After breakfast, Ethan said he had to run home for a few minutes before he would come back and pick me up. I was sad to see him leave, but I had to get ready for our date so I quickly rushed back to my room to get ready properly. I was in the middle of picking out the right outfit when Rachel walked in, a smug look on her face. "What time did you get in last night?" she asked. "I thought you weren't back yet.""We got in pretty late," I said. "You weren't home when we got here, so I assumed you were staying over at Blake's."She stared down at her feet awkwardly, then asked in a quiet voice, "You didn't hear any of that last night, did you?""Hear what?" I asked, feigning ignorance. In reality, Ethan and I had sat on the floor of my bedroom and laughed at the sound of Rachel screaming Blake's name while her headboard banged against the wall. It was so funny that Ethan and I were laughing for the entire time, and I almost thought I cracked a rib from how much I was laughing. "So, wha
“Before you say anything, I’m perfectly capable of flying us there,” Ethan said. “I took flying lessons when I lived in Germany for a year.”I couldn’t even bring myself to speak. I just stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, allowing him to lead me towards the helicopter. It looked so massive up close, and I’d never been this close to one before. “Ethan, I’m scared,” I said. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”“Yes, I’m sure,” he replied. “Babe, you have nothing to be afraid of. I’ve got you.”It was easy to say that while we were on the ground. Once we were in the air, it would be an entirely different story. I stared up at the chopper’s blades, as if it would somehow shrink into something more reasonable. It seemed to glow in the sunlight, a pale grey colour that somehow didn’t make me feel better. I still felt nervous as Ethan made his way towards someone standing in a white uniform, who smiled and shook his hands politely. “All set?” Ethan asked. “You’re good to g
MARCUSThe first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a pair of ballet slippers. They were sitting on the bedside table, with glitter all over them and the insides looking worn out. Sunlight was streaming in through the window, and I had to squint my eyes in order to see properly. "Hi," a strange voice said from across the room, and I titled my head slightly to find a little girl sitting across from me. She must have been about five or six years old, with pigtails and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a tiny ballet outfit, and she looked like she was enjoying herself as she played with her tutu while staring at me quietly. "Hello," I said, my voice sounding raspy and dry. "Where am I?""You're in the guest room," she said calmly. "Grandpa says you're not to be disturbed.""Grandpa?" I asked confusedly, slowly pulling myself up. "Where is your grandpa?""He's on the balcony with the pretty woman," she said. "He doesn't know I'm here though."I felt like I was reading a book where se
It's funny how fast time seems to go when you're having fun. It seemed like only a few minutes since Ethan and I arrived at the picnic, and yet when I glanced at my phone briefly to see the time, I realized we'd been there for an hour. Where did all the time go?We'd only just arrived, and he'd asked me about my college days while we ate. I had barely gotten into my first year before I realized that time was flying by, and we would soon have to leave. The food was amazing, the view was amazing, and the company was perfect. It was such a magical evening, and I almost didn't want it to end. "Something tells me you don't want to leave," he said, noticing my expression. "I mean do we have to?" I asked. "We could stay," he suggested. "You could move out here, and not have to worry about the noise and chaos of the city. We could get a place here, and have picnics like this all the time.""What is it with you and trying to get me to move?" I laughed. "You already asked me to move to a d
Here’s a secret about me: I don’t really know how to act as a girlfriend. I’ve never really been in a serious relationship that was progressing gradually. Throughout high school, I always kept my head down and never bothered with boys or anything like that. It was always just me and Emily against the world. And after passing through high school and college still being single, I’d immediately gotten into a relationship with Marcus. Come to think about it, that wasn’t really a relationship. It was a one-sided strategy where he basically love-bombed me until I had no other choice but to succumb to his wishes. And yeah, I did fall for him at the time, which was stupid on my part. But I learned my lesson, and I would never do that again. With Ethan, however, I found myself constantly worrying if I was doing the right thing. Even three weeks after we officially started dating, I still felt like I was slipping up constantly. He had this habit of sending me cute messages in the morning so I
ETHANSometimes, you just know you're going to have a very awful day. From the moment you wake up, you can feel that this is just not going to be your day. That's exactly how I felt earlier this morning when I rolled out of bed. The first thing was when I realized my phone hadn't charged throughout the night. I must have forgotten to plug it in. I groaned and slapped it on the charger, and when I headed for the bathroom, I slipped just as I was about to walk in and slammed my shoulder against the wall. That was just the preface. On my way down, the elevator got stuck and I had to wait for someone to fix it. After that, I came downstairs to find that someone had keyed my car for absolutely no reason. At that point, I wanted to scream. I was ready to just go back up and call it a day already. But then I saw Liv's reply to my 'good morning' message, and it brought a smile to my face. For just a little while, I forgot about the shitty day I was having. Just texting her brightened my da
