Southpaw [Ethan Dolan au]

T W O

Ethan should have known how fucked he was the very moment Grayson let it slip that Y/N was now graduated and moved back home for the time being. 

At first, he figured he could deal with it; maybe just watch her from afar as he'd done in elementary and middle school. Or maybe he would just be able to avoid her altogether. Their usual hangouts were always very different from one another, so he was pretty sure if she didn't come into the gym during the same hours as him, he would never have to see her. With all their awkward glances and longing looks during that first visit where she'd surprised Paulie, he was pretty convinced she would be trying her best to avoid him as well.

Turns out, avoiding her wasn't going to end up working out all too well when she'd somehow been roped into becoming something of an assistant to her father.

Everyone knew Paulie had a problem with managing his books, but apparently it was much more of an issue than expected, and when Y/N pulled out six boxes of receipts from the storage closet dating all the way back to the eighties, her tiny little chore she promised to help her father with became a full-blown project that kept her at the gym for all hours of the day. Meaning, Ethan was universally fucked in every sense of the word because, not only did he have to see her every day, but now he had to pretend like she didn't exist in order to train without getting tripped up by her presence.

Everywhere he turned, Y/N would be there. When she'd pass by while he stood in front of the speed-bag, Ethan would lose his rhythm causing the bag to go haywire as the faint smell of roses tickled his nose. He'd have to pause, stopping the bag and latching onto it while he let his forehead flop against it as he took deep breaths until the memory of how strong the smell was when his nose would brush along her collarbones would fade to the back of his mind. Now whenever he was on the speed bag, even when she was nowhere near, the faint smell of roses still lingered as if the actual thorns were pricking at his nostrils.

Her distractions didn't stop there either.

One morning when Y/N walked in, Ethan was doing sprints on the treadmill, connected to the heartrate monitor as Paulie stood behind him making notes of any issues or blips in the way it beat - this had been a regularity for all boxers after Mitch Palmer didn't inform Paulie of his heart condition and the kid collapsed during a fight right as the second-round bell gonged. When Ethan saw Y/N shuffle in from outside the cold, cheeks rosy and hidden behind her mittens while she tried to get warm, the monitor he was connected to started going haywire. So much so, that Paulie was certain that Ethan was having a heart attack and he screamed for Y/N to call the ambulance. Turning the machine off, Paulie directed Ethan towards the benches as he tried to argue with his trainer that he was not, in fact, having a heart attack.

"Paulie... M'not... Not having a... fuck," he heaved while he tried to regulate his breathing.

As if he hadn't just watched Ethan do a full-on sprint for two miles, Paulie convinced himself that Ethan couldn't breathe and that someone should come over and give him mouth-to-mouth. With only one girl at the gym, Ethan's eyes went wide while he frantically shook his head and clawed at his old trainer's windbreaker.

"Paulie, I'm not..." he sucked in a deep breath, "I'm not having a heart attack!"

But no matter how much he denied it, the ambulance still showed up, the paramedics still came running in like heroes, Ethan was still embarrassed to no end as people crowded around him while he just sat there unamused and grouchy after finally getting his breathing back to normal, and still, no one would believe him until after they confirmed that he wasn't, in fact, having a heart attack.

"Then what the fuck happened while you were on the treadmill?"

"I don't know," Ethan mumbled breathlessly, eyes trained on Y/N who was busy staring down at the papers in front of her with this cute little frown on her face, "Must have just gotten the wind knocked out of me."