Staring mindlessly at the plain surface of my closed bedroom door, I shifted impatiently from foot to foot as I waited for Mia to finally finish getting changed.

It felt like something close to torture to sit outside and wait while I knew Mia was getting undressed only a wall away from where I stood. What made it worse was that there wasn't a lock on my door, so I had to keep mentally fighting myself not to open it. I never would of course, without her permission, but that fact still didn't make controlling myself any less painful.

For the fourth time since I'd been standing here, my stomach twisted over in anxiety as I thought over my plan for this afternoon. My plan to finally test her. I'd had enough of guessing, hoping, and trying to read her mind – I needed to know if she liked me. So, I was going to figure it out through whatever means necessary. But as eager as I was to discover the truth, it didn't make things any less terrifying.

Finally, after what must have been two minutes, the door to my room cracked open and Mia appeared from round the corner. The second I took her in, I immediately started laughing.

Mia's hot brown eyes latched on to me and she glared. "Shut up," she snapped in embarrassment.

Laughing only harder, I continued to stare. She was wearing my t-shirt, and joggers and they were absolutely drowning her. The ends of the legs had been rolled up about five times or so, and she'd arranged the t-shirt in a great big knot at her side.

My eyes then naturally decided to lock onto the slip of exposed skin now visible along her stomach. God, she had such a nice body.

I stared for a little longer than I should have, and soon I was thinking about the awful things I would do just for the chance to see more. Do more.

No, Ethan, fucking focus, don't be a perv.

Bringing myself back to focus, I chuckled again. "You look so cute," I teased as I reached out to squish her face between my palms. It was a poor excuse to touch her, but what could I say, I was desperate.

Her face burned red, and she pushed me away with playful anger. "I feel like you found the biggest clothes you could find, just to piss me off," she accused.

My smile twitched up, realizing she'd caught me red-handed. "Absolutely," I laughed.

Mia gave me a dirty look before sliding past me and starting to make her way down the corridor.

I furrowed my brows. "Chubs, where are you going?" I called out after her, assuming we were going to stay in my room.

That was the usual place we hung out whenever Mia came over to study. And in all shameful honesty, I wanted her in my room, in the selfish hopes that what happened last time we were in a bedroom alone together, would happen again.

Mia turned back to face me with a confused smile. "Obviously, to get a snack. It's like you don't even know me," she said as she looked me up and down with playful judgment.

I looked her up and down. Are you sure you don't want to hang out a little longer in my room?" I stepped forward. "Alone..."

I let my words hang heavily in the air, and kept eye contact with her as I did. Mia's eyes widened slightly, and I saw her throat sink in as she swallowed. There was now a noticeable tension between us that both of us were painfully aware of. I was testing her. If she said yes, the more chance she liked me. The more chance she wanted things to happen the way they did before.

Mia hesitated on her answer for quite some time – painfully long. I'd never seen her eyes look so wide in all my life. Her eyes flickered back and forth between mine, then dashed briefly low on my face then sharply back up again. My stomach swirled in anticipation.

Come on, Mia, please.

She swallowed hard. "Nope," she finally rushed out quickly, her tone high and sharp. Then quickly turning around, she made her way down the stairs.

My stomach dropped, and my heart raced as I was left staring after her while processing the numbing feelings of rejection. She felt anxious to be alone in my room with me; that much was clear.

Letting out a deep breath, I followed after her and shoved the feelings to the back of my mind. I reminded myself it still wasn't concrete proof. There was still hope.

Once we'd got down to the kitchen, Mia predictably flung open the door to the freezer and started rummaging through our supply of Ben and Jerry's Ice-cream. I plucked up an amused brow.

It had become a regular habit of hers from all our 'study sessions.' I'd had to result to nagging my mum to buy more, to keep the ice cream-eating beast that was Mia, happy. A fair few times, I'd even driven out myself to get some when I saw we were running low.

Once she had obtained her little one-person tub, and spoon, she skipped her way to the living room and flopped down on the sofa with a long sigh.

"I see you didn't waste any time," I chuckled as I chucked myself down onto the seat beside her. I purposefully made sure to brush the sides of her thighs with my own as I settled into place. Then remaining in place, I made no move to free up any space between us. Was it a little desperate? Perhaps.

