Thank you for the encouragement on the first chapter, it was super appreciated and made my morning to wake up to them!
Fingers crossed this is all okay, please enjoy!
River sat on her kitchen counter, a look on her face that Greyson just couldn't read. It was somewhere between amusement and something more serious. Her dark hair, usually in a messy bun, was down, creating waves of rich, brown curtains shrouding her shoulders. Wearing a thick pair of grey sweats and a white tank, she looked cosy.
Standing a couple of feet away, having come from work, Greyson looked a little different to say the least. He wore a crisp pair of gray slacks with a white shirt and some nice shoes. He'd been wearing a tie and waistcoat too but had taken both of those off in the car almost the second he'd been out of the office. Though his hair was neat and tidily combed, he looked nervous. There was already a healthy blush in his cheeks as River sipped at her steaming mug.
The silence between them felt all consuming. He didn't dare speak first, knowing that she was taking in his proposal. He had to give her time to process, right? That seemed right.
"You want me to take your virginity?" She said bluntly.
For a second, he almost choked on his own damn breath. "Right." She'd hit the nail pretty firmly on the head. There was no point in pussyfooting around it now. Still, he was nervous. He wanted to reach up and undo a button on his shirt, anything at all as the air began to feel that bit heavier.
Her dark eyes narrowed. "Because you don't want to disappoint someone hotter?" His pale blue eyes widened in response to her question.
"What- No!" He barked out quickly, feeling as though he'd made a real freaking mess of all of this. Though, of course that was what she would think of the whole situation. "Because I feel like I can just be me around you. Just Greyson, not Greyson Grey, you know?" He tried desperately to channel the truth out of his confusing thoughts as they swirled around, but that was it. He really did feel as though he could be himself around her.
He wished that he'd had something more eloquent to say, that he'd been about to ask this of her in a less weird way, but he was stumped. He was, after all, asking her to sleep with him and teach him the wonderful ways of sex in hopes that he didn't absolutely suck when he eventually started dating again.
One of the things that he'd learned relatively early on with his family was how many people would try to get on his good side in hopes of some windfall from his direction. Parents pushed their kids at school to get closer to him, even some teachers had offered free tuition in hopes of putting his parents in their debt. He'd been dealing with is for as long as he'd been a Grey. Frankly, it was almost the only down side.
River, unlike the others, had never done any such thing. When he'd gotten her a snack from a vending machine, she'd paid him his dollar back. She'd always tried to pay for her own food if his family took them out to eat. Hell, she even brought her own snacks to babysit Amelia in spite of his parents telling her to let them know what she wanted. Even knowing that they would have ordered her expensive takeout, bought freaking caviar if she'd asked, she showed up each time with her own snacks packed away. She even shared them with Amelia with no second thoughts as to what it had cost her personally.
"I... guess." He saw the hesitation in her eyes as she spoke, as she eyed him over her mug. Fuck.
An awkward smile cracked out across his features. "You think it's super weird." He stated simply into the air.
For the first time, she offered a smile back to him, just a small one that barely even pulled at her features. It wasn't a particularly happy one, but it wasn't entirely bad. If anything, it looked as though she was simply agreeing with him and was amused by the situation. "I think we haven't really spoken in, like, literal years other than the other night. Save for a nod or a near silent hi." Her words seemed measured, as though she was watching what she was saying to him. "How do you know I won't just fuck you and rat you out to the press on something dumb?" There was a hint of challenge in her eyes, almost as though she wanted to argue over this. She truly wanted to make him question what he thought he knew about her, even if only for a moment.
Okay, sure, she kind of had a point. They'd fallen out and had barely spoken since other than the couple of times they'd passed one another when she babysat, but even then it had been little more than a nod until the other night.
He inhaled deeply before he spoke, contemplating. Did he really think she would do something like that? "Well, you're not that kind of person. I trust you." She wouldn't, not ever.
She held his gaze for a long moment, seemingly searching for something in his eyes. Whether she found it or not, he had no idea, but she smirked into her mug as she took her next sip all the same. "You know this is a weird thing to ask someone to do, right? Like, even for a rich kid." And there was her gaze again, pinning and dissecting him.
"Yeah, I get that." He shuffled awkwardly, uncomfortable, crossing his arms over his chest to tuck his hands into his armpits.
For as uncomfortable as he felt, she was showing no such issue. "So, why not just hire a sex worker? You know, a literal professional." She asked him easily, watching him squirm under her scrutiny.
