when the sun came up

v.

When Emma reappeared in the foyer two seconds later, Olivia looked up with a half-bemused, half-irritated expression. "Finally! God, what took you so long?"

"Nothing. I mean, I dropped the box so I had to pick everything up, but. Nothing."

Olivia eyed her friend closely, taking in her tense shoulders and agitated face. "You're bright red. Are you okay? What did Ethan do to you?"

"Nothing!" Emma exclaimed, slightly louder than she meant to. "Can we just move all this stuff, please?"

Olivia grinned knowingly, but all she said was, "Fine by me. Let's go."

/

This is what Emma discovers in the first few months of living with Ethan Dolan:

1. He's popular with the ladies.

Well, it's not exactly a surprise. Emma could've guessed that in a heartbeat, based on the whole tall sharp stranger thing (she refuses to think of him as handsome) and the muscles and well, yeah. She can see how he might be appealing to some people.

It's become something of a regular occurrence, particularly on weekends. Emma's always up bright and early (she's a morning person, always has been, even before she had 8am classes to get to on Mondays), so she's usually enjoying her first coffee of the day or making a start on breakfast whenever the girl – it's almost always a different one – tiptoes out of Ethan's room to either use the bathroom or beat a hasty retreat.

It's gotten to a point where now, Emma will usually just smile and say hi to try and ease the awkwardness of the situation. Once, Ethan had emerged from his cave, eyes still blurry from sleep, to find his latest bed partner sipping on a latte that Emma had made for her, the two girls chatting merrily away while Emma pottered around the kitchen scrambling eggs.

He hadn't seemed bothered by it until the girl had left, all bright eyes and hopeful smiles. Then he'd turned on his heel to level his gaze at Emma, who ignored him until she felt like she couldn't any longer, after he'd been staring at her for a good thirty seconds straight.

"What?" she said impatiently.

"What was that?"

Emma frowned. "What – me being friendly to one of your admirers?"

Ethan narrowed his gaze. "Exactly. Don't do it, please."

Emma bristled. "Why not? I'm just being nice. She asked if she could have a glass of water, I offered her a coffee. What's the big deal?"

His eyebrows had risen up to his hairline. Emma hated it when they did that; that particular expression of his always made her feel defensive, and irritated with it.

"Because I don't want her to get any ideas, that's why. So can you try to refrain from being so nice?

Emma scowled, gripping the spatula in her fist. She longed to toss it at his head, hard, but she'd found from previous experience (and to her own detriment) that he had lightning-fast reflexes so it was a definite no-go. "God, you're an ass."

"I aim to please, princess," he said lazily.

2. The whole princess thing wasn't a one-time fluke.

Emma didn't know where the nickname had cropped up from (what had Grayson been telling him before they'd met?) but he used it practically every opportunity he could, and seemed to take an almost obscene amount of delight in her annoyance.

At this point, she'd given up arguing and simply suffered it with bad grace, but still found herself gritting her teeth whenever he inevitably referred to her as 'princess' around their friends or in public. The worst part was that her best friends seemed to condone it; Olivia found the whole thing adorable and Grayson seemed to think it was hilarious.

"He's just looking to get a rise out of you, you know," Gray said wisely, one Saturday afternoon when they were at the mall browsing through the newest influx of summer clothes. "If you stop reacting, he'll stop teasing you."

"Yeah, well," Emma grumbled, flipping through racks of dresses without properly looking at any of them, "easier said than done."

Grayson and Olivia shared a look of well-worn exasperation. They were too used to Emma ranting about Ethan by now for it to have much effect.