Chapter 17
I knocked on the door of Grayson’s motel room.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
Last night went by in a blur. Grayson got each of us a motel room and we went our separate ways.
The bed was clean and comfortable, considering it was a motel.
Yet, I couldn’t sleep. I was too jittery.
Too excited. Grayson had assured me that he fried the hard drive of the camera system and that no one would suspect foul play because it was something that happened quite a lot.
Hard drives were known to have a short lifespan in CCTV systems. Yet, I found myself peering out the window every few minutes, expecting the police to drag me away in cuffs.
Grayson opened the door wearing nothing but sweatpants, still half asleep.
“I’ve committed a crime,” I blurted out. It had been thundering around my mind all night. It felt good finally saying it out loud. But it also terrified me. I had committed a crime!
A slow smile spread across his face as he pulled me inside and made his way back to bed. The lines of his back, so fucking perfect, brought up an image of my nails dragging down…
Stop it, Ava! Focus. I closed the door behind me.
“Are you referring to how you woke me before dawn?” he finally answered with a yawn.
There was no chair in his room, so I went to sit cross-legged at the foot of his bed. Mindful not to sit anywhere near him. I chewed at my nails.
An accomplice to a crime, that’s what I was. I had willingly participated in theft.
“Come now, Princess, don’t look like that. Last night you were levitating with excitement.”
I glared at him. “That’s because I hadn’t thought of the consequences yet.”
Grayson chuckled. “What consequences? Except for you breaking those guards’ hearts, you’re fine.”
I smiled slightly. It was fun. I was scared to death, but it was so much fun. Like a rollercoaster ride. “What did we steal anyway?” I was so excited by the experience last night, I forgot to ask.
Grayson pulled the box from under the bed and placed it in front of me. I opened it, holding my breath. I felt a tinge of disappointment at what was inside. I took one jar out, inspecting it, trying to see if I’m missing something.
“It’s paint,” I stated, confused. It was beautiful paint, don’t get me wrong.
It was metallic. The kind that was two colours, depending on how the light reflected on it.
But why did Grayson go through so much trouble for it?
I shook the bottle and listened if there was something inside, but nothing. I scowled at him. “I don’t get it.”
Grayson smiled brightly, loving my confusion. When I thought I was about to burst, he handed me a hundred-dollar bill from the nightstand. “It took me a minute too, but it’s the paint they use on money.”
I inspected it. The shiny parts on the bill, were the exact colour of the paint. My mouth fell open.
“The company that manufactures that specific paint for the government has a storage unit here with a few jars they apparently forgot about,” he clarified.
“So, the person you’re giving this to will use it to forge money,” I stated, trying to process.
Grayson shrugged. “It’s not my business what they do with it.”
I stood from the bed, my body responding to the emotions my mind hadn’t yet processed. I paced before the bed, unable to keep still. This was way bigger than I had thought. “I’m an accomplice to money forgery?” My voice was a bit too loud and a bit too high.
Grayson laughed, the sound rippling through me. Being part of money forging didn’t seem to bother him one bit. “Welcome to my world, Princess.” He stood from the bed and pulled a shirt on, and without warning dropped his sweatpants.
I turned my head away, flustered, while he chuckled. “Gods, Grayson!” I groaned. He was such an unrefined brute sometimes.
“If I hadn’t seen you in action last night, I would have thought you’d never seen a man in underwear before,” he teased.
I peeked at him, making sure he was decent again, before turning back to him. Butterflies made their way down my spine as I remembered how he looked at me. I was so wrong about him getting jealous. Instead, he was proud.
“If you’d loosen up a bit, you’ll find that you were made for this life.”
“I definitely am not,” I muttered. My conscience would never let me sleep if I lived like Grayson. I was a firm believer in Karma.
“Let’s get some breakfast, Princess.”
There were no souls on the streets, except for a newspaper boy on his bike, with the thickest mittens I had ever seen.
The sun was still only a thought. We opted to walk.
The diner we were headed to was only a few blocks away.
We walked in peaceful silence, Grayson’s hand brushing against the back of mine every now and then.
