Song for this chapter: All My Friends

- AJ Mitchell

"Shotgun sharing a room with Layla." Lydia calls from the back.

"Too bad." Grayson tuts, "I shotgunned before you even got in the car."

"That's true." Reece backs him up, he was the first to be picked up, "guess you'll be stuck with me."

"And I'll get a whole room to myself." Myles sighs with a huge grin on his face. "So much space."

Grayson turns to me with a smirk, "is that okay with you, lil one?" He questions.

"Eh." Is all I comment, with a shrug, making him laugh. He squeezes my thigh with the hand that he's been resting there for the majority of the journey.
He looks even hotter than he normally does when he's driving and I find my gaze drifting to him multiple times. I do find it a bit unfair that he looks like that.
Lydia caught me almost drooling over the flexing of his abs when he honked at someone earlier, don't even get me started about the way his jaw clenched due to his anger and his right hand tightened around the stick.

Yeah, I almost died of heart palpitations. He's gorgeous.

"Layls skip please." Lydia orders. Letting out a sigh, I tilt my phone and skip the song. She orders me to skip a few more times before Kiss You comes on and she shuts up getting ready to scream the lyrics I assume. Grayson made a whole road trip playlist on his phone, and I can tell you with a huge smirk on my face that more than half the playlist is songs that I love. And a lot of it is one direction. He's a simp.

I even found a playlist called "lil one" and unless he calls another girl that - he has a whole playlist dedicated to just me. I didn't look at it, or mention it - not in front of our friends anyway.

Grayson opens my window, noticing me getting a little nauseous. I get a little car sick sometimes, it's nothing too bad but bad enough to make me not particularly like long car journeys, especially when I'm tired as I am now; I'm adamant that tiredness makes it worse.

"Thanks." I offer with a smile. Resting my head on the door, I try to block out Lydia's terrible singing - focusing only on my breathing to try and will the vomit to stay down. It never gets to that point but it always feels like it may happen.

"Here." Grayson reaches into the back to pass me his hoodie, "you can use it as a pillow." He offers. Smiling at him, I take it from his hands and prop it up on the door.

Strangely enough, I find myself closing my eyes and drifting off; Grayson's cologne surrounding me and comforting me in an odd way. I hear Grayson turn down the music and hush Lydia, clearly seeing my eyes closing.

❁    ❁    ❁    ❁    ❁

When I wake up, I'm in a bed with Grayson curled up asleep beside me, on his side facing me with his arm wrapped around my waist. It's dark outside so I assume I slept through the journey and it's now early morning. I slowly peel away Grayson's arm, wanting to explore the house. They all probably went straight to sleep when we finally arrived, it must've been quite late.

I tiptoe down a corridor, peeking in the slightly open door of one to see Lydia and Reece snuggled up close to each other. It takes everything in me not to aw at their position.

When I finally find the stairs, I let out a gasp of awe. This house is huge, and crazy modern. The white crisp walls make the grey detailing look amazing, especially the grey marble staircase. It's beautiful, and exactly how I imagine my home to look like when I'm older, sleek and sophisticated.

I wonder around finding the kitchen, lounge, bathrooms and a cinema room before finally stumbling upon a backdoor that leads to a pool with the view of the sea behind it. I stand with my mouth wide open for a second, marvelling in the beauty of the moonlight lit ocean, giving the illusion that's its sparkling.

I flick the lock down before sliding the door open and stepping out into the heat.

A hand wraps around my waist and I'm pulled back against a chest.

"What are you doing out of bed?" He asks, his voice a light hum in my ear.

"I wanted to explore."

"Huh." He says, pressing me closer to him so I can feel the hard ridges of his abs behind me. I lay my head on his shoulder as he places a soft kiss to the side of my neck.

"It's gorgeous out here." I mumble, my breath hitches when he sucks on the spot he just kissed, as his hands trail under my top.

"Is this okay?" He asks in a whisper, halting his movements until I nod my head against him, unable to make a sound; my mind foggy from his touch. I wrap my fingers around his forearm, not feeling capable of staying upright on my own two feet.

"Grayson." I moan as his hands reach into my pyjama shorts.

"What's wrong, baby?" He teases, softly stroking his fingers over my panties, his light touching driving me insane. I turn around slowly in his arms, bringing his face down to kiss me. His hands move from my pants as they grab onto my waist pulling me so close to him thats there's no gap between our bodies. My hands trail down his bare chest, loving the feel of his muscles tensing under my touch. I can't even begin to describe how good I'm feeling right now, with him, like this.

