Grayson did not like you.

It was easy to admit. He didn't like you. He found every move you made suspicious, every thing you said worth analysing, every minute facial expression note-worthy. Did he hate you? Not necessarily. He didn't know, which made it all the more infuriating.

Grayson was used to understanding. To knowing. He was the more mature brother out of the four Hawthornes, he would be lying if he said that he hadn't prided himself on that, and still did. But now, he was lost. Utterly and completely lost.

And it was all because of you. You, and his grandfather, Tobias Hawthorne. But he just usually liked to put the blame on you to ease his mind.

Tobias Hawthorne had died. A devastating moment, truly. For everyone in the house. And of course, he had left a will. And they expected it to be what they thought. Equal shares between the brothers, property ownership, all that.

It wasn't. No, not at all. For some horribly bizarre reason, Tobias Hawthorne had left you almost everything. Sure, he did give some things away for his daughters, the Laughlin's, all of that. But what did he leave to you? Every thing else. He left you the estate, the money, everything he owned that wasn't given away.

And who even were you? Just some random person that wasn't even from around there. You obviously didn't even know what had happened, you were only there because you were made to come for the reading of the will. He sure wished that never happened.

It had to be some cruel joke. Just some game. His grandfather always played games, always had challenges. That was all he did, the whole house- no, manor, was still full of them. The whole estate was, really. And he didn't doubt that a vast majority of these all lead to you.

It was wrong. In every way, at least he believed so. His brothers obviously cared, but they didn't seem too as much as he did internally. Nash just shrugged his shoulders and agreed. Xander was shocked, but not completely surprised. Jameson was excited. Like it was another turn at solving a puzzle. A game. You. Grayson didn't like that. But what was he to do?

Oh, that's right. Nothing. You now, had control of everything.

Grayson warned you. He warned you that he was going to figure out what you had to do with this, how you got the money, how you knew his grandfather. Even if you genuinely didn't know. There had to be something.

One of the worst parts of this whole thing was how quickly everybody just adapted to you. Well, mostly everyone. Some people were still salty. His mother, for example. Her sister as well. No, Grayson was mainly referring to his brother, Jameson. He just made it seem like a competition. Was all of this a game to him?

It was late at night. You'd been staying in the house now for three weeks, four days. He counted. He kept track of everything. But that wasn't important. What was important, was that you were in the same hall as him.

He didn't know what fate made him bump into you, in all the endless halls of Hawthorne house, but he wasn't fond of it. He knew where you had been. You'd been out there with Jameson. Outside. In the forest. Probably trying to figure out more about all of this, as usual. He couldn't stand it.

Grayson couldn't stand a lot of things. He couldn't stand how he immediately noticed your presence whenever you entered a room. He hated how you occupied his thoughts more than he would ever care to admit. He hated the fact that he didn't really hate you. It was just something he made himself believe to cope. To cope with the fact that he was already getting attached to the you.

He wanted to be the one to fix it. To save you, in a sense. He needed to be the one. Him.

Grayson didn't want to love you, if he had to live in the fear that he would lose you.

He grabbed your arm in the empty hallway, a bit too quickly. "I don't think you truly understand me, {{user}}." He practically hissed out the words. "I told you to stay away. Away from my brother. Away from me." He spat out those last words like it physically pained him to say it.