Right In Front of Me (Finished)

Chapter 31: Night Alone With Greyson

We pull into the parking lot of the Hampton Inn, which is near our local shopping area. "Greyson. No. Nope. No way- no way am I letting you pay for us to stay in a hotel. It is way too expensive. What you've done already has been amazing enough; you don't need to do this." Greyson rolls his eyes, saying, "Avalon...-" I cut him off instead, saying, "No, Greyson. Let's just- let's just go home, and we can tell my family that, I don't know, the party was canceled. But the bottom line is that this is too expensive for you to pay for. You've already probably spent a fortune on today..." Greyson looks at me. "Avalon, calm down. My aunt owns the place, and I called her a few days ago to see if she had any openings tonight, and she said it was cool. She getting us in for free." I calm down a little. I look at him. "You better not be lying to me." I say.
"I'm not." he says defensively.
"That better also be the truth."
"Well, it is."
"Okay."
        We get out of the truck, grab our stuff, and go inside, hand in hand. It's pretty inside; I've never been here. We walk up to the front desk and Greyson smiles at the lady who, I assume, is his aunt. She hands him the room key, saying, "You better behave, you two. Slap him if he goes too far, you understand me, sweetheart?"  She looks at me. I laugh, "Yeah, I got it. I can hold my own, I promise you that." She smiles. "All right, you have fun, now."
        We walk to the room, and I notice that on the front door, there are letters that spell out 'Presidential Suite'. "Seriously? You got the Presidential Suite? What can't you do?" I say. He unlocks the door. "I can't dance. Now, that is a scientific fact." He says, then opens the door.
        The room is really nice. There is a California King-sized bed, an awesome T.V., a nice sized kitchen, a great bathroom, a living area, a balcony, and a basket of treats, fruit and bunch of other stuff. "I have no idea how to even express how much I love what you did today." I say. I go and collapse on the couch.
        He comes over and lifts up my head and sits on the couch, then puts my head on his lap. He says, "I also don't know how to braid." I look at him. "Seriously? Like, you really aren't joking?" I ask. He shakes his head. "That's cute." I giggle. I sit up a little and show him how. He attempts to do it, but ends up pulling on it painfully. "Ow, Greyson." I say. He drops my hair and looks in my eyes. He scoops me up onto his lap. "Did that really hurt?" He asks with concern. "Kind of." I say, looking at his lips. I look at his eyes, then back at his lips and at once, both of us kiss each other a little bit roughly. He picks me up and then, when I least expect it, he stops kissing me and throws me onto the couch, laughing.
        "Greyson! Oh... my gosh that scared me! You know what I have to do now, don't you?" I stand up on the couch, in a wrestling stance and lean side to side. "Oh, what are you gonna do, huh? What are you do to me, little girl?" He taunts. "Oh, you shouldn't have said that. I'm gonna get you, Greyson. You're gonna pay for that." Greyson says, "I think you bluffing."
"Oh, I am not bluffing."
"You are so bluffing."
"I never bluff."
"You are the bluffiest of the bluffers. You are even bluffing when you are talking to bluffers. You are the master of bluf-" I cut him off by tackling him. He falls onto the chair behind him. "Whoa!" Greyson exclaims. He picks me up and I scream. He pushes me onto the floor, pinning my wrists down. I look defeated and just as he starts to loosen up, I raised my eyebrows up then down and roll him over so I am pinning his wrists down.
        "Damn. Let's call it a truce." He says. I smirk at him. "I think you are just scared of me. You think I'm going to beat you up?" I tease. "Not exactly." He quickly does some kind of weird wrestling move, and somehow he ends up on his feet with me over his shoulder. I scream, even though other people are probably trying to sleep, and he throws me onto the bed. "Okay, you win. What do you want for your reward?" I ask him in a flirty tone. He looks around, thinking. He leans into my face, moving closer with every word as he says, "I... want... you... to...," he pauses, then randomly smiles and continues joyfully, "watch a movie with me!" He stands up on the bed, then jumps backward, landing with his back on the bed, causing me to bounce up a little bit. I laugh at it.
        "What movie?" I ask. He pulls out of his bag, which is next to the bed, a DVD case. It's a DVD of a season of 'Friends'. "Oh my gosh, this is the best T.V. show on earth! Let's watch it!" I say. I get up and put it in the DVD player and while the previews play, I go to get changed in the bathroom. When I come back into the room, Greyson is laying on the bed with the gift basket sitting next to him. Mouth full, he says, "Oh, Avalon! This stuff is great, you've got to try it!" I laugh and lay down next to the basket, putting my head on Greyson's head, and notice just how good he smells all of the time. I bite into a chocolate-covered strawberry. "Mm, this is really good." I confirm. Greyson puts the basket on the floor next to the bed so we can snuggle up closer.
        We watch an hour or two of 'Friends' and then Greyson says, "I have an idea." I look at him. "Oh yeah? And what's that?" I wonder. "I brought my video camera, and I have some ideas of what to do with it." He answers. "Like what...?" I ask. He sits up, letting my head fall back onto the pillow. He goes over to his bag, rummaging through it until he pulls out his camera. I give him a look of confusion, and hinting for him to explain.