She had a point. Why hadn't he just hired a sex worker? Well, to put it simply, he didn't want to. He didn't want to pay someone to take his virginity. He supported sex workers and would, he figured, gladly pay someone in the future, but this moment? It felt too personal for a stranger. The payment wasn't the part that he took issue with, but the familiarity.
"I just... I don't know. I guess I'd rather it be someone I know." He admitted to her, hoping that she believed him. It was the truth, of course, but he figured it sounded like some kind of line. "I like you and I'm comfortable with you. I guess I figured something like this would be easier with a friend."
"Friend?" She scoffed, hopping off of the counter. "Greyson, we haven't been friends in a long time." Ouch. For some reason, his own name cut deep.
In spite of their height difference, he found himself momentarily intimidated by her. It wasn't a bad feeling, just a feeling, but it was definitely there.
"I still think of you as a friend." He told her softly, looking down the little over half a foot he had on her. Her eyes narrowed up at him, sceptical. "Look, I... I'm really sorry. About everything." Truly, he was. He'd spent the last couple of days thinking about how he'd treated her toward the end of their friendship. She'd deserved better.
River sighed. Quickly, she turned away from him and stepped away, taking her mug to the kitchen sink. She washed it in silence before turning back to him, leaning back against the counter that she'd been sitting on. "I'm not your type. You don't have any friends who're your type?" She ignored his apology entirely, so he didn't push it.
With a small smile, he shrugged. "I'm not your type either." He reasoned easily. It was the truth. It was also easier than admitting that she was the only one he trusted for this and he didn't know why. His type, as far as he knew, had been Heather until recently. And River? Well, River was nothing like Heather. "I figure it's less complicated like that, right? I mean, no one's going to develop any feelings or whatever." He knew his logic was a little squiffy, but that was how he saw it.
Amusement flashed across her features as she nodded slowly. "You and the two millimetre defeater are going to get any other girl catching feelings?" She asked, teasing. "Someone's confident."
He tried not to let her see the blush deepen at that glint in her eyes. He tried not to let her see the way that the bare minimum flirting got to him. Fuck, he really had been craving something all that time he'd been with Heather. "Okay, you know you can just say no, right? You don't have to be an asshole about it." He grumbled back at her, finally reaching up and popping one of the top buttons on his shirt, giving himself some breathing room. It wasn't enough, but he didn't cave to do another.
Catching them both off guard, River laughed. It was loud and rich, teasing, taunting. It was full of life and joy. It was the same laugh he had taken comfort in during both their teen years. He wanted to hear it more often. "Oh please, you're asking me to do this because you know I'll be honest." She pushed off of the counter that she'd only just settled against and stepped closer to him, close enough that they could have touched if they'd reached out just a little. She copied the way he'd folded his arms before, tucking her own hands under her arms.
"Honest, not a jerk." He clarified with what he decided she must have thought was a cute grumpy face. Something about the way that her eyes softened as she tongued the back of her teeth. "Look, I'm sorry for asking, okay? It was weird, I get that now-"
With a light huff and the roll of her eyes, she cut him off. "I'll do it." She spoke so nonchalantly that he almost missed it. He almost just carried right on.
"What?" He muttered in disbelief.
"I'll do it." She stated again just as flippantly. "But I've got demands."
Holy shit. Holy shit! "You'll do- Shit, okay, sure! Literally anything." Demands? Fuck it, he was rich. There wasn't a demand under the sun that he couldn't realistically bring to fruition.
Her brow raised briefly, clearly amused and caught off guard by his excitement. "I want some new parts for my bike." She told him, watching for his reaction.
"Some new bike parts?" Seriously, she could have asked for anything. He'd have paid her freaking rent, gotten her a new job, done about anything. Hell, in that moment, he'd have bought her a new car. "Fine, whatever. Send me a link-"
A solid punch to the shoulder shut him up quickly. "Jesus, Greyson!" She yelped, punching his arm once more for good measure. "I was kidding about the bike. You really think I want you to freaking spend your money on me after all this time?"
"Ow, woman!" It hadn't hurt at all but he couldn't help but yelp and jump away from her. Oh yeah, it was beginning to feel like old times against already. "Okay, fine, what do you want?" He rubbed his arm and feigned a wince or two when she rolled her eyes at him, earning a smile that was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
"We do it at your place. My building manager gets weird when I bring people over."
"Is that even freaking legal of him? I mean, you pay rent, what's it to him who you have over? Wait, do you want me to talk to him? We can still do it at my place, but I can have a word with him if you want."
