Shut Up and Kiss Me || Ethan Dolan

6: All's Fair in Love and War

The party at Gamma was exactly what Blake needed to get her mind off of everything. She didn't drink much, but she had fun and got to unwind. Her and her friends all got home safe at around two and passed out.

Unfortunately, a little after four, her phone rings and wakes her up.

It's Ethan. Blake almost doesn't answer, still not wanting to hear from him, but it's so late at night she worries something might've happened. That, or he's really drunk and is being stupid. Those are the only two reasons he might call, considering they aren't close friends yet.

She did see him at Gamma, but they didn't talk. He waved awkwardly to her early on, but that was all. Either he gave up or knew she wanted some space. Sometime later in the night she saw him dragging a busty Gamma girl upstairs, but he didn't look like he'd had more than a beer or two all night--which is surprising for him--so if he was calling, he probably wasn't that drunk.

"Hello?" She huffs into the phone.

"Hey, Blake." It's definitely not Ethan's voice. "It's Trent. Y'know, from Beta?"

"I'm not part of your rivalry with Kappa, asshole," Blake huffs. "I'm going back to bed. Call Grayson or something for whatever you're doing."

"You're part of it now. We want you to get over here. Ethan's here, come say hi!"

"This just sounds creepy. You can't kidnap people, and you can't force me to come over. Goodnight. I'm going back to bed, tell Ethan he can get himself out of this."

"Seriously. He's not leaving until you come over. We have some things to talk about."

Blake groans, "Fucking fine."

Only for the prospect of finding her necklace while there, and because she's curious as to how the hell Ethan ended up at the Beta house at four in the morning, Blake finds herself agreeing. She huffs again and pulls a hoodie and leggings on, grabs her phone, and rushes out the door. By the time she's reaching Beta, it's after 4:30.

The birds are chirping, the sun is just barely peaking above the horizon, and it's chilly. Blake, on two hours of sleep, has her eyebrows furrowed and her lips drawn in a deep frown. This is the last place she wants to be. It's funny that she was here less than twelve hours ago when it already feels like so much longer ago with everything that happened.

Blake is greeted at the door by a tired looking pledge and a few crickets hopping around. She snickers and shoves through toward the living room. Upon seeing Ethan, she sighs. He's sitting on the couch, leaning his head on his hand with a frown. He's wearing a black hoodie, pulled up over his flattened hair. A couple of pledges stand guard, as if he's going anywhere. He'd like to leave, but knew that they wouldn't let him without a fight just yet. It wasn't worth it. That, and he came here for a reason that he hasn't fulfilled.

Blake keeps her hands in her pockets, yawning as she approaches Trent. Loud crickets are heard from all sides of the room. "Sounds like you guys have a bug problem."

"Yeah, wonder who's fault that is."

"I don't know. Sometimes shit happens." Ethan holds back a laugh as she stares him down. Blake is way too tired to care. "Why am I here?"

"Well, we figured you would want to collect Ethan instead of having us get him arrested for trespassing," Trent says. Behind him, Ethan's eyes roll. They weren't going to do that, they didn't care enough. "We caught him sneaking in when he thought we were sleeping. Normally we would be, but half of us can't sleep because of all these fucking crickets in our house."

"Sounds like a you problem," Blake says slowly. She teeters on her feet, meeting Ethan's gazefor a brief second. He's staring at her already, soft eyes but lips pursed in annoyance. "I wasn't part of this, I don't know why he's here. Call the cops, whatever. I'm going home to sleep."