In for the win

Chapter 7

AMARA

It's 7:02PM when I arrive at Ethan's house-or must I say-mansion. His house is huge. Like next-level huge. To compare, my barbie playhouse was a shed next to this building, and it could hold all of my barbie dolls in it. I ring the doorbell, and hear footsteps across the door. Ethan opens the door, greeting me with a wide smile. He leads me inside and walks across the-what I'm guessing-is the living room. Again, space-size living room. There are a few guys slouched across the sofa, waving at me as I enter. I know a few of them, but only from their faces. They had come a few times when Mon invited Timmy and Matthew over. Ethan doesn't say a word, and walks up the staircase. The house is really pretty. It's modern, but has a very cozy side to it. He enters a room that must be his. I gasp as I enter. "Something wrong?" he asks. "I was just wondering why your bedroom was the size of my whole apartment." I blurt out, half-joking. "Thanks, I guess?"he sweetly chuckles. I look around the room for a short moment, before being stopped in my thoughts by Ethan's words. "Do you mind if I quickly jump in the shower? I just got home from practice, and I'm not in the mood to rot in my hockey stuff." I nod. He was still wearing his training gear and I must agree, wearing dirty training clothes isn't my cup of tea either. He closes the door behind him as he goes in his bathroom. He's wearing a compressing long sleeved T-Shirt which enhances his muscular build. He really does have an imposing figure. I hear the echo of the shower jet on the floor through the massive brown bathroom door. I take advantage of his absence to look around his bedroom. It is large, bright and despite its monotonous tones, it is welcoming. I make my way to his bed, and finds me a place on his bed through his belongings scattered all over the place. Goodness gracious. His bed is the softest, most comfortable bed I have ever laid my ass on. Complementing the fact that it was delightfully comfortable, the bed was also enormous. It must have been at least a double king, see a queen, but I'm no expert in bed size. Pillow cases and duvet cover are dark grey, without any other colours, talk about depressing. His bed is across a gigantic bay window, giving on the park behind the house, and the garden. He's got a few pictures hanging above the bed, and near his desk-or pile of junk deposit- mostly of hockey, and some others. I walk closer and realizes it looks more like a family photo. There he is, standing next to two gorgeous young girls, at what it seems to be the Niagara Falls. The more I look, the more pictures of them together I see, he must really have a thing for family. Suddenly, I hear the door opening behind me. I turn around in a half-second to see him, arms across the door. His perfectly defined body is covered by a towel hanging on his waist, allowing me to admire his shredded abs. His torso is huge, and so are his arms, basically all his body is too. "Were you snooping" he asks amusingly. "I was not" I can feel my cheeks turning red and he must have realized that. "Like what you see" he smirks. "Ew no." I lie. Nothing about his body is disgusting. "I prefer you all covered" I riposte, crossing my arms together. "I was talking about the room stupid. But I'm glad you're thinking about me that way though." he smiles smugly. Oh. I wasn't excepting that. He must have noticed my startled face, because I hear a small laugh coming from him. "I was just joking Preston. Relax" as he runs his hands through his semi-damp hair.

Ethan takes a seat on the bed, stretching his arms and yawning heavily. He rolls around to find himself on his stomach and pulls out his phone from his back pocket. I scoff. Is he serious? I've been waiting on him for the past twenty minutes and he dares sticking his nose in his phone. Uh-uh. No, not happening. I swiftly hop on the bed and snatch his phone away from his hands. He tries weakly to take it back from me but it is without success, because I have already moved away from the bed. "You'll get that back when this study-sesh is over." I taunt "And for a hockey player, you lack a bit of reflexes" I rag, agitating his phone under his nose as if it were a treasure. He sits up and trying to catch it again, and misses, again. "Missed again. Should I be worried about your vision, or just about the fact that you have the reflexes of a retired grandpa?" I giggle, watching his facial features tense at the hearing of my half-joke, half-insult. I realize that I must have titillated him, because he rises, riveting his dark eyes in mine, and approaches me. He grabs my hand that was holding his phone and pins me to the wall. He presses his thumb against my wrist, forcing my hand to let go of the tight grip I had on the phone. I let go of it and he swiftly catches is, thus preventing it from shattering on the ground. Damn. That had no right to be that sexy He's still leaned over me, making my respectable 5"4 body look like lego next to his gigantic bulk. After what it seems to be an eternity of us holding eye contact, he finally backs up and scratches his neck. Whilst he's deconcentrated by something in his hair, I take the opportunity to seize his phone, letting it slip into the back pocket of my jeans, and covering it with my sweater. "It'll stay here nice and warm till I say so, understand?" I declare in a bossy manner. "Putting my phone near your ass is just going to make me want to reclaim it more, you know that Preston, right?" he grins, not even hiding his eyes studying my body, checking me out. Suddenly, I remember what I came here to do,so I free myself from his gaze, hoisting myself on the bed, taking the things out of my bag. I nod to him to join me and he pulls his little buttocks back onto the bed, shaking it as he sits down beside me. "Let's get you educated Mr Moses of History". "You're quite the joker Preston" he chuckles laughing mildly at my joke. After a good two hours of working, I get the feeling that Ethan is getting slightly bored of studying, because he's turning my perfectly smooth sheets of revisions into vulgar paper planes. I must admit that still, they have pace, and fly relatively far. "I'm hungry. Can we please go downstairs and eat something!" he groans, practically begging me to let him go. I accept, hearing the sound of my own stomach gurgling. He leads me to his kitchen opening a cabinet, from where he grabs a pack of ready-to-heat popcorn. He tosses the packet in the microwave and we both look intensely as the pack spins round and round. We bring the sacred goods back to his room, appreciating the smell of warm popcorn. "Now would be a good time to give you your phone back." I exclaim, my mouth full of popcorn. He sweetly smiles at me, taking the phone from my hands with the same enthusiasm as a kid opening presents at Christmas. He focuses his attention on the small screen, whilst I check the time. Shoot, I really hadn't seen the time pass by. "Ethan it's getting late, I should really get going" He glares at me and shows me the screen of his phone : Snowstorm planned for 8PM, driving impossibilities, dangerous roads, the article states. Its currently 9PM. We look out the window, and turns out, the weather forecast was right. The sky was grey, and the thick snow smashed every second against the window. "Snow never killed anybody" I mutter. Ethan's facial expression changed immediately, he frowns. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you drive home in this weather Amara. It's way too dangerous." "I'll be fine, don't worry. I'm a good driver." "That's not the point. You're not going. End of discussion." Ehm, okay weird? I sit my ass back on the bed, and when he turns back to me, Ethan is back to his normal self, smiling at the sight of me. He grabs his computer at the end of the bed, turns it on, opening Netflix. "You down for a movie?" he asks. "Hell yeah" I cheer, replacing myself on the smooth mattress. We search for a little while for a movie, when our choice finally lands on Fast and Furious. I hear Ethan turning in all directions in order to find a comfortable position to stay in. We are sat-or should I say slouched-next to each other, without touching. However things aren't awkward, as I feared they could be. Ethan is nothing like I would have imagined, and we get along really well, even if we have nothing in common. He steals a handful of popcorn from the bowl and launches the movie.