She rolled her eyes at his offer, too quickly for him to see the real appreciation that had been in there a second earlier. "No, Prince Charming, I'm fine. Oh, and I want takeout. Cheap beer, too." Okay, so her demands were less in the thousands and more... fifty dollars?
Greyson couldn't help but raise a brow. "O-kay. Why?" He asked, keeping his eyes trained on her.
She shrugged noncomittally and very obviously looked him up and down. He watched her as her eyes travelled the length of him, stopping on his crotch and his chest. "Because I like good food after sex and seeing rich people stomach crappy things makes me happy." He wanted to know if she liked what she saw or if she figured he was simply okay. He didn't know why her approval mattered to him, but it did.
"So is this just to torture me or is it better to be drunk the first time?"
Her nose wrinkled at that, clearly reliving some memory that she wasn't fond of. "It's not good to be drunk any time." She stated firmly, clearly meaning it. "We'll have a single drink, talk about how you want things to go, then if you're still down, we'll do it. Easy."
He almost laughed. It really did sound simple. "Clinical." He mused, ignoring the prickling sensation that was all over his skin from her gaze.
"You texted me and asked me to take your virginity. You signed it at the bottom with your full name, Greyson Eugene Grey." The teasing was thick on her tone, making him momentarily shrink. He had done that. He'd texted her like it was a freaking business meeting. He'd almost emailed her but had decided that was too formal. Shit, he'd even attached a calendar e-vite for today's chat.
"Okay... Yeah. Shit, I did do that." He nodded, embarrassed.
"Clinical." She surmised, reaching out to playfully land a punch against his stomach. His breath hitched when her closed fist stayed pressed against him. "So, we have a deal?" She asked, looking up at him through suddenly wide, seemingly hypnotic brown eyes.
"We have a deal." He practically choked out, realising all too soon just how close they were. Through the whole thing, as he was painfully realising just how fucking touch deprived he was, she simply seemed amused.
"Better shake on it, Eugene." She told him, retracting her hand from him only to hold it out to him as he groaned.
"Please don't Eugene me." He grumbled, rolling his eyes as she moved her hand pointedly once more.
Chuckling, she took his hand in her own, animatedly shaking it. "You Eugene'd me first." She shrugged. "Greyson Eugene Grey." She repeated his name, lips turning up lightly.
He couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Shut up. My birth mother was high when she named me, asshole." From anyone else, he would have hated the teasing, but it had never bothered him from her. She never meant any of it unkindly.
She barked out a laugh in response. "So was mine but she didn't Eugene me."
They laughed together a little more, seemingly forgetting the awkwardness of the whole situation somewhat.
Sure, the whole thing was awkward, but he had a good feeling about it. He didn't feel like he was just about to get laid, he honestly felt like River would comfortably lead him through the whole encounter. A tiny part of him felt as though he had betrayed Heather somewhere along the way, but she'd ended a non physical relationship of almost five years, saying that it was too much, so he got over that feeling pretty quickly.
He didn't stay at River's that much longer, sharing a single hug with her on his way out.
In her arms, as she breathed him in, his entire body stilled. "You're going to have to loosen up if you want to get me naked, Greyson." She spoke directly into his ear, releasing him gently, letting one of her hands trail from his shoulder down his chest.
"Sorry." He muttered sheepishly as they parted. "I'm not really used to... well, anything."
Looking up at him, having pulled apart entirely, she simply shook her head with a smile. "Don't worry, we'll take it nice and slow. Nothing has to happen all at once, okay?" Her words, in spite of her previous flirting and teasing, were exactly what he needed. It only made him feel even better about the whole thing. He had clearly been right when he'd thought that she would be the right person to do this with.
His drive home was filled with thoughts of River. Though part of him knew he should have been grieving the loss of his relationship with Heather, he couldn't help but feel excited for what the future held, both immediate and distant.
That night, when he lay in bed with porn on his cell, he found himself looking for girls that looked like River. When he grasped himself in his hands, he tried to imagine what it would feel like if she was beside him. She consumed his thoughts all the way to his admittedly speedy orgasm, leaving him wishing the time away until their next meeting.
Thank you again for getting this far and reading my dross, it's more appreciated than you can know. Not to be the typical "sorry for the slow updates, I got hit my a bus" author, but I'm going through stuff right now that makes it difficult for me to do what I love (which is writing), so it means the world to me when anyone reads what I can get out.
Please feel free to let me know vie reviews or messages what you think of the story/what you'd like to see from it, I'd really appreciate that and I love knowing what I need to improve on. Have a great day, see you again soon!