The Holloway penthouse was at the very top of the Crawford building, which overlooked most of the Upper East Side. From the moment the building came into view, I could tell that we were in for a spectacle. But when Ethan narrowed his eyes at the building, I leaned over and placed a hand on his lap. "Are you okay?" I asked. He shrugged nonchalantly, but it was obvious that something was pissing him off. I sensed there was some sort of history between the Reynards and the Holloways, but I wasn't to ask him about it right now. Rachel and Blake were in the back seat, and I didn’t want to make a scene after the discussion we’d had earlier. He was having a rough day, and it was my job to make him feel better. “What happened to the old geezer?” Blake called from the backseat. “I haven’t heard anything about him in ages.”“He likes to keep a low profile,” I said. “Ever since Nate took over the business, he’s more of a silent partner now. He only checks in every once in a while when there’s
ETHANI hate parties. There might have been a time when I didn’t feel so negative towards them. But I’d come to realize that a party was just an excuse for terrible things to happen. A party was not a simple social gathering where people would exchange opinions and laugh at ridiculous jokes. Instead, they were opportunities to gossip, to spread rumours and lies and any form of scandalous information that you might want to spread. That was the simple gist of it. Something about the Holloway party only amplified this. From the moment we walked in, I knew I was going to have a miserable evening. And sure enough, as I stood there and watched Nathaniel Holloway drag my girlfriend away, I knew what sort of evening it was going to be. Thankfully, there was an open bar. I decided to have a drink, so I would sit there like a recluse and just watch him blatantly flirt with my girlfriend while rubbing it in my nose. I smiled politely at a few faces I recognized, and we talked for a little wh
MARCUSI swear I could smell the pig even from outside the door. My blood was boiling even before I walked into the room, but it took a monumental effort to keep myself in check. I had to be quick. It shouldn't take longer than five minutes. Thankfully, the cop standing by the door didn't say anything as I walked in. He just gave me a polite nod, and he stepped aside as I walked in and shut the door behind me.Chris looked like a man who’d gotten into a cage fight with a gorilla. He was bruised all over, and several parts of his face were swollen, with one eye almost completely shut. His bottom lip was split open like a rotten fruit, and both of his hands were cuffed to the bedrails as if he was some sort of rabid animal. It was an amusing sight, which perfectly suited the bastard who’d tried to take Olivia from me. He shifted slightly when he saw me, then he flinched in terror. I saw the recognition in his bloodshot eyes, then confusion as he blinked several times, then something
The first thing on my mind when I woke up was Ethan. I bolted out of bed instantly, and I had to grip the bed frame as I swayed and nearly toppled to the ground. I felt like my brain was trying to explode from my skull, and the ringing in my ear was constant. I had to sit down on the bed once again, and it took me a few seconds to regain my breath and take in my surroundings. The room was eerily quiet, so much so that I could only hear the low humming of the air conditioning. I shifted slightly on the stiff bed, and I cursed aloud as my joints aches from how long I'd been curled up. My mouth was incredibly dry, and my skin felt so clammy. Every inch of me felt like it was protesting the simple act of waking up, and it was like I hadn't slept at all.But the guilt cut through the fog. How long had I been out? What if Ethan had woken up already? And I was just sitting here like a ditz and worrying about something ridiculous like hunger. Slowly, I dragged myself to my feet and made m
ETHANThe first thing I heard was the beeping. As I tried to open my eyes, a blinding pain shot up my entire body, and I almost couldn't breathe for a second. I felt like someone had smacked me in the face with a sledgehammer, and then gotten several bags of cement and laid them all over my body. I couldn't even lift a finger, and I could barely drag enough air into my lungs as I slowly forced my eyes open. I was lying in what appeared to be a hospital room, and the brightness of the room made my eyes throb. There were several wires and tubes all over my chest, and a large machine which was beeping to the side. The bed was so hard that I felt like I was lying on a wooden plank, and it somehow caused the pain to multiply a million times over. I tried to remember how I got here, but I couldn't. The last thing I remembered was being in the cabin with Liv, and beating the shit out of the guy who broke into our cabin. I didn't remember anything after that, except the relief I felt when
