Chapter 12 An Unexpected Visitor
T he next two days I didn’t see much of either Monica or Ethan.
Since it was Sunday, I assumed that both Monica and Ethan were still home as this was the one day in the week Monica consistently had the morning off in the three weeks I’d lived here.
After I brushed my teeth, pulled on a pair of yoga shorts, and finished my morning stretches, I made my way out into the living room ready to give all of my focus to Monica and avoid all eye contact with Ethan.
We hadn’t spoken since the night of the club and that included me ignoring a text message he’d sent to me the next day asking to talk.
I didn’t want to talk about it. All I wanted to do was chalk it up to a newly single experience and move on.
Yet, as I rounded the corner into the living room, my eyes found only one person at home this Sunday morning and it was unfortunately and not surprisingly, not the one I was hoping for.
Ethan was standing in the living room, leaning against the countertop, watching the spoon in his coffee as he moved it around languidly. The moment I came into sight, he lifted his face in my direction and my gut pulled my eyes down to the floor.
Not only did I hate confrontation, but I also wasn’t any good at it. I usually floundered for a few minutes, spouting out random words until I found a combination of them that fit for what I was trying to say.
I went into the kitchen without saying a word.
No ‘Good morning.’ No ‘Sorry I ignored your text message.’ Just silence as I made my cup of tea and let my heartbeat race out of control.
He was ignoring me too if I really thought about it.
He could have said something to me when I came in, but he didn’t.
This was a two-way silent treatment.
The microwave’s three slow beeps pierced the quiet, and I was grateful for their high-pitched interruption.
I grabbed the handle of my mug and pulled it from the microwave, my ears picking up small ‘clinks’ against a ceramic surface coming from behind me.
The trivial noises added to the tension mounting on top of me, each one like a tiny whack to my already painfully stiff spine.
All right, I’ll grab a spoon, give him a polite smile and then go hide in my room for the rest of the day like the adult that I am.
I turned around in his direction with my cup of tea in hand, readying myself to grab a spoon and make my break for it, when I made one crucial mistake.
I looked at him for what was meant to be only a millisecond, but what turned into an uncountable length of time drawn between us. His eyes were waiting for mine and now, he had me.
From across the kitchen, Ethan was staring at me and in such a way that ripped the next breath straight from my lungs. He didn’t even have to say anything because it was all written out plainly in his eyes. He wanted to talk and he wanted to talk now .
“Do you have a minute?”
“Uh—” I really didn’t want to say yes, but I also didn’t have a good lie ready. “Yeah, a short minute. I’ve just gotta head over to this dance studio soon.”
Ethan nodded, not easing up on the intensity in his eyes one bit.
“Did you get my text a couple days ago?”
His right-to-the-point question felt like a kick to the gut, making my nerves cinch together and my next words stumble out ineloquently.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that.” I offered a lame chuckle to him. “I’m such an awful texter. Like, truly a disgrace to my generation. I opened it and just totally forgot to respond.”
This time, he didn’t even nod to acknowledge that I’d spoken. He just stared at me—no— through me, as if he could tell that I was lying to him.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened that night in the club?”
And there it was. The question glaring both of us in the face that I could have happily ignored until the significance of it faded from existence.
I dropped my eyes to the floor, holding my mug tighter between my hands, the warmth from the boiling water inside heating my palms as a small distraction. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Then why did you text me for help?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m fine.”
“But you weren’t fine, were you?”
“I—” My next words fell off, overwhelmed by the inability to think in the face of Ethan’s forceful persistence. “I made it out okay and that’s what matters. I shouldn’t have texted you anyways.”
His eyes narrowed at the sides as his eyebrows drew together. “Why shouldn’t you have texted me? If you need help, you should always text me, text someone .”
“But someone’s not always there,” I countered, feeling the truth of my statement heavy in my stare.
“I’ve been way too used to having people rescue me all my life, and I don’t have that anymore, and maybe that’s a good thing.
I’m choosing to take what happened that night as a lesson that I need to learn to fend for myself and not always rely on others. ”
Ethan’s expression broke as I finished speaking, hurt entering the jagged sections splintered open in his eyes.
