GRAYSON
Chapter Five
I chuckled at myself and the work I had done. All in all, it was a productive morning. I stared at the stack of postcards. I am so gonna get you, I thought.
Two streets away from my dormitory, there was a shop that matched all my needs.
At Cupid’s, they specialized in grand gestures, the art of seduction, and happily ever afters.
From personalized chocolate box combos to elaborate flower arrangements, from suggestive and naughty toys for laughs to specially tailored plushies, they had it all.
And the best part? For a fee, they provided local delivery services for secret admirers.
Not that I planned on being anything but bombastically loud and obvious.
I wanted Avery to have to face the courier each morning.
I grabbed the stack of cards I’d filled out, the grin on my face indestructible, and headed out. Spencer was hanging out with Cole on a bench in a sunny spot, although cold air was winning the battle of seasons, and the two of them spotted me.
“Captain Reed, Sir.” Cole saluted.
“Speak, peasant,” I said, earning a punch in the shoulder. It was absolutely warranted. “Careful,” I cried. “I need these intact.” I clutched the bundle of cards.
Spencer snickered. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not even close,” I corrected him. “I am dead serious. What do you think?”
My friends grabbed the cards and split them between each other. “There’s got to be thirty cards here,” Cole pointed out.
“Thirty exactly,” I said.
“You only have eighteen days left, Captain,” Spencer said, shuffling through the cards.
“Don’t mix them. I ordered them precisely for that reason. After the last day of the bet, they get increasingly more pathetic,” I said, shrugging.
Cole flipped one of those around and read it out loud. “Newsflash, heartbreaker: I am Tinkerbell. Your disdain for my letters has made my fairy wings sag. I am on my pixie deathbed. Send attention. ASAP. Winged and wounded — your Snarky Tink.”
I was damn proud of that one, but my friends rolled their eyes.
“Dearest Avery,” Spencer read. “I write to you with the utmost urgency to request your attendance at Tiki Lounge for a day of pampering. Please check the box for the date that suits you best and return to the sender. Note that there is no way to decline this. You are absolutely trapped. Yours desperately, Grayson Reed.” Spencer shot me a contemptuous look. “Have some dignity, dude.”
I laughed out loud. “Don’t you worry about my dignity.”
“Dear Avery, it looks like you are a hard guy to drag out of your room. Let me bring a date to you, then. No one has to know. I’ll bring a ladder and sneak in through your window. Gray.” Cole chuckled at that one and shook his head. “Do you maybe think we’re harassing the poor guy?”
My heart dropped. They didn’t know Avery.
I mean, I didn’t know him either, but I knew a whole lot more about my date-to-be and rink-rival than my friends did.
Deep down, Avery was enjoying it. His text messages, while sporadic as fuck, had told me as much.
“He’s fine,” I said. “Now, I need to mail these out.”
Spencer sorted the cards for me the way they had been, then handed them back to me. But as I took them, the grip tightened on his end. “You’re really taking this dare seriously.”
I looked into his eyes and attempted a mix of iron determination and friendly playfulness. “Don’t dare me if you’re not ready to see me in action.”
Spencer surrendered the cards, but his expression remained unsure and reluctant.
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged and exchanged a look with Cole. “Nothing.” Sometimes, silence was a bigger motivator than any question you could ask. Spencer simmered in it for a minute, then finally broke. “You have an obsessive personality, Gray. I’m wondering if it was smart to challenge you like that.”
“I do not,” I said, incredulous, and grabbed my chest with over-the-top surprise.
“Oh yeah? Remember when you watched the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy every Friday for a year? You could quote the whole thing. More to the point, you never missed a chance to tell everyone it was the greatest movie trilogy since The Lord of the Rings.” Spencer’s piercing gaze was solely on me. Cole snickered at the revelation.
“Because it is,” I insisted. “I like my swashbuckling pirates swaggering on their ships. And Davy Jones is the greatest villain of all time.” I fake-choked up. “It breaks my heart to think about him.”
“That’s what I was telling you about,” Spencer explained to Cole, then turned to me again. “The fact is, when you get into something, you go all the way. And this isn’t the time to get distracted, Gray. We just lost our winning streak ten days ago. We should be focused.”
