Friends Don't

Chapter Twenty-one

It was the weekend and I had spent as much time as I could locked away in my dorm. With the weather changing the snow had really started to come down, now.

I had just talked to Aaron, who found it necessary to remind me more than once how nice the weather out in LA was. If you could hit someone through the phone, I would have hit him, though my fist would have, more than likely, been more damaged than his arm would have been.

Lana and Derek were out together doing who knows what. Grayson had stopped by to bring me lunch and a hot chocolate before heading to the gym with Tyler, which was sweet. I had told him I wasn't stepping one foot outside unless I absolutely had to. It looked like a blizzard out there, well I mean not exactly, but close enough.

I was sprawled out on my bed doing some work for one of my classes. The room was quiet so I could focus. The funny thing was, I was attending college with no idea what I wanted to major in, but it was my first year, so I had some time to think about it.

I heard the door open. "I just got the weirdest phone call," Grayson said.

I looked up to see him shut the door and stand there looking over at me. "You really should knock. I could have been naked."

"Exactly the reason I don't knock." He slid his phone into his pocket and walked over to me. "In hopes that one day I'll throw the door open and you'll be naked."

I shook my head and closed my textbook as he sat down on my bed. I pulled myself up to a sitting position. "So, what weird phone call did you get?"

"It was from your mom."

My eyes widened. "What did she want? And how did she even get your number?" I shook my head. "Never mind. It's my mom. Of course, she got your number."

"She told me she would give me fifteen thousand dollars to break up with you."

"Wow." I chuckled. "The price seemed to go up."

His brows furrowed as he looked at me. "What do you mean?"

I shrugged. "When my brother was eighteen, he was dating this girl senior year, and the day of graduation my mom offered her ten thousand dollars to break up with him."

"Seriously?"

I nodded. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her no." The way he spoke sounded like he couldn't believe I would even ask him that question.

"You did?"

"Of course I did." He looked at me like I had grown another head. "Did you, honestly, think I would agree to that?"

"Well, I mean, we aren't really dating." I looked off to the side of him. "It would be easy money."

"Ellie," he sounded surprised, yet a bit irritated. "Do you really think that low of me?"

"No," I told him, and I really didn't. "It's just she broke up with my brother for the money, and they were actually dating."

"What?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yeah." I nodded. "He loved her, too, and she broke his heart." I could feel that same pain I felt years ago as I watched my brother in pain over her choosing that money over him. "That's why he moved right after graduation. Not because of her, but because of our parents."

It was so hard watching him suffer through that heartbreak of losing the girl he loved all for money.

"I would never do that to you," he told me.

"We aren't even dating, Grayson."

"I don't care."

His words warmed my heart. I mean, it's true, we weren't dating so if he were to choose the money then that was just easy money and he didn't even have to break up with me for it, but it still would have hurt. To know that money meant more than me, even if it would have been a fake break up.