* WIDE / EYES

sutton stepped up to the other with purpose before tapping on their shoulder to get their attention. “hey, just wondering,” she started, feigning a tentativeness she wasn’t feeling. “do you know that guy? he’s been hardcore staring at you for the past fifteen and honestly? yikes. one of my friends hooked up with him and he like, would not stop calling her for MONTHS. he’s like a w a l k i n g red flag.”

“ damn it, pax, ” he glanced back down at his own purchases, frowning at his receipt as he wondered how he could’ve spent more money than his counterpart. these spontaneous excursions had become few and far between since he’d been spending more time at the firm, and he wasn’t too fond of the fact that working more was dulling his ability to find a good sale. “ this shopping trip is an outlier, i swear to god. ”

a sudden onset of  annoyance  washes over salzano at the  raucous  sound of grayson’s voice  ,  chugging down the remnants of the old - fashioned he’d been leisurely sipping up until this very moment. a run - in hadn’t been unexpected so much as it was unprepared for  ,  the prospected doctor wholly conscious of the other’s attendance after hearing the  FEIGNED  laugh grayson had become an expert at chortling out  –––––  a talent that dated back to their  not so long forgotten  days of juvanescence. he turns to face his former paramour  ,   OMITTING  the desire to match what he assumes is a  contrived  grin and greets the younger male with a furrowed brow.  “  good evening  ?  mr. desantis  ?  fuckin’ hell  ,  i’m havin’ a hard time rememberin’ the last time we saw each other myself  ,  but i  know  it hasn’t been long enough to mistake me for my father.  ”  he tops the satrical quip with a strained laugh of his own  ,  readjusting his already seamlessly tied necktie. he internally blames it on nerves due to the pressure of their  hoity - toity  surroundings.  “  truth be told  ,  i haven’t had enough to drink to properly answer that question. et tu  ?  ”

                — — —      CUE  LAUGHTER,  THE  SOFT  KIND      that  trickles  forth  from  velveteen  throat  like  honey     ;     it’s  the  kind  of  softened,  docile  laughter  that  she  RESERVES  for  the  other,  the  kind  that’s  paired  with  lovelorn  beam  that  spreads  the  minute  he  dares  to  show  himself.   nimble  digits  pluck  dust  bunny  from  a  broad  shoulder,  and  calloused  pads  MELT  under  the  warmth  of  supple  skin  through  delicate  cotton     ;     who  knew  that  something  so  PROSAIC,  SO  PEDESTRIAN  could  bring  a  goddess  to  her  knees     ??     ❛     it’s,  erm.  it  was  definitely  something,  alright.     ❜     (     and  there  she  goes  with  that  CHUCKLE  again,  saccharine  and  designed  only  for  him.     )     ❛     i  didn’t  mean  for  you  to  have  to     —     i  just     —     ❜     ringed  tactiles  make  a  grab  for  his  own  palm,  and  SPARKS  FLY  when  she  laces    /     locks  digits  together  in  a  firm  hold,  reassuring  and  reverent.     ❛     at  least  we  hadn’t  ordered  yet.  that  might’ve  been  real  bad.     ❜

not that he would ever really admit it, but grayson never intended to talk to sal this evening. it was just another gala, disguised as a fundraising event for homeless people and intended as something to help indulgent businessmen, doctors, and attorneys to make more connections. it was supposed to be uncomplicated and straightforward—not the setting of another awkward encounter with his ex-boyfriend. “ good evening, ” he said finally, fixing a practiced smile on his face. “ how are you doing tonight, mr. desantis ? ”  

grayson needed to wait a few minutes after michaela’s lingering friends finally wandered away, satisfied with their spontaneous conversation, before he could emerge from underneath the tiny table. they had chosen this crowded restaurant, situated in a run down neighborhood a few miles outside the boundaries of their town, because they were confident that they wouldn’t run into anyone familiar. brushing away the spiderwebs clinging to his hair, he made a mental note to look for another location soon. “ well, i mean, ” he started, clearing his throat. “ as exhilarating and unexpected as conversations with you are, that wasn’t really the brand of exhilarating and unexpected that i was looking for today. ”

MWAH hello yall cuties :”)) i’m lucy i’m 9teen i just spent the afternoon staring @ my blemishes n wondering if i should spend the $115 for the foreo luna mini ! but sdsdsj before i get distracted n start ranting abt myself, let me tell u about this trash bag aka grayson easton via this messy af intro xxxxxxx

- ̗̀ ❛ GREGG SULKIN, HE/HIM. ❜ ̖́- is that grayson easton getting out of their car blasting the new year by death cab? i heard they’re twenty five years old and they’ve been living in scarsdale for twelve years. i mean, i’m not surprised –– i hear their family’s networth is 800k. everyone’s always said they’re pretty industrious and disciplined, but rumor has it they can be deceitful and rigid, too.

