Gray's POV:

My summer wasn't going according to plan. I was supposed to be at a basketball camp in New York, and I was... until recently. The free hours in the afternoon gave me plenty of time for my partying habits to kick in. 

I spent my afternoons taking naps and my evenings in clubs even though I had practice in the morning the next day. In all my evenings out, I was hoping somebody would join me, but nobody ever did. My friends were all out of the city for the summer and being left alone wasn't the nicest feeling. So I decided I wasn't going to feel it with a little help from the alcohol. 

Once the coaches figured that my afternoons weren't as productive as my mornings were they kicked me out of the camp. I couldn't even be angry at them, because I knew I fucked things up big time. The only real excuse I had was, that the camp wasn't stimulating enough for me. 

Things like this happened often. I joined some clubs and then I got tired of them in the following months. The only two things that stuck were partying and basketball. The problem was that the two were getting in the way of each other and my family could tell you that balancing between the two wasn't my forte. 

I thought I would spend my days with Alex. We were planning on doing this training camp together, which would mean that in the afternoons I would have a safety buddy. Alex has been keeping my partying habits in check for years. I knew he wouldn't be there for me forever, but I was hoping he would be with me long enough for me to get my act straight. I was wrong. 

Since he fell for Rose, they have become inseparable. I loved Rose like a sister and I understood they loved spending time together, however, that didn't mean I didn't miss my cousin. They wanted to spend the summer together, even though they would be living in the same city the next year. Alex was set to play for the New York Knicks and Rosie was planning on getting her diploma. They would make it work, I was sure of that. However, I wasn't sure anymore where I fit in this plan. 

Alex wasn't the only friend who left me to root in the New York heat by myself. Dylan went home as well. I knew I could have gone to clubs with Spencer but he wasn't keen on the fun I usually planned for our outings. 

With so few options to keep me busy during the summer, I decided to call Alex and nag him to come home early or at least ask him, if he knew somebody that was up my alley. Rose picked up, "Hey, Alex's in the shower. How's it going, Gray?"

Her sweet voice made me forget I was slightly displeased with her for coming between me and Alex, "Great, great. It's just a little bit lonely without you guys here."

"Oh, do you miss us?" she teased.

"No," I snapped. I didn't want people to know how lonely it sometimes became in my head. I just wanted to be around people. 

"What do you want Gray?" she asked, her cheeriness taking a step back.  "We're not getting home until a week from now, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know that." I rolled my eyes even though she couldn't see me. Why was everybody treating me like a child? I was completely capable of being on my own. I only wanted somebody to spend my days with. With that train of thought, maybe Rose knew somebody who could be up for my kind of fun in New York. 

"But do you know somebody who's in New York now and would be prepared to keep me company?" I asked her. 

Rose chuckled at the other end of the line, "Gray, you know I only hang with you."

"I know, I know. What about your roommate?" I enquired further, I really was hopeless.

"Oh, yes, you're right. My roommate is at home. She's doing some internship at the publishing agency," Rose's voice was sounding pleased. She loved when she could help people out. 

"Great," my day got just a whole lot better thanks to that piece of information. 

"Talk to you later. And bring Alex back in one piece." I quickly said my goodbyes before heading towards Rose's apartment. 

I was planning on dragging Nicole out of bed if I needed to because I knew that girl was the life of the party. In the past two months that we have spent running in the same circles, it was all just so easy with her. Dylan was so lucky to have her, I should probably ask her if she had a sister with the same attitude. Nicole was probably the only person who could keep up with me and my party habits. I was feeling excited with the prospect of the night, already thinking ahead to which club in New York City I could get us in.

However, fate had different plans for me. When the door of the apartment opened, it wasn't Nicole who was standing on the doorstep, but Aileen, whom I liked to call Little Freak. Aileen was the complete opposite of Nicole, at least in my eyes. She was shy, reserved and a homebody. Everything I was not.

"Wait, isn't Nicole home?" I asked.

"Hello, how are you Aileen?" she sarcastically answered before saying what I was dreading the most, "No, Nicole's not here, she went with Dylan, back to his hometown."

Shoot I forgot about that, "Oh, but Rose said, her roommate is home." 

I wanted to run my head through a brick wall. I misunderstood Rose. I thought she was talking about Nicole when she clearly meant Aileen - her other roommate. I knew Rose's proposition was too good to be true.  

The first time I met Aileen, I didn't make a good first impression. I was hungry from the practice, so I ate her cereal. In my defence, it would become soggy and no good. However, she was still pissed about it.

She was holding the door with one hand and leaning on it in her pyjamas. I would like to say it wasn't a sight to be seen, but I would be lying. Her long caramel legs made me think how, with a different kind of personality, she could just be my type. "What do you want, Grayson?" she asked looking me up and down with the irritation in her brown caramel eyes. 

That was another thing, that made me second-guess her. To her, I wasn't Gray, like I was to my friends. No, she always called me Grayson - my full name, which I hated. Grayson was something my parents called me when I was seconds away from being torn by their criticism; coming from her mouth, it felt the same.  

