Just Friends - Chapter 23: Chapter 23

Spencer's POV
"Eight." Jake dead-panned, standing next to Abby by Ethan's bedroom door while the latter and I sat on the tip of his bed. "I give you both eight hours before this falls apart."
"Ha!" Ethan folded his arms. "I ha! at your inept and hasty conclusion. Me and Spencer have been dating for six months and a week now and have known each other for longer. We know each other well enough to be Siamese Twins, or telepathic alien brothers from Mars. I think we can handle living together." Ethan said and the last two words echoed, not in the room (at least I didn't think it did) but somewhere in between my auditory canal and my brain.
When Ethan and I first started to try and find solutions to the problem of me moving as it concerned us, living together was one I had immediately scratched off of the list because, well, my folks would never hear of it.
But, in a move that left me stupefied and had Ethan drooling at the mouth momentarily, Dad said "yes".
And not just a simple 'yes' after a hardened gaze following a long and intense battle of words with rhetoric argument, valid points/graphs/PowerPoint presentations and an award winning speech that left him no choice but to grant me my wish of staying with the Littmans. Oh no. It was the softest I had ever heard his voice and that smile; I didn't think the edges of his lips could curve that far upward. I haven't seen that big a smile since I roundly defeated that blind girl, Abigail Brimley in the spelling bee in 3rd grade.
And that's how I knew something was up. No parent in their right mind would allow their child to move in with their horny, teenage boyfriend (even without the chance of pregnancy) while they switched states. Especially ones who didn't want you to participate in the walk for breast cancer because we would seem to liberal to their conservative bosses.
But here I was in Ethan's bedroom that had been painted a baby blue color and oddly smelled like hotdogs with three duffle bags full of clothing, two backpacks with DVDs, video games and albums and a whole lot of resentment.
This had to be a lesson I was supposed to learn. Something along the lines of Ethan and I were going to be separated and living together definitely wasn't the answer. Some sitcom narrative that I was supposed to understand, but I'd show them. I'd live with Ethan and we'd be the best damn co-habitation couple that this side of Idaho had ever seen; one so damn great that they'd have no choice but to make a sitcom about us.
So great they'd forget the names Rachel and Ross or Sam and Dianne or SpongeBob and Patrick.
"You guys haven't thought this through." Russo noted, sitting on one of my many suitcases with his back to the TV screen and his eyes facing us. "The reason you two work so well is because you don't live together."
Ethan scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about, Russo."
The Asian-American rolled his eyes. "Think about it, E. You and Spencer's relationship works because you're so different. You balance one another out just right enough that you don't claw each other's eyes out. " Ethan opened his mouth but Russo quickly cut him off, "That wasn't a reference to you being gay." His mouth closed back.
"As I was saying, you two spend just the right amount of time together that your relationship stays balanced. Think of it like an experiment: if you add just the right amount of the substances, wonderful things happen. Add too much and boom, Cancer."
"You're exaggerating." I scoffed.
"Am I?" Came Russo's reply. "You'd be around each other all the time. Your Honeymoon phase ended like a week ago and you're going to start to suffocate one another."
"And," Jake said with emphasis, "We all know that Spencer and Ethan fights are always near the edge of turning into full scale wars; hell," Jake snorted, "even when you guys aren't arguing you sound like you're going to rip each other's faces off. What if you two argue and no one is there to stop it? Spencer has nowhere to go because he lives here and the arguing, the huffs and the grunts continue until"
"My God..." Russo mumbled, looking wide eyed and staring off into space. "It'll be Armageddon."
"Okay, that's enough." Suzy grumbled. She had been amazingly quiet since she arrived with Abby a while ago but I guess even she couldn't believe the ridiculousness these two were coming up with. "Look, if Ethan and Spencer think that moving in together is the right move, I say let them do it."
"Thank you, Suzy." Ethan chimed but her answer was met with hostility by the other members of our clique.
Most notably Jake, who rolled his eyes and scoffed pretty loudly. "I'm not going to stand by and let them make a mistake."
