brutal | grayson hawthorne

hey lol

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Hot & Heavy - Lucy Dacus
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Both Liz and Jameson were seniors at Heights Country Day, but while Jameson has to spend his final year making up all the credits he bailed out of as an underclassman, Liz has enough free periods that her schedule consists of two to three classes a day, allowing her to leave school by noon if she's in the mood to ditch Making Meaning.

This isn't normally the case, but she has a date- a meeting - with Grayson at the Hawthorne Foundation, and she'd rather spend her time convincing him that finding Toby Hawthorne's whereabouts can be fun instead of bullshitting her way through her school's bullshit classes.

"I get why a scattershot approach won't work," Liz may have gotten a bit sidetracked with the files Grayson sprung on her before she had a chance to present her own case to him when she showed up at the foundation. "Big problems require big thinking and big interventions-"

"Comprehensive interventions," Grayson knows he was being sneaky with the way he was distracting Liz just enough that she wouldn't get caught up in the Toby thing, but not too much that she would get suspicious of him. "Strategic."

"But we also have to spread our risk," to be honest, Liz kinda got a feel for what he was doing when he wouldn't even take a break for snacks, but she's worried that if she changes the flow of their conversation, then his arm won't be pressed up against hers as they shift through papers anymore.

"With empirically driven cost-benefits analyses."

Liz doesn't think she has a type, but the way Grayson Hawthorne says the word empirically definitely does something to her.

"Yeah," she breathes.

"D'you need a minute?" Grayson looks almost amused at the look in Liz's eyes as she looks at the graphs that Grayson's splayed in front of her.

"D'you have a minute to talk about your uncle?" Liz tries carrying the playful tone into her not-so-subtle shift in conversation.

"Lizzy," Grayson just sighs, shaking his head and grabbing another folder from the other side of the table, leaving Liz's arm cold. "In this graph-" he starts taking out more papers.

"Gray," Liz interrupts, putting a hand on his arm, so he'd be forced to look at her the way he was before again.

"Someone put hate mail in Avery's locker," is all Grayson said. "Jameson told me."

"Okay?" Liz doesn't miss the way his eyes don't leave the place their skins are making contact.

"There are scary people out there, Lizzy," he drags his stare onto her face. "Dangerous. The more you look into this, the more trouble you're getting yourself in."

"I can look after myself," Liz says, also thinking about how no one is going to want anything to do with the random chick who got some random foundation in Tobias Hawthorne's name.

"Of course you can," Liz knows Grayson's eyes didn't just flick down to her lips as he said that.

She knows they aren't closer than she'd realized, and she knows his head isn't slowly tilting down towards hers.

This wouldn't be their first kiss, but with the way they've gotten so good at pretending the history they have doesn't exist, Liz knows this would mean something.

"Why aren't you worried about everyone else trying to solve it?" Liz asks quietly, knowing Grayson has realized by now that Avery, Jameson, and Xander are all a part of it too.

Her hand is still on his arm and he's still looking at her with those eyes.

The two have never been the touchy-feely type. Even when they were kids and with the way Liz's love language is basically physical touch, Grayson has never been the one to initiate anything and Liz respects boundaries.

But that doesn't change the fact the every time they touch, it feels like the final puzzle piece falling into place, and Liz feels like she could spend forever allowing his body heat to spread through her.

Grayson doesn't have an answer to her previous question - or he does but can't find a way to say it to Liz - because instead of genuinely saying a response, he just presses his lips to hers.

Liz has never been more ready for this moment, her free hand going straight to his hair as his goes around her waist, their bodies fully facing the other's in their conference chairs, Liz ignoring the way the edge of the table is digging into her abdomen and their knees bump each other's, because ohmygod.

The kiss is soft, but Liz feels an eternity of emotions pulsating through her fingertips, even after her and Grayson pull away.

She has to physically refrain from touching her lips as he clears his throat and turns back to his files. She settles for biting her lip to suppress a smile, watching his right hand find her left, so that they're holding hands under the table as he uses his free hand to drag the paper he was trying to look at before in front of them.

"So, in this graph-" he starts again, and Liz hangs on to his every word, Toby Hawthorne long forgotten.

a/n:
Grayson's love language is gift giving I don't make the rules -
like imagine little him taking candid photos of Liz running around Hawthorne house, or swimming, or bowling, or stealing Nash's cowboy hats that were too big for her head, and he would print the photos out and put them in little picture frames that Xander personalized with glitter glue and stickers as a birthday gift, and her just having shelves and shelves of his photos with cringey birthday letters written on the back where he signed the date and what's happening in the pic and how much he loves her ykwim - anyway fearless by tay tay