Feeling like I was frozen in place, my eyes scanned mercilessly over Mia's waistline, and legs, and eyes, and well everything. My eyes drifted over the warm tan skin of her waist that was visible through the cutouts along her waist. 

Then lifting my head up, I swallowed thickly as I noticed the rise and fall of her chest, slightly visible under the tightened material of her dress. 

I knew with full certainty that I likely looked like the king of creeps right now, staring at her the way I was, but I almost couldn't help myself– she was just so fucking beautiful. It was almost unfair, really. I was already into her by her personality alone, so for her to be distractingly hot on top of that was just ridiculous at this point.

Not even sure what to do with myself, I felt my adam's apple wobble as I snapped my eyes back to hers. And the moment I met her eyes, the knot in my stomach tightened.

Snapping me out of my daze slightly, Mia suddenly tore her gaze away from me and started to make her way around the other side of the kitchen island. My eyes refused to part from her, and I followed her right the way across the kitchen. 

How the fuck was her walk even sexy?

As she came to a stop, she bent over to retrieve a water bottle from the cooler on the floor, and I nearly choked. My grip on the counter tightened as I struggled to calm myself down.

Yeah, I was definitely going to hell....

As she turned to leave, an awful shrill whistle sound broke from behind me, causing her to stop. Turning around, I saw one of the guys start to laugh while brazenly staring Mia up and down.

 "Fuck me, look at the ass on that one," he said as he gestured over to her. 

Nobody laughed, and everybody else went still.

The second I'd processed his words, a wave of nausea ran through me as I locked eyes with the newest member of our team. 

"The fuck, you just say, Johnson," I hissed as I shoved myself angrily off the counter and into the guy's face. 

Clearly startled, the guy backed up a little. Seconds away from shoving him to the floor for being such a disrespectful little cunt, I felt a hand grip my elbow. Turning, I saw it belonged to my friend Roman.

 "Hey, hey, Ethan, be cool," he explained quickly. "He doesn't know who she is; he's new," he said while trying to pull me away from him a little. 

As I took in the panic in Roman's eyes, I realized what I was doing and, yet again, how crazy I was acting. Yes, this guy was an asshole, but I'd promised myself no more fights.

Swallowing back my still rising anger, I stepped back a little. Turning back to the piece of shit before me, I looked him up and down, and scoffed. "You're off the hook this time because you're new, but if I hear one more word about my girl from that shitty little mouth of yours, you better run."

The idiot frantically nodded his head, clearly smart enough not to say a word in response.

A light snort of laughter broke through the air. Turning back to Mia, I found her staring at me with a single brow raised. "Sorry, your girl?" She snickered. "Did you recently adopt me or something?"

A wave of embarrassment ran through me as I realized that I'd just called her 'my girl' to her face. I had basically outed myself.

Distracting me, I noticed two new guys enter the kitchen, and bile rose to my throat as I watched them scan Mia's body.

 Deciding enough was enough, I marched my way over to her in purposeful stride. Then shrugging off my soccer jacket, I swiftly wrapped it around her shoulders.

 I did this for one reason, and one alone – not to hide her body away, or to shame her for being so irresistibly hot, but to show every damn person in that room that Mia Collins was mine. Near to every guy in school thought I was nuts, so with Blythe written on her back, no guy would bother her.

Mia, still standing frozen, stared at me with deeply furrowed brows as I quickly did up the first two buttons. I was glad she was confused – it would be embarrassing if she knew I was jealous enough that I felt the need to slap my surname on her back.

Sending one final dirty look over my shoulder, I reached out to snatch Mia's wrist before starting to drag her towards the direction of the door.

As soon as we were out in the corridor, I spun her around fast and pushed her up against the wall. Closer than I thought she'd be, those great big brown eyes of hers, stared up at me, wide and expectant. My heart only hammered faster as I took in every square inch of her face and had to wrestle back the urge to kiss her. Swallowing heavily, I did another dip up and down of her figure and genuinely nearly cried out of sheer frustration.

"Why, Mia? Why just why?" I stammered out breathlessly. "You could have worn anything, and you decided on this. Are you fucking kidding me?"

It was like she was trying to kill me or something. I could barely hold myself back from her at the best of times, so now dressed like this, she'd basically slapped the small ounce of self-control I had around the face.

