More Than Him (21 page)

It wasn't just about spending too much time with him. It was also about Ethan. The fact that I was lying to him was bad enough; I didn't want to give him more reason to worry. And he did. He worried way more than he should.

Which is probably why he was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at his phone when I got home.

"Hey," I said quietly, taking a seat next to him.

He sucked in a breath and let it out in a huff. "Hey," he responded, lifting his head to face me. "Where have you been?"

I shrugged and faked a calmness to my tone. Deep down, I was wrecked with guilt. "Just out with friends."

He nodded.

"I'm sorry. Were you worried?"

"A little."

"You could've called. I would have told you where I was."

He sighed, and looked back down at his phone. "Yeah, I know. I just feel like I need to give you some space, you know?"

I didn't respond, I just let the silence fill the space between us.

"Actually," he said, "I wanted to talk to you about something real quick." He flung his body back on the bed and covered his face with his hands. Classic nervous Ethan. He did that to hide the redness in his face when he said or did something that embarrassed him.

"This'll be good," I teased, and then copied his position on the bed. "Out with it."

He removed his hands from his face, but continued to stare up at the ceiling. "I want to ask Alexis to move in."

"What!" I sat up, paying full attention.

He laughed once. "So I take it she hasn't brought it up with you?"

I shook my head, a disbelieving laugh bubbling out of me. "No, not at all."

He cursed under his breath. "It's probably too soon, huh?" He almost looked sad.

"No," I said, truthfully. "I don't know. Maybe it is too soon, but who gives a shit, right?" I smiled, remembering how I’d felt the first time I said those words to Logan.

He faced me now. He was so serious. "You think she'd say yes?" His knee started bouncing. He was stupidly nervous.

"I think she'd—"

"I've looked around for jobs and stuff for her," he cut in. A grin slowly developed on my face. "She doesn't want to go to college, so she'd just have to work. I mean—I can probably take up a few more shifts and support her, but I don't think she'd be into that. Do you think she'd be into that?" he mumbled, his words coming out all at once.

Then it hit me. "Ethan, calm down. You're just
in love
for the first time. Don't question it. Just let it be. She loves you, too. She'll say yes." I stood up to use the bathroom, but his grip on my arm stopped me.

"Honestly, Dimmy. Do you think she would? Because I'm not going to ask her and get rejected. I don't know that I could take it."

I turned around and laughed at him. I couldn't help it. "You're so desperate and cute."

He reared back in surprise. "Shut up! Only Lexi gets to call me cute." I started to walk away but he caught me again. "Promise me she'll say yes," he demanded.

I rolled my eyes. "I promise she'll say yes."

"Spit-swear on it."

"What? No! Gross. What's wrong with you?"

I tried to get to the bathroom but he swiftly blocked my path. "Spit-swear," he said again, trying to contain his laugh. He spat on his palm and held it out.

"Yuck, Ethan. That's disgusting."

I tried to get past, but he blocked me again. "Do it!" He waved his spit-filled hand in front of my face. I started dry-retching. Pushing him out of the way, I tried again to get past. He continued to block my path. His shoulders lifted with his laugh.

Then he did it.

He smeared his hand across my face.

"You asshole!" I squealed, but you couldn't hear me over the sound of his laughter.

I squared my shoulders and narrowed my eyes at him. He understood. "Oh shit," he muttered, his features evening out.

I raised an eyebrow. "Game. On."

"Fuck." He bolted, jumping over the bed and running out of my bedroom.

I chased him, but somehow I'd started laughing, too. He ran down the hallway and straight into Tristan. "Whoa," Tris said, lifting his hands to block me. Ethan hid behind him. Coward.

I tried to pass him to get to Ethan but he, too, blocked me. "What the fuck is going on right now?" he scolded. "This is just like the Epic Missing Cookie Battle of 2003." He was laughing, too. We all were. "By the way," he continued. "I totally ate that cookie."

Ethan and I stopped laughing immediately. Shit just got real. "What?" we both asked.

His laugh became silent when he saw how serious we were. We blamed each other about that missing cookie for a good five months, and froze each other out completely. Meals with two non-speaking twelve year olds were not good times. "You ate it?" Ethan deadpanned.