        "Let's record a video of us singing." He says. "I don't know..." I say. "Aww, c'mon!" He begs. I give him an unsure look. "Avalon, you love singing! And you are really good at it, too. Besides, we don't have to show anyone if you don't want to. It can just be us laughing at ourselves singing." He reasons with me and I reluctantly agree. "Yes! All right, what do you want to sing together?" He asks. I think. After a few minutes of debating it, we decide to sing 'A Drop In The Ocean' by Ron Pope.
        We rehearse what we are going to say at the beginning, and write out on a napkin who will sing each part. Then we play around with some harmonies, deciding which combination sounds the best. Since the song is originally sung by a guy, Greyson will be singing the melody, and I will sing a harmony.
        Greyson sets up the camera on a small tripod on the coffee table and we sit on the couch together. He turns the video on and he says, "Uh, hey! I am Greyson, and this is the lovely Avalon." I blush. He continues, "We are going to be singing- ready, let's say it together- one, two, three-" We say together, "A Drop In The Ocean by Ron Pope." I say, "Here, let's just, uh, pull up the lyrics just in case... okay, got it. We just found the karaoke version on YouTube, and we will just be singing to that. Okay, so... let's start!"
        We hit play on the karaoke video online. Greyson starts, by singing, "A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather. I was praying that you and me might end up together. It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert. But I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my heaven." A part of the music where piano plays for a little bit and then I sing, "I don't want to waste the weekend. If you don't love me, pretend a few more hours, and then it's time to go. And as my train rolls down the east coast, I wonder how you keep warm. It's too late to cry, too broken to move on-" Greyson joins in then, but we don't do any kind of complicated harmony. He sings the melody, and I just sing it in a higher range, as I did with the part I had just sang. "And I can't let you be. Most nights I hardly sleep. Don't say what you don't mean."
        Greyson starts off the chorus, singing, "It's just a-" and I join in singing the harmony. We sing, "A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather. I was praying that you and me might end up together. It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert. But I'm holding you closer than most, 'cause you are my heaven." We continue to sing the rest of the song taking turns singing parts and harmonizing where it seemed appropriate, and in my opinion, we sounded really good. Let's see if the camera agrees.
        We finish and then I say, "Okay, then, that was it! I hope you liked it, 'cause I was forced into this! So anyway, bye!" Greyson said, "Bye!" We end the video and then watch it. It was actually really good. We upload it to his laptop, and from the laptop he uploads it to his phone. He sends me a copy, and just for a second opinion, we send it to Hallie as well. She replies a few minutes later saying that it was amazing, and that we should post it. I text her back saying we'd have to think about it, and then she asks where we are. I just tell her that it is Greyson's present to me, and that I'll tell her about it later. And that, by the way, in case my parents call, we are at her house. She just says okay.
        By then it was 12:45 A.M. We decide to just cuddle on the bed and talk while 'Friends' is on in the background. We turn off the lights, except for a lamp on a small dresser next to Greyson's side of the bed. We just talk and talk about random things, but then after a moment of silence, I ask suddenly, "What are we?" I feel him looking at me, even though I can't see it since I am laying on him. I feel his heart rate speed up under my cheek. "What do you mean?" He asks. "I mean, what are we? Are we just 'in like' with each other? Because you know I really like you, but you never said how you feel." I answer. "This was the first time you told me you liked me, too. I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen after we kissed in your room. But because you are wondering, I really like you. I mean, I really like you. I have for a while. That's the real reason I broke up with Hallie. Well, I mean her cheating on me accidentally was also kind of a reason, but I didn't know about that when I showed up at her house to break up with her."
        I can barely believe it; he has liked me all this time. "I guess I've liked you for a while, too. I just didn't know what my feelings meant. So, that brings us back to... what are we? Like, where do we stand right now?" He considers this for a moment, then says, "Well, we both know that we like each other a whole lot, and we act like a couple..." I turn my head so my chin is on his chest, so I can look at him. "So what are you saying?" I ask. "Well, first I want to say that your tiny chin is poking my sternal..." He says. "Oh, sorry." I say, giggling as I turn my head so that my cheek is back on his chin, but I can still look up at him.
        He continues, "And also... Avalon, will you please be my girlfriend?" He asks sweetly. I position myself so that I can be closer to him and I nod, smiling, and I kiss him passionately. He kisses me so sweet that I can't help but smile into the kiss. I lay back down on him. "Is your body going to go numb if I keep laying here?" I ask quietly. "No. you're too fragile. And if it were to go numb, I wouldn't mind, because I would still know you were there." He says. Just for that, I reach up and kiss his cheek, then lay back down. He turns off the light. "Fragile?" I ask. He says, "Yeah... like a porcelain doll. They are beautiful, and should really be handled gently, or they might break." I f anyone else said that to me, I would be insulted. But I like Greyson saying that, like he feels the need to protect me like a child from the world. I snuggle into him, and when he thinks I'm asleep, he whispers, "No one is more beautiful than my Avalon." He kisses my head and I don't let him see me smile.