NESSA

What the hell was I thinking inviting Grayson over?

I hadn't been. I really hadn't been. I was simply bored and lonely. Everyone at home was so freaking busy doing things without me, and I hadn't been thinking at all. I just wanted someone, something, anything to keep me company.

Fuck.

Even I knew that was a lie. It wasn't just someone. It wasn't something or anything that I wanted. Because the truth was that I had such an annoyingly good time with Grayson on our lunch date before break, and I wanted to feel the way I felt that day again.

Oh my god. What were we even going to do? I glanced around my room, noting every embarrassing token of my childhood that sat out. The ballerina figurine my grandparents gave me when I got super into ballet at age six, the picture of me at Disneyland when I was eight, Mickey ears and all hanging above it.

Well, he couldn't come up here. That was for damn sure.

Maybe we could go for a walk or take a drive or—

"Is there something wrong, ćerka?"

Spinning around, I found my dad standing in my open doorway, a slight frown on his face.

I shook my head. "No." Another shake. "Well, yes. I—"

Sighing, I gave up and collapsed onto my bed.

Chuckling, my dad walked into my room and gingerly sat down next to me. He crossed his legs, settling in like he knew this wasn't going to be a short talk. His eyebrows drew together with concern, all bushy and peppered with grays. And then he was silent, waiting for me to say something more.

"There's this—" I waved my hand in the air like I'd hoped that would help him understand so I wouldn't actually have to say it. But he just continued to stare at me expectantly, so I murmured the word under my breath. "Guy. He's going to stop by in a bit."

One of those big, bushy eyebrows rose up. "This wouldn't happen to be the same guy who has been driving you home from campus, is he?"

I sighed again. "Yes."

"Rory reports that he is super awesome."

I rolled my eyes. Rory was in that age where he thought everything and everyone was super awesome. "Rory just likes him because he plays football," I said.

"Mm," Dad said with a nod, taking that in. "And I suppose that's why you're unsure about him? He reminds you of that pea-brained boy you dated last year?"

The throaty way he emphasized pea-brained boy in his Slavic accent made me swallow a giggle, especially because he followed it by making a face, one I understood all too well.

I opened my mouth to confirm, but then I stopped to actually put Grayson and Jasper side by side in my brain. And honestly, there was only one commonality. At least that I knew of.

Jasper was single-minded; everything had been about football for him. Well, maybe dual-minded. Because there was also sex on his brain. All the time. He didn't do anything unless it boosted his chances for more playing time—on the field or in bed.

Grayson was definitely trying to boost his chances for something, but it was hard to say what exactly that was. Nothing about him was single-minded, though. There was a lot more to him than football, and every time we were together, I found myself wanting to figure out what those things were. He still hadn't told me about all the instruments he played.

"No," I said. "No, he actually doesn't remind me of Jasper."

My dad cocked his head to the side. "Then what's the problem? Why not give the guy a chance?"

I narrowed my eyes. My dad had always been pretty chill about dating, but even so, his attitude at the moment hedged on surprising. Dude was acting like he was team Grayson without even knowing him or seeing his face or anything.

Or maybe it was just that it was what I wanted to hear. Needed to hear.

"I know it's just my past experiences messing with me, but I'm having a hard time trusting that—" I paused, trying to figure out how to word my thoughts, not eager to have a conversation about sex with my dad. "I'm having a hard time trusting his motives," I said eventually. "What he actually wants out of this."

Dad laughed. "Motives, huh? Do you want me to give him the talk when he arrives? I'll gladly ask him what his intentions are with my daughter."

He pulled his face into a stern glare, imitating the look he might flash at Grayson.

"No," I said, the word shooting out my mouth. "Absolutely not. Definitely don't do that, dad."

Letting expression drop, he smiled warmly instead. "Then you ask him."

"What?"

"Just ask him what you want to know, Wednesday. When you're in a relationship with someone—"

"I never said we were in a relationship," I cut in, lifting a finger to emphasize that very important point.