“You can rely on me,” he spoke, his voice low and flat. “I didn’t see that text message from you until we got home that night and ever since, I’ve been wrecked thinking about what could have been happening to you that I could have stopped.”
I breathed out a sigh that held the weight of my world in it.
“It wasn’t anything that bad, and you have no reason to feel guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Ethan stopped just short of speaking, a deep breath filling his chest wide. His eyes on mine, he held my stare and he held it tenderly. Something in my chest spasmed as I noticed the touch of insecurity spreading like weeds through his brilliant blue irises.
“It feels like I did.”
A knock at the front door splintered through the rest of whatever moment Ethan and I were having.
I watched Ethan drop his gaze low, but not go to the door quite yet. He stalled, staring down at the counter with his thick eyebrows drawn in and framing the grave perplexity in his eyes. He paused for only a short while before turning away from me and walking to answer the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Hi! Yeah, is there an Alice here?”
The second his voice passed through the house, it hit straight at my heart and pulled a gasp right between my teeth. I set my cup of tea down somewhere behind me and before Ethan could even get out his next words, I’d barrelled my way past him and yanked the front door open wide.
An explosion of fireworks burst through my heart as I laid my eyes on his sweet smile and familiar eyes.
“Oh my god.” That was all I could say before I took two giant steps towards him and jumped.
My feet locked around his waist as his arms did the same around my back as he caught me. In his embrace, my heart felt almost whole again.
“So I guess I have the right house,” he joked, his breath fanning through my hair as I breathed in his soft citrus scent and hugged him tighter.
“What’re you doing here?”
“I had to come visit my grandparents for their 50th wedding anniversary shindig, which is like a half hour from here, so I thought I’d come up a day early and surprise my best girl.”
An uncomfortable sounding cough came from behind us.
“Care to introduce me?” Ethan’s voice struck me as deeper than normal as he made himself known.
I didn’t let him go. I couldn’t let him go for even the few seconds it would take to address Ethan with eye contact. Talking to him with my entire body still wrapped around this stranger in his home would have to suffice.
“This is Gabe. He’s my dance partner and my favorite human being in the entire world.”
Gabe chuckled. “Well, with an introduction like that, I better live up to the hype.” Gabe walked with me still suctioned cupped to him into the house a few steps and stopped.
“Nice to meet you.” Gabe’s hand left my back for only a few seconds, and I pictured him and Ethan shaking hands.
“Wait—how long are you here?” I cranked my head back, putting myself on eye level with Gabe.
“I leave tomorrow night for my grandparents.”
“Where are you staying tonight?”
His eyebrows rose in a way I’d seen them do a thousand times before. “Well…”
“If you’re about to ask if you can stay in my room tonight, the answer is yes as long as you let me be the little spoon.”
Gabe’s lips popped open and I could see the protest swirling to life in his eyes.
“You know how much I love being little spoon.”
“Yes, but you’re so tall and I’m so not.”
“So?”
A groan pulled from somewhere inside me as I felt myself conceding the longer I held that pleading look in Gabe’s eyes.
He’d developed the world’s most effective puppy dog eyes and told me before we even became close friends that he always got what he wanted with just one, adorable look. He wasn’t wrong.
“Fine.” Dramatically, I flung myself forward into his chest until I was once again hugging him in as closely as I could. Inhaling the tangerine scented shampoo that smelled like home and happiness all in one, I muttered to him. “Only because I love you so much.”
His hands squeezed at my waist. “Right back at ya, babe.”
“All right, so where’s my room?” Rolling my eyes at him, I leaned back just enough to let him see my head tick in the direction of my bedroom.
“That way.”
“Am I the first boy you’ve had in your room?” he asked with a quirked, seductive eyebrow. God, his eyebrows are so well-kept.
“Maybe,” I purred back, playing into it. “You gonna do something about it?”
Gabe’s chest rumbled against mine as he chuckled darkly, wiggling his perfectly plucked eyebrows at me.
“I think you and I both know the answer to that.”
I missed this. I missed being silly and playful and feeling like I could say and do whatever I felt like saying or doing. Gabe being here brought that back to me. I could feel my muscles and stress loosen the back of my neck up, easing every anxiety I let build up since moving here.
I felt happy again.