• dedicated to spicedbroccoli bc your comments honestly give me life •

[ 17 ]

When I called Kaden up to tell him that we couldn't meet that night because I was in charge of night duty from now on, I could almost hear his brows raising.

"You guys are sharing a room?"

I winced at how suggestive he made that sound. "He's sleeping on the bed, I'll be on the couch. There's nothing sleazy about this arrangement, Kade."

"I'm not worried about that. Get your head out of the gutter," he scolded me, his tone cocky. "Besides, what's there to worry about?"

Did he just imply that I wasn't... My jaw dropped and I tried to think of a comeback. But I could only make sounds of indignation that didn't resemble a single word in the English language. "You-You!" I spluttered out.

"Yes, what about me?" Kaden drawled, clearly enjoying every moment.

"I'm going to murder you when I get my hands on you!"

"You can try."

The son of a bitch sounded amused, damn him! "Don't think you're all high and might just because you're second. After I get this job done, I'll be third."

"Looking forward to see you be a part of the club, J."

He was doing it on purpose. That condescending, amused tone was simply to rile me up. "You're dead the next time I see you."

"I'm shaking."

"Were you always this annoying?" I snapped at him. "I remember having a friend, not an Annoying Orange."

Kaden chuckled. "Two for the price of one, you see. The economy's not doing so well right now."

"You think you're very funny, don't you? You think you're being charming?"

"According to Mina, I am."

"Mina?"

"The girl I was on a date with a few weeks ago. You remember, right? I kicked you and Madi out that night because she was coming over."

My brows rose. "Oh, that girl. So the both of you... it's going well?"

"Honey, I think I'm in love."

This time, a genuine smile lifted my lips. This may not be the first time he'd made that proclamation, but the hope and happiness in his voice made me wish that this Mina was the one for him.

I could almost picture the sickeningly sweet grin on his face. "In love? That's... a very strong emotion."

"She makes me laugh, what more can I say?"

"As long as she makes you happy," I told him.

"She does. I've never felt so... contented."

"Well, at least one of us is getting action," I remarked dryly. "The only action I'm getting is the one involving guns not beds."

Kaden let out a laugh. "Yeah, well, with your night duty, it might include both guns and beds. No rest for the wicked, remember?"

I groaned at the reminder. "I'm really hoping nothing happens at night though. I need my sleep."

"If you're just trying to catch up on beauty sleep, don't bother. You don't need to."

"Because I'm already beautiful?" I guessed even though I knew Kaden would fail an assignment before he complimented me. Which meant never.

"No, because no amount of sleep can fix that trainwreck you call your face."

"There it is," I said, unphased. "I thought you'd bring in plastic surgery, but I guess you're losing your touch."

"It's called being nice, Otterson. Maybe you've heard about it."

My eyes rolled skywards and I pretended to choke. "Nice one, Kade. Any other good jokes?"

"Your life."

I sighed. "Dammit. I walked right into that one."

"Speaking of your life," Kaden started, "anything significant coming up? Anything you want to tell me?"

"No. Fuck off," I joked.

"No one special?"

Immediately, the image of Ethan appeared in my mind. But I ruthlessly pushed that image away.

Kaden knew about Aspen. He was the only one who knew, not even Madi or my family knew about him. And it was precisely because of this that I didn't want to tell him about Ethan.

Kaden and Aspen were friends. I was to be Aspen's bodyguard on the recommendation of Kaden. Losing Aspen strained our relationship and made any talk about relationships very, very uncomfortable. Or maybe it was just me. Kaden seems to have no problem talking about love interests. Both his and mine.

"No," I answered finally. After all, I was sure nothing would come out of Ethan and I. Aspen was a lesson that I would remember for life.

"You sure about that? I heard there's this dude in your team that's really rocking the whole mysterious smouldering look."

"Oh my God," I said, laughing. "Xander? Really?"

"I mean, I just heard that girls dig that kind of guys."

I relaxed into my chair, all thoughts about Ethsn and Kaden disappearing. "Not me. I prefer my man open and unafraid of feeling. Not some badboy wannabe who had a tragic past and is using that as an excuse for being an asshole."

"You sound like a bitter forty-year-old."

I was about to reply when Xander entered the room, throwing me a file. "Your turn."

I straightened up, filling in the starting time of my shift. "I'll have to call you back," I said to Kaden. "Duty calls."

After saying goodbye to Kaden and ignoring his lewd comments about Xander, I made my way up to Ethan's apartment, not looking forward to my first ever night shift.

I hoped nothing was going to happen. I wasn't kidding when I told Kaden I needed my sleep.

"Hey Otter," Ethan greeted me when I entered.

"Oh, hey, Jade," Carter called out from the couch.

I waved to the both of them. "Hey guys."

Carter shot me a glance. "It's like, almost midnight. What are you doing up here? Isn't the whole bodyguarding thing done?"

My eyes went to Ethan's. Did he not tell Carter?

"About that," Ethan said hesitantly. "She'll be spending the night here."

"What?"

"Dad wants to tighten security."

"What? He doesn't have you on a tight enough leash?"

I coughed, trying to defuse the situation. "Fascinating as this may be, Ethan and I should really be going into the room now."

Carter's mood instantly lightened. "Ah well, security can never be too tight or thorough, right?"

Choosing to keep silent, I steered both Ethan and I into his bedroom. Shuffling awkwardly once we were alone, I looked around the room, feeling my heart beat faster.

"So..." Ethan started, his gaze falling on every other direction but mine.

I groaned internally. This is going to be the worst night of my life.