Tristan swallowed loudly, looking from Ethan to me and back again. He nodded once, his eyes wide. "Yes."

"Swear it?" Ethan asked him.

He nodded.

"Spit-swear it?" I said.

"What?" He scrunched his nose.

Then in unison, Ethan and I spat on our hands and offered it to him. "Do it," we both insisted.

Tristan's face contorted to a look of disgust. "No. Fucking. Way."

Ethan's eyes met mine. "Game on," I announced, lifting my chin.

Then, simultaneously, Ethan and I wiped our hands across his cheeks. He squealed. Not a manly one, either. Ethan's head threw back with the guffaw that took over him. "You sound gay," he yelled.

Tristan wiped his cheeks with his sleeves. "I'm
am
gay, asshole."

***

"Soooo," Tristan mocked in a high-pitched girl voice. "Who's the boy?"

He'd walked in just as I opened the bathroom door after I'd finished showering and frantically scrubbing my face of Ethan's spit. His question made me stop in my tracks. For a moment, I wanted to tell him all about Logan. Instead, I lied. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit," he said calmly, taking a seat on my bed. "I know you too well, Dim. Who is he?" He smiled eagerly, waiting for my response.

I couldn't lie. I'd been doing it too much already. Slowly shutting my door, I faced him. "You can't say anything to anyone, Tris. Swear it."

He laughed. "As fun as it was to pretend we were kids just then, we're not, we're grown-ass people. I don't need to swear on anything. You know you can trust me."

"Fine." I paused, thinking of my next words. I felt the corners of my lips turn up, and before I knew it, I was grinning.

Tristan sighed. "How long's he been back?"

My eyes went wide. "What? How do you know?"

"I'm not an idiot. You shutting the door, keeping secrets, that goofy look on your damn face." He blew out a breath. "I take it Ethan doesn't know?"

I shook my head slowly. The guilt slowly developed into a knot in the pit of my stomach.

He made a frustrated noise as he rubbed his face with his hands. "This is not going to end well, Dim. Especially with you keeping it from him."

"I know," I said quickly. I sat on the bed next to him and did my best to persuade otherwise. "It's complicated, Tristan. We know we have stuff to overcome, and issues to deal with, but we just want some time. We just want to be together without the world judging us. We just want to be happy, even if it's for a little while." I felt the sob rising up my throat and swallowed it down. I hated this. I hated thinking about what might happen. Not even about when we went public, just Ethan's reaction. He was the only one who mattered to me. "I know it's hard to understand—"

"Wait," he cut in. "You do realize I'm gay, right?" He laughed once. "If anyone knows what it's like to be afraid of judgment, it's me."

"Valid," I agreed.

"Dim, there's a reason I came out to you first."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Because. You don't judge, you don't ask questions, you just accept things for what they are. You accept people for
who
they are, regardless of who they
love
. You understand that you can't help who you fall in love with.

"I think, deep down, Ethan's the same. But it goes both ways, Dim. You can't help being in love with Logan, just as much as Ethan can't help loving you. And either way you look at it, you and Ethan—you're both trying to protect the people you love."

Logan

A stupid grin took over my face. I couldn't stop it, even if you paid me. Placing the phone to my ear, I said, "Hey, pretty girl." I'd been on the roof for twenty minutes, contemplating whether or not I should call her. I knew she said we should spend some time apart. I didn't get it. That's not what I wanted at all. She thought I was going to get sick of her. As if that was possible. Luckily, I didn't have to call—seemed like she was the first to break.

"Hey yourself," she replied. "I'm sorry for calling."

"You never have to apologize for that."

She sighed. "What are you doing?"

"Honestly?"

"No, lie to me."

I chuckled under my breath. "I'm sitting on the roof thinking about how much I miss you."

"It's only been a few hours." She sounded sad.

I tried to lighten the mood. "Hey, you called me, remember?"

"Yeah," she said softly. Something was wrong.

"What's going on, Amanda?"

She sighed again. "I don't know. What are we doing?"

My heart started to pick up pace. "What do you mean?"

