want to know?” I ask him.
He raises one eyebrow. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
I nod, stretching my legs out onto the blanket. I can feel the rocks underneath the thin cotton, and my legs are red from the cold. It’s late out, way past midnight, and if I had known we’d be coming to a mountain, I would have worn something warmer.
I left my heels in the car, as per Grayson’s request, so my toes are freezing cold, but I get it. The surface here is rocky and rough, and heels wouldn’t be the easiest to wear.
“Well, most of my life, I was raised by strangers,” I tell him. “Maids my mother would hire. They changed often, but they were somehow all the same. They followed my mother’s rules, and didn’t step out of line, even when I bribed them with money.”
Grayson laughs, and I appreciate him listening to me ramble on about my life. Even if he doesn’t care, he’s here listening.
“My mother was always busy with her country club and hosting events, she never had time for me. The maids I grew up with were nice enough, they seemed to care about me, but that could be because they were getting paid to.” I shrug.
“My father was never around,” I continue. “I only ever saw him on weekends, and sometimes not even then. He was always out of the state for business. I don’t even know what he does exactly. I know it has something to do with stocks, but other than that…”
Grayson laughs, shaking his head. “Sounds like the life of a rich girl.”
“Yeah. I know. First world problems.” I feel a little guilty ranting about my life when his is completely different. From what I’ve heard about Grayson Carter, he grew up with an addict for a mother and now sells drugs to support his mother’s addiction.
He must think I’m so vain for thinking my issues warrant a second thought when his must be ten times worse than mine.
“I never had to worry about there being food on the table or a roof over my head. I get it,” I tell him. “But I did miss out on so much. I didn’t even have my first friend until Leila.”
“Is that the girl you came with, at the party?”
I remember wondering if he even remembered seeing me at that frat party, and now I knew. He had.
“Yeah. We met my sophomore year of high school. I was homeschooled until then, and she was my first-ever friend.” And I couldn’t have asked for a better one. “Before that, I had to ‘bond’ with the bratty girls from the country club. So, I suppose they were my first friends? Except can you call them friends if they hated me? They bullied me, even.”
I sighed. “I don’t know why. They just despised me. And when I got to college, I wanted to experience everything like a normal freshman would. Crappy dorm rooms, having to wear shower shoes, having roommates, I wanted everything. But my mother got me an off-campus apartment, so that dream was taken away.”
He laughs, blowing out smoke. “Your dream was to live in a dorm room? I don’t know anyone who wants that,” he says.
I look out towards the green below us, focusing on the patches of grass covering the ground. “I did,” I tell him. “And for the first couple of months of college, I did nothing but catch up on work.”
He throws out the cigarette and blows the smoke from his mouth before turning to face me. “You’re a freshman. I’m sure there wasn’t that much work you had to do.”
“You’re right,” I say. “But I came to college to study fashion. That’s what I want to do. And whenever I have any free time, I work on my designs. So, I was learning how to juggle doing classes and focusing on my designs at the same time. I hadn’t even gone to a party before last weekend.”
His lips turn upwards, flashing me a smile. “You really are an angel,” he says.
“Why’s that?”
“You’re so innocent, Rosie.”
I look away, feeling my face heat up. “Stop saying that. It’s not a good thing.”
“It is to me,” he says.
I turn my head towards him. “It is?”
He nods. His eyes don’t leave mine as we stare at each other, lying on our sides on this thin blanket, feeling the gravelly ground beneath us.
“How?” I ask.
He smirks. “Because it makes me want to corrupt you.”
Heat rises to my cheeks, feeling them redden, and I look down at the space between us.
His hand lifts, reaching out and swiping his thumb across my cheek. I suck in a breath, and he smiles. “You blush so easily,” he says, laughing under his breath.
“It’s embarrassing,” I say, feeling my cheeks get hotter under his touch.
He shakes his head. “It’s cute.”
His eyes drift to my lips, making me do the same. His lips are parted as he breathes heavily. This is heading somewhere we both know is out of bounds. This wasn’t what we agreed on, but it seems like he doesn’t remember the deal we made, but I do.
I swallow as I back away from him slightly, putting some distance between us. “So, tell me about your family,” I say.
He sighs and falls on his back, head tilted up, looking at the night sky above us. “Not much to tell, really.”
I wonder if the rumors I heard about him are true at all. He doesn’t seem like the guy they all said he was, but I guess I’ll never know unless I ask him. “Is it true?”
He turns to face me. “Is what true?”
“The rumors about you selling drugs,” I say, swallowing.
He turns his whole body to face me. “What do you think?” he asks. “Do you believe them?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I’ve known Grayson Carter a lot less time than some of the people who have told me these things about him but having spent today with him, I don’t think that is true.
“That’s good to know.”
We stay quiet for a moment, hearing the wind crash against the trees and the sound of crickets. But other than that, it’s silent. Peaceful.
He gets up and walks over to his car. He jumps on the hood of his car and sits on top of it. I look back at him, and he’s looking back at me. He smirks and taps the hood next to him. “Join me.”
I smile, get off the ground, and walk over towards him. He reaches his hand out, and I take it, pulling me up until I’m seated next to him on the hood of his car.
I look up, seeing the sky pitch black with only a handful of stars filling the sky. “What time is it?”
He laughs. “Want to escape from me already?”
“No.” I laugh, shaking my head. “Just wondering how long we’re going to stay here.”
I know there will be fallout for disobeying my mother today, and I want to be at the apartment when she ultimately comes to reprimand me for not going to New York like I told her I would.
“Well,” he says, “Do you want to stay and watch the sunrise with me?” he asks before clearing his throat. “I can drive you back if you want.”
I should go back and wait for my mother to call or fly here. But right now, it doesn’t seem to matter. All I want to do is stay here with him. I nod. “I love watching the sunrise,” I tell him, remembering how I used to wake up early and sit on my balcony to watch the sunrise. “Even more than the sunset.”
He smiles. “Well, that’s good because the sunset’s long gone, angel.”
