when the sun came up

iii.

Emma swung around, and came face to face with one Ethan Dolan.

"Huh?" she said intelligently, staring at him.

Well. Fuck.

"Bro!" Grayson shouted across the room. Olivia waved lazily from the couches where she was comfortably reclined. "Good timing, E. We were just showing Emma around."

His eyes (green, brown, amused) hadn't left hers. She swallowed, then made an effort to look away. What was wrong with her?

"Ah," he said, his voice rich with something she couldn't decipher. "So this is the princess."

At that, Emma shot him a bewildered glare. "What?"

"Just ignore him," Grayson said, nudging his brother with an elbow. He dropped a set of keys into his hand. "Ethan, be nice. This could very well be your new housemate. Actually, scratch that, this will be your new housemate. I won't take no for an answer."

Gray gave Emma a warm smile, a co-conspirator's smile, which she returned, before wandering back over to talk to Olivia. Ethan, however, just made an indistinct humming noise as he slung his bag onto the kitchen counter, then shrugged out of his jacket.

Emma was not looking at where his top had ridden up over his jeans, she was not, she was not.

"So how do you like the place?" he addressed her suddenly, causing her eyes to shoot up to his face. "Gray tells me you can be a little fussy, so."

He grinned, eyes crinkling up at the corners, but Emma ignored the warmth there, bristling instead at the comment.

"I'm not fussy, just... careful," she said, slightly defensive. "And I think you know very well your apartment is amazing."

Ethan shrugged one shoulder elegantly, the picture of indifference. "It does the job. But you're the one who needs a place to stay, so you tell me."

In the past, whenever Emma had thought about what Ethan Dolan would be like (which in all honestly, wasn't often – after all, for the first two and half years of her and Gray's friendship, he'd been away getting his Master's in Chicago, a distant figure hovering on the periphery of their conversations), she'd imagined someone completely different. Someone warm and approachable. At least, that was what Grayson had made him sound like.

She certainly hadn't imagined this Ethan – cool and aloof, and so... so... smirky. Just the way he looked at her made her feel on edge, weirdly hot and cold at the same time. It was a ridiculous sensation to have upon meeting someone for the first time, Emma knew, but she felt it strongly all the same.

She took a deep breath and made a concentrated effort to sound equally casual. "It's a great place – exactly what I'm looking for, really. Grayson has run me through everything, the rent and electricity and internet, and I'm fine with all of it. If you need my references and so on, I've got them here with me. So I'd be happy to move in as soon as possible..."

Emma looked up and caught Ethan's eye again, faltering momentarily, before forging onward.

"...If you'll, you know, have me."

She could feel herself blushing, which annoyed her to no end. There was no reason whatsoever to be embarrassed, but her stupid pale skin clearly hadn't gotten the memo. Emma knew he had to have noticed, but she refused to drop his unwavering gaze to acknowledge this until he answered her.   

"Well?" she prompted.

He studied her for another long drawn out second, before his lips quirked slightly upwards in assent.

"Sounds good to me. And don't worry about those," Ethan waved a dismissive hand at her when she proffered her referring documents, "Gray's vouched for you so that's all I need to know."

"So... that's it?" Emma said blankly, staring at her references. "I'm in?"

He shot her an amused smirk. "You're in, princess," he assured, picking up his bag from the counter and heading towards his room. "You can move in whenever you like, just give me a day or two's heads up.

Frowning slightly at the repeated use of the nickname, Emma turned to see what Grayson and Olivia thought of this rapid turn of events, before realising they'd switched on the widescreen TV to an episode of The Bachelor. Consequently, they hadn't been paying Ethan and Emma the slightest bit of attention.

She startled when something warm touched her hand, and looked up to see that Ethan had returned. He was much closer than she'd realised, practically looming over her, really. His head was inclined down towards her, his soft brown hair inches away from her face. Emma could've gotten lost on his beautiful eyes.

If, you know, she was into that sort of thing. Which she wasn't.

"You'll probably need these," he said, dropping the apartment keys into her palm. The warmth of his hand seeped through to hers; it confused her, and she moved her own hand away quickly.

"Thanks," Emma muttered, closing her fingers over the keys. She made sure to only look up again once Ethan had retreated into his room, and it seemed safe to do so.

She'd found a new apartment, it was even more than she could've hoped for, and Gray was beyond thrilled. This was a good thing, right?

Shaking off her slight air of unease, and the still lingering sensation of Ethan'd hand on hers, Emma moved to join her friends.

let me know what u think pls