I sighed and went with my hand through my hair before deciding on honesty, "I didn't know where to go. All my friends are out of town and I thought Nicole might be down for some shenanigans tonight. But I see she's not home, so..."

"Sorry, to disappoint," Aileen started closing the door, so I quickly put my foot in between to stop it.

"Yes?" she pierced me with her gaze.

"What do you say I keep you company?" I asked and put on the sweetest smile I could muster next to her. I used to do it naturally, most of the time it helped me get the girls. That night I was hoping it would help me get out of a funk. 

"No, thanks," Aileen turned me down while avoiding my eyes.

"Come on, Aileen. Our friends are dating, we should be cordial about it. And this is a perfect bonding experience," I wiggled my eyebrows trying to make her smile. But she was a tough cookie to crack.

She rolled her eyes before opening the door a little wider and letting me in, "Fine, come in. But we're watching The Batchelor and I don't want any whining from you. So you can stay if you're not going to say a word about my guilty pleasure. Okay?"

I nodded. It wasn't exactly how I planned my night to go; however, I didn't have a better option. Besides, I knew there were worse ways to spend an evening than next to a pretty girl watching some reality dating show. 

I followed her into their living room and plopped myself on the couch. She had popcorn on the coffee table and I took some. We watched in silence, which was soon oddly enough broken by her, when she exclaimed engaged in the show, "No! Don't do that Elena! He'll betray you."

I chuckled, I had never seen Aileen so engrossed in something else than a book. I liked seeing her so relaxed and comfortable, that she could show me a snippet of what was going on under all of that armour. 

She had a tall, slender figure and caramel eyes that sparked when she laughed. Her black hair was always in curls, getting in her way. She thought she was messy, yet everyone who came in contact with her knew how organised she was. I loved how full of surprises she was. She was a pretty book nerd, one that I would have been interested in if she hadn't been giving me the cold shoulder from the day we met. 

I admit, it was my fault, I had eaten her cereal, but maybe I just wanted to make a memorable first impression. Because first impressions were everything where I grew up. And with a girl like Aileen, I thought that a first impression was just as important. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and I thought that I had to stand out among all the other guys who were surely throwing themselves at her. 

I was wrong. You see, in real life, she wasn't approachable. I wasn't the only person that was given a cold shoulder by her. No, she seemed to do that with every guy she came in contact with. I was wondering what made her do that. What bad experience has she gone through to swear off men?

She was cocooned up in this apartment, doing her thing and nobody could break that little bubble she has made for herself. That was what intrigued me most about her: what was in that bubble that was so much more interesting to her than the outside world? What could she have possibly dreamt in that pretty little head of hers that was better than the world we were living in?

"What?" she asked as she reached for popcorn and woke me from my thoughts of trying to pinpoint her personality.

"Nothing," I waved my hand, "it's just... You're funny when you're commenting."

"Oh," she blushed feeling embarrassed, "it must have slipped me."

"Don't worry about it. So what's the deal with this Elena chick?" I asked wanting to encourage her to be herself around me.

She started talking and I was surprised at the sparkle in her eyes. I couldn't believe a person could be an encyclopedia about The Batchelor, but she was. She knew every contestant and their backstory. But what was even more interesting were her comments on their behaviour. It showed her being roommates with Rose, they both liked to analyse people and their motives for their actions.  

"How come you know so much about this show?" I asked wanting to know more about what drove Aileen to such an in-depth dissection of a show. 

She shrugged avoiding my gaze, "Don't know. I just like to watch it for the dates. People don't do these kinds of things anymore for each other." 

She gulped afraid she had revealed too much about herself. I encouragingly smiled so she would continue to let me in, to give me a further look into a little space inside her head. After she did, I felt like I won a lottery ticket and I was afraid that would become my newest obsession. For how long it would last, I didn't know. I was hoping for it to be like basketball, keeping me entertained for quite a while. 

"People don't go on elaborate dates anymore, And love proposals and declarations aren't as common as one would think." she continued while watching the screen. 

"But why am I saying this to you?" She shook her head in disbelief that we were having this conversation, "I mean, you don't really fall in love with people, do you? You are a playboy for what I have heard?"

There it was, my past, my present and with great possibility my future. I put a hand on my chest feigning being wounded, "Ouch, little freak, you've broken my heart with that comment. You know I can sleep around and still believe in love. Don't you?"

I was pleasantly surprised by her comment. If she knew about my reputation, that must have meant she asked around about me, which maybe meant that she was interested. And I loved nothing more than for the girls to be interested in me. 

She studied my face before standing up and saying, "I doubted it. Do you want some lemonade?"

I nodded, I was getting thirsty and for the first time in a couple of weeks, I wasn't reaching for the alcohol during a conversation with a pretty girl. I was feeling comfortable around her like I've got nothing to prove to her. 

By switching topics, she showed me, that we were getting into a territory that was too intimate for her. We might have just stepped over our boundaries and it was time to return to our respective seats. I was fine with it. In the past couple of months as mine and Aileen's paths have crossed, I noticed she was never too shy to make her walls high enough and call people out when they have overstepped their limits. I respected that since I wasn't the same. My priority around others was to make them feel good, which sometimes meant that I had to bite my tongue. Aileen wasn't like that. 