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Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The first few nights we spent passed rather peacefully, with the Ethan and I exchanging as little words as possible about our sleeping arrangements.

It was clear this was something that made both of us awkward, so we talked about anything but that. In fact, our nightly conversations were getting more and more... personal.

We played dozens of would-you-rather's, 21 questions and two truths one lie. It felt like I was getting to know Ethan Black more and more. Like, truly know him.

I knew he was doing business because that was what his father wanted him to do. I knew he was still searching for his passion, but he liked a multitude of things. He liked music, photography and nature.

He told me if he could, he wanted to be a photo journalist, one that travels the world to take photographs.

I told him I loved spray painting, and we had a good laugh over how we met. Until today, I was still sure that it was his fault.

We even talked about Kira. I would never forget that night. I was lying on the couch, staring into nothing but blackness.

"Otter?" Ethan called out. That was usually how our midnight conversations started. He would call me, and I would respond, then we'd talk till the sun rose. Or until one of us fell asleep.

I stared up at the ceiling I couldn't see. "Yeah?"

"I can't stop picturing her with him."

It felt like there was something pressing down on my chest, and all of a sudden, my heart felt too constrained by my ribcage. I sucked in a deep breath.

There was no need to ask who he was talking about, the pain in his voice made that clear. Kira.

"How can you act as if you can't even stand the sight of her when she's around, and then tell me things like this when she's not? How are you that good of an actor?"

"Years of practice," was all he said.

I wanted to ask more, to know why he needed to master the art of acting, of pretending to be fine. But I knew now wasn't the time.

"Do you still love her?" I asked.

"I don't know what I'm feeling," he said into the darkness. "I don't know if I'm still in love with her, if I'm insecure, or if I'm just being petty."

"Don't blame yourself for this," I told him sternly. "And besides, you have full permission to be petty. She's the one that cheated."

There was silence for a beat. "Don't."

I glared in the direction of Ethan's bed even though I knew he couldn't see me. "You need to get it through your dense head that she cheated on you. That this whole thing was her fault."

"That's not true," he argued, and I felt my heart break as I listened to him defend Kira. "It takes two hands to clap."

"Yeah, and that other hand belongs to Igor."

"Something must have pushed her to do it."

"Pushed her to cheat on you?"

"Stop saying that."

"Ethan, you have to face up to reality. She cheated on you."

"I know that!" he snapped. "Stop gloating!"

My jaw dropped and I spluttered in indignance. "I'm not gloating!"

"No? Then what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get you to understand that none of this was your fault!"

"Isn't it?" he retorted.

"It's not!" But my words were met with silence, tensed silence.

When he finally spoke, I found myself straining my ears. "I don't know where we went wrong, Otter," Ethan murmured so softly I barely heard it over the rapid thrumming of my heart. He's talking about Kira, I scolded myself. "I don't know what I did wrong, why she did what she did, how I drove her away."

I couldn't listen to him tear himself apart any longer. This needed to stop. "Ethan Black! You listen to me right now and listen good. None of this was your fault. Your only mistake was trusting that snake, you hear me?"

Ethan gave a sudden, short laugh. "Snake? I've never heard that one before."

"She's sly, she's poisonous, she's toxic. Just like a snake. Coincidence? I think not."

Ethan laughed again, but this time, the sound was hollow to my ears. "We still... had something together."

Those words felt like a swift punch to my gut. "Did you now?"

"There are memories you can never erase. Kira, she... changed me, as stupid as that sounds."

My chest constricted again, but this time, for another reason. An image of Aspen flashed in my mind, as if it was taunting me. There are memories you can never erase...

It was as if there was a barrier of some sort hanging over Aspen's memories in my head, up until this very moment, at least. Now that the barrier collapsed, I felt the full force of the memories hit me.

Aspen's laughter echoed in my head and immediately, I regretted thinking about him at all. There was nothing I wished more than to incinerate that sound from my memory. I wanted the flashbacks to stop playing, the echoes to be silenced, the memories to stop hurting.

Ethan spoke again, his voice thick with emotions. "I thought she was it for me, you know? She had me at a point where I would have left the entire world behind for her."

It felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't breathe for a moment. "I..." My voice was scratchy and too vulnerable. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I know how that feels like."

"How can you? I thought I knew heartbreak, I thought I knew betrayal, I thought I knew pain. Ivanka, she..." Ethan broke off, and I could hear panting from where I was. "You think you've gone through hell and back and you know these things. But life surprises you and you realise that in the end, you know nothing."

I thought of Aspen, of what I became after losing him. "You're lucky, you know that?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.

"What?"

I wanted to laugh at the incredulity in his voice, but my throat was constricted and I couldn't make a sound. Images after images of Aspen appeared in my brain and I brutally squashed them back into the box at the back of my mind.

"What I mean is," I found myself saying, "at least you have an excuse to hate your ex. A legitimate excuse."

"So, I'm lucky because she cheated on me."

I scowled at him, Aspen momentarily forgotten. "You know damn well that wasn't what I meant!"

"No? Then what did you mean?"

"I-I..." Words refused to come out of my throat and I cursed myself internally. What did I mean?

"Nothing. Ignore me."

"I always do."

I felt my mouth curve at the familiar reaponse. Letting out a sigh, I felt the softness of the couch beneath me and sunk deeper into it. The faces of Aspen and Ethan were blurring in my head, but I was too tired to separate them. I'll deal with this all in the morning.

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i am alive!! thank you for all your support on the story even though i didn't update last week. this wasn't my best - writing wise - but i really like the direction their relationship is going! thank you once again for reading <3

until next time,
fleur xoxo