Another fucking sigh. "I mean—what are we doing? You and me. Us. Together?"

My heart sank. I wanted to slap myself for believing that things could be so simple with us. I sat down, my knees too weak to hold myself up. My head lowered. It was my turn to sigh. "Baby, I don't know what you're saying, but if you don't want to be with me, just say so."

It was quiet for so long I thought for sure she'd hung up, but then I heard her intake of breath. "I don't think it's a good idea that we keep sneaking around. I just have a feeling it's going to blow up in our faces, you know? I want to be with you, like,
all
the time, and I feel like there's this knot in my gut whenever we do it—guilt, or something—and I shouldn't feel like that. I shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to be with the person I love."

The tension in my shoulders disappeared. "So you're not breaking up with me?"

"What?" A quiet laugh escaped her. "Not at all." I blew out a breath, relieved. She must have sensed it. "I'm sorry, babe. I didn't mean to scare you," she assured.

"It's fine." I wiped my sweaty palms against my shorts. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I think I want to go to Lucy's bonfire thing tomorrow. I mean—Cam's right, it's just going to get worse with time. Band-Aid effect, right? Just rip it right off?"

I heard movement from her end, like she was shifting around in her bed. "That's good. I think that's a good idea."

"Obviously you'd be coming with me." I assumed she would, but I’d never asked. "If you want to, I mean."

I could hear the smile in her answer. "Yeah, that sounds perfect."

"Yeah," I agreed. "So, it normally starts around six-ish. I guess if we take into account the two-hour drive there, that means you should get here . . . say . . . as soon as you wake up in the morning?"

She snorted with laughter. It made me smile into the phone. "What are you doing, pretty girl?"

She sighed again, differently this time. "Laying in bed, missing the shit out of you."

"Yeah?" I smirked to myself. "What are you wearing?"

22

Amanda

We fell asleep on the phone to each other. It was close to four in the morning. He told me I should've just stayed there; he was right.

I decided to call before I knocked, just in case it freaked him out. But he didn't answer; instead, it was a girl’s voice on the other end. My stomach dropped. I held the phone tighter. "Hello?" she said. I hung up. What was I supposed to say? I wanted to leave, run out of there, but my feet were lead, glued to the floor. Then his door swung open, and there he was. No shirt, sweatpants hung low on his hips and the band of his boxers peeking through. He had that perfect V, you know, the one that drives women crazy. His abs. His stupid abs. When I finally got to his face, he had a twinkle in his eye and an amused smirk. I wanted to lick him and punch him, all at the same time. Apparently that was the general consensus when it came to my dealings with Logan Matthews.

"What are you doing here?" he asked through his now huge grin.

I raised an eyebrow.

"This is a nice surprise," he said, opening the door wider, right about the same time Blonde Dreadlock Barbie exited, her hair wet, dressed in a skirt-suit. "Hey, Amanda," she greeted me, brushing past and giggling. "I’m sorry I answered your call. I had his phone looking up the bus schedule. I didn’t even think." She was too perky for this early in the morning. Or maybe I was just grumpy. Or both.

Logan laughed.

Fucking laughed.

He waited for me to enter before closing the door behind him. Leaning back against the door, he eyed me. He opened his mouth to speak, but a chuckle came out instead. He shook his head. "You're so damn cute when you're jealous. I can't even handle it right now." He took the steps to cover the space between us, and then wrapped one arm around my waist, bringing me closer to him. He placed his thumb between my eyebrows and smoothed out the creases. "You're pouting," he said, kissing me once. "And you're crazy."

My eyes narrowed at him.

Sighing dramatically, he picked me up and flung me over his shoulder. He walked us to his bedroom, placed me down on the edge of the bed, pulled out a jersey from his dresser and came back. Kneeling in front of me so we were eye to eye, he spoke.
"You're crazy to think that I'd ever want any other girl, ever. Their water got cut off this morning; she came in for a shower before work. That's all. Swear it."

I nodded, but stayed quiet. Truth? Once I'd let the initial shock of him having some random girl in his apartment sink in, I knew there'd be a valid explanation.