Southpaw [Ethan Dolan au]

F O U R

If an eleven-year-old Ethan Dolan was told that the pretty girl who cried behind the goal post during recess, would one day be the girl he would end up waking up to every morning, he probably would have passed out right then and there. Or he would have asked if they were sure they weren't meant to tell Grayson this. Even at eleven, he felt he was unworthy of her, and there was no way that a girl like that would ever even consider giving him the time of day.

And yet, here he was, living out his lifelong fantasy.

The first time she had stayed over was a month into their whirlwind romance, at the end of February after Ethan finally worked up the nerve to ask if she'd be okay with being his girlfriend; she happily obliged even if she was already under the assumption that she was his girlfriend, but she knew Ethan was still hesitant in his fear that this wasn't actually real, so she never pressed on the subject. All she did was crawl into his lap and smother him in kisses which he pretended to whine in protest about, but secretly loved to receive.

That night, she came over with the first three Rocky movies as a joke which made Ethan fall even more in love with this silly girl who lived to tease him. While Ethan remained far too nervous to ever ask her to stay over – their level of intimacy had only gotten as far as a few heated make-out sessions which always ended with him locked in the bathroom to rub one out – Y/N was very quick to come up with the excuse that it was far too late for her to go home, and she should probably stay. This was the first time Ethan would ever have a girl in his bed, and his mind was spinning. Of course, there had been other girls here and there through the four years of loneliness, but he had always insisted they head back to theirs instead of his, so he could dip out right after a meaningless fuck to never see them again.

But now he had this gorgeous girl standing in his kitchen, telling him she wanted to stay, and there was no way in hell that he'd deny her. He was an awkward, fumbling, mess when he handed over a sweatshirt for her, mumbling about how he'd sleep on the couch tonight while she takes the bed, only to be stopped when she caught his hand and pulled him down the hall to join her. They hadn't done anything – Ethan was adamant on taking this slow, getting it right as he promised when he first kissed her again – but he held her close the entire night, head buried in the crook of her neck while he wrapped his arms around her so tightly from the fear that she'd be gone by the time he woke up the next morning.

It was the same disbelief every morning when the alarm at his bedside would prompt his eyes to peel open slowly. He couldn't believe that every morning, he now had the luck of waking up to the face of an angel in his bed, her cheek usually pressed over his bare chest atop his heavy beating heart or curled up every night in one of his big sweaters with her nose tucked under the covers to hide from the chilly air that blew in through the crack in his old window.

He finally got to experience what it was like to wake up with her, to kiss her 'good morning' without needing to sneak out before her family awoke. Before Y/N, Ethan had barely used the tiny kitchen in his apartment, but now he was in there every morning, shoveling egg whites in his mouth hurriedly before kissing her goodbye and making sure she had everything for work before heading to the gym for training.

After the first week where she slept in his bed every night, he finally decided to clear out a drawer and a shelf in the medicine cabinet for her. He tried not to make a big deal about it when he pulled her open palm toward him while they were sat on the couch one evening, dropping the spare key to his place in her hold, and then closing her fingers around it with a gentle squeeze.

"Want you to feel like you can come and go as you please," he mumbled, "s'fine if you don't wanna. Just wanted to give you the option."

It was two months of bliss; February and March where Ethan saw all those things he hoped would happen, come true before his eyes.