It was raining the night Genesis met Grayson

As I reluctantly get off the bus at the last stop, I curse the simpleton who told me I wouldn’t need an umbrella on this trip.

The simpleton being Alex, he’s not here so how would he know what I needed?

So much for my hair lasting me until the end of the month, as I have nothing to cover myself with other than my tote bag which is carrying all my essentials. I’m just thankful to be wearing a jacket.

We’ve been here two weeks and you’d think I’d know my way around by now but places and street names are a lot harder to find when it's pouring down rain, there’s 30 miles per hour winds and not another human in sight who can give me directions. I miss the days where Ray and I would never separate but I for some reason just had to sow my own oats and venture off alone.

So much for that.

I figured the bar was a few blocks from here but after 60 seconds of walking, surprise surprise, I stepped in a large puddle, completely drenching my sneaker and subsequently my sock. 

Groaning isn’t enough, I need to jump off a cliff.

I continue to trudge, praying that something is open so I can duck in and at least make sure my phone isn’t wet so I can call Ray. 

My saving grace comes in the form of a building on the block. An avenue of sorts with a line of shops, all with the lights off except for one.

If I’m killed, at least I’ll die somewhat dry.

I duck into the shop, immediately shaking off like a wet dog and taking a much needed deep breath. Funny how tired rain can make you when you’re actually in it.

I take a few breaths, wiping the water from my eyes and nose and trying desperately not to think about the way my clothes are clinging to me as I dig through my tote for my phone.

“Is everything okay?” A soft, Irish voice says from somewhere in the distance.

I dig around for my glasses, putting them on to bring light to the concerned face and try not to choke on what little breath I still have at the sight.

Fuck he’s gorgeous. And I am the wet street rat who’s broken into his place of business. Nice.

His face is soft, as are his features. Brown eyes like I could probably stare into for days if I tried. Toffee colored skin. Muscular jaw. Broad shoulders. Pretty pink lips. There was a small smile on his face, his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed as he waited for my answer.

Maybe if I could pick my jaw up from the floor, I’d be able to find the words my college degree lent me all those years ago.

There’s a towel slung over his shoulder and a toothpick hanging from his mouth. He’s also covered in dark tattoos, a few even scattered on his beautiful brown face.

He raises an eyebrow at me, probably wondering if I’m a mute.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were closed, I just wanted to get out of the rain.” I tell him, hoping he buys that even though for some reason it feels like a lie.

“I didn’t check the forecast and it was beautiful less than an hour ago where I was, silly of me to think it’d last and not wear proper attire…” I trail off because he’s jumped the counter and fuck he’s tall. Wearing a black tank top which put his bulging, tattoo covered arms on full display, ripped jeans with a chain around it that rattled with each boot covered step he took towards me.

“You’re wet.” Is the first thing he says when he stops in front of me.

“What?” Cause…actually….yeah I kinda am. He’s fucking hot.

He drapes the towel around my shoulder and closes the door that I, like the American Idiot I am, left standing wide open.

He takes my tote from me, replacing it with a towel and smiles at me. 

“Dry off, I’ll put this in the dryer.” He instructs me. I nod, taking off my glasses to wipe my wet face and clothes as best as I can.

He comes back with a black shirt and a pair of shorts, handing them to me.

“Here, these should fit you, I will dry your clothes. There is a bathroom right there you can change in and I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Oh you don’t have to, I’ll just call my friend and see if she can send someone to pick me up, I don’t want to trouble you.” I tell him, putting my glasses on and trying not to blush at the way his neck is craned to look down at me.

“It would be trouble if you asked but I offered.” He tells me, nodding towards the bathroom. 

I nod again. There’s a hot guy giving me instructions and I’d rather follow than be out there in a storm.

When I go into the bathroom, I realize that not only am I wet, like really wet, I’m wearing a pink shirt and a red bra that can be seen through the previously mentioned pink shirt. 

So breaking and entering, indecent exposure and flashing in the public area. 

Hopefully the Irish prison system will go easy on me.

I sigh again and get to work changing. 

The clothes are a little big on me so I assume they’re his as I exit the bathroom, my cold feet on the floor.

My handsome savior is sitting on the armrest of the sofa near the door, watching the rain and chewing on his toothpick.

