Happy Monday all!!! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Stella POV

The time on my phone makes me scowl. Gray is late. Figures. He won't come. I know that. But there is a part of me that hoped he would show for the study group. 

Everyone said I was crazy for inviting him over, but I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to show them that Grayson was more than meets the eyes. But he's not giving me much room to defend him.

With a heavy sigh, I stand up from the leather couch and pace. Why am I holding out hope? It feels pointless. Alice is going to have a hay day with this tomorrow. I won't hear the end of it. 

Gray is just making me look like an idiot. If he doesn't show, maybe I should lie, say he did. It will save me and him. Might be worth it. 

At this point, I should have told my father and Bec I would go to dinner with them. Now they are going to come home, and I will have to make up some excuse about why my study date fell through.

Breaking me from my sour thoughts was a knock on the door. With a spring in my step, I run downstairs to see Grayson on the other side, looking like he just ran five miles. A smile comes to my lips and my heart flutters. He's here. Deep down I knew he would come. 

"Hey."

"I'm sorry I'm late," Grayson says as he walks in, taking a deep breath.

And with that one sentence, all my doubts fly from my mind. His words hold such weight. I'm not sure if it's a good thing. No one has held that effect on me before. I try to convince myself it isn't a big deal. 

"Let's try not to make it a habit."

He smirks, taking off his muddy shoes. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but it hasn't rained in days, making this place more dry than normal. His shoes look like he stomped through a swamp. 

"So what kept you so busy?" I ask, trying to find conversation. 

"Family drama," he says, rolling his eyes. "Anyhow, I am here and ready to study for that test tomorrow."

He states family drama so casually, but it still makes me wonder what drama he actually deals with. 

"We can study upstairs," I say as I point towards the hall that leads to the real living area. 

We make to the grand living space and I sit down on the leather couch. As I pull out my text book, I notice Grayson look around as in aw.

"It's my father's place," I say, defending myself, trying to make it look as if I'm not as fancy.

"It's nice."

"My mother's place is not nearly as beautiful as this house," I blurt out awkwardly. I miss the messy small house, I called my home. This place feels more like a hotel.

"And your mother lives in LA?"

I nod. We never talked about where she lived, but I learned that gossip spreads like wildfire, even if you aren't looking for it. 

"I've been to LA once," he says as he takes a seat on the couch.

"You have?" I ask, unable to hide the shock in my voice. 

This is one of the few conversations that seem natural, as if he wants to be here and talk to me. His stormy eyes sparkle just a little as he talks about his trip. He's eyes don't sparkle like that often so he has my full attention now.

Any information he wants to share with me, I hold onto like a balloon because I know that it can pop at any moment, falling flat on the ground. 

"Did you like it?" I finally ask.

He smirks, shaking his head. Why is he smirking then if he didn't like it? I don't understand. "Nah, wasn't my scene. Too many people. I felt like I couldn't think."

"And that's why you like Jackson Hole? So you can think?"

"You can say that. It's peaceful here. Do you like Jackson?"

I shrug, thinking about my time here. I wouldn't say I hated it, but I wasn't loving it either, I miss the heat, the sun, my mother. Here, everything is so different. It's not predictable or logical. But then again, my obsession with Gray isn't logical. 

"It's ok. It's just so open and it's not the predicable city that I know. It's a different culture and I'm struggling to understand it."

"I see what you're saying. It's hard to be thrown into a world that you don't understand," he says calmly, as if he speaks from experience. He meets my eyes and I feel like he sees me, all of me. He too came to this town an outsider. Just like I did. 

He clears his throat and adjusts his hat, hiding his dark hair. "Ready to start?" he asks.

I shake my head. I don't know how long I've been silent for but I have a feeling that it's been too long. Way to make this awkward, Stella. 

"Yeah, sorry. I'm ready," I say as I turn open my textbook. "So where do you want to start off with?"

He smiles, getting out his book which looks brand new. "From the beginning?"

"Have you studied at all?"

He shakes his head, giving a sheepish grin. "No."

"Oh..." I mouth. This will be more than a simple study group. It will be a deep dive. One that I'm not sure I'm qualified to navigate. It will be a crash course with a month of material. As impossible as this task sound, I want to try. He came here in his free will, that means he wants to improve right?

"I am a fast learner. I can keep up if you just want to start where you were planning."

Nope. Not happening. He needs this review more than I do. "Nah, we can start at the beginning of the unit." 

And that is where we began until the natural light was replaced with fluorescent light.

<>

"I think I got enough information in my mind for tonight," Gray says as he stretchs. He rub his thighs then stands. 

I have a feeling he wants to leave, but I don't want to say goodbye just yet. The evening was full of conversations, not fights. I learned more about him and his family. He learned more about me and mine. We laughed, snacked, and bonded. It was exactly what I wanted. I hope he wanted this too. 

"We went over a lot of material." I check the time. It's almost nine in the evening. "You know, I didn't think you would come tonight," I confess.

He nods as he looks out the large windows of the family room as if he is looking for something. "I didn't think I would come either."

"So what made you want to?"

"A change. A fresh start. Insanity." He chuckles. "I don't know if it is a single thought."

I smile lightly. Whatever made him decide to come, I was grateful. Hopefully he feels like he belongs now. If not by the school, but by me. He's not dangerous. That's a myth. Something the school made up and he fell into. This is our fresh start. 

"Anyhow, thank you so much for going over all this with me. No one else would ever ask me for a study group. They think I'm a killer monster. But why don't you think that?" he asks, staring into my eyes, trying to find the answers deep inside. "Do you have a death wish?" he adds with a humorless chuckle. It causing me to shift uncomfortably.

As a stare into his dark blue eyes, I know there is nothing to be afraid of. I know bullies; I saw them in LA, but Gray is not like that. I don't understand why he makes everyone believe those myths. He is not a bad guy. He is like a candle, providing light but burning everyone around him.

"See, I know bad boys and you don't fit that mold."

Gray smirks as if that is funny, then shakes his head as if I am foolish. "And how are bad boys supposed to act?"

Last year the football captain would shove me into the lockers as he passed. That was after he tried forces himself on me at a party. That was a bad boy. But Gray was not that. He is more like a crushed soul, masking with spit and vinegar. 

"Not like you and I should know."

He nods as he shifts his gaze back towards the papers in front of him in silence. His silence consumes the room. "Why do you have so many colors of pens?" he asks, finally breaking the silence.

I frowned, knowing he would make fun of it since so many people did. I took a breath as I braced myself for him to pick me apart. "It's to take better notes."

"Aren't you like a straight-A student or something? Why do you need better notes?"

The fact that he knows my grades is past the point. The main reason I have so many colors is the fact that my notes are predicable. Notes have saved me since middle school. Each color means something different, making studying easier and my grades better. 

"The colors are for control. Colors are logical."

"So it's in terms of being predicable?"

"Exactly."

"I like it. I think it's smart," he finally says and packs up his things. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time."

I want to say that he hasn't, that I don't want to seem that desperate. Let him go so maybe he will come next time. "Sure. I'll see you at school, right?"

He smirks as he slips on his coat. "I wouldn't miss it."