Grayson: Wordsmith Chronicles Book 3

by Christopher Harlan

  “I guess the grass is always greener for both of us. I’m sure you’ll get there one day, but about the car?”

  “Oh, no problem, don’t worry about that, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Does it look. . .expensive?” I hate asking that, it makes me feel like a deadbeat, but I hadn’t planned on having the expense of auto repairs to deal with. Then again, I hadn’t really planned anything at all. The last thing I need is thousands of dollars of bills right now on top of everything else.

  “For an old friend,” Thomas says, resting his dirty hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You look like you’ve seen better times. Don’t need this shit to make it worse, right?”

  The kid’s perceptive. I must look the way I feel. I haven’t shaved in two days, and the stubble is frisky enough that I can feel it itching on my neck. I also haven’t slept or eaten very much since leaving New York. Rowan’s too nice to tell me that I look like total shit, but Thomas picks up on it right away.

  “Thanks, man, it’s much appreciated right now.”

  “You got it. Get your stuff out of the car and I’ll have one of my guys drive you to wherever you’re going. You staying in town?”

  “At my uncle’s old place. The one we used to stay at when I was a kid.”

  “How long are you gonna be in town?”

  It’s a great question, and one that I’d have an immediate answer for if I had planned on coming, but these are strange circumstances. When he asks me that it makes the whole situation come into focus suddenly. What the hell am I doing here? How am I going to get by? How long am I staying? And then the most important question hits me as I look to my right—why did Rowan follow me on this journey of the damned?

  “Umm. . .I’m not sure. At least a week. We’ll see from there, I guess.”

  “That’s about how long I’m gonna need this car, maybe longer.”

  “Well I’m not going anywhere without it, so keep it as long as you need.”

  “No problem. In the meantime I’ll have Fernando drive you to your uncle’s place. Cool?”

  “I can’t thank you enough for all this,” I tell him. “I forgot how nice people in this town can be.”

  “Some of us,” he jokes. “But hey, now that you mention it I’ve always wondered, is it true that everyone in New York is really rude?”

  That is a stereotype we get, but it’s not true at all. “Nah. Some people are for sure, but it really depends. Mostly people are just moving faster and don’t have time to say good morning to everyone who passes. It’s just a different type of lifestyle.”

  “I hope to get there one day. I’ve been saying it to my wife for years.”

  “Whenever you want to go just tell me. I’ll give you some recommendations.”

  “Thanks,” he says, signaling to his guys to come take the car. “And I hope it isn’t awkward to ask since we’ve been talking for a few, but what’s your name again?”

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry. It’s Grayson, but everyone just calls me Gray.”

  “Pleased to meet your, Grayson. At least as adults, anyhow. We’ll take care of the car.”

  Rowan’s been sitting on the curb on her phone while I spoke to Thomas. I call her over and we grab our meager amount of things from the car. The smoke is still coming but not as intensely. “So what’s going on?” She asks.

  “He’s going to have one of his guys drive us to my uncle’s place. It’s not far, we could walk, but I don’t think either of us want to do that right now.”

  “That’s for sure.” It may be my own guilt in letting her come with me, but I feel like she has a look of regret on her face. Like she never should have come with me. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings onto her.

  Fernando pulls a car around, grabs our stuff, and drops it in the trunk. Five minutes later we’re at the house. I thank Fernando for giving us a ride and try to offer him a few bucks that I have in my pocket as a tip, but he refuses outright. People here really are so damn nice. As we stand looking at the house I feel like I’m in a movie. A horror movie. A haunted house horror movie.

  “Well,” Rowan says. “This place is interesting.”

  Chapter 2

  Rowan

  Interesting.

  I usually don’t speak in euphemisms, but right now I feel like I have no other choice. Saying that this place looks like one of those cabins in a serial killer movie won’t really help his mood. “Is this what it looked like when you were a kid?”

