NESSA

The ceiling was gross. It had all sorts of stains and missing pieces of drywall that made me wonder whether the patchy roof over my head was the reason why it never reached above sixty-five degrees in my room. And also whether it was worth it to go into debt to live in this dump. But mostly, I was thinking about anything that didn't involove football players or the overstimulating psychology lecture I'd just escaped.

When I managed to count thirty-three ceiling squares, someone knocked on my door.

Frowning, I pushed myself up from the bed. Beau had a chem lab this morning, so I knew it couldn't be him. And while I was friendly with some other girls on the floor, none of them actually stopped by to visit me. Being friendly and being friends was an entirely different thing. And I'd only made three friends at college so far.

Two of them were still on a beach in Los Angeles. One of them was in chem lab.

My stomach swirled with a touch of anxiety, and I held my breath as I looked through the peephole. I'd made the mistake of not doing that before.

But the stress that had been creeping up the back of my neck disappeared as I saw who it was. My frown still deepened, though. There was a reason I hadn't texted Grayson back, and it was pretty simple.

I didn't want to talk to him.

Biting my lip, I debated. But in my gut, I knew that if I didn't deal with Grayson now, I'd just be doing it later. He wasn't the type to let things go. He wasn't the type to let me go. Not before he got what he wanted—whatever that was.

I swung the door open to find Grayson grinning at me. Pursing my lips, I didn't return his smile. But I did throw my hand on my hip and snipe, "Missed me, huh?"

And shit, it was a dumb thing to say. I could have said literally anything else, but of course, I had to say that, leaving the door wide open—literally and metaphorically—for Grayson to come right in.

"Yes," he admitted, and even though it had only been a few days, I'd forgotten how perfectly smooth and husky his voice was. "I did. Particularly our date that you ditched out on."

It was then that I noticed the coffee in Grayson's hand, which he shoved forward, into my empty palm.

"Here, I owed you." He lingered in the open doorway for a second with that silly smile on his face before smirking. "And you owe me."

I narrowed my eyes at him even though I appreciated the smell of caramel and the warmth spreading through my cold hands. And just the fact that he brought it to me. No one ever brought me things.

But this was just another little play, and I wasn't going to let Grayson score.

"Owe you? I don't owe you."

My dismissal didn't phase him.

"You owe me a date. I'm fine with a dorm room date. Or maybe we could take a walk?"

"What—" I sputtered at his audacity before getting a grip on myself. "I don't owe you a date."

"It's just a walk, Nessa."

"I don't even owe you a walk, Grayson."

He shrugged. "That's fine. Sitting in your room works for me."

And then he slipped past me, brushing against my body so he could squeeze into my dorm.

"I don't owe you shit, Everett!" I said through clenched teeth, and before I knew what had gotten into me, I'd stomped my foot on the floor like a toddler. But it was either act like a toddler or admit that heat had rushed into my body when he touched me, turning the temperature in here up to at least seventy degrees for the first time ever.

My eyes flicked up to his, and of course, it was an awful mistake.

Grayson's eyes, his mouth—they both smiled at me, humor lingering behind the curve of his lips and the crinkle of his crow's feet.

God, wasn't he too young to have crow's feet?

Ah, a flaw. Yes, crow's feet at twenty years old was definitely a flaw.

But shit, it made him look nice. Endearing. Sweet. And I didn't want to think about him like that right now. Because nice guys and Quinton Reid didn't fit into the same picture—a picture like the one he'd sent me.

I groaned. "Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"My mom would just love you, Adler," he said before his grin fell away. "But really, you can't call me Everett. It just doesn't work."

I threw my hands up in the air and turned away because I needed a second to compose myself after that mom comment. What guy stares at a girl and thinks about his mom? And why the hell did it make me feel even warmer than a minute ago when he'd touched me?

Taking a sip of my coffee to calm myself, I basked in the caramel and caffeine.

After a deep breath, I gave him a pointed look. "Okay, Grayson."

He nodded, as if accepting my usage of his first name. And then he crossed my room confidently, finding a spot to sit on my futon like he'd been here a million times before. He tossed one leg over the other, settling into the couch comfortably.

I still didn't know what instrument Grayson played, but if I had to guess, I'd put all my money on him being the lead trumpet in his high school jazz band. Trumpeters were always the cocky ones.

"Sure, make yourself at home," I mumbled, looking at him over the edge of my cup.

"Where's your roommate?" he asked, glancing around the space.

"I don't have a roommate," I said, my stomach sinking at the thought of Madie.

Because it reminded me of Quinton. Who Grayson had hung out with this weekend like he wasn't a fucking psychopath.

Grayson frowned at the daisy comforter on Madie's bed and the books on her desk. "It definitely looks like you have a roommate."

"She's...away."

"Away?" Grayson repeated, and I had bit my lip to keep from snapping at him again.

"Away," I said firmly, and his brows formed a v deeper than a frat boy's t-shirt.

I took another drink of the coffee to calm myself, and he studied me, watching me swallow. Which completely counteracted the point of taking the sip. He unnerved me.

"He was in that picture, wasn't he?" he asked, changing the subject.

I leaned against my desk, purposefully keeping my distance. "Huh?"

"Your ex-boyfriend. That's why you didn't reply."

I shrugged off his statement even though my entire body tightened at the thought of Quinton's face in that picture. Asshole got wasted with Grayson while Madie hadn't even drunk a drop of alcohol this past weekend, too worried about what it might do to her still-recovering brain.