Mia recoiled back a little and frowned. "I get that you don't like it, Ethan, but there's no need to be rude."

I let out a laugh, so amused by the idea of me hating it. My problem was quite the opposite: I liked it way too fucking much. 

"There's a hell of a lot of things I feel about you in this dress, Mia, and dislike is certainly not one of them. Not by a long shot," I mumbled with a swallow as I swept my eyes down her torso for another look. I knew it was a mistake the instant I looked, and my heart hammered faster.

Mia looked a little caught off guard herself and started to breathe a little more heavily, her chest rising and falling in even beats. "Then, why are you mad?" she mumbled.

"Because you're going to have to deal with dickheads like Johnson, who are going to make a move on you all fucking night," I spat in frustration.

"Well, that's my problem, not yours," she huffed. "You're a good friend for trying to look out for me, but I can handle myself, okay, Ethan. Thanks for the jacket, but I'm not wearing it. I can't wear something that has your name scrawled in big, bold letters across the back. People will assume things," she stated firmly as she made a move to undo the buttons.

"No," I said quickly as I pulled back her hands. "Leave it on. That's why you should keep it on. If they think there's something between us, they'll keep their nasty hands and comments to themselves. Do not take it off, Mia."

"You're ridiculous," she laughed.

I was about to say something, but once again, I found myself getting distracted by her – all of her. Especially with her being this close. And the worst part of it all was that she had no fucking idea the effect she had on me.

 "Why do you do this to me?" I whispered before I could stop the words.

"D-do, what?" she stuttered in confusion, those brown eyes of hers softened and beautiful.

My eyes immediately dropped down to her lips, and at once I was thinking about pushing her deeper into the wall and kissing her. "Torture me," I swallowed.

Realizing I was seconds away from doing something utterly stupid, I spared her one last look before pushing myself off the wall and walking away.

Internally cursing myself for acting so stupid, I stormed my way back into the living room in search of Lucas. Instantly spotting him, pouring himself a drink at the back, I quickly made my way over to him. 

"Come with me," I said before snatching him by his upper arm and starting to tow him away.

"Hey, I was fucking eating, man, what the hell," Lucas called out in a whine. Just ignoring him, I led him around the corner and into our games room.

The moment the door closed behind us, the music muffled out, and my ears relaxed under the silence of the room.

Letting go of Lucas, I flopped myself back down onto my normal beanbag chair before looking up at the ceiling and letting out varied tones of groans.

I heard Lucas let out a snort before I felt the beanbag chair dip down beside me. "So...Erm...why are we having a nervous breakdown exactly? It's very entertaining to watch, don't get me wrong, but I feel like I should ask," Lucas snickered.

"Because," I snapped bitterly, still staring upward. "Mia dressed up extra fucking good tonight, and now I'm sexually frustrated-"

"When are you not?" Lucas interrupted. 

I gave him a flat look before continuing. "And two," I said, my jaw tightening. "One of the new dicks on the teams decided to yell out some pervy shit about her body," I spat bitterly.

"Eww, what the fuck?" Lucas said, wrinkling his nose. 

I waved a flippant hand. "Don't worry, I'll sort him out. They'll be laxatives in his drink by Monday morning. Then, I'll persuade, coach to kick him off the team," I mumbled.

Lucas looked at me warily. "What the hell is it with you and laxatives?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I think making assholes publically shit themselves really humbles then, don't you think?"

"Sure...," Lucas sang, still watching me warily.

"But anyway," I groaned. "What the hell am I going to do about, Mia? I can barely even look at her without getting all loopy in the head. It's literally just embarrassing at this point."

Lucas stared at me silently for a while before slowly letting a smile crawl to his face. "You know, I think I might have found a solution for your little problem," he chuckled.

"How so?" I said, narrowing my eyes in suspicion.

"Simple," he smiled. "I'm going to gather other people down here, and we're going to play a little game. One that involves you and Mia being locked into a closet together for seven glorious minutes. Then boom, you get an easy excuse to make out with her to your heart's content, yet she remains none the wiser."

My heart thudded faster as the words 'Mia,' 'Make-out,' and 'heart's content,' all came to my attention.

