Skinny dipping by Sabrina Carpenter

We've been swimming on the edge of a cliff I'm resistant, but going down with the ship. It'd be so nice, right? Right? If we could take it all off and just exist and skinny dip in water under the bridge.

The next morning Grayson wakes up early — well early for someone who was up until 1am the previous night. He tries not to wake me as he slowly pries his head from my chest where it remained all night. He's careful to pull the blanket up so i'm fully covered. He redresses himself, putting on a swimsuit and slinking out the door once he's brushed his teeth.

"Paris Blake." Vincent Blake's voice echoes my nightmares.

"You lost." Grayson gapes at me. I lost both my games. I lost Grayson. I lost.

Immediately Grayson is dragged back inside and I can see through the windows they're beating him black and blue again. 

I race towards him to try and help him, but then Danny and Sheffield Grayson walk out. Sheffield douses him in gasoline and Danny cocks a gun.

Then he fires and Grayson is dead. I scream and sob as I watch them turn to me, doing the exact same thing. I can't move. My feet are stuck on the ground.

The bullet plunges through my skin just like the last time.

In my sleep I breathe heavily and start to whimper in fear. Grayson immediately notices and comes back to my side. 

The second the bullet in my dream hits me I wake up in a sweat. 

"You okay, P?" Grayson asks me gently, a concerned tone as he sits close to me on the side of the bed.

Still wrapped in the sheets I lunge into his arms. He immediately holds me and rubs a hand up and down my back. 

"I got you baby." He hushes into my head as he kisses my forehead.

When we pull apart I sit up in bed, him still sitting next to me rubbing a hand up and down my thigh comfortingly.

"Nightmare?" He questions. I hum somewhat of a yes. "Wanna talk about it?" He offers. I shake my head. 

"Okay get back to sleep then. I'm going for a swim." He informs me. "You're leaving?" I whisper.

"I'll stay." He asks like a question, happy to stay if I want it.

"No. Go swim." I dismiss. "Want to come? You can just lay by the pool and sleep if you need." He suggests.

I contemplate it a moment longer and nod. He sits down patiently waiting as I get ready. 

I wear a bikini. As I brush my teeth in the bathroom with the door shut I find myself dissecting myself in the mirror. The scar on my stomach may have healed but it will never go away. The gasoline all over my body may have washed away but it's still there when I look. And every chess piece I ever touch will be my boyfriend being beat up. 

Grayson and I head outside to the pool at the early hours of 8am, he gives my hand a squeeze then dives in.

When Grayson swims he doesn't stop. He looks so angry pushing against the waves. I wonder what he thinks about when he swims. 

I lay back in the sun lounger trying to focus on anything but everything thats happened.

"Our damsel in distress has returned." Jameson comments from the doorway, walking out and making Grayson finally stop for a break after over an hour.

"You're the damsel." He assures Grayson with a teasing smirk. 

Avery wanders out as well behind him. Xander and Max (who just returned from college) also ascend from the house, taking a seat on a sun lounger beside me, sitting to face me beside each other rather than laying down.

"I figured." Grayson snarks.   

I toss him a towel and he runs it over his muscled and damaged body. It's no secret the bruises and cuts devouring his entire body.

"Didn't know Paris was kinky like that." Xander jokes, gesturing to the scratches down his back. He assumes they were from Blake, teasing us playfully. But those are the only scars on his body not put there by Blake's men. 

Grayson and I share a look, both of us smirking.

"No.. No! Gross!" Xander yelps in realization that his joke wasn't much of a hypothetical joke.  

"You two are back together then?" Jameson asks. I was worried telling him would be hard because he still liked me, but his tone isn't bitter or jealous, just curious. I think we've finally reached a place where we're both happy without being together.

Grayson gives me a smirk and then flops down on the sun lounger that i'm on, lifting my body and sliding underneath me, bear hugging me from behind.

He tickles me as I squeal from how cold and wet he is. "Stop! You're soaking!" I scream.

"I'll take that as a yes." Xander teases.

"Yeah unfortunately." I tease as Grayson runs his hand through his wet hair.

"Unfortunately?" He quotes with offence. "Unfortunately." I repeat with a proud smirk.

"God, Grayson.. What happened to you?" Max addresses the elephant in the room, asking the question on the tip of everyone's tongues.

"Just Blake's men. I'm fine." He shrugs off. The kind of thing you might say if you have a bruised eye from a small fight, not when your entire body is beaten like a bruised peach. 

"You look fine right enough." Xander mocks. We all know he does not look fine.

I play with Grayson's hand, "Paris helped fix me up. It wasn't actually that bad." He dismisses.

"Does it not hurt?" Avery asks with serious concern. "No." Grayson finalises.

I know that's a lie. I've seen the way he winces when he moves sharply. He doesn't like to not be okay. He doesn't like being vulnerable.

"We should do something today. Now that this is all over." I suggest to get focus away from Grayson, he squeezes my waist subtly as a thank you.

