16. Greyson
I had a propensity for obsession.
A need for control.
A knack for watching things from the sideline until I knew without doubt how things would unfold.
I studied people’s patterns until they were ingrained in my brain. Observed people’s tics until I knew every trigger that produced the same minuscule result. Over and over again.
This had always been who I was. Silent and observant. Distant but never truly detached. I spent so much time in my head that people complained they never felt like they truly knew me. And honestly, I was okay with that because it had never been my goal to be known by everybody anyway.
Outside of my family, only one person got a different version of me. And he slept down the hall from me every night.
But recently, five weeks ago to be exact, a new obsession—I mean, exception had wormed her way into my psyche.
True St. John invaded my thoughts from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. And sometimes, she was waiting for me in my dreams.
I thought about tangling my hands in her thick hair more than I should have.
I thought about kissing her until her lipstick was ruined and her mouth was swollen from my possession.
I thought about laying her at the center of my bed and treating her body like the altar it was.
I wanted to make a mess of True and from time to time, she looked at me with a heat in her eyes that told me she wanted the same thing.
Day after day, I watched her and Noah get closer. They had a cadence between them that grew stronger every day. An ease of being around each other that even a stranger could pick up on.
They were in sync.
They laughed at the same things. Preferred the same movies. The same desserts. There was a softness that existed between them that I don’t even think they noticed. They touched without thinking about it, looked at me with the same wide eyed stare whenever I cleared my throat after being silent for too long.
I couldn’t think of True without thinking of Noah. And I couldn’t think of Noah without thinking of True.
The thought of them together made heat pool in my veins and fantasies unravel faster than I could catalog them.
It was unhinged, getting off on the thought of my best friend and our neighbor. But every time the thought snuck into my head, I followed it until my dick was empty and my breathing was ragged. What the fuck was wrong with me?
One thing I knew for sure?
As much as I wanted True, I wanted Noah to have her too. I wanted to watch them. To study the way they made each other come undone. I wanted her to have us and I wanted us to have her together. I wanted everything with them.
What.
The.
Fuck?
It would be easy to blame my current fascination on a full moon, a retrograde, anything but myself. But I knew it was more than a fleeting fixation. I was in too deep and now I had to figure out what to do about it.
A frown claimed my face as I looked out the floor to ceiling windows at the hills that would be covered in snow in two weeks’ time.
Tomorrow was Halloween, which marked the end of Wolfe Summit’s “slow” season.
“What you frowning at this early?” The housekeeping manager’s sweet voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
Ms. Annie beamed up at me, her smile possessing enough warmth to brighten my dark mood as I moved away from the window and back to the lobby of the resort.
“Nothing, Ms. Annie. Come have a cup of coffee with me.”
“Ain’t gotta tell me twice.”
I chuckled at her easy compliance, shortening my stride so she could keep up with me.
A few minutes later, we were seated at reception, side by side while we watched the resort slowly come to life.
It was 7:30 and the real front desk staff didn’t have to be here until 8. So, I usually filled in on the off chance somebody needed something before then. In the two years I’d been doing it, I could still count on one hand how many times someone had actually needed me.
It wasn’t by mistake. We fostered a slow pace here and the guests naturally acclimated once they set foot on the premises.
Unlike most hotels, our breakfast service didn’t start until 7:45 and ran until 11. The gift shop down the hall opened at 10. And our first excursion of the day never started before 9. If you were sleep deprived on vacation with us, it was your own fault because we did nothing in a rush here and believed sleep was just as important as every other aspect of the trip.
The walls between each of our fifteen suites were soundproofed and we had quiet hours implemented from 10PM to 8AM.
The older woman beside me broke into my thoughts again. “What you doing for Halloween?”
“Same thing I always do, Ms. Annie.”
She harrumphed, lifting her mug with a shaky hand. “Being a Grinch then?”
I laughed quietly, staring at my second cup of coffee for the day. I’d had one while I made Noah’s breakfast, even though I hadn’t had much of an appetite this morning. “I thought the Grinch didn’t like Christmas.”
“You can be a Grinch for any holiday,” Ms. Annie said, her voice matter-of-fact.
Aside from the Trick-or-Treat event we had for the kids staying with us for the holiday, my only other plan was to cook myself a steak and try to fill my mind with thoughts of something other than trouble.
“Fall Festival is in town this weekend. You should come by. It’s too late to get a stall, but maybe next year?” she added hopefully.
“We’ll see, Ms. Annie.”
“Good,” she murmured and another smile coasted over my lips.
I lied. True, Noah and Ms. Annie were the only people who got this side of me.
Annie Coltrane was knocking on seventy and refused to sit down and enjoy her retirement. I’d hired her as a favor to my father before the resort ever opened its doors.
She was as sweet as she was feisty and spent most of her days bossing people around rather than working. Which was exactly what I wanted.
She was past her prime, but I would never fire her because I knew her pride needed her to be the one to make the call.
We didn’t allow her to lift heavy things, work past 2PM or clean rooms alone. Luckily, the rest of the staff adored her and let her sit on the foot of the bed and dictate what needed to be done while she played Candy Crush on her phone.
This job filled her social well now that her husband had passed and her children had moved away. I had no plans of snatching that away from her. And whenever she finally retired, I’d send her home with a retirement package on top of what she already got from her previous state job.
“That cat is back out front,” Annie mused, feigning surprise.
“Because you fed it, Ms. Annie.”
She didn’t meet my eyes but smiled all the same. “Wasn’t no use in all that tuna going to waste.”
“Hmm. I’m sending her home with you if one of the guests tells me they’re allergic.”
The resort’s “stray” couldn’t really be called that anymore. The white cat had a pink collar and had gone to the vet twice since she decided to take up stalking our property.
Noah wasn’t helping, either. I was ninety-nine percent sure he’d been the one who bought her that damn collar. And I wasn’t convinced there wasn’t a tracker in it.
He couldn’t help taking care of things and people because it was what he craved his whole life. It made this thing with True even trickier because I didn’t know how he was going to react if— when she left. He got attached easily and I used to think that was his downfall until I realized recently I’d fucked up and done the same thing. But how could being attached to True be wrong? She was perfect and she fit in with us so well it felt like she’d always been here.
My heart sank whenever I thought about her finishing her book and leaving Bliss Peak. Leaving us.
“Soon it’ll be too cold for her to be outside anyway. You should take her home. Cats are easy.”
That was a lie. My sister had a cat when we were growing up and he was the most high maintenance member of our family. I was convinced cats had spread the propaganda that they were easy pets so that by the time people figured out they weren’t, they were too attached to do anything about it.
Finishing the last of my coffee, I looked over at Annie’s serene face. “Then why don’t you take her?”
“Oh, please. I got too much on my plate. Choir rehearsal. The bingo hall. Zumba. Water aerobics. This job ,” she emphasized like we were working her to the bone. “That cat would never see me.”
I hummed noncommittally. I had enough on my plate with True’s unexpected arrival in my life. She wreaked plenty of havoc without trying. Then there was Noah. A cat would only add to the chaos I was already trying to tame at home.
Annie ran a hand over her silver hair and hummed, “I think you’re thinking about it.”
“And I think you’re crazy,” I retorted then looked at the clock, noting that it was five minutes before 8. “Come on, let’s do a walk through before this place wakes up.”
Annie hopped down from her stool behind the desk and hummed the same thing she always did. “Ain’t gotta tell me twice.”