Seemingly unbothered by my position, Mia just shrugged with a light smile. "I know my priorities," she chuckled as she confidently flipped off the lid of her ice cream tub and sunk her little spoon in.

Suddenly Mia looked up in alarm as though remembering something. "Your mum's making sure the boys aren't drowning, right?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah, don't worry, I saw her sitting outside on the lounger watching them," I reassured her. I wasn't lying. I'd caught a brief glance out the window when I was waiting for Mia in the corridor to get changed.

"Excellent," she said with a contented sigh before moving to cock up her feet on the coffee table in front of her.

Again, I couldn't help but smile at her action. She was clearly someone who heard the words, 'make yourself at home' and ran with it. I loved it about her though, and I loved that she felt comfortable in my home.

Mia suddenly turned to look at me with a furrowed brow. "What?" she asked.

Realizing it was probably because I'd been staring at her for too long, I chuckled. "Nothing, I just missed you that's all," I shrugged honestly. "And I'm...I'm,-" I lowered my gaze. "I'm sorry for what I said the other day, it was stupid. It was also stupid to think I could ignore you," I admitted with a thick swallow. "You're too special to ignore."

A smile lit Mia's face, the second I was done, and the sight made me feel weak. "It's alright, I forgive you. And I'm also sorry for provoking you with Ben. It was wrong," she admitted.

Feeling a lot better now that it felt like all the bad blood between us had healed, I stared her up and down happily.

That's when my eyes fell down to her ice cream, and I smirked thinking of something. "Why don't you apologize by giving me some of your ice cream?" I asked boldly.

Mia immediately whipped her head my way and looked at me as though I'd just suggested murdering her firstborn son. "Fuck no," she rudely snorted.

I pretended to part my mouth in the pretence of hurt. This seemed to only encourage Mia's selfishness as the next time she scooped up some ice cream, she leaned right in my face till we were inches apart before proceeding to slide the ice cream clean off the spoon with her lips.

Her proximity and the image of her brought me to silence and my stomach started twisting. There was a time I thought it was not possible to get turned on by the sight of someone eating ice cream, but it turns out that when watching Mia, you definitely fucking could. And this was the second time, she was torturing me with this shit.

"This is too good," Mia moaned overdramatically as she proceeded to lift another spoon to her lips with a smile.

My heart jumped at the sound of her moan and suddenly all my blood started to run south- shamefully south. It was humourous that she thought I gave a single flying fuck about the ice cream anymore, that was far from what I was thinking about anymore.

"Mia, don't do this to me again...," I whispered, feeling as though I was in pain.

Realizing I needed to put an end to this madness before I did something seriously bad, I grabbed a hold of her wrist and redirected her next spoonful of ice cream into my own mouth before she could.

"What the fuck, Ethan?" she yelled as I smoothly slid the ice cream, clean off the spoon.

Smiling, I just swallowed my ice cream with a shrug. "It's your fault for teasing me. You're lucky that's all I did," I said warningly as my eyes flickered briefly down to stare at her lips.

I meant every word of what I said. One more second of her continuing to moan and shit, and there was no saying what I would have said or done.

Mia's eyes grew slightly wide at my words, and she stared at me a brief second longer than she normally would. Suddenly, she seemed to snap out of it, and she scowled before reaching out to shove me hard. It was so abrupt, and unexpected, I fell right off the sofa and clumsily onto my ass.

"Fuck," I winced as I hit the floor.

Mia, the little devil, chuckled happily to herself and went back to eating her ice cream.

"That was a bit rude," I muttered sulkily as I returned to my seat.

"Well, stealing someone's food without permission is also rude," she bit back.

I slightly snorted at the comeback, finding it humorous that Mia had taken claim of food that was technically mine to begin with. It was my house after all.

I let her eat peacefully for a while but as I glanced over at her, I suddenly thought of a plan.

An arguably immoral plan, but one that would definitely benefit me. And a plan, that would be a good test to see where her feeling about me sat.

"You have a little ice cream on your cheek," I announced abruptly with a smile. In actual fact, Mia didn't have any ice cream on her face, lips, or anywhere but she didn't need to know that.

