The Bittersweet

chapter ten - cinnababies

"Hmm, I think I might've outshone you in this one," 

I look up at him from my bed and throw the nearest cushion at him, "Ethan, you've said that about every single one you've seen."

"Hey! That's not true, I said you looked the best in this one,"

He turns his laptop screen towards me showing the photo Evan took of me mid sneeze with Ethan leaning away. I give him the finger and he laughs and scoffs, "It's not my fault I look good in everything."

I gag at that and he throws the cushion back at me hard. I couldn't say that Ethan isn't tolerable anymore, because he is. Shoot after shoot, he managed to find the best angles and positions for us that we were comfortable in, or dare I say, he looked best in. He consistently tried to make me laugh with the dumbest pick up lines in the world wherever he could. 

I hated to admit it but when mom invited him to stay for dinner, I was actually happy to hang. 

"You might want to slow down on those Oreos, aren't we having dinner soon?" 

I dramatically slow the process of another stack of two Oreos being shoved into my mouth as he watches before quickly dropping them in. "Tell me when I care,"

He sighs loudly and adjusts his propped feet on my study table to continue scrolling through photos from the shoots. 

"How did you even manage to land this role anyway?"

Ethan raises his brows at me before his eyes follow off the screen to look at me, 

"What do you mean?" his tone changes, "You saying I don't do this right?" he asks mock offended.

I roll my eyes at his antics, "As in mom had a pretty strict policy on not hiring students from school and then she gets you and I was just.. ya know?"

Ethan kisses his teeth and closes his laptop, "She got tired of seeing your face everywhere and scaring people so she needed freshness,"

Completely unfazed by his comments I show no mood shift, I was even tired of modelling so much.
"Dang I really thought I got you there," he stands up from the chair and moves to sit at the foot of my bed keeping a good distance between me and my Oreos. "Nah, my agent wanted to reach help make me a face for a brand, like you are, and your mother happened to be stumbled across and voila, your company just got 10x hotter,"

"Yeah until Damien comes back," I mutter stuffing another Oreo into my mouth. I try not to notice Ethan's cheeky grin slowly slip off into an awkward frown. He inches closer to me clearing his throat, 

"Yeah.. How are you holding up with all that?" Ethan asks lowly tilting his head down to look at my face. I shrug first, not knowing whether I wanted to say anything, especially knowing he had his opinions of it established before even knowing me.

"I don't know," I chuckle dryly, "Remember he's the one, and I quote, 'everyone loved,' and I was just there," 

He cringes remembering his words from when he first met me, "I'm sorry about that by the way, I had no right, Diana is just always in my ear about that as well, I was in a shitty mood too,"

I look at him pointedly, "Being in a shitty mood isn't an excuse to be a dickhead to someone you don't even know, but it's okay.. Just don't do it again. Wait. Diana?" Diana's still shit talking me?

He nods once quickly, "Yeah it's just fake shit like she always does, something to say about everyone."

I pulled a face in disgust, knowing Diana will never grow up. He sat silently, giving me space to continue if I wanted, "I don't know, I just want to be over him and done with all that. Just the way he treated me was not okay."