I've never felt this way about anyone, that much is clear but doing thing like this with him. I'm not innocent, I've been tainted by other men's wants and actions - none of them ever wanting me to feel good but Grayson's makes it his sole purpose to make me feel good and more importantly safe, comfortable even. He is my happy place.

I can't even begin to describe how much he means to me either. But him kissing me like this, holding me like this, hell even just being here with me is a feeling I never want to lose.

I never want to lose Grayson Reed.

He pulls away, resting his forehead on mine.

"Fuck, we should stop." He whispers and I let out a groan, my head falling onto his chest. He kisses my hair, before lifting me up.

"You carry me everywhere." I mumble, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"Because you're sleepy everywhere." He retorts, one of his hands slipping down onto my ass.

"Ah." I chastise, reaching down to slap his hands away from me. He places a kiss on my cheek before I rest my head down on his shoulder, shutting my eyes. He was right about me being sleepy all the time. He jumps on the bed once we get to our room, nuzzling his face in my neck as he cuddles me from top, on his knees to avoid his weight going onto me. He collapses in the next second, making me let out a pained grunt. "Gray," I heave, "get off, c-can't breathe." I tell him and soon after he rolls off of me, wriggling his arm under my head and pulling me to lie on his chest.

"Ahh," he hums, "this is the life." He comments, planting a kiss to my head as I slowly start to drift off to sleep.

"Don't you need a cold shower?" I tease, my voice only a quiet whisper.

"Yes. But I'm comfortable now so I'm not moving." He says adamantly, tightening his grip on me.

❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁

"Wake up, bitch." A voice whispers, belonging to the insistent hand that keeps jabbing the side of my stomach. I open my eyes to glare at the person who's disrupting my sleep, to see Lydia clad in an all black outfit, with a beanie and sunglasses as accessories.

"What the fuck are you wearing?" I grumble, placing a hand over my eyes.

"We're on a mission, baby. We need to get out of here before the boys wake up. We're having a girls day." She cheers, her voice still in a whisper as she eyes Grayson.

"They'll kill us if they wake up and see us gone."

"I've left a note." She argues with a wink.

"Why don't we just wait for them to wake up?" I question.

"Because they'll want to tag along." She whines, "what happened to chicks before dicks, youre already sharing a room with that, soon you'll be married with kids and you'll have forgotten all about me." She pouts, dramatically, making me roll my eyes.

"Fine." I give in, "but I didn't see you having a problem with the rooms when you were all snuggled up to Reece." I wiggle my eyebrows, making her slap my arm. "Shhh." I say, pointing to Gray. I carefully peel his arm off of me, before sliding out of bed. Thankfully, from the many sleepovers I learned that Grayson is mostly a deep sleeper, he only really woke up when I had a nightmare - which now that I think about it, is really cute.

I tiptoe over to my bag that Lydia must've packed and found a matching outfit to hers right on top of it. Rolling my head to face her, I give her a dirty look.

"You planned this since you knew about the trip, did you?" I ask, already knowing the answer. She wraps her hands together behind her back as she sways from left to right, looking guilty as shit.

As I rummage further into the bag, I notice that she's packed my favourite sets of bras and panties as well as some lingerie.

"Wow, anyone would think you're trying to get me laid." I tease sarcastically.

"Well I wanna be an auntie." She mutters, "make sure you wear a bikini under that outfit." She says quickly and hurries out of the room. No babies are gonna be made, anywhere in the near future.

I pick up the black halter neck bikini, throwing it on before changing into the black outfit, just wanting to please Lyds. I pack a summer dress into my beach bag, along with my beach towel, sunglasses and my wallet. Taking my phone off charge, I place it into my back pocket and mean over to kiss Gray on the cheek.

"Please don't kill me later." I whisper before leaving the room too. Lydia steals Grays keys, before we leave the house, ignoring my protests.

"We can't just take his car and leave them here." I mutter.

"They have everything they need here." She argues.

"Did you get food for them?" I ask.

"No, but we have snacks from yesterday."

"That's not gonna be enough, they need proper meals." I continue to protest.

"Have you met our boys? They live off of snacks."

I guess they do, to be fair.

"Besides the food market is just a ten minute walk away if they get really desperate."

"We're gonna die." I say, shaking my head as I buckle myself into the passenger seat.

"Why do you think I brought all of that lingerie?" She wiggles her eyebrows, "makeup sex, baby." She cheers, winking at me while switching the engine on and pulling out of the driveway.

Just before we leave the driveway completely, Lydia slams on the horn, a look of mischief on her face. She wants them to see us leaving.

