The pavement whirred by in a whorl of different colors and textures, but they were the only thing I could focus on at the moment.

Not the warmth from the legs I'd wrapped my own around.

Not the roar of the thunderous engine of the motorcycle I was currently riding on the back of.

Definitely not the feel of a stomach cut from steel my arms were banded around, grasping for dear life.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't have been touching Grey so intimately, but I would've found myself splattered on the solid yellow lines had I not been using him as my own personal seatbelt.

I had started to ask him where we were going until I remembered he couldn't yell the answer back to me.

More than once I'd wondered what had caused him to be mute; was it a birth defect? An injury? A personal choice?

From the way he refused to sign to communicate with his own brother showed me that that part was definitely the choice, but I wasn't about to pry.

He had saved me from Colton. Not literally, not in the way that I'd needed saving a week ago, but he'd been there to get me away from him.

Had he seen it in my eyes? Did the quickening of my heart give away everything? Or was it the look on my face?

I was positive Maria knew. She'd asked me as much during dinner when Parker's entire friend group had shown up at the dinner out of nowhere.

She even asked me if I wanted her to kick all of them out, to which I'd declined.

It wasn't my house, no matter how hard she would most likely try to make it seem that way in the coming weeks or months or however long I was going to stay.

Probably until graduation.

My birthday couldn't come soon enough. June 10th had never seemed so far away. It was only November, and I was already dreading each and every school day until the end.

Until I turned that coveted age of eighteen.

I'd sometimes questioned my social worker, about the status of my inheritance and why the trust had failed me.

Why I was bounced around to shitty foster home to shittier foster home instead of placed in the care of a trusted adult from my family's estate and sent to some uppity boarding school where at least I'd be taken care of.

She always told me that the funds were still tied up in probate, and that the beneficiary of the trust (a person I still didn't know the name of) wasn't able to access the money left for me.

I didn't question it at such a young age but now, in my research into trusts and estates and probate...it didn't seem right.

None of it did.

But I didn't have a voice of my own, a poor, sad teenager at the whims of the system, a troublemaker, a runaway...

The motorcycle hit a bump and I instinctively wrapped myself even tighter around Grey's body, feeling the tensing of his muscles as I did so.

The scent of burnt rubber and asphalt became overwhelmed by the splash of cologne that clung to his skin, and the faint aroma of weed had me rolling my eyes. Of course the troubled rich kid could get high whenever he wanted.

I still got periodically drug tested by the school and my social worker as part of the stipulations set forth after my first runaway attempt.

Someone really didn't want me getting away from the state, but at that point in my life, waiting for the money to hit wasn't worth staying in the homes I'd been placed in.

No amount of money was worth that.

Grey's motorcycle headlights illuminated a trailhead, and I suddenly wished I'd have thought more about hopping onto the back of a glorified stranger's bike.

Sure, we were suddenly housemates by some random twist of fate, but what did I really know about this person?

"Um, Grey? Can we turn back around? I'm kind of cold."

He held up one finger as if to say 'give me a second' and I held on tight as the bike careened down a dirt road trail that went on for about two miles.

With the bike going so slowly, I could make out the symphony of crickets and frogs chirping in the night, the winter not having truly taken over the greenery of northern California.

Soon, we'd see snow. Maybe.

The cold from winter didn't catch until late January to early February, the temps toward the end of the year fluctuating day by day like the weather couldn't be bothered to make up its mind.

But once the cold snap stuck? It would be ice and snow and frigid air that burned your lungs upon the first intake of breath outside.

Grey pulled the bike over at what seemed to be an overlook that rose above the entire town, lights glimmering in a shining cascade of incandescence that shadowed the light of the moon.

"Wow. This is beautiful."

Grey leaned the bike up on one side and gave me his hand to help me off.

I ditched the helmet on the handlebars, not really caring about my messy hair since it was mostly dark and unless Grey had night vision, he definitely wouldn't be able to see it.

His hand led me closer to the edge of the lookout, to the railing where the drop-off would definitely kill someone if they went over.

I pulled my hand free of his despite the comfort it gave and placed both of mine on the railing, the cold metal grounding me in a way that I desperately needed in that moment.

Grey watched my side profile and then the view, constantly looking back and forth between the two until he noticed my shiver and placed his leather jacket across my shoulders.

"Thanks. Not just for the jacket but the escape too."

I didn't know why I'd just said that. He'd clearly wanted to get out of there too after they'd been insulting him. Maybe I was just a convenient way to get away without his mom wanting him to stay for my sake.

He gave a noncommittal shrug that I felt as his arm was pressed up against mine.

A sigh fell from my lips unbidden as I leaned forward to catch more of the view.

The sun had faded beyond the skyline about an hour ago, but you could still see the fiery outline of where it had been sinking, a foggy afterglow painting the dusky sky deep purple and navy blue where the overhead sky bled into a charcoal black.

I didn't want to enjoy his company this much.

It was wrong, wasn't it?

To have gone through something so traumatic and yet still feel at peace with another guy right beside me who could do the very same or worse to me when I wasn't looking?

But it wasn't like that somehow with Grey.

