hidden | ethma

fifty nine

grayson doesn't call ethan back.

well, not for a few days, at least.

i can tell he's still recovering from hearing from him, by the way he sometimes wearily checks his phone. i always feel a pang in my chest when he does so, knowing deep down he wants to talk to him, but he's too hurt by what he did.

kind of like me and elizabeth.

break ended too quickly, and it's back to work. most days ethan and i would go out for lunch, and sometimes perla and zeke came along. we're always careful to look out for aaron and alec back at crystal, though. we wouldn't want another run-in with them.

with each passing day, i find myself falling more and more in love with ethan. it's the small things that i've come to notice — the way he chews on his gum while driving, or clicks his pen erratically when he's procrastinating at work. i'm confused a good bit, wondering why on earth i'm feeling this way, but i've come to just accept it.

it turns out ethan and i are banned from the bar we went to — kyle claimed we were "disrupting the peace", which, we probably were, but that didn't stop ethan from requesting his twenty dollars back.

kyle didn't give it back, though.

not that we expected him to, after ethan told him his nose was too big for his face.

the weather is brutally cold, with snow falling every once in a while. i like the way ethan's hair looks with little white snowflakes falling into it.

i told him so, one day when we were walking back from the panera down the street of crystal after lunch.

"do you now?" he asks, smirking once i had told him.

"yes, yes i do." i smirk back.

"well, then it will have to snow more often."

ethan gives me a spare key to his apartment on tuesday, telling me not to touch his stash of snickers, or he'll find me and kill me. i tell him i wouldn't put it past him, and he laughs.

on wednesday, ethan "accidentally" spills a bit of coffee on my desk.

"what the hell?" i snap up at him.

"sorry," he says, sliding into his desk, with a smirk on his face that tells me he's clearly not sorry.

"clean it up," i order, moving my papers out of the way to assess the spill.

"want to make me?"

i raise an eyebrow. "gladly." i stand and walk over to his desk, picking up his rubber band ball and hiding it behind my back, stepping away.

"no, no," he says, shooting up from his seat.

"clean it up."

"give it back."

"not until you clean it up."

ethan stares at me, annoyance flickering in his expression, before sighing. "fine," he grumbles, stepping past me to the break room to get napkins.