rivals in the sheets

chapter nineteen

Ethan woke up on Saturday with a bad headache when he noticed that the doorbell kept ringing repetitively.

He was home alone as Hailey went to a gymnastics competition and his parents left with her, meaning he would be all alone for at least an entire day.

He thought about inviting people over, but it seemed as if Joshua was too busy hanging out with someone—it didn't take a genius to figure out that someone was Fraser—and there was pretty much nobody else.

He couldn't invite Ava over for obvious reasons, he didn't feel like inviting any of his other friends because they would mostly just try to talk to him about Ava, and he very much wasn't in the mood for that.

There wasn't anyone else that he could really invite over and that bothered him more than it should have.

Before the Ava situation, he had so many friends that he could always hang out with, but now he seemed to only have Joshua, and not even him when he was too busy hanging out with Fraser.

He obviously wasn't mad at them because Joshua didn't have a responsibility to take care of him or anything, but sometimes he still felt like he got the short end of the stick while Ava got everything she wanted.

It felt like in a matter of just a few months, he became a loser instead of still being the most popular guy at the school. It was honestly an overwhelming change of pace for him.

He had to figure out a way to change that. He needed to regain his status without having to do something major or without losing it forever.

Because right now someone like Fraser or Hamilton could easily take it away from him, but if he played his cards right he could keep his position as a captain and not have to worry about anything else for a while.

He didn't feel clean at all and so he quickly took a shower, then got dressed.

Ethan loved showers because they gave him time to think about things that he wouldn't otherwise.

Suddenly, he heard the doorbell ring and he went downstairs to see who it was.

When he opened the door, he was shocked to find the person he expected to see the least standing right there, quite clearly looking for him.

"Hamilton?" he asked, now feeling a little more self-conscious than he was supposed to. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Lucas had a bright smile on his face, one that was almost contagious. "I came here to fix things between us."

Ethan raised his eyebrows in disbelief, then opened the door a little wider and let Lucas in.

There had to be some sort of hidden agenda there, because it seemed so entirely out of character for Lucas to do that Ethan couldn't trust it.

"I feel like we're a few years late to do that, don't you?"

Lucas rolled his eyes and motioned at the door. "Can I come inside? I don't want us to be acting like little kids anymore."

Ethan felt an almost irresistible urge to make fun of him but he decided not to and let him in. "You could have just sent me a message or something. Phones exist, you know?"

Hamilton followed him all the way to the kitchen where he sat down at one of the chairs. "Sure I could, but where's the fun in that. And I think that with all the history we have, something like this is better."

Ethan shrugged and opened a cupboard. "Do you want some water? Or something else to drink?"

"Look at you being civilized," said Lucas with a chuckle, then added, "But yeah, some water would be nice, yeah."