Page 41 of Mostly My Boss
Not Ethan. At least not when it came to me.
“Nah, I’m going to head back to my room,” I said as I shrugged into my coat.
He stood then, setting the laptop down and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I get it. This is you getting back at me.”
I didn’t try to play dumb, but he was wrong. I wasn’t doing this out of spite, I was doing it out of self-protection.
“I knew you were going to think that, but that’s not why I’m leaving. I just…I need space.”
“Space from us?”
“No,” I said quickly. Because the thought of that sent a bolt of fear into my gut. Ethan and I were a team. I’d never been part of something like this before and I didn’t want to lose it. “Not like that. I just don’t think we should sleep together. It’s not what friends do. If Daniel were here, you wouldn’t be like ‘Hey, Dude, I don’t feel like walking you home so stay the night.’”
“I wouldn’t have a problem with Daniel walking across campus by himself.”
“It’s fucking Harvard,” I groaned. “It’s lit. It’s safe. I’ll be fine.”
I started to move toward the door, but he stepped in front of it.
“What if I said I didn’t want you to go? What if I said I liked falling asleep with you?”
“I would say, I’m not your stuffed animal or your blankie or whatever comfort item you need to sleep with at night. I’m a person, Ethan.”
“I know that, Jules.”
I shook my head. “Sometimes I don’t think you do.”
“This is really about me not fucking you,” he said grimly.
No. Maybe. I wasn’t sure anymore. I just knew that I didn’t want to curl up next to him and fall asleep when I knew that it wasn’t real.
“This is about me wanting to go back to my room. Sleep in my bed. Alone.”
“Where it’s safe,” he said, as if it was an accusation.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’re starting to freak out about how close we’re getting and so you’re running. You forget how well we know each other, Jules. There is no running from that.”
I pointed at him. “You do not haveallthe answers, Ethan. You don’t. Now step aside and let me leave.”
He did, but only to grab his coat off the hook he’d hung next to his closet. He pulled it on and shoved his feet into unlaced sneakers.
I didn’t object because there was no point. He made sure he had his key and we left. Together, walking silently across campus. He stopped when we reached my dorm.
“What does this mean, Jules?” he asked, his hand patting rhythmically against his thigh. It was a habit he had when he got overly agitated.
“Nothing, Ethan. Don’t make it a thing and I won’t, either.”
He shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets to still them. “Fine then, if it’s not a thing, say you’ll go out with me next week for St. Patrick’s Day.”
I groaned. He’d been trying to get me to agree to it for the last week. “You know I can’t.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re not going to get in trouble going to a bar. The ID is foolproof.”
It had been his Christmas gift to me. A fake ID because he knew I couldn’t afford one and also knew I wouldn’t consider attempting to do something that might get me in trouble.
