Ever After

Champagne's for Celebrating (I'll Have a Martini)

Grayson walked through the front door of his house and locked it behind him. He was just about to head upstairs to his room before someone scared him.

"Grayson! Is that you?" Came Ethan's voice, somewhere from the kitchen.

Grayson jumped, sighing. He had hoped he could get home and sneak upstairs as to avoid whatever questions Ethan had for him.

"Yeah!" The younger called back, starting to make his way to wherever his brother was in their house.

He found him, like he thought, in the kitchen. "Hey man, what's up?" Grayson asked.

Ethan glanced from the running microwave over to his brother. "I wanted to talk to you about something." He said, stopping the microwave at one second left so it wouldn't beep. He hated the beep.

Grayson immediately felt nervous. What could he want to talk about this bad? Was Grayson just over reacting? Did he know?

No. The only time he'd been around James and Grayson was today. Grayson was careful to not act any differently than he had before with his brother around, just to keep him out of the loop.

"Grayson! Hey!" Ethan clapped and waved his hands. "Did you hear what I was saying?" He gave an exasperated look, like repeating whatever he said was going to drain him of all his energy.

Grayson sighed again and shook his head, rubbing his eyes. "No, sorry. I was.." He trailed off, waving his hand.

"Right." Ethan mumbled and crossed his arms. "Anyway, I was saying; are we staying with mom and dad when we go out there or did you want to get an airbnb? A hotel?"

Grayson shrugged. "I don't know, doesn't matter to me. It would save us some money to stay with them, but I'm not trying to be under surveillance the whole time we're there. It's up to you, I don't care."

Ethan bit his lip and nodded, thinking for a moment. "You're right. I don't want them trying to tell us we can't go out or anything like that. But with all these fucking gifts we have to buy.." he trailed off laughing a little.

"Do you just want to get a small airbnb? A hotel is cheaper, but probably dirtier. Especially back home, you know how it is." Ethan shrugged.

Grayson smiled a little and shrugged again as well. "I'm good with that. We'll split it or however you wanna do it."

Ethan nodded slowly, clicking his tongue. "So, you and James really made up then? Didn't expect you guys to be hanging out like nothing happened after all that."

Grayson bit his lip, chuckling nervously. "Yeah.." He mumbled. "We're okay. Just trying to slip back into our routine so things can go back to normal. We figured the best way to get over it was to act like nothing happened." He answered, repeating his brother as he tried to come up with a lie on the spot.

It sounded a little convincing. Grayson was worried he'd see how nervous he was about the topic though. He didn't want to get caught lying about this. It would just make everything worse.

Ethan hummed. "Makes sense." He mumbled. "So, you guys are going to be hanging out regularly again then?"

Grayson nodded but didn't say anything. He didn't want to mess up and accidentally say something that would get Ethan thinking.

Ethan nodded. "Okay. Least I know where to find you when I can't now." He cracked a smile. "Go on upstairs, probably where you were heading before I called you in here."

"Yeah. I'll usually be there." The younger chuckled. "Alright, man. Night, I'll see you tomorrow."

Grayson went to head out and Ethan replied, telling his brother goodnight. Grayson didn't say anything else as he went upstairs and made his way to his room.