so grayson easton was conceived when thomas easton aka international millionaire couldn’t contain his dick @ a medical conference 🍆💦 but even though it wasn’t necessarily how lauren hannigan imagined starting a family, she was still excited

she already understood that he wouldn’t be v involved (because smh his ass already had a family and was too high profile to risk exposing himself as a cheater), but it didn’t matter to her ! after all,  she just finished her residency program and was gong to *lil wayne vc* cash money make it rain ! lordt she was so HYPE she was close to spending a small fortune on little einstein storybooks 👀

but she never got the opportunity to read him those stories because a complication during her labour meant she passed away before she even had the opportunity to see her son—and because she wasn’t interested in involving his father (and honestmeme it wasn’t like he was knocking down doors to bring home his son), custody went to her parents, tessa and charles hannigan

they were fantastic guardians like clearly they were so distraught when their daughter passed away, but they decided to take all the love they couldn’t give her and direct it towards their grandson

he had a lemonade stand up every month, and his grandfather spent hours helping him make the posters and decorate the table before sitting out in the heat with him :”) it was called gray’s and grayson’s lemonade

they took turns helping charlie work through his dyslexia and brought him to the library regularly 💕 they were adamant about showing him that he wasn’t stupid just because he needed to work ten times harder than everyone to understand things, that he could do everything everyone else can do and more if he tried hard enough

also tessa taught him how to play the guitar and they spent v many fuzzy afternoons doing bad covers of sesame street songs shshsjs

but everything started going downhill when grayson turned ten—at that point, his grandparents were already p advanced in age, and that ultimately meant that their health was always v precarious :// before he could process what was happening, tessa was diagnosed w stage three breast cancer that showed no indication of slowing down—and all of a sudden, he was spending his nights doing homework in her hospital room and sleeping on the tiny chair near her bed because he refused to leave 

( tessa was always miserable in the hospital, but always brightened whenever he told her that he won a poetry competition or that his teacher put a sticker on his latest test because he got a hundred percent and he just wanted to make her happy ahhhh )

he was doing homework the evening she passed away in the surgery room—and after that, it was tbh emotional earthquake after emotional earthquake because the shock was too much for his grandfather, who died from a heart attack a few days after 

he’d barely processed what happened before his father ended up in the picture again—his father was concerned that the press would find the story, and he was smart enough to know that everyone discovering how he abandoned his bastard son would not be great press—and before he knew it, he was wrenched form his family home in maine, with only a few cardboard boxes in his arms, and dropped into this wildly privileged lifestyle in scarsdale, new york 

he soon became the center of immense gossip :/ because of his spontaneous appearance onto the otherwise exclusive setting of high class new york, people considered him a “leeching bastard son” who was only interested in getting his hands on some fortune

but he never felt that he could actually say something about his circumstances to his father smh at that point, he’d lost so many loved ones consecutively that he was desperate for someone that he could consider family, even if it meant steadfastly ignoring the genuinely shitty things about his father

he started attending first class institutions that cost as much as his old house’s mortgage per term, his dad gave him an allowance that made his weekly paper run money look like dust bunnies, he was introduced to businessmen and politicians and lawyers whose names he’d only heard on the evening news 

though he was already v hardworking and disciplined because he wanted to honour his grandparents and mom’s memory, his efforts to counteract the rumors that were being spread about him and his attempts to impress his detached father meant that his desperation to impress everyone became even more exacerbated 

by the time he graduated high school, he was the Golden Boy™ who sat at the popular table, got glowing comments from his teachers whenever he handed in assignments, and was celebrated as the star quarterback—but so much of his reputation was actually just constructed as a means to impress his father and as a way to please other people yikes he doesn’t even like playing football wtf

the fact that he was exposed to such a toxic environment that demanded everything from him to be considered valid and the fact that he’s so desperate for the feeling of compassion that he used to get from his family drove him to try finding validation and love in the wrong places, using the wrong ways

smh you would hope that spending time away from new york would’ve helped him become a little less reliant on other people’s opinion and more willing to be flexible but :) since finishing university and passing the bar exam, his family’s net worth dropped 200k and his father is placing even more pressure on him to help their firm get back on solid ground 

he’s doing everything he can and spending all his nights staying up late at his office, so much so that he sleeps there more than he sleeps in his still barely furnished apartment—but yikes he actually secretly hates corporate law and sometimes fantasizes about working for an non-governmental organization smh 

despite everything his father tried to make him as cold-hearted as him, his years with his grandparents meant that grayson is genuinely still such a compassionate and kind person underneath everything—he nags all his friends into eating vegetables and enjoys sneaking baby carrots into their homes and will always put everything on hold for the people that he loves and didn’t punch someone when they drunkenly vomited on his carpeted floor :”) 

but yikes he’s also repressed all the grief and trauma and bitterness that he’s experienced in his life, incorrectly thinking that his validation comes from authority figures and stubbornly ignoring anyone who suggests otherwise because “they’re just messing with me so they could be better than me” (also sidenote sometimes that bitterness manifests in some v questionable drinking n dating habits smh i hate him)

ANYMEME that’s grayson easton he’s a lil fake bitch who needs some help sdshdsjd the only person he talks 2 abt things is his corgi plz help