"But wait," I said suddenly, my eyes narrowing. "How can you ensure that we'll end up together. It's a game of luck, isn't it? There's no fucking way I'm letting her enter that closet with anyone other than me," I spat, feeling pissed at the mere thought of it.

Lucas just shook his head at me with a smile. "Oh, Ethan, my poor stupid little, Ethan," he said, reaching across to double slap me on the cheek. "We're not going to play properly, of course. I'm going to rig it for you, stupid," he snickered.

Then standing up, he made his way over to a cupboard and started scribbling things on a piece of paper before ripping two bits off.

Slyly, tucking one under the cuff of his sleeve, he walked over and handed the other slip of paper to me. "Fold this up and put it under your sleeve," Lucas instructed with a smile. 

Confused, I took it from him slowly and looked down to see the name, Mia Collins, scrawled messily across the page in black ink. Lucas flopped back down on his bean bag before turning to face me.

 "So, when it's your turn, and I tell you to pluck a name from the hat, you have Mia's name all ready to be picked from the cuff of your sleeve. It's fool proof," Lucas shrugged.

Looking back down at Mia's name again, I slowly processed Lucas's words. He had found a guaranteed way for me to have a hot, seven minutes session with Mia.... as in Mia Collins! As in the girl, I'd spent way too many years pathetically pining over.

"Wait, what happens if Mia has to pick from the hat? How do you ensure she gets me?" I asked cautiously.

"Well, that's simple," Lucas snickered. "It's never going to land on her. I know exactly how to spin it to get it to land on whoever I want. I'll only make it land on you, not her."

I thought over his words and realized he'd thought of everything.

"So, what do you say?" Lucas probed.

Slowly lifting my head, I swallowed back the urge to say yes. "I don't know...," I sighed. "I mean, I really fucking want to, but I'd feel kind of shitty taking her first kiss like that, you know. Something tells me, I'm not her first pick of who'd she want to give it too," I scoffed.

Lucas let out a long-tired groan. "Okay, first off, you're stupid. She clearly wants to kiss you. It's obvious. And two, if you don't want her to lose her 'kiss virginity' so badly, then just go old school and suck her neck."

An image of Mia sporting a bright red hickey that I'd given to her, came to mind, and I was instantly sold. There was no fucking way I was passing at giving her a hickey. That was hot.

As though Lucas already knew he'd convinced me, he just smirked back at me smugly. I was about to ask him how he'd even come up with such a genius idea when I suddenly realized something. 

"Wait....whose name's up your sleeve?" I asked slowly, nodding my head to the cuff of his sleeve. It had almost escaped my notice earlier, but I definitely saw him put a paper up there.

Lucas lost a little confidence in his eyes and coughed awkwardly. "May's," he mumbled quietly. "But don't tell her," he added quickly.

"Yeah, no shit," I snickered. There was a moment of silence as the two of us reflected, and daydreamed about what we were about to do. 

"You know we're totally dickheads for doing this, right?" I confirmed slowly.

"Yeah...," Lucas started. "But I think I'm okay with that."

"Same," I agreed quickly.

"Excellent," Lucas said, standing up with the clap of his hands. "Let's get this show on the road. I'll go get the girls," he said with the waggle of his brows.

Ten or so minutes later, a few semi-drunk friends of ours trickled in – a few boys from the soccer team and some senior girls. I greeted them with brief little smiles, barely focused on them and too concentrated with staring at the door in await of a certain brown-eyed girl.

The more the minutes when by, the more the adrenaline built up inside me, and I felt more and more impatient at each passing second. For fucks sake, I just wanted to be locked in the closet with her already. What was taking her so long? It was more than pathetic how excited I was, but I couldn't help it. It was Mia!

Just when I thought I might die of impatience, Lucas slid from behind the door and gave me a little knowing smirk. Then, looking over his shoulder, I saw Mia, Chloe, and May enter in from behind him, and I immediately sat up alert.

Since everyone was already sitting in a circle, they all followed suit and squeezed into the gaps on the floor. I kept my eyes on Mia the entire time she sat down, unable to help myself. She was still wearing my soccer jacket, which I couldn't help but smile at. With Blythe written across the back, it made her look exactly how I wanted her to look: Like my girlfriend.