"Was it Max?"

I shook my head.

"Jake?"

"No, Gray—"

"Shit, Nessa." Horror spread over his face as he stilled. "Is it—"

"I didn't date anyone on your team, Grayson," I spit out, not able to take this little run around anymore.

"What?" At first, his expression swirled with confusion. But it only lasted a moment before relief took its place. "Thank god, I got really fucking nervous for a second that you were about to say that this was about Quinton."

Grayson ran a hand through his short hair, giving his head a little shake. But then his gaze met mine, and all I could manage to do was to stare at him.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to shrug this off, to lie, to say I didn't know Quinton.

When a few seconds passed, and I still hadn't said anything, Grayson dropped his hand and leaned forward onto his knees.

"Nessa?" he cautioned.

I swallowed. "So you know."

It wasn't a question, and Grayson's brows furrowed together again. "Know what?"

"What Quinton is. What he did."

His lips pursed. "I heard rumors, yeah."

I scoffed at that, sick to my stomach at the idea that what happened to Madie was some cheap locker room gossip.

"But you still hang out with him."

Again, not a question.

Grayson gripped his hands together, and when he spoke again, his voice was quiet and low. "Tell me those rumors weren't about you," he said, ignoring my comment.

"I told you I didn't date anyone on the team, Grayson."

"Then what—"

"Do you want to know where I was this weekend?"

He seemed taken aback by my change in subject but nodded. Slowly.

"I was in—" I stopped myself short, realizing I'd nearly exposed Madie's whereabouts to someone close to Quinton. It put a sour taste in my mouth to even think about. "I was with her."

Tilting my head to the side, I pointed to a picture on Madie's desk. It was of the two of us at freshman orientation, smiling broadly.

"Your roommate?" Grayson asked.

"Yeah." I took a deep breath. "Madie left campus about a month ago because Quinton Reid gave her a brain bleed bad enough that she needed surgery, and then the university let him stay here like nothing had happened. And you want to know why?"

Grayson gave me a look that said he wasn't sure if he wanted to know why. But he still asked. "Why?"

"They wanted him to play in the last game of the football season. So your team might have a better chance in the play-offs."

Color visibly leached from Grayson's face. And I couldn't deny that it was satisfying to see.

I swallowed. "So yeah, I wanted you guys to lose that night. I wanted the university to lose. Because they deserved it."

Silence stretched between us, only interrupted by Grayson's sigh as he dropped his head into his hands. And when he lifted his gaze again, anger glimmered amongst the blues of his irises.

"You were about to tell me where you went this weekend. Where Madie is. And then you didn't. You think I'd tell him? Seriously, you think that about me?"

I shrugged. "I'm not about to take any chances. I know Quinton is trying to find information about Madie. I've had to fend him off more than a few times."

The anger in his eyes flared to something I didn't recognize.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Nothing." I glanced away, swallowing a hard lump in my throat as I thought about the times Quinton had shown up at the hospital and tried to get through to Madie.

And the time he showed up here.

Grayson's frustrated voice cut through the room. "Come on, Nessa."

I turned my gaze back to his. "He came here once. After Madie left campus. I thought it was Beau at the door. It wasn't."

Grayson's mouth had formed a hard line, and I wondered what it felt like to realize your friend was a piece of shit.

"Quinton burst into the room the second I opened the door. He demanded to know what happened to Madie. He knew she'd left. But he wanted to know who she was with, where she was going, what she had planned. And of course, I wouldn't tell him."

Grayson surveyed my face while I spoke, and I tried really fucking hard not to let anything slip onto it. But apparently, it wasn't enough. Because I caught the moment on Grayson's face when he saw the memory pass through mine.

"Fuck, did he hurt you?"

I shook my head, but it must have been unconvincing. Grayson stood, crossing the space between us. His fingers brushed along the length of my arm, and I couldn't get myself to push him away. He was so warm. And I was always so cold.

"Nessa..." he prodded before seeming to lose the direction of what he was going to say. I blinked up at him, and the words I hadn't told anyone spilled out.

"When I wouldn't tell him anything, he grabbed me by the throat hard enough that I—" Pausing, I swallowed the lump in my throat. "And for a split second, I thought I was going to wind up in the hospital, just like Madie." I shook my head again, blinking against the tears, burning to be shed. "But then something...something clicked in his eyes. And he stormed away."

Grayson trailed his fingers upward. They grazed my collarbone before reaching my neck. Where Quinton had grabbed me.

"God, Nessa. I had no idea—" He broke off, but his thumb continued to rub over the exact spot where my pulse ticked. "Okay, I get it."

I glanced up at him, leaning into his touch, questions in my gaze.

"I get why football players make you uncomfortable," he clarified.

"Quinton isn't the only shitty athlete I've been fortunate enough to meet," I muttered.

Grayson's eyes flashed, but he didn't ask anything more. He simply kept rubbing that spot, soothing me into a stupor. "But you gotta know I'm not like those guys," he said, keeping his voice as soft as his touch.

If our conversation was a song, this moment right here would be its diminuendo.

"Every guy says that," I said. "That he's different."

He took a step closer to me. And I really didn't want to lean into him. I really didn't want to want to be close to him. But my body and my brain were running on different tracks, and I relaxed beneath his hand before Grayson breathed his next words across my skin.

"Well, I'm going to be the one who proves it to you."

💗

we shall see, Gray!
xoxo