Hideout - Grayson Dolan

1

"Why are you here?" I ask rudely.

"This is where I come to think, why are you here?" he responds. That sort of explains why the rocks end up where they are.

I sit back up. "I come here to think too. This is my hideout, I come here all the time" I tone down my rudeness to a puzzled one.

"May I have a puff?" he asks. I hand him my cigarette, he inhales, gives me it back and exhales creating rings with the smoke. "Thanks, I needed that. This is my hideout too. I'm guessing you're the Freya that has tagged her name on the roof"

"Yep that's me and who are you? And how come I have never seen you here before?" I ask.

"It's Grayson, I usually come in the mornings"

I nod at his answer and take another lot of smoke in. As I exhale I attempt in trying to make rings just like he did but instead fail and look like a complete idiot. I try again and this time he's watching me as I fail once again. He laughs grabbing the smoke off me.

"It's like this" he demonstrates and I'm lost for words, that's exactly what I was doing. "You have to curl your lips out a bit more" he says. I take the smoke back and try again this time blowing the hoops I was hoping for. He smiles as I congratulate myself on my efforts like a loser, put out the cigarette and pull out my phone. Happy birthday messages were still being sent to me.

I frown once I came across one that said 'Happy birthday. Party hard you little devil xxx.' I could feel my heart in my stomach, I may have acted like I didn't give a shit about my birthday but deep down I really did. Grayson notices my change of mood and asks what's up.

"Ah it's nothing" I lie.

He grabs my phone and puts it back into my lap after he sees the message. "It's your birthday?" he asks and I nod. "Your birthday isn't nothing. How old are you? Lemme guess, 18?" I nod again. "Why aren't you partying hard then you little devil?" he tries to keep a straight face but then laughs.

"This little devil isn't telling strangers about my personal life" I groan keeping my hazel eyes glued to the ant running across the cement.

He wraps his arm around me and whispers into my ear, "You don't have to, just come with me then"

Within seconds he had me crawling down the incline and following him.

---

"Grayson, where are we going?" I ask between breaths.

We had been running down the side of the track for the past five minutes and my feet feel like they were about to give way. Grayson was signalling me to join him with his crazy idea of running on the actual track itself, just like he has been doing in 30 second intervals for the past 6 minutes now. I shook my head once again.

There was no way in the world I would be seen doing something that dangerous. What if a train came out of nowhere and he couldn't move out of its way in time? What if I couldn't move out of the way in time?

"C'mon, we are nearly there" he says as a complaint more than an encouragement.

As he said that he jumps off the tracks and starts leading me down the dirt track heading towards a quiet road. Small, vintage cottages plastered the street with their character, the round a about is filled with a variety of daises and one of this towns few halls stood out like a cornflake in a bowl full of coco pops.

"What are we doing here?" my voice shakes as we walk closer to the hall.

He grabs hold of my hand and pulls me behind a tree away from sight of anyone. "We are gonna break in." he smirks.