 "Such as?" Xander asks with intrigue. 

"I think I have a good idea." Jameson speaks up with a mischievous grin.

I don't exactly remember how far in we were before Jameson actually told us what we were doing – but we all seem to just go along with it. We set off later in the day, when the sun was starting to descend. We walked out to the nearby cliff, well ran really.

We got there right after sunset. Pitch blackness consuming us and the black water below us stretching out for miles.

Every word echoes up here. It's sort of eerie but peaceful. Spooky to know all that time ago this was the cliff that killed Emily Laughlin.

"Are we seriously doing this?" Avery laughs out of the pure ridiculousness of the moment. Her repeats of laughter carrying on through our ears in the form of echoes.

I begin walking backwards towards the edge of the cliff. "Why else would we walk all the way out here?" I smirk, Grayson shakes his head laughing at me.

"Oh my god!" Max giggles as she begins undressing herself. Xander, Avery and Jameson quickly join in removing their clothes.

They all throw their clothes to the rocky surface. Max and Avery jump in hand in hand, shrieking as they fall to the water with a splash. Xander and Jameson share a look before cannonballing, laughing and shouting as they plummet.

When they're in the water they throw all their underwear back onto the sand nearby, leaving them all completely naked. I laugh, looking down on them.

I notice Grayson still standing away from the cliff with no intention of joining in. I jog towards him.

"Hey, are you okay?" I frown, my hands gently placed on his hips. "Can't get the suit wet." He lies, his eyes beyond me out to the sky beyond us.

"Listen, Gray. You do not have to do this. It's just them joking around, they won't be mad if you don't do it. We all get it, you miss her and this place is the worst place you could possibly be." I smile comfortingly.

"I don't miss her. She was an awful person." He immediately dismisses.

I step forward to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and nuzzling our noses close, his hands relax onto the small of my back.

"You are allowed to miss someone. No matter how awful a person they were. You can miss how things were before they became awful, miss what you thought they were, miss the memories. It doesn't mean you like them. Look, I sometimes miss Danny and look at how insane he was. Take it from your girlfriend who also dated a complete psychopath, pathological narcissist, who messed with my emotions then died because of themselves then convinced me from the grave that their death was my fault." I half joke.

"Yeah we really have that in common." Grayson chuckles lowly. "And they say we weren't meant to be." I smile softly, joking but relishing in the moment of how close our bodies are.

"Now if you want to jump off this cliff as one last 'fuck you' to Emily, I will hold your hand whilst you jump. If you want to have sex right here where she died as one last 'fuck you' I assure you I am in." I joke, managing to make his stern face soften and laugh joyfully.

"I wanna jump." Grayson nods confidently.

I untuck his tie, taking it in my hand and walking backwards with a smirk, pulling him along with me.

"I was hoping you'd say that." I whisper, earning a fond smile from him. As we walk along the cliff he unbuttons his suit jacket and drops it to the ground. He starts unbuttoning his shirt until it's fully undone.

We reach the edge of the cliff where the others are swimming and laughing. Grayson pulls his trousers off and takes his shirt off.

I'm still in my t-shirt and shorts. Waiting until Grayson is ready to take my stuff off and jump.

Grayson steps in front of me, his hands gripping the curves of my hips firmly. "You trust me P?" He asks to confirm, I nod carefully.

He smirks and I notice all too late when he grabs me and rugby tackles me off the cliff. I scream out in absolute horror, my hands gripping onto his strong shoulders.

The sharp burn of the cold water hits me first in the back. My scream ceases when water hits my face but the second my face bobs up I squeal at the fear I experienced and how cold it is.

Everyone laughs and splashes each other. Grayson takes his boxers off and throws them onto the shore.

I smile as I pull my shirt and shorts off, unclip my bra and pull it off along with my underwear, throwing them to the sand.

As we swim the dark unknown waters all I can think of is the jaws theme song and that one swimmer getting attacked unknowingly, thats when something touches my leg and I scream. Grayson laughs at me as he hooks his leg around mine to pull me closer.

He wraps his arms around my naked body and kisses my forehead from behind.

"Love you, P." Grayson whispers. "I love you too, Gray." I say serenely. It feels good to finally hear him say it.

Then he dunks my head under the water, swimming away as fast as he can so I don't hit him. Everyone laughs as I swim after him into the deeper ends of the ocean.

I would follow him to the deepest ends of the ocean any day.

I catch up with him and grab onto his back to try and get payback. Instead he falls onto his back so I fall under the depths of the water once again.

I chase him back to the shore with the others. We all splash each other and scream and laugh and tell stories. We stay in the water for hours. All of our skin turns to prunes.

Then comes the difficult decision of who gets out of the water and gets everyone's underwear so we don't all see each other naked.

It comes down to a tournament of rock paper scissors.

"Hey, Paris. Remember when the will was read? You challenged us all to a rock paper scissors tournament." Xander reminisces.

