Falling In

“I never slept with Heather,” he furrowed his eyebrows.

“Don’t lie to me,” I glared at him.

“I swear on my grandmother’s grave!” he said holding his hands up in surrender. “I mean, I dated her on and off for a few years after you left but I never slept with her.”

I scoffed. “You dated her for a few years and you never slept with her. And you expect me to believe that?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “I’m serious Stella. It was never serious. She just reminded me so much of you and I guess she just kind of filled the emptiness,” he said softly.

My heart melted. “When did you guys end it?”

He looked at me once again. “When I found you.”

“That long?” I squeaked.

He shrugged. “It was on and off. We were probably separated more than we were together.”

“That’s still a damn long time!”

“Yeah? Well that was hell of a long time of you not talking to me!” he snapped. I flinched back and sunk myself deeper into the couch. “Look, I’m sorry okay? It’s just that I thought I could settle for her since I kind of figured I’d never have a chance with you.”

“Why would you say that?”

“That summer you were gone and didn’t tell me where you were going. You were with Deegan, and you didn’t even call me or contact me. Then I see a series of pictures for Deegan’s myspace and I figured you two got together and I figured that I couldn’t have competed with your bestfriend.”

My jaw dropped. “That was not me,” I said to him. “That was Alexa. Deegan’s girlfriend in Alaska. I was in Oregon.”

“What?”

“I was in Oregon for my snowboarding program. I thought you were mad at me, so I didn’t try to contact you. Heather gave it to me for my birthday,” I explained.

“Heather gave it to you for your birthday, what?”

“Exactly. I thought she gave it to me because you guys wanted me to spend the summer somewhere else so you guys could spend the summer together without me showing up,” I told him.

“Oh god no! She was there because I asked her where you were. She said that you just upped and left the same day that Deegan left and stuff like that.”

“I didn’t tell you where I was going because you haven’t been talking to me for the past month prior to that and realized that it would be kind of awkward to just text you saying ‘oh hey, I’m going to Oregon’. Yeah, desperate much?” I muttered.

“I haven’t been contacting you because Heather has been informing me of the odds of me winning against Deegan because you two are bestfriends. And I believed it because you and Deegan were awfully close and you guys are each other’s soulmates or something.”

“What? Oh hell no. Deegan is like a brother to me. I’m as close to Deegan the same way I’m close to Jake. And even though I was that close to him, you were my bestfriend. Like every girl has their girl bestfriend, he’s my equivalent. He used to be gay, remember?”

His eyes widened. “That’s what Deegan meant!”

“What do you mean?”

“I talked to him! While you were on that trip after Paris! He said something that you guys never happened and never will and you never tried and never will try!”

“That’s right,” I snorted. “Deegan may be straight now, but I’ll never get my image of him being gay out of my mind.”

Ethan let out a small laugh. “But seriously Stella, I’ve never slept with Heather nor anybody else,” he said softly

“What?” I asked in disbelief. “You’re lying.”

“I’m serious!” he said exasperatedly. “It’s embarrassing enough that I admitted that to you!”

I smiled at him. “It’s okay. But that still doesn’t explain why I saw you in bed with Heather when I went to surprise you.”

“When did you come over?” he asked confused.

“The last week of camp was cancelled, so I decided to go straight to your place and surprise you and hope to fix stuff with you or maybe even yell at you, but I saw you two like naked on your bed,” I muttered.

“I always sleep without a shirt,” he said furrowing his eyebrows. Yeah, and it’s sexy. He started laughing, making me eye him carefully. “I know I’m sexy.”

Shit. I said it out loud. “Not the time for jokes,” I mumbled. “I know you do sleep without a shirt on, but doesn’t explain why she didn’t have her clothes on,” I glared.

“I don’t remember ever sharing a bed with her,” he scoffed. “In all honestly, besides my mom and my sisters, you’re the only one I’ve ever shared a bed with,” he confessed. “She was telling me about you and making me feel better about myself without you and it was one of the days she was over, I told her I was gonna take a nap because I didn’t feel like feeling sorry for myself and then I left her downstairs,” he shrugged.

My eyes widened. “That bitch,” I gasped. “I curse you being so heavy of a sleeper!” Which was true, because there was once a 5 second 5.3 earthquake while I stayed in San Diego with him, and he slept like a damn baby.

“Do you believe me now?” he asked me. “Really though Stells. I love you. I always have and I always will. I just hoped that you talked to me about it. You know I’d never lie to you nor do anything to hurt you at least not on purpose. You’re my everything,” he said softly.

“I hate it when Deegan’s right,” I heard myself blurt.

He rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m all being corny and confessing and all you talk about is Deegan this Deegan that!” he spat out, stood up and was about to walk out, but I grabbed his arms and pulled on the collar of his shirt, pulling his lips down to mine.

“I was saying… Deegan was right. I am in love with you,” I said catching my breath, as our foreheads were touching. I saw his lips twitch up in a smile and he kissed me once again.

“Well holy shit. What do we have here?” my brother asked as he walked in. “Are they finally together?” he asked Deegan.

“Well I don’t know, maybe we should ask them,” Deegan said raising his eyebrow at me.

Ethan looked down at me, with his eyebrows raised. “Are we?” he asked.

“I don’t really know, nobody really asked me,” I said looking away.

“Stella Grace, I love you and I’ll fucking die for you. Will you please be my girlfriend?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it,” I laughed.

“Well too bad,” he laughed and kissed me again.

“Ew! It was a yes or no question!” Jake and Deegan said at the same time, covering their eyes and looking away.

“It’s a yes,” I told them with a laugh.

“FINALLY!” they both shouted and jumped in the air and did a high five.