HERE YOU GUYS GO
Grayson definitely hadn't planned on standing in front of Ish's door, with her coat, like some sort of eager pet. He was not, by definition, someone who commited to unplanned actions. A person who acted on illogical wants.
Yet here he was, standing in front of her door. It was fallacious, really. He could always give her coat back tomorrow. He could always keep that emotional distance with her, like he did with everyone else who wasn't in his immediate circle. But something propelled him to her always, like a helpless magnet of sorts.
Be better than this Grayson. Be above this. The old man's voice snaked into his thoughts, surrounding him on every side almost tangibly. He was supposed to be the heir. He was supposed be above it all--emotion, vulnerability.
Yet another one of his grandfather's aphorages came back to him.
There is nothing frivolous about the way a Hawthorne loves. Men like us love only once, Fully. Wholeheartedly. It's all-consuming and eternal. All these years your grandmother has been gone.... And there hasn't been anyone else. There can't and won't be. Because when you love a woman or a man or anyone the way we love, there is no going back. Anything less, and you'll destroy her. And if she is the one...Someday, she'll destroy you.
And Ish did destroy him. It hurt for him to let go-- of all the expectations, the burden, the perfection--when he was with her, yet it hurt in the best way possible. With her, it was like falling, waiting for the bone-crush, knowing it would come, knowing it would be inevitable, yet enjoying it anyway, because it was with her. Because she'd been choosing him.
Whenever he was with her, the storm in his head was quiet. He didn't feel like a game to Emily, a minor project to his mother, the heir apparent to the rest of the world. He felt exhilarated. Free.
Drawing a decisive breath, he knocked on the door twice--sharp, clean, just the perfect volume in case she had her headphones on.
