rivals in the sheets

chapter three

Back at home, the first thing Ethan did was take another shower. He had already taken one in the locker room, but he didn't have the time to properly relax. 

When he came out, already fully dressed, he was surprised by Ian waiting. "You're home," he said, not sure whether to be positively or negatively surprised. "I thought you weren't coming for another week or two."

Ian laughed and crossed his hands on his chest. "Well, I'm glad you're happy to see me. But yeah, I'm home for the weekend and then leaving again on Monday morning. College is stressful so I decided to come home for the weekend to relax."

Ethan didn't want to point out that Ian never came home when he wanted to relax. He went everywhere but home, which was exactly the issue. "Well, it's nice to have you here."

"Hailey was looking for you before. You should have come home sooner and told her about your game." Ethan knew that he wasn't just imagining Ian's voice to be condescending; it was actually like that in reality. "How was that, by the way?"

"It was amazing," he answered without hesitation. "We lost."

Ian put his hand on Ethan's sholder and gave it a little tap. "Better luck next time, right?"

Ethan put all his energy to restrain himself from snapping back at Ian. "I'm actually getting really tired and I think it would be a lot better if I just went to bed. You know, side effects of so much exercise and stuff."

Ian nodded and smiled a little but it seemed as if he knew what Ethan was saying.

They hadn't been on good terms for a long time and they both knew that one interaction on a random Friday evening would not make that better at all.

"Well, good night. It was nice talking to you." With that, Ethan walks away and into his room.

It always annoyed him just how cocky Ian could be. Just because he was the eldest sibling, he thought that everything belonged to him and that he could just show up at any moment and pretend as if the things he had done never existed.

Ethan didn't like his older brother, and he had a valid reason not to.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked for any messages that didn't sound like condescending apologies about the game. When he realized they were all like that beside some messages from Ava (that he didn't want to reply to at all), he gave up.

Ethan threw his phone onto his bed and sighed.

Not only did he lose his game, have to be embarassed in front of Hamilton, get embarassed by Ava at a party where anyone could know what they were doing, but he also had to deal with his brother who would most probably make the next few days a living hell.

He thought about calling Joshua and complaining to him, but it didn't feel right.

Ethan Emmerson knew he dragged his best friend into way too many things that didn't concern him. Joshua already got involved in the Ava situation against his will and so Ethan knew that he probably didn't want to deal with more things beside it.

He scrolled through Instagram for a little while before just closing the app and going to bed. He would deal with everything in the morning.

∘ ∘ ∘

Ethan woke up with a start. Something seemed wrong.

He wasn't sure if Ian did something to ruin the mood, or if it was something a lot more serious.

He quickly got up from bed, threw on a shirt and hurried downstairs. "What's happening?"

Hailey was in the middle of the living room, loud music playing. "Oh, hey Ethan."

Ethan opened his eyes wide, his vision still blurry and his mind still tired. "Can I ask what's going on?"

Hailey laughed. "I'm showing Ian my routine for next week's tournament. I hope we didn't wake you up."

"It's already late, I think it's good that he's awake," laughed Ian, sitting extremely comfortably on the couch.

He looked as if he thought that he owned the place. Ethan hated that more than anything. "Don't you have anywhere to be?"

Ethan knew that it sounded far more aggressive than one should be towards their sibling, but he didn't care. He just wanted Ian to get out of the house and go back to college and preferably only write home for Christmas.

"Glad to know you're happy to see me, Ethan. It feels great to be back."

Ethan wanted to snap back, but he saw that Hailey didn't seem eager for them to start fighting and so he stopped. "Can't I be mad that you woke me up? Or is that too much?"

"I'm really sorry about that. I didn't know you were still asleep since it's pretty late."

"Don't worry about it. You did nothing wrong." He took a deep breath. "Just maybe make the music a bit quieter if you do this again. I don't want to be woken up again and then be angry."

Hailey nodded and Ethan walked out of the room and into the kitchen.

He took a box of cereals out of the cupboard and a bowl. He went to get milk, too, then remembered that he didn't have his phone with him and so he ran upstairs and got it.

There were a bunch of messages and it didn't make sense since he thought that he had already read all of them last night before going to sleep. And people usually didn't talk to him about the game in the middle of the night.

Ethan opened his phone and immediately read some of the messages. Everything was extremely confusing so he wasn't sure what to think but he soon discovered what was actually happening.

He didn't like it at all and he hated it.

He opened his conversation with Fraser and started typing a message. He thought about making it sound nice, but then realized that there was no point in it.

(11:32) Fraser why the fuck is everyone saying that Ava and Hamilton had sex at your party yesterday??