The neon light that stated the diner was open 24/7 was still blinking, but it was completely dark inside.
On the door was a handwritten note. Closed for the Sunday Service.
Open at 11:00. It was clear that it wasn’t the first time this note had been used.
The ink was already faded, and the paper worn and dirty.
It was Sunday. I had completely lost track of all sense of time. How long has it been? Grayson tried the door to see if it was unlocked. It wasn’t. So, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back of the building.
“What are you doing?” I whispered for no reason. There was no one around to hear us anyway.
“I’m getting you breakfast,” he whispered back, teasingly.
He grabbed his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out two metal sticks.
I had no idea what they were until he stuck it into the keyhole of the backdoor and I heard the lock click open.
Of course, he would have such tools in his wallet.
“You just broke into a diner,” I stated dryly as he swung open the door.
“And why does that still surprise you?”
I rolled my eyes. But he was right. I kept expecting him to act normal, to bide by societal rules. It was stupid of me.
No alarms went off. There were no cameras either. It made sense. It was a small town. No one was breaking into the town’s diner on the Sunday mornings it was closed for church.
Except Grayson. He was looking around the kitchen and headed towards the pantry, which stood open.
“What would you like, Princess? No, wait. Let me guess. Pancakes?”
“Obviously,” I smiled.
He came out the pantry grinning, holding a tub of flour that had a label, Pancake Mix.
He placed it on the steel island table in the middle of the kitchen, with some oil and chocolate chips.
My mouth was already watering. He got milk and eggs from the fridge while I poked around for a mixing bowl.
I was already an accessory to forgery. Breaking and entering into a diner for breakfast didn’t seem that bad now. But still.
“How are you going to repay our unwitting hosts?”
Grayson frowned at me as if it was an outrageous thought.
Nonetheless, he made his way out the kitchen to the cash register, where he took out a couple of hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, held it up for me to see through the service window, and dropped it into the tips jar.
It was more than enough to pay for the pancakes and the use of their kitchen.
Satisfied that Karma would not come knocking at my door, I helped Grayson make the pancake batter. He was whistling cheerfully, the same tune he always whistled while cooking, that I still couldn’t place.
“What are you whistling?”
Grayson’s face fell, making my own heart drop. I immediately regretted asking. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. I wanted nothing more than for him to be happy, cheerful. So much so that my own good mood leeched away at the sight of his face.
Grayson gave me a small smile. “My mother used to sing it whenever she was baking. She loved baking. I guess I picked up the habit.” His brow creased.
“But I can’t remember the words anymore.
I remember everything. Every conversation I’ve ever had, every word I’ve ever read, every thought that ever crossed my fucking mind…
” He exhaled in defeat, his voice softening.
“But somehow, I have forgotten the words to a song I’ve heard my mother sing a thousand times.
It’s muffled in my mind.” He shook his head, his lips thinning. “I can’t find the song anywhere.”
I fought against the tears prickling behind my lids. This man had so much hurt. He had to endure so much. I contemplated whether to ask another question that would surely ruin his mood for the rest of the day, but I had to know.
“The men that did that,” I couldn’t say what, the words lodged in my throat. “Did the police ever find them?”
“No. But we did.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It was an eighteenth birthday present from Hunter’s father.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. “What happened?”
He turned to me, looking haunted. “I messed with their minds for a few months and when they were ready to book themselves into an asylum, I took them to a remote place to… play.” He gently brushed a strand of hair from my face as his eyes softened.
“And you, my darling, Ava, don’t have the stomach for the details,” he said softly.
I tried to picture it. This Grayson, my Grayson, killing someone brutally at the young age of eighteen. I couldn’t. “He wasn’t very good to you. Hunter’s father. If that was the kind of presents you received from him.” I shuddered. What kind of father did that?
“I was a messed-up kid, Ava. Jo helped me the only way he could. If it wasn’t for him, God knows where I would have ended up. He helped me hone all that anger so it wouldn’t consume me. Or the people around me.”
I nodded. “I guess I can see why you couldn’t live a normal life. After all that, listening to students drone on about how hard life was must have driven you crazy.”