 Once sat, she looked up, and our eyes locked from across the circle. Then slowly, I let my lips warp into a teasing smirk as I thought about what was about to come. Mia, clearly a little more than confused, gave me an odd look.

My thoughts were interrupted as Lucas plopped himself down beside me. He'd clearly finished setting up and was ready to start. 

"Okay," he called out to get everyone's attention. "So, the game, I've gathered everyone around to play is-" Lucas paused to dramatically drum roll his hands against the ground. "Seven minutes in heaven!" he cheered.

"Wait, what!" A voice yelled out in shock. Turning my head, I followed the voice along to Mia, who was staring at Lucas with a deeply furrowed brow.

My heart picked up in a panic, praying to God she wasn't about to stand up and refuse to play.

Lucas cleared his throat to bring the attention back to himself. "Shh, Mia, quiet now. Lucas is speaking," he chided as he raised a single finger to his lips.

Mia abruptly shut her mouth and frowned.

"Anyway," Lucas sang. "Here are the rules. I will spin a bottle in the middle of the circle," he said, pausing to wave around an empty beer bottle. "And whoever it lands on, will proceed to pick a paper, out of one of two hats, that contains all of your names. Pick hat A if you're a boy and hat B if you're a girl," he explained as he shook each of the two hats in turn. "Oh, wait, shit, is anyone gay?" Lucas asked abruptly, looking around in worry.

As silence filled the room, I sent a nervous look over to Mia. If she were to put her hand up at this precise second, I think I would genuinely cry. I mean, I would be willing to try a lot to get Mia, but changing my entire gender, seemed a little too far.

Thankfully, she nor anybody else raised their hand, and I could breathe again. "Okay, excellent," Lucas said, clapping his hands. "Well, once you've picked out a name. You and the other person you picked from the hat will be locked in my cupboard for approximately seven minutes. In this time, you can do whatever you want to each other," he said, chuckling lightly. "But if any of you fucking bastards have sex in my cupboard, I will cut you," he threatened, his smile falling.

"However, what makes my game extra special is that you must leave with evidence. This could be in the form of a bra, a voice recording, scratches, or whatever other kinky things your heart desires. If you surprise me, you get points for creativity," he laughed.

Pausing, I realized just how little I had inquired about Lucas' game. Clearly, he'd given this more than a couple minutes of thought.... Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas had been planning this for him and May for weeks.

"Also, you must leave the room within seven seconds of the person knocking on the door. Any question?" Lucas said, finishing his speech off with an innocent smile.

Sparing a glance in excitement over to Mia, I saw she was watching Lucas through deeply disturbed eyes, clearly astonished at the level of sexualized detail in his game.

I almost felt bad that she didn't realize the extent of Lucas' and I's, let's face it, creepy desperation.

Everyone else in the circle chatted eagerly amongst themselves, clearly quite excited by the game.

Drawing my eyes across the room, I watched in confusion as Mia slowly raised her hand up in the air. Instantly, full panic set in. What was she doing? Please don't ask to leave. Please don't ask to leave.

"Yes, Mia, you have a question," Lucas asked politely.

"Yes," Mia smiled. "I was just wondering if I don't come back with evidence, you know, like a sane person. What's going to happen?" she asked, with a sassy tilt of her head.

I sent Lucas a strong warning look to silently ask him to save me. Lucas subtly winked at me before turning back to Mia. 

"Excellent question, Mia. Anyone who doesn't comply with the rules of my games will have their eyebrows shaved off," he said, with an evil chuckle.

Everyone went silent, and a genuine chill ran down my spine. Back in ninth grade, Lucas, for a reason completely unbeknownst to me, got really into waxing people's eyebrows off when they napped at school. I managed to avoid it for a while, but the fucker eventually got me too.

Walking around with a bald forehead for three months certainly wasn't the highlight of my year. And Mia, being the girl that she was, made an absolute field day out of it and sprouted out bald forehead jokes at every chance she got. It was humiliating!

Unsure of whether Lucas was joking about shaving off people's eyebrows again, I looked him up and down cautiously.

"So evidence it is, I guess," Mia stammered out with a nervous laugh.

"Okay, let's get started, shall we," Lucas said, placing the bottle into the center of the circle. 

