Beauty and the Beat

Beauty and the Beat (30)

I expected something to be different about me once I had sex. I didn’t know exactly what, but I felt like I’d look at myself in the mirror and see a different person. I didn’t. I was the exact same person as I was before. And I liked that.

I continued to look at myself in the mirror beside Ethan’s bed, clad in only my underwear and his shirt, which luckily was long enough to cover them.

“Are you expecting something to grow or something?” Ethan suddenly questioned me, and I nearly jumped three feet in the air when I saw that he had been watching me study myself from his bed.

“No… I just…” I stammered, no idea what I was supposed to say since I’m sure Ethan already knew what I was doing. “I… I can’t just look at myself in the mirror?”

Ethan smirked. “You’re so cute, Sadie.”

“You didn’t expect anything to change after the first time you had sex?” I questioned, a little ticked off that he was making fun of me.

“No,” he said simply, plopping back down on his back.

I scrambled back onto the bed beside him. “You’re really no fun, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

I couldn’t help but just smile at him. I loved him so much, and what had just happened between us was… amazing. I just wished it had been under different circumstances.

“It sucks that this is the last time we can ever…” I started, but then trailed off because I didn’t want to say it. I tried feeling hopeful, because maybe after we did that, he’d want to still be with me, even if we weren't allowed.

“Sadie.” Ethan was frowning. That wasn’t a good sign. “You know we can’t.”

I knew that. Didn’t mean I wanted it.

I looked over at the clock on his bedside table. I was supposed to be home two hours ago. Oh, well.

My mother was probably blowing up my phone, but I had been expecting that, which is why I had turned it off and left it outside in Ethan’s living room.

I didn’t try to argue with Ethan. Instead, I pushed myself out of his bed and toward the door, deciding to go search for my shoes since I was going to have to leave soon. For good, as painful as that was to think about.

“You don’t have to go just yet,” Ethan called out from his room, and from the tone of his voice, I could tell this was hurting him just as much as it was hurting me. He didn’t want me to go either. “I’ll make you dinner.”

That was definitely not an offer that I was going to pass up. Looks like my mom was just going to have to wait a little bit longer.

As I looked around for my shoes that I had lazily thrown off, the front door suddenly opened to reveal someone I never expected to see, nearly causing me to fall right over.

“Well,” Maxynn smirked, her arms crossed over her chest. “This was definitely not something I was expecting to see.”

I said nothing. I didn’t even know what I possibly could have said. There I was, standing in front of Ethan’s sister-in-law, wearing his shirt. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had just happened between us.

When I heard the shuffle of footsteps behind me, I freaked out even more when I realized that Ethan—shirtless Ethan—was making his way down the hall toward us.

He saw Maxynn and stopped, looking at me for only a few moments before looking back at her. His face was blank.

“Oh,” was all Ethan said, walking by me and into the kitchen. “Hey, ogre.”