“I was shitty and short with you earlier, and I apologize. With this being the last sliver of Anton’s estate, I’m a little on edge,” I said.
“I understand, Mr. MacDonald. Really, I do.”
“I’m sure. So, I wanted to call and tell you to accept their offer.”
“You’ve made a very wise decision,” he said. “Will you be including the furnishings as well?”
“Yes. For free, since they made such a hefty offer. Everything in the house, in the guesthouse, and in the garage stays. They can do with it what they need.”
“I will notify them immediately. I’ll keep in touch, and if I need your signature, I’ll call you and set up the best way to get the papers to you,” he said.
“I’ll be close.”
I hung up the phone and stuck it back into my pocket. But the burden I expected to release from my shoulders only seemed to weigh me down further. I knew it was time to make a clean break with everything. Part with all of it at once. After all, what the hell was I going to do with all that stuff? Couches and beds and an entire closet full of sheet sets. I didn’t need any of it. I’d leave a note for the non-profit to donate anything they didn’t use to the local second-hand charity I knew Anton supported, and that would be that.
All that stood between me and going home was a note written to the new owners.
I walked back inside and started wandering around the house. I picked up some odds and ends things—a loose pencil there, a pillow of the floor in the corner. I looked around to see if there was anything I did want to take. A book or a stranded vase or maybe a pillow that still smelled like the remnants of home.
Home.
Where the hell was my home anymore?
After writing the note to the non-profit and taping it to the refrigerator door, I went and laid down in bed. There was nothing else for me to do. All I had to do was contact my pilot and have my plane ready to take me back to California.
After a decent night’s sleep.
“Grayson,” Michelle said breathlessly. “Oh my gosh.”
I rolled my body into hers, filling her up as she shivered against me. Her hands curled into my back as I picked her up off the bed. I pressed her into the wall, my eyes gazing out the balcony windows. What a beautiful sight. Michelle’s pussy wrapped around me and her body succumbing to me while the sun set over my billion-dollar grapes. My lips fell to her neck and I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of her.
“So beautiful,” I said with a murmur. “So precious to me.”
My body tightened and my toes curled. The sun cast harsh rays of sun into my bedroom as her scent wafted around my head. Her breath was hot on my neck. The glass rattled with my assault. I felt all of her pressed into me, blanketing my muscles and filling me in all the way I knew she could.
And for the first time, I gazed into the eyes of the woman instead of gazing out across my vineyard as I came.
My eyes flew open as I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth. My heart raced and my cock leaked against the sheets of the bed. My frown deepened as I drew in a deep breath. I could still smell the essence of Michelle underneath my nose. I threw the covers off me and looked down at my aching cock, my balls hanging low and the tip crusted with precum.
I closed my eyes, grimacing at her voice echoed off the corners of my mind.
“Grayson. Oh my gosh.”
I took a cold shower, draining her from my system. I wasn’t going to relieve myself to her memory. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I cleaned myself up before stripping the sheets from the bed, then tossed them in the washer. I’d walked around the entire house, and there wasn’t a single thing that leapt out at me to keep. Maybe it was because I was bitter or maybe it was because Michelle had tainted this house with her presence, but I couldn’t bring myself to take any of it.
But I hadn’t ventured into the attic yet.
I found myself sitting there in the dust and musty humidity of Anton’s attic. My legs hung over the edge as I sat there with that photo album in my lap. It was the one I’d hidden away from Michelle—which now felt like ages ago. I smoothed my hand over the faded outside before drawing in a deep breath. Before finding the strength to flip the album open and take a peek.
The first picture hit me with memories that made my arms tense. Pictures of my younger self, still bruised from fighting with my drunken father. It was the first picture Anton ever took of me just days after I’d come to live with him. I flipped through the pages, finding nothing but shame in the pictures of my childhood. Scars I’d eventually had removed with laser treatments and bruises that had melted away, leaving behind mental and emotional scars no laser could fix. But as I flipped through the album, I found that Anton had a secret.
He had kept track of my local athletic career.
I perused through the articles and took in all the pictures. I pulled out a news clipping from one of the biggest games I ever played in high school. My eyes danced along the picture, taking in the formation on the field before the article fell below it.
Then, my eyes fell to something curious.
I took in the form of my coach on the sidelines, his clipboard over his mouth. Standing to his right was a man I recognized. The scout that eventually picked me up from that game. That eventually recruited me to play college football. But standing beside that scout, with his arms folded behind his back like he always had, was Anton.