After getting some lemonade, we continued watching her show and she pointed out some of the more interesting facts about it. Listening to her commentary and her uncensored opinion was like a peeping hole in her mind. By the minute I was getting more intrigued about the girl sitting next to me. Despite staying in and watching a rom-com show about finding the one, I must admit I had fun. So much fun, that we didn't notice the time while we slowly drifted to sleep on different sides of the couch.

I was awoken by cursing near me. Aileen was checking her phone while her caramel eyes widened with bewilderment, "Fuck, fuck, fuck I slept in. Fuck," she repeated and my cock bobbed with anticipation of that word leaving her mouth.

It must have been just my morning wood I thought to myself, while Aileen sprinted upstairs and talked to herself about how she was going to be late for something. Before I stood up, she was down the stairs and her head went into the room next to the living room. She was like a small hurricane. 

I decided the appropriate thing was to say goodbye so I went after her. But nothing could compare me to the sight I got to see in her room. There were books upon books stacked against the wall. Various rows of books were on the window still and stacks on her bedside table. The girl loved her books.

I leaned on her doorframe trying to stretch a little since sleeping on the couch wasn't the most comfortable, "So you like books?"

"What?" she asked absentmindedly.  She turned so she could see me. She was in her bra and wide pants. I gulped, I shouldn't feel this way about her. I shouldn't want her the way I thought I did, because I would break her heart. I wasn't prepared to give her what she would want and certainly not what she deserved.  

So instead of getting lost in my thoughts about her, I repeated the question, "So you like reading?"

She nodded and a small smile tugged at the sides of her mouth as her eyes got a hazy look, "Yes, I like books."

Her phone made a ding, and she lowered her head to look for it, "Now, sorry if I am rude, but I have somewhere to be in about half an hour and the ride there takes me..."

Her thumbs typed something, "Shit, it takes me forty-five minutes. Shit."

Her cursing did something to me. Maybe because I didn't expect it, she didn't look like the type. So, I offered to take her, "I can take you? I have an electric skateboard, so we would be faster than any car during the rush hour."

"Really?" she didn't sound sure, which made me doubt our bonding experience from the previous evening.

"Yes," I nodded and smiled. 

"Okay, you're right," she agreed while she was putting on a shirt.

I looked away to give her some privacy. All I saw were books, so I asked in a joke, "Did you read The Fifty Shades of Me?"

"What?" she was half listening to me and half applying her make-up.

"Fifty shades of grey?" I chuckled, wanting to lighten up the mood, her mood.

"Yes," she answered while looking for her lipstick.

"Really?" I was surprised at the confidence of this girl in front of me.

"Mhm," she nodded while she went on her knees to look under the bed for her purse.

I turned to her bedside table and started snooping in her books.

"What are these red stickers for in your books?" I opened one and started reading. My eyes almost poped out, when my sight laid on a word cock and throbbed with need. All my mind was picturing was Aileen reading this, Aileen wanting somebody to do these things to her. What else was behind my Little Freak as I liked to call her? Maybe the nickname little freak accounted for being one in the bedsheets as well.

"What?" she asked from the other side of the bed with her purse in one hand, when she noticed the page I was on. Dread fell on her heart-shaped face. "Oh my god, don't read that," she jumped over the bed and towards me. 

While she tried to get the book out of my hands I fell on top of her. "Get off me," she exclaimed clenching the book to her chest.

"You read that?" I rolled over, so she could have room to breathe. I knew I wasn't the lightest person to be under it. 

"Yes, something wrong?" she pushed her chin forward challenging me to say something bad about it.

"No, not at all. Just you don't seem like ... never mind," I stuttered and chuckled in embarrassment. I wasn't used to girls being at the same time so open and so closed to their sexuality. 

She rolled across on her belly and slapped me across the chest, "Stop it."

"You know somebody could say we're having enemies-to-lovers trope here," I hugged her to my chest, giving her a smooch on the cheek.

"Uff, no, I don't think so," her face scrunched in feigned disgust.  

"Come on Noemi's waiting for me," she patted me again before standing up. The part of my body where her hand lay just seconds before became cold.

"I'll take you," I offered again because I knew her. She needed to be offered something at least three times before she agreed to it. That girl was more stubborn and self-sufficient than Alex and that said a lot. 

We went on my electric skateboard. At first, she didn't dare to look up so she buried her face in my chest, her perfume of citruses overflowed me and embedded itself in my memory. After a couple of minutes, I noticed her eyes picking at the sides and trying to catch glimpses of the outside world swooshing past us. 

I felt her giggle in my chest when we overtook a taxi that honked at us. I wanted to hear her laugh again and I wanted to spend some more time with her. I was intrigued about what other surprises she had entailed for me in that head of hers. 

We came on time to her destination. But before I could ask her out, she said "Goodbye and thanks." 

Then she skipped in the event with her purse swaying from her shoulder. All I could do was watch her retreating figure as I sighed. This wasn't how I expected my weekend to start.