I'd only just met him, and he'd barely said two words to me, and for some reason his presence calmed me, his aura soothed my frayed nerves.

Flashes of cars the size of ants whirled by street after street. A spotlight rotated in a circle over and over and over. A building in the center of town was already lit red and green for Christmas.

Maybe I let myself lean a little bit into Grey's shoulder--the feeling a forbidden touch that sent sparkling nerves dancing along my skin.

And maybe he angled his body towards mine slightly, just enough for me to feel the heat of him through his long sleeved tee, the brush of his dark hair against my forehead.

There was a certain peace to the moment in the fact that I didn't have to make idle conversation if I didn't want to, but for some reason, I wanted to talk to him.

I got the feeling that a lot of people spoke about him to his face, spoke at him, but I wanted to speak to him, to engage him in a conversation even if he didn't want to reciprocate. It might've helped that he couldn't repeat out loud what I told him.

Maybe that's why I told him.

Or maybe it was because it felt like he already knew, but he was just waiting for me to put it into words.

"My last name is Astor, my family used to be the famous Astors. Now they're famous for a whole other reason. I don't know if you already knew that; if Maria told you the background of the person living in your house. You probably deserve to know because of that anyway."

His sharp intake of breath was the only indication that told me he didn't know who I was--or who I came from. Still, I continued. Might as well get his preconceived ideas about me out of the way first and then see what was left in the rubble.

"My dad murdered my mom when I was twelve. Shot her right there in the living room and I was the one that found her. Ready to drive me back to your house and pack all my stuff up yet?"

He kept silent. Of course, he did. He couldn't sign out here in the dark. He could've grunted or breathed in deeply, butt here was absolutely no change in him; no response to what I'd just dropped in his lap.

"He went to prison for life and I was put in foster care since I had no living relatives willing to take me in. The state got control of my inheritance that I get when I turn eighteen. Apparently it's a lot; I wouldn't know. I've never seen a dime of it."

I flinched as his arm came around my waist underneath the warmth of his jacket that smelled like his cologne and mint--a mouthwatering combination that was no match for the real thing.

His fingers hooked around my hip, pulling me in tight to his body.

How could I have felt so comfortable with him, a stranger I'd hardly known before that day?

And how could I tell him things I hadn't even told Mori?

"Anyway, I've been in foster care ever since. Back and forth to a bunch of homes. So maybe yours is my last stop before graduation and turning eighteen. Who knows? I honestly don't know how Maria did it. I mean, a foster home for a seventeen year old girl with two teenaged guys living there, too? She must have some connections."

A slight grunt from Grey told me that he didn't disagree with my last point.

And then I told him about foster care. About how it felt being shuffled from home to home. About the creeps I was faced with there. About the rude siblings and the ones I missed to this day. About the sister I'd had who taught me sign language so we could communicate behind the parent's backs because they didn't bother learning it for her.

I told him about as much as I could before finally getting to present day, and then I shut it all down. I couldn't tell him anything about here. Not now, not ever.

Not after what had happened in that police station, in that hospital room.

Maybe the only one who'd ever know would be Maria. And maybe that would be for the best.

I shut down and cast a look to Grey.

What I'd hoped to find--contented indifference or thoughtfulness--was not there. In it's place was a mask of anger and rage and a glare I'd never seen from him in the short time since we'd first met.

I tried to pull out of his embrace but he held firm, and I didn't fight him. I didn't actually want him to let me go, but I also wanted him to be able to explain why he was so angry. Had I said something wrong?

"What's wrong? Are you mad at me?"

Grey had me turned directly toward him and staring into his midnight eyes in a flash of a moment.

Both his hands gripped my hips and I couldn't stop the stutter in my heart as he stared down at me in a tumultuous wonder.

His mouth began to move, as if he wanted to speak aloud but his vocal cords just couldn't produce the sound.

"N-n-"

"No?"

Grey shook his head as if in repeating what he meant. He wasn't mad at me.

"Then why...?"

Without warning, he let go of me and the cold was immediate, the shivers left in his wake...almost unbearable.

He loped off to the side of the overlook, towards a light pole with a small picnic table underneath.

The dim yellow halo of light that surrounded Grey made him look absolutely gilded; like some Greek apparition from the pantheon of Olympus gods.

I didn't know what overcame me, but I had to know.

His voice had sounded so scratchy yet so deep...I had to understand why. He would tell me if he wanted to; I had told him practically my entire life story.

That meant I had a right to ask...right?

"Grey...how did you lose your voice? Were you born without it, or...?"

I meandered closer to where he sat atop the picnic table, legs resting on the bench as he leaned back on his elbows to stare up at the sky.

He leveled me with a heated stare before bringing his hands up to sign, his hands illuminated in the foggy yellow glow from the pole lamp beside him.

"You sure you wanna know? I don't think you'll like it."

"Of course I won't like it; it's how you lost your voice. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be pretty. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to...forget it, I shouldn't have asked."

His mouth quirked up on one side as if to say, 'no, you really shouldn't have', but he answered anyway, and his response nearly knocked me over with it's enormous weight.

"I lost my voice because I wrapped a rope around my neck and kicked the stool. It severed my vocal cords."