I don't even feel like that was the same person. I stood in front of a room full of strangers who wanted to kill me and asked them to play rock paper scissors.

Everyone laughs, not even questioning my actions.

I win my game against Grayson. Max won against Xander. Avery won against Jameson. So Jameson, Xander and Grayson stepped forward and play a three person game.

Xander and Jameson both go scissors, leaving Grayson's paper doomed.

Jameson and Xander cheer and mock their brother.

"Everyone turn around." Avery settles, seeing no need to humiliate him.

We all turn around to face the dark sky. From beside me I hear Jameson and Xander quietly laughing. I turn around and realize they're both looking.

"Hey!" I yell, slapping them both on the shoulder.

Grayson collects our underwear, his amazing figure facing away from us.

"Are you guys looking?" Max yells, also turning around in case she's missing something.

"Holy shit!" Max yells.

All our heads turn to her in shock, even Avery now turned around too.

She just swore right?

"Max! What the fuck!?" I shout in complete disbelief. Never have I once ever heard her swear, I've only heard her go out of her way not to.

"Come on. This deserves the break of my morals. Look at him." She points to Grayson.

"What do you mean? You didn't swear when you saw me naked?" Xander frowns.

"She's seen you naked?!" Jameson screams in shock.

"You've not?" I yell back to Jameson.

"Of course I have. He's my brother- What the fuck!?" Jameson answers before yelling out.

"Walked in on them." I shrug nonchalantly.

"Why is everyone yelling?" Grayson turns around, not realizing we're all turned back around watching him, revealing his dick on display to all of us.

Everyone screams, including him as he fumbles to throw his underwear on.

"Jesus Grayson!" Jameson yelps.

"You're all staring!" Grayson shouts back, mid hop to put his underwear back on and completely rolling his ankle, landing on the sand.

"Oh ship." Xander winces. I recoil, physically chilling at how painful it looked.

"Just walk it off baby." I call out for him. He pushes himself up and struggles to walk towards us with our underwear but does anyway.

He swims towards us, holding out our underwear for us to help ourselves.

He takes mine and helps me clip my bra on.

We all swim back to shore, Jameson ends up having to help Grayson climb the cliff again because his ankle is completely swelled up and the bone even looks out of place.

I grab my wet shirt and shorts from the sand as we follow behind.

Some people might see this night as a disaster, chaos all night long.

But we don't. We all walk up that hill together, still laughing and joking. Even Gray laughs the whole time even whilst we mock him for hurting his ankle by jumping on the spot to get his underwear on. 

Us three girls trail at the back, hearing echoes of Xander and Jameson's laughs as they mock their older brother.

I sigh with a wide smile. "What?" Avery laughs softly.

"This. Everything. I love you guys." I giggle. Max wraps her arm around my shoulder and kisses my cheek, "Love you too Paris." She grins.

"I love you Pear." Avery does the same, wrapping her arm around my shoulder as we all make our way up the steep hill barefoot almost in tears at how funny our stupid jokes seem.

We get up and everyone starts getting dressed again.

I stand by the end of the cliff with Grayson, who is sitting on a huge rock resting his ankle.

"You okay?" I frown sympathetically.

"I'll live." He laughs in response. "You're already beaten up, now you've broke your ankle." I sigh. "I can just never catch a break." He shakes his head jokingly.

"Here." He hands me his suit jacket upon noticing how wet my shirt and shorts are.

He puts his trousers on, now completely shirtless but not caring. I place his jacket on, draping it over my body.

We start heading back, Grayson using me as a crutch. We walk the whole way home, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

We get to the gate and the six of us are immediately swarmed my paparazzi.

All of us dripping wet, shivering and wearing soaked through summer clothes. Grayson completely shirtless, beat up and limping the whole way. Me wearing only red underwear and an oversized suit jacket.

We're asked swarms of questions but we stay silent, wearing proud smirks as we walk through the gates as a group.

We must look insane. But all that matters is that we had a great time.

Throughout the night the photos of us spiral and people go crazy wondering what the fuck we've been up to. And for once, I don't care what the tableau says about me. Because as we're sitting in the kitchen of this mansion eating the Uber eats takeout we ordered at the early hours of 3am, consumed by laughter and joy, all that matters is this moment.

(a/n. This isn't the end guys, I know this chapter gives such 'final chapter' vibes but I assure you this book isn't quite over yet. Also I need advise on something, I previously said I would be making a part 4 + 5 with Brothers Hawthorne and Games Untold but i'm really not sure anymore. I haven't read them yet — I know games untold isn't even out yet — and I don't know when i'll get around to it. So if I do make a part 4+5 which I really want to it'll be like months later. The other option is I just pretend those two books are non-canon and write my own part 4 of the crews future? It really just depends what you guys want. And i think Jennifer Lynn Barnes is planning a romance for Grayson in Games Untold which yk wouldn't be great for this fic would it. Anyway, let me know what you think, hope you enjoyed the chapter even though it's a little late this week)