Chapter 19 Just Put Your Lips Together
T he entire next day I avoided Ethan like he was a broken ankle before a big dance competition.
I worked, danced, and worked some more. It’s crazy the kind of energy avoiding your problems can give you.
My date with Peter was tonight, and I took the whole day off to get ready both mentally and physically.
This was my first date in over five years, so to say that I was a little on edge was a massive understatement.
Throw in the fact that I was actively avoiding my sister’s fiancé to forget that I almost kissed him two days ago, and a little on edge became hanging by my fingertips off of that ledge.
Ethan hadn’t tried to contact me or catch me in the house either. I heard the front door open and close early this morning, so hopefully he’d be out most of the day in his quest to try and push off the inevitable awkward between us, and that was fine by me.
Unfortunately, living in the same house as your inevitable counterpart made complete avoidance impossible.
Only a half an hour after starting my day with my cereal bowl in one hand and the T.V.
remote in the other, the very man I was hoping not to see the rest of the week came through the front door.
His eyes barely met mine as he closed and locked the door, jumping from mine to the ground so fast that I wasn’t at all positive I didn’t imagine it.
“Morning,” I muttered.
Ethan replied the same and dropped his gym bag on the floor, heading off to the kitchen with a protein shaker in hand.
I tried not to look but he made it so damn hard not to steal a glance of his sweat glistened muscles as he walked by me.
This freaking guy was going to fluster me into a heart attack before I ever made it to my date tonight.
And I hated myself every second more for it.
Ethan might have been swept up in the emotional vulnerability of the moment, but what was my excuse? He didn’t mean to almost kiss me and certainly wasn’t thinking about kissing me right now like I was him. It was a onetime, almost-mistake brought on by elements outside of our control on his part.
Maybe he felt guilty or embarrassed for putting me in that position.
Though, I’m not sure how guilty he’d feel if he knew just how much I loved every second of it.
My crush on Ethan was damnable, but today was the day I started the process of getting over him.
My date with Peter tonight was the first step towards forgetting all about Ethan so I could go back to not hating myself and so that Ethan and I could go back to being some version of friends.
Ethan would just have to forgive himself for his understandable moment of weakness and move on with me.
The noise of Ethan moving through the kitchen and intentionally not talking to me was more than deafening, so I clicked on the T.V. for a break from it all.
Black and white, old timey pictures expanded across the screen and I settled back into the couch with my cereal. The moment was peaceful for all of two seconds before Ethan’s voice broke through.
“What’re you watching?”
“Uh—” His accusatory tone threw me completely, as did the apparent anger burning across his face. “I don’t know? It was in the DVD player.”
His focus on the screen across the room didn’t waver a bit. “I was watching that last night. You don’t have to keep it on.”
“What movie is it?”
Ethan’s chest rose and fell as he breathed deeply.
“One of my favorites called To Have and Have Not. Really, it’s boring. You can turn it off.”
“How can it be boring if it’s one of your favorites?” Turning my gaze to the screen, I shoved a bit of cereal in my mouth and watched the people in the movie.
“What’s it about?”
“Nothing you’d be interested in.”
Wow, he was in a mood. Ethan had never been this short or cold with me before.
I was used to charming, funny, wildly blunt Ethan—not one with a stick up his perfectly formed butt.
Maybe it was better this way actually. If he kept being this rude, it might make my crush on him disappear that much faster.
Ethan being a dick could end up being a tremendously great thing for me.
“It’s about this boat captain who has to help smuggle two fugitives during World War II,” Ethan explained somewhat abashed, obviously feeling bad for his blunt response.
Dammit .
“Oh, that sounds cool. I don’t think I’ve ever—” I stopped as something in the movie caught my attention, a memory sparking somewhere in my brain. “Oh, wait! I do know this movie! Well, I know this scene at least.”
“You do?”
“Yes! This is the whistle scene, right?” I turned my head to Ethan for confirmation, ecstatic that I really did know something from his favorite movie. Ethan somehow appeared even more uncomfortable than before.
“That’s the one.”
Choosing to push him and his weird behavior to the back of my mind, I swiveled my attention back to the movie.
The male actor was sitting in a chair while the female actor sat on his lap, her perfectly finger-curled hair not swaying an inch.
She kissed him and I found a smile on my lips as I watched the pair on screen.
She was stunning and he was completely enamoured with her, and I could watch him watching her all day long. The couple kissed again before the woman stood up and sauntered towards the door to leave the room.
“This is it! This is the line!” I exclaimed.