  “I don’t know,” he answers, staring at the house. “I mean, maybe it was in better condition back then. Or maybe I just thought a rural little place like this was cooler when I was ten. It’s been a while.”

  We take our bags up to the front door. Grayson lets us in with a key that’s sitting under a loose board on the wraparound porch. The house has good bones and a nice design, it just looks Iike it was abandoned about a decade ago. “Still there. Who leaves their keys outside like this?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s trying to break into this place, Gray.”

  I have to admit that the inside of this place looks much better than the outside, but it needs a woman’s touch, as my mom used to say. Maybe I can work on that a little.

  “Not so bad, right?” I nod. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s actually asking me my opinion. I wonder how he’s feeling. Two days ago we were in New York, and when I followed him out the door it seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed like the only thing to do. But so far we haven’t talked about what the plan is. He didn’t say much during the car ride, and when we did talk it was more joking around. I’m starting to wonder, now that I’m here, if I made the wrong decision. But I’m not going to jump to any conclusions yet. Gray seems a little hesitant about the place, but he’s definitely happier than when we left. Maybe this little trip will be good for him. “It just needs a major cleaning.”

  “That it does,” I say. It’s 4:00 pm, and even though technically not dinner time, I’m starving. “Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat something. Why, are you hungry?”

  “Famished. The last thing we ate was that Roy Rogers stuff on the highway.”

  “I can’t believe they still have those,” he says. “But yeah, you’re right, that was like. . .”

  “Ten o’clock. Haven’t eaten anything else. It’s not like we packed snacks for the road. We barely packed clothes.”

  “I have an idea,” he says.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “There’s a tavern in town—at least there used to be—that serves burgers and pub food. How about I go pick us up some food and you can maybe unpack while I’m gone?”

  “That works for me. Tomorrow I can run to the grocery store or something.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll go now.” Before he goes he does something unexpected. He walks over to me and wraps his arms around me. It’s not a friendly hug—it’s something different than that. It lasts a while, and the squeeze in his arm makes my whole body tingle and relax at the exact same time. When he finally pulls away he looks down into my eyes and says, “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I wanted you to know that.”

  “I’m glad to be here with you, Grayson.”

  He smiles, and leaves to go get us an early dinner. When he closes the door I’m left alone, in the house that time forgot. I put my stuff down and look around the living room. I tell myself that I’m going to unpack, maybe even clean a little, but first I step out on the wraparound porch to make a call. I dial Harley and she picks up right away.

  “Girl, where the fuck are you? Have you been getting my texts?”

  “I did. I wrote you back.”

  “Those cryptic ‘on the road with a friend’ texts? What the fuck does that mean? Where are you?”

  She sounds really concerned, like a mom whose kid ran away and was just discovered across the country. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to be so vague, but I thought if I told you what was actu
ally going on you’d try to stop me.”

  “What is it,” she asks. “Were you abducted by a cult or something? Do I need to send a team to get you back and reprogram you?”

  “No,” I say, laughing. “I wasn’t kidnapped. Look, before I tell you everything you need to promise me that you won’t say anything to Colton. That part’s important. Swear to me.”

  “I swear.”

  “Pinky swear.”

  “God dammit, Ro, we’re not twelve,” she shouts. “You have my ADULT promise I won’t say anything. Now go.”

  I tell her how I met Grayson at his apartment two days ago. How distraught he was, and how I agreed to jump in the car with him as he left for Arizona. And how hot he looked when he was mad—I had to throw that part in. Harley just listens until I’m done and then, in true Harley fashion, throws in her two cents.

  “That’s a lot to take in, Ro,” she says. “Can I sum up?”

  “Go for it.”

  “So Grayson got upset because his last book didn’t make him rich and famous. Because of this, he threw a grown up hissy fit—which you were a witness to because you decided to stalk him. Then the two of you jumped in a car across the country with no plan, no money, and without telling all the people who love you where you were going? Do I have all that correct?”

  “Well, when you say it that way. . .”

