Ethan's POV (Bonus Book)

Chapter 63

Food poisoning. Of course, that was the brilliant excuse my brain had come up with when trying to come up with an excuse about why I couldn't see Mia on her birthday. It was easily the most unsexist excuse I could possibly have come up with, and I regretted it immensely.

She was probably imagining me either sitting on a toilet shitting up a storm, or projectile vomiting everywhere. It was fucking humiliating– that's what it was.

I should have told her I'd hurt my shoulder quad-biking with Lucas or some shit. At least that would sound hot.

I frowned and continued driving. I was interrupted by an obnoxious snort of laughter from the back seat. "So let me get this straight, you told Mia you were too busy shitting yourself, to come see her?" Lucas called out with a cackle from the back seat.

I stiffened in embarrassment as Chloe let out a snort of laughter from the seat beside me, which she poorly tried to hold back with a hand against her lips. May was also not much help, and started lightly shaking, and looked like she was pissing herself laughing from the backseat.

I glared at Lucas from the rear-view mirror. "I didn't say it in those exact words," I snapped.

We were on our way to Mia's to surprise her for her birthday so we'd all made up dumb excuses for why we couldn't see her today.

"And at least, I didn't tell her I'm taking my cat to the beauty parlour all day," I said as I shot Lucas a pointed look. "She probably thinks you're a prick now."

"Well, I am a prick," Lucas answered back with a simple smile.

I decided not to comment, glad the boy at least knew what he was.

As Lucas rattled on about more nonsense, I soon pulled up beside Mia's house and parked up by the curb in my usual place.

We all climbed out of the car and made our way over to the door. Before I could ring the bell, Chloe eagerly started handing out party poppers, wanting to add 'to the surprise effect' was how she put it.

Once I'd rung the bell, a handful of seconds passed by before soon enough the door slowly opened. Mia's face appeared in the hole in the doorway, looking all wide-eyed and confused. I smiled immediately. Then like that, a stream of confetti, came flying towards her cute face as Lucas let out a cheer in celebration.

She jumped back in shock, and I couldn't help but laugh at the expression on her face.

"What the fuck?" she finally said in shock as she stared between all four of us cackling at her.

"It's your birthday, Mia. Did you really think we ditched you?" May commented with a snort.

Mia's face immediately brightened red, and she looked away in embarrassment, clearly realizing she'd fallen for the most basic of all birthday tricks in the world. Let's face it, if anyone was going to fall for it, it was going to be Mia.

Her eyes caught with my amused ones, and she crossed her arms, and I had to fight my eyes straying to her chest that looked a little too fucking good in her top right now. Did I ever mention how fucking hot she was?

Her eyes narrowed in on me, causing a natural heat to ignite in my stomach.

"Food positioning?" she said sassily.

"Hey, it wasn't my idea," I laughed. "Lucas thought it would be funny if you thought everyone had ditched," I explained quickly, not hesitating for a second in throwing Lucas to the wolves.

Mia turned to glare at Lucas. "You guys are mean," she complained, but I could clearly see she was struggling to hold back a smile from appearing on her face.