Page 36 of Faking the Play

Chapter nineteen

Amelia

Ihated Mia Blake. I’d hated her from the first moment I realized those injuries Ethan was always saying came from climbing trees or roughhousing actually came from his mom and the men she brought into their lives, and that hate had grown from that of a child to the hate of an adult who better understood the responsibilities of an adult for a child.

Seeing her lying in a hospital bed, bruised and battered, with a broken wrist and cracked ribs, probably should’ve made me feel sorry for her, but all it did was remind me of all of the times I’d patched Ethan up and promised not to tell anyone. All the times I should have told someone even though I’d promised I wouldn’t. I just hadn’t wanted one of my best friends to be mad at me.

I glanced over at that friend now as we left Mia’s room. The smile he usually wore hadn’t shown up since we left Fort Collins, leaving in its place something serious and thoughtful, though if he was thinking something specific, he didn’t share it with me.

As we got on the elevator, I reached over and took his hand. While we were with his mom, I’d stayed close to him, but Ihadn’t touched him. Mia didn’t recognize me, but the look she gave me wasn’t a friendly one. My gut said that she had hoped to talk to Ethan alone, to try to con him into either moving back home with her, taking her back to Fort Collins with him, or most probable—giving her money.

I’d shared my lunch with him too many times as a kid when the money from his paper route had mysteriously “gone missing” to think that she’d just wanted to see him.

The whole time she was awake, she kept giving me this look like she expected me to excuse myself, but I ignored it. Hell, I’d basically ignored her entirely. If Ethan had wanted me to go, he would’ve asked, and Mia had been coherent enough to realize that if she sent me away, her intentions would be too obvious. Instead, she’d just dropped not-so-subtle hints that Ethan left where they were.

And she hadn’t asked a single question about him. Not about how his senior year was going. Not about his friends. If he had a girlfriend. Who I was. If he planned to come home for Thanksgiving.

It’d all been about her, and that was pretty much par for the course when it came to Mia Blake. She had always been her number one priority.

When we reached Ethan’s car, he stopped me before I could walk around to the driver’s side. Instead of asking for the keys like I thought he would, he just pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms, his face pressed against the top of my head. I held him back, letting the embrace tell him all the things I didn’t know how to say. We stayed like that for a while before he took a step back and got into the passenger’s side of the car.

Neither of us said a word during the drive to my parents’ house, and that worried me. If it were Ryan, I would expect silence. Ethan had been quieter tonight than I’d ever known him in all of our years as friends. I didn’t need him to confide in me,but I needed him to say something. Anything. I didn’t know how to help an Ethan who didn’t talk.

I hated this feeling. I was helpless to do anything about the rumors, and now I was helpless to do what Ethan needed me to do because I had no clue what that was.

I waited to speak until we pulled into the driveway of the little house where I’d grown up. “I texted my parents from the hospital to let them know we’d be staying here at least for the night. They said we’re welcome to whatever food they have, but they didn’t leave any perishables. I can go get—”

“I’m not hungry,” Ethan said, his voice strangely flat. “But if you want anything, don’t let me stop you.”

He got out of the car before I could respond, making it all the way up onto the porch before he realized he didn’t have a key. I took a few extra seconds to grab his bag from the back seat, and handed it to him as I joined him on the porch.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be short with you.”

I stretched up on my toes and kissed his cheek. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s okay.”

He nodded as I moved to the door and unlocked it. I felt him following me inside and I flipped on the entryway light, casting a dim glow across the familiar living room.

“Do you want to stay in our guest room?” I asked, hoping my tone sounded a little more casual to Ethan than it did to me.

“Is there another option?”

I startled, spinning around. “I didn’t realize you were that close.”

He reached down and tucked some hair behind my ear. “Is that okay?”

I nodded, my heart suddenly thudding against my rib cage. “Like I said, whatever you’re feeling right now.”

“I’ve had a lot of feelings today,” he said, letting the backs of his fingers run down my cheek. “Good and bad.”

“And now?” My voice was barely a whisper.

“Now, I’d like to focus on feeling you,” he said, a small quirk of a grin offering me hope. “If that’s just sleeping, I’m okay with that.”

“And if I’m okay with more than sleeping?” Arousal had my stomach twisting into knots.

Ethan’s eyes looked almost black as they met mine. “Then I’d ask if you want me to undress you here, or somewhere else?”

Heat flooded my body and I reached for his hand. I didn’t need lights to make my way to the stairs and then up them and into the short upstairs corridor. A night-light in the bathroom showed nothing between me and my bedroom door, so I didn’t linger. Even though I knew my parents wouldn’t be home for several days, as soon as both Ethan and I were in my room, I closed the door behind us.

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