  “Fuck, Ro, what are you doing? What are both of you doing? It doesn’t seem a little nuts to hitch across the country because you didn’t get on a bestseller list? Hashtag firstworldproblems.”

  She’s right. It was a little spoiled brat of him—or at least it just sounds that way when you describe it out loud, but it doesn’t feel that way. He didn’t feel like some entitled author who didn’t get his way, he seemed like someone who was genuinely hurt by his lack of success. That’s what connected with me—it wasn’t about going on some crazy, irresponsible adventure, it was about comforting a guy who I have feelings for. I wanted to be part of his journey.

  “I know how it must sound. I mean, I just heard it when I said it to you, but trust me, it’s not like that, Har. He was. . .he was hurt. He needed to get away.”

  “And you needed to go with him. He asked you?”

  “No,” I tell her. “I asked him. Or, I guess I offered to go with him.”

  “Is it weird that I’m both impressed and horrified at the exact same time?”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “One one hand, this sounds like one of the top three worst ideas ever, so there’s that.”

  “There is that.” I agree.

  “But,” she continues. “I’m a little proud of you for being impulsive and following your heart instead of your head. We’re always giving you shit about being a prude, and being too conservative, but look at you now—all grown up.”

  “I feel grown up,” I tell her. “Right now I’m standing on the porch of some old shack that his uncle used to own. Our car broke down and we had to be taxied over here by the auto body show. We have no food, so Gray went into town to get us burgers for dinner.”

  “Sounds like a hot mess,” she jokes. “You enjoy the hell out of that. Wish I was there with you.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “No,” she says sarcastically. “Not really. Not at all. But I was serious about being proud of you.”

  I’m kind of proud of myself, also. I’m not the prude that Harley and Everleigh always tell me I am. I’m just not as open about how I feel as they are. She’s right, it isn’t really in my nature to do something like this. In fact, if you made this a hypothetical scenario and tried to decide which of us would do something like it, it would definitely be Harley or Everleigh—most likely Harley.

  Not me.

  Never me.

  Life’s funny that way, isn’t it? It doesn’t always make sense. In fact, in my experience, it rarely makes sense. The most conservative of our group is the one who hitched a ride cross country with a guy she likes but doesn’t really know that well. A romance author, no less. And the hottest one there is.

  “I’m proud of me, too,” I tell her. “But I’m also scared shitless, Har. I didn’t tell him that because I didn’t want to add to his stress. When we were leaving—even when we were on the road—it all seemed like an adventure. But now that we’re here in Nowhere, Arizona, with no plan, no supplies, and no people that we know, I’m a little worried.”

  “Embrace it,” she tells me, in typical Harley fashion. “Embrace the fuck out of it. You’re never going to do something like this again—at least you shouldn’t. You know that, right?”

  “I’m aware, yes.”

  “Okay, good, just checking. So in that case, embrace this. Take it all in. Go with the flow. All those expressions you see posted on social media and branded on tee shirts.”

  “I wish it was that easy. I wish that I was as carefree as you.”

  “I’m not carefree at all, Ro. I just know how to go with the crazy flow of life. Best if you don’t fight it. It may have seemed like you just ended up in his car, driving across the United States, but you didn’t. It was a choice you made. Even if it was impulsive, it was still something that you wanted, deep down, otherwise you wouldn’t be there. Remind yourself of that and try to find meaning in the whole thing.”

  “Wow,” I say. “I’m not used to you being such a wise old sage. When did this start? It’s Colton, isn’t it, he’s rubbing off on you?”

  “Ha,” she laughs. “Colton’s no sage, believe me. He’s a great writer and hot as fuck, and I love him, but he’s not a sage. And I’ve always been wise, you just didn’t realize it.”

  “I see. Good to know. I think I’m going to follow your advice.”

  “You should,” she says before we get off the phone. “And if all that fancy philosophical stuff doesn’t do it for you, I can say it in a much simpler way.”

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “You’re alone, in an isolated town, with a hot-as-fuck romance author who writes some of the steamiest sex scenes in any book I’ve read. Embrace that.”