"—and you want to know if you're on the same page about something, you have to be able to ask. Just ask."

It sounded way too easy and way too hard at the same time. But when it came to stuff like this, there was no one in the world who I trusted more than Ivan Elez, the man who left everything behind and crossed the ocean for the woman that he loved.

He patted me on the knee before standing. "I can't wait to meet this man who has my daughter in a tizzy."

"I am not in a tizzy."

My stomach churned. Because that was a bold-ass lie. Dad simply gave me a pointed look, and I bit my lip.

"Actually..." I hedged, "I was hoping that maybe everyone could just conveniently disappear for a while?"

Dad chuckled, but he didn't respond as he walked out the door. And I took that to mean that no one was going anywhere.

***

I tried really hard to usher Grayson past my family when I opened the front door, but Rory immediately ambushed him, practically begging him to play football in the backyard.

Grayson flashed his bright smile before dropping a guitar—a guitar— on the floor, pushing the coffee he'd gotten me into my hand, and flying out the front door again to grab his football. And before I knew it, I was standing in the backyard, coffee in hand, watching my brother and Grayson toss the football around.

Even Piper gravitated toward the deck until she eventually wound up sitting next to me, curled up in an Adirondack chair. And she was talking to me for practically the first time since I'd gotten home. Of course, it was about Grayson.

"He's hot," she said, sounding lost in a daze. Her head was propped up on one hand as she watched Rory and Gray.

I crinkled my nose, wishing weren't having this conversation.

"I mean, objectively speaking, yes."

Piper looked over me, raising her brow. "Mmhmm."

"Stop looking at me like that," I snapped.

"You like him."

"He's—"I ran my hand through my hair, flustered. "He's...I don't know. He's just Grayson."

Piper laughed, flicking those auburn curls I envied over her shoulder. I was the only child in the family who didn't get the curly, gorgeous hair gene. "Well, just Grayson is coming over here, so maybe start figuring out how you're going to form complete sentences."

I scowled at her as she jumped up to duck back into the house, and I barely managed to school my expression before spinning around to find Grayson three steps away, all breathless and windswept from running around.

"Hear me out," he said, twisting sideways as he caught a pass from Rory. Like seriously? He barely even looked at the goddamn ball. It just fell into his hands like he harnessed some kind of magnetic force.

I cocked my head to the side to show that I was listening.

"I know you said that you didn't want me to teach you guitar, but what if you gave it one try? One try. And if after tonight you never want to pick up a guitar again, I'll drop it."

It was tough to say no to that, especially when Rory glared at me over Grayson's shoulder, judging my every move. And the fact that Grayson had thought to bring his guitar.

Shit, it was sweet. He was doing that thing again where he was sweet. And it was really pissing me off because I didn't know how to react to it.

It caused a storm of butterflies in my chest.

"Fine." I threw the hand that wasn't holding the coffee up in the air. "Let's go up to my room," I added, internally cringing. But there was no way in hell that I would let my family watch our little guitar lesson.

I didn't wait to watch Grayson's reaction before turning around, but I heard a clapping of hands behind me, and I fought a smile at the mental image of Rory and Grayson high-fiving like the boys they were.

"Come on!" I called over my shoulder.

What I didn't expect was Grayson's low voice to be right there, in my ear, giving me a slight shiver despite the mild day.

"Oh, I'm right behind you, Adler. Just gotta grab my guitar."

I paused by the bottom of the stairs while he went to pick up the instrument. When he returned, I steeled myself as we walked past the portrait-heavy hallway toward my bedroom, hoping he wouldn't comment or stop to browse the many, many pictures from my youth. At the entrance to my room, I decided I should probably try to distract him from anything else embarrassing he might see.

"I told you that I wasn't going to be any good at the guitar, Gray," I said with a sigh.

When he didn't reply, I turned around to find him in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a bit of a smirk.

"Did you just call me Gray?"

"Like that better than Everett, huh?"

"Yeah. I mean, everyone calls me Gray. But I'd never heard you say it before."

