These Games We Play

chapter fourty: opposite of an ending

Early the next morning, Oren informed me that Skye Hawthorne was leaving Hawthorne House. She was moving out, and Grayson had instructed security that she wasn't to be allowed back on the premises.

"Any idea why?" Oren gave me a look that strongly suggested that he knew that I knew something. I looked at him, and I lied.

"Not a clue."

☆☆☆☆

I found Grayson in the hidden staircase, with the Davenport. He was sitting down on the bottom step.

"You kicked your mother out of the House?" That wasn't what I'd expected him to do, when he'd won our little wager. For better or worse, Skye was his mother. Family first.

"Mother left of her own volition," Grayson said evenly. "She was made to understand it was the better option." Better than being reported to the police.

You won the bet," I told Grayson.

"You didn't have to-" He turned and I sat down next to him.

"Yes, I did." If I were choosing between you and any one of them, he'd told me, I would choose them, always and every time. But he hadn't.

"Grayson." I sat next to him and thought back on everything that had happened.

He was arrogant and awful and had spent the first week of our acquaintance dead set on making my life hell. But somewhere along the line, I think he warmed up to me. And at the end of the day, he'd chosen me. Over family. Over his mother.

"I will always protect you," he told me, his jaw tight, his eyes shadowed. "You deserve to feel safe in your own home. And I'll help you with the foundation. I'll teach you what you need to know to take to this life like you were born to it."

"You know I'll do the same for you right. That's what friends are for." I tell him as I rested my head on his shoulder.

"Thank you." He told me and I looked up at him.

"For what?"

"Being my friend." He paused. "And for bringing light back into this house. Nash hasn't been happier since he met your sister. Lia embodies sunshine no matter how angry she seems. Xander won't shut up about Cam and well I've seen the way Jameson looks at you."

"Are you going soft on me now Grayson Hawthorne?"

"Not at all Eva."

"Good now I've got something for you," I tell him as I pull out a small white box. Taking it from me, he opens it to find a Lana Del Ray born to die paradise edition cd.

"A cd."

"Not just any cd. A Lana Del Ray cd. You are literally the embodiment of it. Honestly like first time I saw you I pretty much said I wasn't going to listen to someone who was the embodiment of national anthem."

He looked at me blankly.

"You are literally no fun." I tell him. "Honestly rest in peace fun Grayson if he ever walked the earth you would have loved Lana Del Ray.

"I'm not dead Eva." He tells me as he puts the CD down. "Thank you."

I smile back at him. One point to Evangeline zero to Grayson.

☆☆☆☆

I went to school, and when I came home. I went looking for Pip. I hadn't seen her in a while because people could get lost in this place. I wanted to tell her everything. Cam, Lia and I had already talked about it and I wanted Pip to know. It didn't feel right that she was the only one who didn't know.