With a smile, he spun it around, and everyone watched it spin to a dizzying blur. Finally, it slowed, and soon enough, the tip fell to a stop, pointing right to Lucas himself. And considering what he'd said earlier about controlling the spin, I knew full well it wasn't by mistake.

May immediately snorted.

Lucas, clearly not upset in the slightly, tried to calm his smile. "Whatever, I don't mind," he shrugged as he crawled himself over to the hats. 

Digging his hand in, he pretended to feel around before pulling out the paper that I knew full well had just been up his sleeve.

In amusement, I watched as Lucas lifted the paper up to his face to read. He let out a loud, hysteric breath of laughter as though shocked by what he was reading. Then locking eyes with May, he stared at her with teasing eyes. 

"Hey, May, guess who gets to mess around with me for seven whole minutes?" Lucas winked.

May's face turned a shocking white, and she started repeatedly shaking her head. "No, nope, no way! I'm not doing it. Pick again!"

As though expecting the reaction, Lucas's smile didn't falter. "If you don't go with me, May, then it's goodbye to those pretty little eyebrows of yours. I sit right by you in history. And guess who falls asleep every single time? You do," Lucas whispered, chuckling darkly.

I knew with full certainty that he was bluffing. Lucas was way too whipped to touch a single red hair on May's head.

Suddenly, May snapped her head up, and her eyes narrowed. "You know what, let's do this. I don't give a shit," she snapped confidently. Then standing up, she marched her way over to Lucas's cupboard with her head held high.

Lucas just sat frozen in his place in shock, clearly struggling to process. May swung back around impatiently. "You coming or what?"

Lucas nodded his head comically fast before scrambling to his feet and rushing on his way after her.

I shook my head at him with a smile on my face, knowing he was failing in all manners of subtilty.

While the two of them entered the cupboard, I engaged in a bit of mindless chat with my teammate, Nick. He reckoned Lucas was probably going to get beat up in that closet, and I couldn't say, I fully disagreed.

Eventually, the timer went off, and Nick hopped himself to his feet before making his way to the closet. "Time's up, guys. You have seven seconds," he said, giving a firm double tap against the door.

Nobody came out in the first second, or the second, or the third. Then finally, the door opened, and out walked a messy-haired, swollen-lipped Lucas and May. A smile instantly flew to my face as I took in the clearly dazed look in Lucas's eyes as he tried to make sense of what must have been the best seven minutes of his life. If anyone saw him, they might think he'd just taken a snort of crack.

As my eyes fell to his hand, I nearly choked. Lucas was holding a bra in his hands. Her bra.

Flickering my eyes between them in astonishment, I watched as Lucas sent one last smile to a red-cheeked May before returning his way over to me.

Holding my hand up for a proud high-five, he laughed before slapping it and crashing down beside me.

"What the fuck did you say to her?" I said, letting out a disbelieving laugh. "It must have been something impressive to get her from hating you, to well...this," I laughed. 

A look of brief embarrassment washed over Lucas' face, and he just shrugged. "Sorry, I don't kiss and tell," he murmured as his eyes drifted back over to May's.

Amused, I watched as he shot a sly wink over to May, who was staring at him with a rather odd look in her eye.

Soon enough, Lucas leaned into the middle and spun the bottle once more. Staring at it intensely, I waited patiently for it to stop. I knew Lucas said he could control it, but I couldn't help but feel paranoid that it would somehow end up on Mia. And I was not watching her go into a closet with someone else – fuck that. 

Finally, it started to slow and slid right by Lucas before landing at a perfect stop right in front of me.

Practically wanting to fist bump the air, I could do nothing to hide my excitement, and grinning my head off, I crawled to the center to pretend to pick a name from the hat.

I could feel the intensity of Mia's eyes on me as I pretended to give a good sift through the paper.

Finally, having enough, I pulled my pre-prepared paper out of my sleeve and into the daylight. Taking my sweet time unfolding it, I could barely pretend to look at it for a second before immediately snapping my head back up to hers.

Smiling, I cleared my throat. "Mia," I said, locking my eyes with hers. 

--------------

Author's note:

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. It was a super long one lol. 

So, yeah that's the story of how Lucas and Ethan cheated. Any thoughts? 

Can't wait to share more with you when I can (don't expect it to be super soon though).