Dear Ethan: A Second Chance Romance

Chapter 32: I'll Put A Spell On You

[You Are In Love - Taylor Swift] 

Jodie

"Let's play a game."

We had gone through jigsaw puzzles, Scrabble, and poker the past few weeks but Ethan surprised me with a new game he picked up while out running errands. I finished texting Sam and looked up at him.

"Jenga?"

"Jenga questions," He said, unwrapping the plastic. "All the blocks have a question on it. You read it out loud and the other player either answers or gets to pass."

"Boring!"

Ethan laughed at my blunt response. "Would you rather do a dare instead?"

I shook my head trying to wrack my brain. We both didn't drink so shots were out of the question. "How about if you can't answer the question you have to share a secret instead."

Ethan looked like he was lost in contemplation for a second, playing with the blocks.

"Unless....you're afraid." His eyes narrowed. I laughed inwardly. Ethan was the most competitive person ever.

It hit me suddenly: I was going to miss these moments. Ethan would be starting training camp next week before the regular season started. Even if the world outside got a bit quieter the league was impatient to get back to regular life.

Regular life. Could we ever go back to that? The question loomed over every voice and every message I received from our customers. This was our new normal. And luckily I had someone by my side. It would have been a lot more dull if I had just been in my own apartment binge-watching shows.

We built the tower on the coffee table while a show played silently in the background.

I went first, pulling out a block near the bottom of the pile.

"What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you?" I read out loud.

"Damn it, and I swore I would never tell this story to someone too."

"Come on!" I goaded him until he relented.

Ethan's lips curved up into a sheepish smile as he played with the cap of his drink.

"The school I went to before Jolene was a lot bigger and I remember feeling so lost on the first day. It also didn't help that there weren't a lot of English-speaking students at the school and my Spanish was rusty at the time."

I snuggled into the couch throwing the blanket over me. This was going to be good, I could already tell.

"So it was a fish out of water scenario?"

"Exactly. And even though I had my schedule I couldn't figure out how to get from class to class without getting lost. I was late for every single class that day and my teachers hated me."

I laughed out loud. "Ethan, teachers love you."

"Not these ones. I was the new kid who was tardy and I remember getting to my last class of the day and wishing I could just get by and then go home. I walked in and the math teacher was really irritated that I walked in late. So instead of sitting down, he made me stand in front of the class the whole time. And he would write formulas on the board and ask me to answer him...in Spanish." He flipped the cap up into the air before catching it. 

"I blacked out on what happened the rest of the class but I'll never forget just standing up there and having everyone stare and laugh at me."

I went quiet for a moment. "Is that why you hate public speaking?" He turned his head to the side. "Maybe. I never thought of it like that but it definitely didn't help."