  I’ve got to give it to Harley, the girl has a point.

  Chapter 3

  Grayson

  I forgot this place was called Ray’s Tavern. It’s awesome that I drove two thousand plus miles across the continental U.S. only to be reminded of that fuck Roland Rays. I must have blocked out the name because we used to come here a few times a week in the summer when I was little. It’s funny how everything in New York is a chain—all the restaurants, all the gyms, basically everything. There aren’t too many original places left by me. But in little towns like this, a place named Ray’s Tavern is actually owned by a guy named Ray, and everyone knows him. I know him.

  Unlike Shep, Ray is alive and well, even though he’s pretty old. Despite his age, he’s still here, and from the looks of it, he’s here a lot. The place is booming, and when I walk in I have to practically push my way through the people waiting to get seated. The hostess directs me to the bar for any pick up orders, so I make my way through the crowd. The smells of burgers is thick, and I find myself breathing a little deeper than I normally do, as if I can ingest the food through by breathing it in its wafting scent.

  I place my order at the bar and sit on the one empty stool left. There are people everywhere, and there’s loud music pumping. I take out my phone and see a bunch of texts from Colton and Knight. They all read the same way—where are you? For a second I stop and imagine some alert going out over all the T.V. stations and cell phone towers— missing male romance author, last seen sucking at selling any books, if you see something, say something. It makes me smile for a second, but only a second. I realize that I have to actually answer them back. I justified my lack of response the last day or two by telling myself it wasn’t safe to text because I was driving. Now I have no excuses, whatsoever, and I need to write them back. Now’s as good of a time as any. I decide to text Colton.

  Me: Sorry, dude. I’ve been driving.

 
He writes me back right away. He was probably waiting by the phone.

  Colton: What the holy fuck, man?

  Me: I’m in Arizona.

  Colton: Can I call you?

  Me: Yeah.

  I tell the waitress I’m stepping outside for a minute and head to the parking lot. My phone starts buzzing in my hand and I pick up right away. “Hey.”

  “Okay, come again? You’re where? And why?”

  “I drove to Arizona,” I tell him again. “With Rowan.”

  “Okay,” Colton answers. “If you’re trying to shock me, mission accomplished. Now I’m going to need you to explain the fuck out of that sentence, in as much detail as there is to tell.”

  “I left after our lunch the other day with North. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d get all Colton-ish about it, but after you left I had another Brotherhood run in in the parking lot of the Blue Bay.”

  “Woah, woah, what?” He asks. “They came after you?”

  “Not they,” I say, already hearing the anger in his voice. “Just him. Roland.”

  “What did that little shit want? And how’d he find us?”

  “Your Instagram account,” I tell him. “You fucking geotag all your shots so he knew exactly where we were.”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. I saw a video where it said that’s a great way to get new followers.”

  “It is. Keep doing it, I’m just answering your question about how he found us. Trust me, that’s the least important part of the story.”

  “Sorry, go on.”

  “So we had a little verbal thing in the parking lot. I handled it. I don’t think we’ll be getting any more shit from them if I’m reading the situation correctly. But then he said some shit about my book rank. So I looked.”

  “Bad?” He asks.

  “I’d have to rise up a few thousand in the ranks to even get to bad. This was fucking abysmal.”

  “Shit, man, I’m sorry. I should have asked. I’ve been so focused on The Gentle Art release that I didn’t even bother to see how yours was doing. That really sucks.”

  “Yeah it does. It fucking sucks.” That doesn’t even begin to describe it. In fact, there aren’t too many adjectives that I could use to accurately describe how it feels when something you poured countless hours, hundreds of dollars, and all of your energy into fails like this book failed. “Anyway, I was pretty messed up about it. I know it sounds dumb to hear right now, but I snapped, dude. When I saw that rank number on Amazon and saw my sales I had this really quite mental collapse, and the only thing I could think to do was to get away.”