An irrational annoyance washed over me. It wasn't surprising that everyone called him Gray. But there was a stupid part of me that didn't want to be just like everyone. Not when it came to this irritating football boy standing in my childhood bedroom.

Watching me, he tilted his head. "Why are you making that face?"

"I'm not making a face."

"Yes, you are," he said before stalking toward me and kicking the door closed behind him. He leaned the guitar next to the bed.

Bold choice, Everett.

"What's your middle name?" I asked, mostly to change the topic. But also because I was curious. He shook his head, and I cut him off before he could refuse to tell me. "I deserve to know. You call me Adler all the time."

"My own little Irene," he said with a smile. "A dangerous girl like no other."

I snorted, desperately trying to ignore the possession in his words. "I'm not dangerous."

Grayson sighed, ending the exhale with a dry, humorless laugh.

"You get my blood pumping. Trust me when I say that's dangerous, Nessa."

My own heart lurched at that, sending blood careening through my veins like lava until every bit of me was white-hot. I stared at him, expecting to see a flirtatious glint in his eyes, but when nothing like that sparked, I frowned. He looked tired again, flopping back onto my bed and staring at the ceiling. It was eerily similar to that night in the dorms.

"It's Wilder," he said.

"What?"

"My middle name is Wilder."

"That's not even embarrassing," I said. "That's..."

"What?"

Hot. Weirdly hot. Although maybe that was just because he was hot, lying in my bed with one arm tossed over his head casually, a quarter-zip sweatshirt stretched tightly over his chest. Or perhaps because I was hot, flustered and burning up inside.

God, this was not going to end well. I cleared my throat. "Nothing. I just don't know why you didn't want to tell me."

He sighed. "It's not the name. It's—"

Grayson clamped his mouth shut, and it was my turn to look questioningly at him. "It's what?"

"Forget about it. Let's play some guitar, huh?"

He sat up, whisking the guitar into his lap as he did. Patting the bed, he gave me an encouraging look.

After setting my coffee on my nightstand, I lowered gingerly onto the mattress next to him, and Grayson didn't waste any time shoving the instrument into my hands. And then his hands were everywhere. Positioning my fingers on the strings, moving my arm so it cradled the guitar, adjusting my wrist.

His touch was brisk and businesslike, but my body didn't seem to care. The fire raged on inside me.

He shifted closer, and the next thing I knew, Grayson was breathing in my ear. "Loosen up, Adler. Just pretend you're playing the ukulele."

"It's a lot bigger," I muttered.

Grayson chuckled before making a low humming noise in the back of his throat, and it practically vibrated against my skin. "Relax," he said.

I literally didn't know how to do that. Not with him so close to me and me feeling so confident that I would make a fool out of myself.

"Hang on," he murmured. And then—as if he really thought it was going to help—Grayson plopped one leg on my other side and circled his arms around mine. He'd straddled me from behind.

"What the hell are you doing, Wilder?"

He froze. And then laughed, but it was strained. I wished I could see his face, but I was determined not to turn around.

"I see what you did there," he said softly. "And I'm going to teach you how to play the guitar. That's what I'm doing. But you're clearly nervous, so I'm going to play first. And you're going to relax. But for the record, singing isn't my strong suit. And it's hard to see, so I'm just going by touch here. Might not be perfect."

"Excuse me? I'm not nervous." The words came out squeaky, ultimately defeating the purpose of saying them.

I was nervous. But it had nothing to do with the guitar and everything to do with him.

There was a long pause while Grayson repositioned into a spot where he could wrap around me and get his hands in the right places on the instrument. Mine fell uselessly into my lap. And then his breath tickled the back of my neck as he spoke, and I tensed up again.

"Then prove it," he said before starting to play.

It took me a second to recognize the chords, but it hammered home when he opened his mouth and began to sing.

It was an odd mix between rough and soft, but his voice hit every note of Brown Eyed Girl like he was Van Morrison himself. The pace was slower than the original version, though; there was a melty, butteriness to it that had me softening like putty in his arms. If singing wasn't Grayson's strong suit, I was dying to find out what was.

