You swim? Grayson Hawthorne X OC

8

"I need you both to go to a fundraiser for the Hawthorne foundation in Houston." Alisa tells us. I groan, as Grayson agrees too quickly.

"Hold on. Do we have to?" I ask, though Grayson just glares at me.

"Take it, otherwise you'll be stuck with something else." he tells me, I mutter a curse under my breath, as Alisa smiles.

"Perfect. I'll get both appointments set up. Grayson, I'll send you Lieta's set of clothing for the occasion, make sure you don't clash."

"I am not matching with him!" I complain, though Alisa turns to me, a smug expression on her face.

"I said no clashing, but matching is always an option, if you want to be extra." she smirks, I return her expression, with my own unimpressed one.

"I'll see you both around." she's grins, turning around and continuing off in the direction, she had been walking in.

"Why?" I complain, as Grayson looks at me.

"It'll be fine. You just have to bid, walk around and talk to some people." he tells me, as a matter of a fact.

"Easy for you to say. You do it all the time. I hate talking to people. It makes me feel queasy." I mention, as I scrunch my nose together at the thought.

"You'll be used to it soon enough. The people don't necessarily care about you, they care about your new found wealth. If that helps." he looks down towards me, as I look up.

"Not really, but thanks for trying." I grin, as I hear yelling coming from the corridor.

"Grayson, Lieta!" Jameson comes running around the corner, Avery on his tail.

"What did you figure out? We can't get it." Avery asks, as I open my mouth to tell her, what we had figured out. Grayson however decides to cut me off.

"That's for you two to figure out and for us to know." he smirks, walking off. I look back, as he walks in all his stride.

"What?" Jameson curses.
I smirk: "Next time tell me, what I should look for."

Turning around I follow the direction Grayson had gone. Though instead of turning left, I turn right and head back to my bedroom. I enter though step back in shock, as I stare at my bed. Frozen in place, I stand there not thinking straight. John comes in after me, as I usually would've closed my door by now after thanking him. He quickly rushes me out of the room after seeing what was on my bed.

I watch quietly as he talks into his ear piece: "Threat in room 21." I stand there not saying anything.

"Check room 43 as well." That was Avery's.

"What?" I say quietly, as he leads me to another room.

"Nothing but a threat, probably from the inside, we'll make sure you're safe though." he tells me again and again. I don't even think he was sure of that. That was a liver. Presumably a cow's liver, with a lovely knife stuck in it.

"What's going on? Why are there so many security guards?" Nash asks, as he watches John drag me into the living room. John apparently trusts Nash, as he leaves me there with him and multiple guards around.

"Threat in Ms. Cege's room." he tells Nash, as I sit myself down.

"What threat?" Nash turns to me.

"Cow liver." I mumble, just about loud enough, as he doesn't question further. Nash walks away, over to the mini drinks bar. I watch as he grabs a glass of wine. Filling it up to the quarter he takes a sip, then grabs another glass and fills it with some green iced tea. He makes his way back and hands me the cup.

"Drink."
"Thank you." I say quietly, as he nods and sits down.

"It was an inside threat wasn't it?" he asks after a few minutes of silence. I nod slowly. I think I can trust Nash and even if I don't want to think it, it might've been Grayson.

He wanted my sisters and me gone. Even if he had seemed to have warmed up to me. I somehow don't feel like it's completely out of the question.

Th door opens with Avery and Libby entering the room, Alisa following their tale.

"What's going on?" Avery questions and it doesn't seem to be the first time, as Alisa heaves a sigh.

"Your sister over there,", she points towards me, "has just had a cow liver and a knife placed on her bed. Which we are presuming is an inside threat. So I'm not sure why he's here."

Alisa stares at Nash with a small glare.

„No hard feeling Lee-Lee, but I don't think John sees me as a threat." he smirks, as Alisa rubs her temple. Clearly she wasn't impressed by her ex-fiancé.

„I've been drinking the tea he's handed me for the past 10 minutes and I haven't seemed to have been killed yet." I tell her, gesturing to my glass of iced tea. She shakes her head, seeming to be baffled by my apparent stupidity.

„We'll talk about your drinking safety another time. For now we need to figure out why you had a cow liver on your bed." Alisa paced the floor. Libby comes over and places herself next to me.

„You alright?" she asks me.

„I think so." I tell her. She just nods, as we're all engulfed in silence again. The room wasn't like the other ones, it wasn't grand or large. I think this was a safe room. We were packed together, not like normal when we were spaced out across the floor. One thing is I can't tell why Nash would be in here in the first place, there were much nicer rooms to spend your free time in.Why choose this one?

The door unlocks, this time Oren and John reentering the room.

„There wasn't anything in both of your rooms." Oren tells Avery and Libby, they both look pleased, as I just shrink in my seat. Was someone trying to kill me specifically?

„We currently don't have any leads on who might've put it there. We suggest you sleep in another room for the night." John looks over to me and I nod.

„Is being rich really worth it?" I mutter loud enough for everyone to hear. The only one who laughs is Nash from the corner, clearly he had already asked the same question as me many times, though he already had his answer.

„Not at all."

(11/9/22)