I saw the moment the gun went off, with the brief flash at the end of the barrel, while I threw myself entirely onto Chris' arm in an attempt to shove him out of the way. But the bullet had been shot, and I turned in horror to find Ethan falling to the ground. And in the moment, I felt like the world had gone dark. It couldn't be possible. Surely not. It was a blank. Or the bullet had missed him. Something must have happened, because I just refused to accept that he'd been shot. I didn't even want to look, and I focused instead on snatching the gun out of Chris' hands. "Look what you made me do," he yelled, trying to wrestle the gun away from me. "Look what you fucking made me do. You made me shoot him. You made me do it."I tried to twist his fingers and pull the gun away from him, but he ended up squeezing the trigger and causing the gun to explode in my hands as the bullet smashed through the window and broke the glass. The sound made me jump, and in that brief moment where I was
I'd never felt more fear in my entire life than I did staring down the barrel of a gun, with Chris standing on the other end. To say that I was terrified would have been the understatement of the century. I froze completely, like a deer caught in headlights. And it was as if my brain had switched off completely. I hadn't seen him in months. I hadn't even considered that I might see him again, because it was obvious that things wouldn't work out between us since I chose Ethan over him. And yet there he was, standing in front of me so calmly and tilting his head to the side like he found my fear amusing. He looked different than the last time I'd seen him, with a scruffier beard which made him look homeless and disheveled, like he hadn't taken a shower in weeks. He was thinner than I remembered as well, and his eyes had sunken in so much that his head looked like a skull with paper thin skin wrapped over it. If it wasn't for his eyes, I probably wouldn't even have recognized him. "Yo
"Please tell me you're joking," I said, staring at his canvas in disbelief. "If you tilt your head slightly to the side, it's not so bad," he replied. "Seriously, I think it's even flattering.""Ethan, is this really how you see me?" I asked. "All you've done is draw a slim brunette with huge tits and a large ass.""If you think about it, isn't it flattering?" he smirked. "I mean you look hot.""Unbelievable!" I groaned, wanting to smack him across the face for his. "You're impossible sometimes."I thrust my own canvas in front of him, glaring daggers at him. "That's what you were supposed to do," I said. "I know it's not an accurate depiction of you, but I did the best I could. Notice how I didn't draw you naked, standing over a crowd of people with your dick swinging about."He stared at the painting for a while, and something in me shifted as I stared at him. Maybe it was the mist which came over his eyes, or the way he gently touched the painting with his mouth slightly open "I
By the time we finished having breakfast, the sun had already broken through the trees, and it was starting to feel like early spring. I stood in the kitchen doorway with my arms crossed and eyes squinting into the light as I stared outside at the lake. It was a beautiful day, my stomach was full, I’d had the most amazing quickie just this morning, and life couldn’t have been more perfect. "We should do something today," I said.Ethan looked up halfway through drying the dishes, and he gave me a questioning look. "Like what?"“I don’t know,” I replied. “Something fun. We can go fishing. Or spend the day painting.”“Painting?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah,” I replied. “It would be such a shame if we allowed this day to go to waste. I brought some canvases and some art supplies. I thought it might be fun.""Babe, I can barely draw a stick figure without it looking like a crime scene,” he said. “Trust me, if you look at anything I tried to paint, you’ll instantly decide to brea
Sunlight slowly crept into the room, and I slowly opened my eyes to find Ethan still sleeping beside me, his chest rising and falling slowly. I turned to my side, taking in the peaceful sight of him sleeping and wondering how he could look so handsome even while asleep. It was almost as if his features were softer while he slept, and his sharp jawline was more relaxed while his eyelids fluttered slightly.I briefly wondered what he was dreaming of, and the thought of him dreaming about me brought a smile to my face. I couldn't help but smile as I stared at him. He was so perfect, even in his sleep. I loved the way his hair looked slightly scruffy and disheveled, and the way his lips curled up ever so slightly, as if he was dreaming about something funny. I wanted to rub our heads together so I could get a peek into his head, where I would find the perfect man I’d been looking for my entire life.As I stared at him, my heart swelled with an indescribable emotion. I loved this man so f
MARCUSOne thing I'd come to accept was that every time Richard Jones called, it was never about something good. The last thing I needed was for him to disturb me on a random Saturday evening while I was trying to enjoy a Laker's game. I'd just finished having sex with Emily, and afterwards I'd taken a shower and eaten my dinner. This was not the time for him to be calling me."What the fuck do you want?" I asked as soon as I answered the call. "Is that really how you want to answer a call from an old friend?" he asked calmly. "I thought the animosity was behind us already."“Just tell me what the fuck you want, Richard,” I snapped. “I don’t have time for this shit. I’m watching a game.”“Really?” he asked. “Mind if I join you?”As soon as he said that, the intercom buzzed. I knew it was him, but I half hoped that it would just be someone else. At that point, I wouldn’t have minded if it was Ethan showing up. “I’m sure you don’t mind, right?” he said over the phone. “I just want to