“You’re making a problem where there isn’t one,” I said coolly. I was the captain of this team, not my best friend. He needed to remember that. “I am giving it my best. This thing with Avery? It’s all for shits and giggles.”
Spencer surrendered. “If you say so. Alright.”
“You go get him, Cap,” Cole added, but not nearly as lightly as before.
I walked away with the cards in my hands. My friends were wrong. I wasn’t losing focus because of Avery. I was as dedicated to my team as ever. This whole thing was pure fun and nothing else. It was no different than hanging out with friends.
As for my obsessive nature, Spencer might have had a bit of a point. I tend to love things hard and fast. But those things passed, too, so it wasn’t like I had a problem on my hands.
My phone buzzed in my pocket when I turned the corner and saw Cupid’s at the end of the street. I might have been a tad too excited when I felt the vibration against my leg. I pulled my phone out and chuckled with delight.
Just when I thought I was out of choices, you finally gave up!
I was letting you catch your breath, honey. You’re never getting rid of me.
Avery left it at that, not even suspecting that he was about to receive a wizarding school level of mail unless he went out on a date with me.
“That’s an impressive stack,” the young man behind the counter said while counting the cards. Each card was from their shop and each was uniquely designed. I had decided against repeating them for these thirty days.
“I’d like him to get one each morning. Is that possible?” I already knew the answer.
“Absolutely,” the guy said. “We can have them delivered first thing every day.”
“And don’t stop unless I call and say so, please,” I said. In case Avery agreed on this date, I would flood him with gifts other than cards. For now, though, this was as good as it got.
The guy took my card and enabled a repeat payment option, then assured me they would start delivering them the following day.
He wished me luck with my romantic endeavors and suggested I should look around the shop for more ideas.
I said I was fully aware of their entire assortment and had grand plans, which made him laugh.
As I returned to campus, I wondered if Spencer would suggest dropping this whole dare. He seemed close to calling quits on it earlier. And what would I do then? Chase a guy mercilessly without a cute excuse? Creepy. Or worse, would I have to stop?
The thing about Avery Collins was that talking to him always made me laugh.
Not that he was a comedian type — we could safely rule that one out — but his attitude cheered me up.
His cynical views and the way sarcasm flew over his head made me chuckle.
The way he enabled my silly jokes made me feel good about myself.
And whenever he engaged with my wacky side, I felt a little closer to him.
It was odd to run into him three days later.
Not that it was a surprise, though, since I was the one who crossed the city to crash a party at the Northwood campus.
Cole had accompanied me and Spencer had scored his own date.
So when I spotted Avery on the far side of the frat house, I debated leaving my friend hanging immediately or leaving him hanging a little later.
Avery’s rate of replies to my text messages was around four-to-one these few days, but they were good replies.
And they were made better when I caught him looking at me from the corner of the large common room.
His teeth clamped on his lower lip when our gazes collided and I felt like a cartoon character who had just smelled a freshly baked pie.
I wasn’t going to let myself float all the way there.
I didn’t want to spook him. But I also had a good feeling about winning the challenge tonight. And scoring a date.
The truth was, I didn’t care about the challenge at all.
It was an easy excuse for sappy behavior.
And it was a shield that protected me from feeling lame.
Who chased a guy this hard for such small returns?
Not someone who didn’t have a pretty solid way to protect his ego by saying it had all been a ruse.
But it didn’t feel like a ruse when his gray eyes met mine and his ears perked. His high fade and soft, stylish hair begged to be felt by my fingertips.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t bothered scoring a date since the dare. Avery had been the sole target on my mind. Maybe I was getting a little obsessive, but it was something I could control.
“What are you waiting for?” The voice asked. For the briefest of moments, I imagined it was Avery urging me to go for it. Then I looked at the source and found Cole watching me with a cheeky smirk.
“Let him wonder,” I said confidently. “He expects me to go there. I’ll bet you anything he has a list of places to get to as soon as I come close. He’ll let his guard down if he starts thinking he’s free of me.”
“You think about these things too much,” Cole said lazily.
“Doesn’t everyone?” I asked.
My friend laughed out loud. “Last I checked? Nope.”
“How do you seduce someone who is convinced you’re a bad idea, then?” I asked.
Cole’s face went blank with confusion. His brow wrinkled a little and he cocked his head. “I…don’t. I move on.”