The actress on screen turned back to her lover and spoke the only line from this movie I knew in a voice so sultry it matched her captivating, old-Hollywood beauty like a dream.
“You know how to whistle, don’t ya, Steve?” I repeated with her, doing my best femme fatale voice I could to match. “You just put your lips together… and blow.”
The actress exited the room and the camera panned back to the man she left sitting there, impressed and smiling as he thought of the woman. After a few seconds, he whistled just once and then the screen drew black.
“You just put your lips together… and blow .” I looked back over to Ethan, who to my surprise was already watching me. “Am I saying it right?”
He opened his mouth but then closed it, and I could see him actively trying to find the right words. Was I that bad at it? Finally, he spit out an answer with clear difficulty.
“Yes, you’re saying the right line.”
“But am I saying it like her ? Like—what’s the actress’s name?”
“Lauren Bacall.”
“Yeah, am I saying it like her? You just put your lips together,” I spoke, sinking my voice lower. “And blow.”
“I think you should stop,” Ethan sighed, agitation practically radiating off of him.
“Am I that bad?”
Determined to get this line delivery right, I kept trying. “You know how to whistle, don’t ya, Steve?”
“Alice ,” Ethan warned.
“You just put your lips together—”
“Please stop.”
“And… blow.”
“For fucks sake, I said stop!”
Ethan’s explosion splintered through my heart, stopping it mid-beat. The rest of my body froze, too. The shock of his outburst kept me silent, tying my words against my tongue as I watched Ethan.
His head was low between his pointed shoulder blades as he held himself against the countertop, deep breaths heaving his back. The air hanging between us was practically dead. Heavy, rotting, toxic; I was afraid to even breathe.
I truly wasn’t sure whether my thrumming heart and the heat crawling up the back of my neck meant that I was furious or humiliated because of his outburst at me. Ethan had never yelled at me before. I was just playing around, trying to get back to some sense of normalcy between us.
“I’m sorry…” I whispered. All I could manage was a whisper at that moment anyway. Anything more and I knew we’d both hear a stitch of emotion weave into my voice.
My apology forced some life back into Ethan as he lifted his head to me. Regret sliced a clear, wide line across Ethan’s stare as he finally saw me, and moved around the counter towards me.
“Alice, I—”
“No, no, it’s okay!” I scooted off of the couch and quick-stepped towards my bedroom. “You told me to stop and I didn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to yell.” The sorrow dripped from his voice but only made my blood run faster through my veins, urging me to get behind closed doors. I didn’t want to be around him right now. Whether or not I wanted them, the pricks of tears were behind my eyes and coming fast.
“I’m sorry.” Ethan’s eyes tore into me, digging for a response that I couldn’t get out. “ Fuck ,” Ethan breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please, wait?”
“I can’t actually,” I said in a rush. “I have to start getting ready for tonight.”
His forehead creased in question. “Tonight?”
“Yeah, I have my date with Peter tonight so… gotta start getting ready soon.”
His face fell blank and washed over pale.
He blinked at me a few times, but didn’t say anything.
By his side, his hands curling into fists nabbed my focus as did his jaw set so tightly that it hurt to look at.
The air between us buzzed until it had been resurrected from its earlier death, my skin sprouting goosebumps in reaction to its revival.
Goosebumps that were a result of how unsettling the new air around us felt.
“That’s right,” Ethan mumbled. “I almost forgot about you two.”
“Yeah…”
A few more seconds of awkward silence between us was all I could take before I would either burst into tears or scream back at Ethan and then burst into tears.
The tears were unstoppable and I shelled out a brisk “See ya later” to Ethan before disappearing back into my room before he could see even one teardrop fall.
Pushing my body up against my closed bedroom door, I locked it behind me with trembling fingers.
Pain seared across the center of my chest, and I cried a soft moan as my hands grabbed onto where it hurt most and squeezed.
Inside my body felt like a fire had been set, blazing its way through every vital organ until it was all black, burnt, and useless.
It hurt. It really freaking hurt. And the more it hurt, the more I hated myself for letting it hurt.
I knew the only possible outcome for having feelings for Ethan was hurt. Wanting him was asking for the pain. Needing him was begging for it on bloody hands and bruised knees.
This was why I was going out with Peter tonight—to move onto someone kinder and safer and sweeter. Ethan could be all of those things for Monica, but he couldn’t be them for me too, and I shouldn’t expect him to be. I needed an anecdote to flush out what I had let Ethan pollute inside of my heart.
I was stupid for letting it happen, and I was stupid for not putting a stop to it.
Tonight, I stopped making stupid decisions.