Mia groaned in annoyance and turned to me. "Where?" she asked as she gestured around her face.

Right here," I lied as I pointed to the corner of her mouth.

Mia sighed before attempting to wipe it off with the end of her sleeve.

"Still there," I taunted, continuing my little game. Mia glared at me before swiping at nothing once again.

"Nope," I lied again.

"Whatever, I don't give a shit," Mia snapped in annoyance.

I smiled in victory, hoping for her to say that. "Don't worry, I'll get it right off for you."

Before I got the sense to talk myself out of my next move, I grabbed her by the chin and pulled her face closer to mine. Dropping my eyes down to her full lips, I inched closer and felt Mia suck in a sharp breath as I did.

Moving my lips to the corner of her mouth, I brushed them lightly against her cheek before proceeding to lick the corner of her mouth.

Then fighting myself back from doing more, I pulled away and looked at her with a smile. "All gone," I lied.

She looked back at me while blinking rapidly, and her chest was rising and falling fast.

Reluctantly letting go of her chin, I then proceeded to lean back on the sofa while trying not to smile. I wanted to laugh badly at how shocked she understandably looked, but I held myself back. Instead, I pretended to look in boredom around the room like what I did was a completely normal thing to do.

"What the fuck, Ethan, you can't just lick people's faces," Mia cried.

Turning to her, I looked her up and down. "Well, I've kissed you, so what's the difference," I argued boldly.

The second the words left my lips, I wanted to slap myself, feeling the whole energy in the room shift. I knew I'd promised myself I'd bring it up, but not like this. Not this abruptly. Shit.

Several seconds went by, and Mia just stared at me, her eyes darting around in slight panic.

"I'm surprised you brought it up...," she finally commented as her eyes rocked between mine.

I swallowed nervously as I wondered what to say next. "Well, there's no point ignoring the elephant in the room, is there?" I answered as neutrally as I could.

I tried desperately to read every last expression on her face, to see some hint of what she felt about the kiss. All I could tell was that she was nervous – nothing more.

The silence in the room felt suffocating, and my heart beat violently fast in panic and anticipation of what would come next.

Finally, Mia cleared her throat. "Why did you kiss me?" she asked boldly.

My eyes grew wide.

Any hint of a calm expression that once could have shielded my face, slipped away in a second as panic ate me alive. My eyes darted around in panic, and I fidgeted terribly in my chair.

Come on, Ethan, just say it. Just fucking admit you like her. This has gone on long enough.

"I....er...," I swallowed painfully as I raked a nervous hand through my hair. "Why did you kiss me back?" I abruptly spat out, like a coward.

Mia immediately broke eye contact, and stared everywhere but at me. Every last fidgety movement of her hands seemed nervous and panicked.

But why was she panicked? Was she panicked because she liked me? Or was she panicked because she was scared to reject me? It was killing me, not knowing.

Finally, Mia let out a heavy sigh and finally locked eyes with me. "Let's stop beating around the bush. It was a mistake," she said bluntly. My heart stopped. "You don't like me that way, and I don't like you that way. We both just got caught up in the moment. We're just friends."

She looked me dead in the eye for each and every word, and I'd never felt so ashamed and disappointed in all my life. The kiss meant nothing to her – absolutely nothing. What had been one of the best moments of her life had been just an experiment for her. The hardest lump formed in the back of my throat as I processed that soul-crushing fact.

It was just a hard cold fact now - Mia Collins, the only girl I'd ever want, would never love me back. And I was going to have to find a way to live with that.

Trying my best to pull myself together as best as I could, I forced one of the most painful smiles of my life.

"Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself," I lied smoothly. I tried hard to keep my words, unbothered, and bored. For a second, and I'm sure I imagined it, I saw Mia swallow and her eyes go slightly red, but I knew I imagined it. She was relieved.

"So, we're good?" she asked hesitantly. Pretending she hadn't just broken me; I nodded stiffly and did all I could to maintain my fake smile. "Yeah, of course, we're good, Chubs," I lied. 

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Author's note: 

Hope you enjoyed. Can't wait to share more with you soon xx