He turns when I exit the bathroom, holding his hand out for my clothes and taking them to the other room.

“Want something to drink?” He says cooly as he comes back into the room and heading in the direction of the desk he was at when I entered.

“I have coffee, tea, and ale.”

“Do you have water?”

He scoffs, smiling and reaching into the back of his mini fridge and pulling out a bottle of water.

“You are not from here?” He asks me as he hands it to me, a spark cracked as our fingers graze each other and he looks up at me.

“What gave it away?” I ask, finally sitting down on the couch and taking a sip of the water.

He hums. “Maybe the fact that you were out in the rain. Or the fact that you asked me for water and not coffee. But really, it is your voice,” He confirms, sitting next to me but too close, on the couch.

“My Irish accent could use some work before I try it on the general public.” I joke because that’s all I know how to do when there’s a hot man around.

He chuckles and for some reason, I blush at the fact that I made him laugh. What the fuck?

“It’s sweet. Like uh…honey that’s fresh from the bees, I don’t hear it often.”

“You don’t get a lot of American people in your…?” I look around, trying to place exactly what type of shop this is.

“This is a tattoo shop. It might not look like it but that is because I keep mostly everything in the back.”

“You own it?” I ask, taking my chances at taking another look at him.

Mistake. He’s too beautiful, I have to look away or I might actually start drooling.

He scratches the goatee on his chin, nodding at me. He blinks and looks directly at me and I look away, hoping he can’t hear the way my heart is playing the drums in my chest.

“Have for the past 5 years. It’s like my baby.” Oh fuck me, I like the way he says that.

He extends his very tattooed hand to me, looking at me with soft eyes and a smirk.

I slip my palm into his and try to ignore the way it fits so perfectly. 

He must feel it too because he just holds my hand in his, thumbing over the small tattoo I have on my thumb bone, a matching one with Ray.

Alexa play Careless Whisper instrumental.

That’s how this felt.

“Grayson.” he finally says, not letting my hand go.

“Genesis.”

He snorts cutely. “The beginning.”

“Also the oldest.” 

He smiles, letting go of my hand and I miss the feeling immediately. 

“Vacation?” He asks, leaning back on the sofa, spreading his long legs and resting his boot on the coffee table.

He pats the spot next to him and I slide down from the arm.

I mirror him, leaning back and putting the part of my foot that could reach the table.

“More like extended stay. My best friend and I are here on a work visa. We work at the bar down on Schnapp Street. She rage quit her job and I needed inspiration,”

“For what?” 

I sigh. Because that’s the thing isn’t it.

Two weeks and I’ve written the word “The” in my notebook, followed by nothing else.

I must be silent for too long because he turns his pretty head and looks at me, raising his eyebrows. 

“I’m a writer.”

He hums curiously. 

“Or maybe I’m a fraud. We’ll find out,”

He laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners, dimples in the apples of his cheeks.

Not that I’m looking.

“What do you write? Books?”

I nod.

“Three so far. And I’m afraid I’ve peaked. Those may have been the only ideas I’ve ever had and now I’m going to be forced to go back to college at the ripe ass age of 31. Do you think I’d make a good doctor?”

He laughs again and I might be falling in love.

“If your directions are as bad as your medical skills, I’d say no. But I do love a good story.”

“Romantic thrillers interest you in any way?”

He cocks his head at me, his smile coming back slowly.

“Only if someone dies in the end, it’s only worth it if someone dies in the end.” 

I flick his leg affectionately. “I say that all the time, my editor hates me,”

He chuckles, turning his head back to watch the rain.

“It rains quite a lot here, just so you know. Most businesses close when it begins pouring like this, on this block anyway,”

“You’re open so you can what? Wait for some poor American to come stumbling in with her bra showing and no glasses so you can have someone to talk to?”

“Exactly.” he winks playfully, I nudge him and question my entire existence.

Why is this so easy? 

Maybe everyone here is just nice.

There’s a comfy silence as we listen to the rain and the sound of my shoes tumbling in the dryer.

The rain is actually relaxing. My thoughts aren’t as loud, I feel a sense of peace finally.

Finally.

I feel the pad of his finger tracing my thumb tattoo, pulling me back to the present but continuing to keep me calm.

“How many of these does you have?” He asks.