"Oh my god, we're gonna die." I whine, laying my head against the headrest. Grayson and Reece stumble out of the front door a minute later, rubbing their eyes to see if we're really doing this. Grayson starts running the next second looking desperate to stop us. My poor baby. I'm about to get out of the car when Lydia starts driving, leaving Grayson standing with his arms crossed and a pissed off expression on his face.
"Lyds, I think we should go back." I mumble, feeling so bad for just leaving him like that.

"Nah, bitch. Hoes before bro's. Chicks before dicks. You're mine today." Well, if that's the case.

I stick my hand out of the window, waving to my man as we leave in his car. He's gonna hate me.

My phone goes off a second later.

Gray: that's my car.

I chuckle, before leaving him on read. It dings again.

Gray: come back and cuddle.

Gray: please I miss you

I almost feel bad but then I remember that Lydia is my bestie and we deserve time alone. We didn't need to run away to do that though, but Lydia is largely over dramatic and likes the thrill.

Gray: fine don't expect cuddles when you come home.

What a grumpy little baby. I can imagine his pouting face in my head as I read another message.

Me: I'll see you later.

I turn off my phone then, noticing how Lydia gives me the side eye - clearly not liking him texting me on girls day.

It's still dark outside as we drive, but I can make out the sea front next to us as we drive into town. I feel exhausted though.

"So what's your plan then?" I ask, running a hand through my hair.

"Watch the sunrise, eat breakfast at this cute cafe I saw as we drove in, then we'll go to the beach - meet some cute boys-"

"We're not single." I interrupt.

"We're not in relationships either." She points out. "I'm sure the boys will be flirting with girls left and right at the beach today."

"Grayson better not." I grumble, thinking about him with a girl other than me pisses me off deeply. I will fuck him up.

"So we'll tan instead, get lunch and then there's a beach party later so we'll go to that and get drunk before going home to our boys that we love so much." She finishes.

"No one said anything about love." I state, making her let out a large snort, and laugh loudly.

"Yeah, okay sweetheart." She mutters, condescendingly. "You're practically married."

"We're not even together." I mutter.

"It's only a matter of time." She flicks on the blinker, driving us into a turning to go up a hill. When we're at the top, we're greeted with an amazing view of the moon over the sparkling ocean. It's only a matter of time before the sun rises, as the dark sky looks to be turning a navy blue.

"We have the best sunrise view here." I say. "Cleo was obsessed with sunsets and sunrises." I tell her, she turns to face me with a grin, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me towards her.

"You don't even know how glad I am that I met you." She mumbles. "You're never leaving me. Like I swear, you're gonna be the auntie to my children." She mutters, as she rests her head on my shoulder.

We sit, exchanging stories from our childhood for about two hours before pretty colours begin filling up the sky. I turn my phone back on to capture this moment. We get out of the car, deciding to have a photoshoot. Using the car wheel as a phone stand, we sit on the edge facing out to sea - a timer set to take loads of pictures. After posing in various positions, we collect the phone to go through them.

"This ones my favourite." I say, pointing to one where I'm smiling as Lydia kisses my cheek, her arms wrapped around my neck.

"I'm posting that." Lydia says and snatches the phone, logging into her instagram. After selecting the pictures, she types out a caption while laughing. She doesn't let me see it though, and I have to log back into my account to see the tag.

She's tagged Grayson too in the caption, while it tells him she's stealing his girl. An evil idea comes into my head as I get back into the car, turning it around so it's parked backwards. I go to find a spot to put my phone so we can take pictures on Grayson's car. Once I find a place, Lydia and I lean against his car with smiles on our faces.

I post with the caption, tagging him too - telling him I've stolen his car. His reply is almost instant.

@graysonreed_: it's not the only thing you've stolen ;)

Is he saying what I think he's saying?

"This ass." Lydia growls from beside me as she begins to furiously type on her phone. I look over her shoulder to see that Grayson has replied to her post too; @graysonreed_: you might have her now, but she'll be in my bed later ;)

On her instagram post! Lydia has over 1000 followers. I turn red over the embarrassment, but my heart skips a beat, finding him truly adorable.

"I'll show him who you really belong to." She mutters, clearly not happy that she's being challenged by Gray, as she types angrily on her keypad. "C'mon, lets get some food, I'm starving." She says to me after she's done arguing with Gray. I look at the time to see it's just turned 9, I can already feel the heat starting to increase, so I take off my black hoodie that's actually Grayson's (he doesn't have to know that.)

I'm back ahahah.
I'm so sorry, I had no WiFi for like 2 weeks butttt I wrote LOADS in that time and I'm so excited for these next few chapters. I've had snippets of these written since before I even started the book and I can't believe I'm at this point already to be sharing them with you.

More updates in the next few days, I promise xxx

❁ ❁ ❁ ❁ ❁

Don't forget to press the ☆