Chapter 40
Mia
Ethan isn’t at the boat race. He doesn’t show up to The Snug after soccer training, and he isn’t in Members or at the ref around dinner. Now it’s almost eleven and I’ve been sat in our shared kitchen for three hours waiting on him. If nothing else, I’ve gotten a lot of reading done.
When the front door opens, I hold my breath until he strides right past the door without looking in. Damn him. With no alternative, I close my book, rise to my feet and prepare myself for whatever is coming next.
I knock on his door once, then twice, impatient to be done with this, my body vibrating with not-great anticipation.
He still doesn’t answer. It would help if I knew what I wanted to say, but I don’t.
All I want from him is the truth. Was I right?
Is he playing with me? Or did he mean all those things he said? Because if he did …
The door opens and Ethan appears. His hair clings damp to his forehead like he just got out of the shower, grey sweatpants, blue henley, bare feet.
‘Can we talk?’ I ask and he breathes in so deep his chest swells. But he lets me in, opening the door just enough for me to scoot inside.
It’s dimly lit, only a desk lamp to illuminate the room. Well, a desk lamp and that damn sandalwood candle. I hover by the desk, Ethan with his hands in his pockets, staring at me. No, staring past me. He’s focusing on the window over my shoulder, the curtains not yet closed.
‘So, what do you want to talk about?’
‘Last night.’ I perch against the windowsill to let him know I’m not going anywhere. ‘Things got a little crazy.’
‘Did they?’
‘I was upset,’ I tell him, understatement of the year, ‘and I wanted to apologize for the things I said.’
At last, he looks my way. Something I said pushed a button and from the way he’s glaring at me, not a good one.
‘What about the things you did?’
I dip my head, hair falling in front of my face. I deserve that.
‘And the things I did. I shouldn’t have …’
What, thrown myself at him like we were the last two people alive?
‘I shouldn’t have,’ I say again, a complete sentence this time. ‘I don’t know how it happened, you were probably a little drunk or something but we can pretend it didn’t.’
‘Like last time?’
Ethan leans against the door to his bathroom, his back to a cool-looking poster for some old movie that wasn’t there the last time I was in here.
‘Why would you think I was drunk?’ he asks.
‘Because.’
Because of the things you said. Because you couldn’t possibly have meant them. Because you called me beautiful.
‘It’s fine, Mia, you don’t have to worry about it.
’ Ethan stands up straight, almost as tall as the door to the bathroom.
‘I won’t try anything again, you made yourself real clear, and I get it, I do.
I’ve been a willing rebound more times than I can count because I fit the bill, right?
Dumb jock who only wants to fuck? Why would someone like you consider anything more with someone like me?
You’re too good for me. A revenge lay is the only thing you could ever be interested in. ’
I open my mouth to speak but instead my jaw hangs open, no words coming out. I’m too good for him? Of all the inconceivable things he’s said so far, that one has to be the most absurd.
‘But for the record, there’s no bet, it isn’t a game. I haven’t spoken to Gabe or any of the others in months. What I said last night, I meant it. All of it.’
‘How could you think I’m too good for you?’ I press my fingertips into my temples as though I might be able to squeeze some sense out of myself. ‘You’re Ethan Taylor.’
‘As if I could forget.’
I have no idea what’s happening. My best-case scenario for this conversation was Ethan laughing in my face and agreeing to never speak of it again.
Worst case? Ethan laughing in my face and never speaking to me again.
What I didn’t expect was whatever this is.
I drive the heels of my hands into my eyes because pressing my temples didn’t do a damn thing and I need a more direct route to my brain.
‘I’m trying to give you an easy out,’ I say, sparkles appearing in front of my eyes. ‘But if that’s not what you want—’
He slaps his palm against the bathroom door, and I jump.
‘It’s not what I want!’
‘Then what do you want?’
He lets out a growl, something between a sigh and a groan loaded with frustration. The same frustration I’m feeling right now.
‘How many times have you told me I don’t know you?’ He pushes his hair back from his face and looks at me. The coldness in his eyes has been replaced by a desperate fire and I grasp the windowsill behind me with both hands.
‘You’re half-right,’ he says. ‘I don’t. But I’m trying to. But if you really, truly believe I would mess with you for a bet, you don’t know me either.’
The air in the room feels dense, like it’s something solid holding him in place. And it’s hot in here. I’m too warm in my long skirt and sweater, the fabrics too rough against my suddenly sensitive skin.
‘So, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and neither of us has any idea what the other wants?’
Ethan’s gaze is so heavy, so intense, I can feel it boring into me.
‘You want that jerk in the leather jacket.’
‘I thought I did,’ I admit. ‘But I was wrong.’
From my place by the window, I can see his whole room.
The soccer stuff jammed in the overflowing duffel by the door, the stack of textbooks on his desk next to a couple of fantasy novels I haven’t noticed before.
His bed is unmade, the top sheet pushed back, and there are deep creases in the fitted sheet formed by the heat of his body.
‘Can we start this over?’ I ask, all at once desperate to rewrite the story of Ethan Taylor, to replace the version of him I brought with me from Marshall with the man before me. ‘Just the truth from now on. Tell each other exactly what we’re thinking, exactly what we want.’
He lifts his chin in agreement.
‘What do you want, Ethan?’ I ask in a voice soft enough not to disturb the air.
‘I already told you. Last night.’
‘Maybe.’ I’m shaking now, trembling from head to toe, and I have to squeeze the windowsill to hold myself down. ‘But I don’t know if I remember.’
He crosses the room slowly, so slowly, and my mouth is dry when he stands in front of me, not quite touching, something and nothing keeping us apart. One hand comes up to my face and brushes my hair back over my shoulder, just barely grazing my cheek but still enough to set me alight.
‘It might help if I heard it again,’ I tell him. ‘If that’s okay?’
My breath comes in short, sharp bursts, and when he takes one more step to position himself between my feet, his hips pressing against my waist I’m glad for the window at my back. If it weren’t for this beautiful old building holding me up, I wouldn’t be able to stand at all.
‘I want you, Mia,’ Ethan murmurs. ‘More than anything.’
He already has me, even if I didn’t realize it until now.