“Sixteen.” I answer with ease, it’s my favorite question.

“Want a seventeenth?” He asks, eyeing me.

This is how I ended up laying on a very comfortable memory foam table, on my side, taking deep shuddering breaths while he tattooed the side of my thigh.

He paused, dipping the pen in the ink and standing so he could get a better angle. His right hand was drawing on me while his left covered the rest of the expanse of my thigh. His hands were huge.

“Washington is the capital, no?”

“It is yeah. Ray worked for the city and I, a mere author and her humble housekeeper, split the rent at her condo.”

Grayson hummed.

“Do you like Dublin?”

Everyone I’d encountered asked me that but I decided to give a real answer this time.

“I love it. I knew I would. I just wish I didn’t have to cross an ocean to clear my head and find inspiration.”

“Was inspiration few and far between in the Capital?” He asked, his eyes laser focused but glancing at me everytime he paused, making sure I knew he was listening.

“Well, after a brutal breakup and an equally brutal rebound, I wasn‘t exactly inspired to write about romance. I was, however, inspired to write about several murders.”

He squeezes my thigh.

“Sorry to hear that, love.”

I swallow thickly because he sounds genuine. Which is nice.

“It’s alright. I have new goals, a new book to write and I’m in a different country. If I let my my hometown hold me back, I’d still be there.”

He looks at me and smiles.

I flex my thigh under his hand.

“Enough about me,”

“Oh? But you’re so interesting.”

I roll my eyes.

“Tell me about what makes you so Gray.”

“Other than the fact that it’s my name. There’s not much.”

I eye him from over my shoulder.

“But there’s something.”

He shrugs so I sit up, looking at him in a way that no ones been able to resist me before; I bat my eyelashes.

He flushes cutely.

“There’s really not much. I’ve lived here most of my adult life. I own this parlor. I'm originally from Edinburgh in London but when my mum left, my dad wanted to come back home,” He swallows hard and pauses. 

Do I want to know? Of course I do. Am I gonna ask? Not in this lifetime and not the next.

“I have a brother, he’s a bit older and lives in Scotland and I usually don’t talk to strangers.” He tells me, squeezing my thigh again.

That gets a laugh out of me.

Before either of us can speak again, the timer on the dryer goes off. We look at each other and the music dies down.

He looks past me and sees the rain has cleared a bit. Enough for me to be able to find my way to the bar.

He looks back down at me and blinks. I make no movements whatsoever.

So he goes back to drawing on my leg.

We talk about a bit of everything as he finishes my thigh and moves down to my ankle for something small.

On my thigh, he’s drawn a four leaf clover in the shape of a heart. I smile at it, hoping that it means I’ll never forget him.

We talk back and forth about normal things and colorful topics that come to my mind and his.

He tells me about his dreams of being a Marine Biologist, how he got halfway through college and burnt out completely, turning to drawing to relax his nerves and realizing he was way too good at it to hide it. He tells me about his brother and sister in law, his dad and moves smoothly around discussing his mom in any capacity.

I, in turn, tell him about my books and how my last one did so well that I’m afraid I’ll never be able to top it. I tell him about my two younger brothers and how I was basically their second mom when my mom simply didn’t feel like it. I talk about me and my mom only being 16 years apart and growing up together and how writing helped me. How much she supports me.

Eventually, he stops drawing on me and we take to just talking, listening to the rain pitter patter on the windows and a few cars go by, splashing water every which way. I lay out on the table, he’s sitting on the chair next to me similar to a therapist session I had before coming here.

The embarrassing growl of stomach is probably my signal to leave as it interrupts our conversation.

He chuckles and gets up to get my clothes.

They’re dry and smell amazing. “I’ll just change.”

“You don’t have to.” he says before I can take one step towards the bathroom. I raise my eyebrows.

He blinks.

“You look rather adorable in that shirt,” He tells me, doubling down.

I don’t think my eyebrows can go any higher so I relax my face.

“Would you like to grab a bite? I have an umbrella but I also know everyone around here in case it storms again.”

Is he asking me on a date?

I nod slowly.

“Sure. The bar I work at is like 4 or 5 blocks from here, if you want that, you can meet Ray and the girl she’s hardcore crushing on.”

He smiles brightly and nods like I just asked if he wanted the candy in my van.