The ease in which he practically breathed the music had me itching to join in, and so I did. When we hit the chorus, I leaned back, singing the harmony with more confidence than I ever imagined I would in front of another person. Grayson's chin came to rest just above my shoulder, and I could feel the slight stubble on his chin tickling my skin as the words you, my brown eyed girl slipped from his lips.

We finished, and the silence that followed was nearly suffocating. It hummed with awareness. Because it finally hit me what he'd done.

"Brown Eyed Girl, huh?" I asked with a light laugh, trying to brush off whatever had just happened, telling myself his song choice had nothing to do with the color of my eyes.

Grayson cleared his throat. "The internet says it's one of the easiest songs to learn how to play."

I watched as Grayson's right hand drifted from the strings, moving to my arm instead. He trailed his fingers down it until he reached my wrist and pulled it back to the guitar. And then he did the same thing with my other arm.

This time when he moved, he did it slowly. Purposeful and slow. His touch elicited an undeniable sensuality that had my nerve-endings tingling. His chest pressed against my back, and my brain was running around in circles as I realized just how many places we were touching.

But I managed to pull myself together, and we spent the next twenty or so minutes with Grayson trying to show me how to play the chords for Brown Eyed Girl.

"Your voice is one of a kind, Nessa," he said after I'd failed to play a C major chord. Again. On a ukulele, C major only involved pressing one string down. But on the guitar, I had to get my fingers in three different places. All at once.

It was bullshit, and Grayson was probably just trying to make me feel better. His voice was gravelly, giving me tingles. "I don't know why you're still undecided on your major," he added. "You could easily get into any of the music programs."

I shook my head. "Music is just a silly little hobby."

"I've learned that often those little hobbies that we tell people are silly are really the things that we love more than anything else. We're just too afraid to let people see that we're invested in something in case they think it's silly."

Giving in, I twisted to stare at him. This wasn't the first time that Grayson had said something about music that hit home. His eyes were sincere as he gazed back at me. And when I didn't respond, his lips twitched as he gave me a little nudge. "If you were a music major, we could have classes together."

I pictured sitting next to Grayson in a lecture hall, him leaning over to whisper sweet and dirty things in my ear like he liked to. I laughed breathlessly.

"Grayson, I don't think I'd be very productive if we had class together—" I cut myself short as my mind fully comprehended what he'd said. "Wait, you're a music major?"

He nodded. "Music education."

"Music education?" I repeated. "As in...teaching kids how to play music?"

"Yeah, that's the idea," he said with a grin.

Craning my neck, I buried my head into his chest without a second thought and groaned, loud and unapologetic. The guitar slipped through my hands to rest on the carpeted floor, forgotten. There was a rumble, which I took to mean Grayson was laughing.

"What?" he asked, gripping my shoulders and pulling me back.

"I've been trying really hard to hate you, Grayson. But you're making it too hard. I need more flaws, not this music education crap."

Grayson was silent for a long moment, and I looked up at him. We were too close. Far, far too close. I could see the flecks in his blue-grey eyes and each tiny hair, each little bit of stubble on his face. And that woodsy, spicy scent of his cologne was swirling around me in a haze, which I swore I could feel. Or maybe that was just his breath hitting my lips.

He lifted a hand, cupping my face. His thumb rubbed along my jawline, similar to what he'd been doing on my neck that night that I told him about Quinton. And just like that night, it soothed me. "What if you stopped trying to hate me, Nessa?" he asked.

I sucked in a breath before whispering the truth. "I'm afraid if I stop trying to hate you, I'll start kissing you. And I won't be able to stop."

For a second, Grayson seemed too stunned to respond. Which was honestly a first. But then his eyes flared, and he wrenched us even closer together.

"Fuck this," he breathed, and his warm lips slammed into mine.

💗
After a long chapter, I think that's a good stopping point. Am I right?

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed reading it!

xoxo