The tall brunette furrowed her brows, almost looking surprised that someone challenged her opinion and locked eyes with Jake from her spot near the head of the bed. "It's their decision to make, Jake." She said icily.
"Friends don't let friends make bad decisions, Suzy." He shot back just as stiffly and Ethan elbowed me gently in the ribs.
"Five bucks says they get together in the end." He whispered and I elbowed him back, just twice as hard and made him yelp.
"Look, how about we take a vote." Abby suggested and everyone seemed to nod in agreement. Well, not me. I was too busy being dumbfounded that it was even a viable recommendation. "Okay, all in favor of Spence moving in with Ethan, raise your hand."
"Wait a minute." I blurted, gaping at the fact that these kids were actually voting on this. As if our relationship is some form of democracy and this is a congressional hearing. "When did this become a public forum? I called you all here so that you would – Jesus, Ethan would you please put down your hand – so that you would all be the first to know that I'm not going anywhere." I said, quite annoyed. "But I guess it's a little too much to ask that all of you be happy for us."
Jake snorted. "Don't try the guilt-speech on us, Spencer. I just don't want you guys to make the same mistake my parents did. They thought hanging onto something that was already dead was a good decision but it just winded up with my mom cheating on my dad and them bitterly divorcing." He ran his hand through his hair slowly and ruggedly with another hefty heave. "Just...think about it. Stay for one night, Spence. If things go smoothly, then you have my blessing."
Still reluctant to the fact that he thought I needed his blessing, I nodded. There was an audible sigh from Russo, a huff from Ethan and an intense stare down between the two alphas of the pack.
One determined to assert that he's the new leader and the other making it known that she's no follower. It's almost history repeating itself, which meant that Ethan's theory of Suzy and Jake shacking up isn't going to be so far from the truth.
"I'll call you, Spence." Suzy muttered, spitting out sparks of flames of fire when she slowly and intricately pronounced my name. The brunette grabbed her leather jacket and started for the door, stopping only to briefly stare down Jake.
Who of which was hardly moved; or at least his outer shell said so. As did his tone, because the way he said "I'll text you later, Ethan." Held just as much poisonous spite. Spite that is basically just cleverly disguised sexual tension that would sooner rather than later blow up into a flurry of hard kisses, degrading name calling and a (not so) secret love affair.
Or maybe we had all just been reading too much fan fiction.
Either way, Suzy opened the door and left with Jake not so far behind and the other two following. Leaving me, Ethan and an ultimatum in the room.
"Screw them." Ethan snorted. "Let's do something fun, roomie." He sang, jumping up to his feet and moving to the front of me. "What should we do first?"
"Ethan."
"Should we play video games?" he gave it a thought before he shook his head, "Nah."
"Ethan."
"Maybe we should watch Silver Linings Playbook." He looked at me, "Do you think that it's a tearjerker?" he waited for a while to see if he would receive a verbal response but swallowed when he only got a gaping stare that questioned his sanity. "Right," he exhaled, "It probably is."
"Eth-"
His crooked smiled reappeared "Maybe we could order Pizza then."
"Ethan! Before we do anything, let's try to get this room in order."
He groaned like the child he was and fell backwards onto the mattress. "What's wrong with my room?"
"You mean besides the molding pizza that's in your closet, the sock pile that's steadily growing taller than me and that smell." I covered my nose. "It smells like something is slowly rotting to death somewhere in here."
He shot his head up at me. "You don't think I smell it too? I've been trying to find out what that smell has been for the pass week." There was a pause as he sat back up. "On a totally unrelated note, I haven't seen Mr. Kit-Cat in about two months."
"I'm serious, Ethan."
"Oh come on, babe." He moaned and grabbed me by the hand, "Let's go do something fun and then we'll decide what to do with the room and where your stuff will go."
"No." I asserted. "Work then play."
He grumbled something under his breath along the lines of 'Male PMS' which lead me to slapping him in the back of his head before just sitting and pouting. "You're no fun."
"Well," I said, "get used to it." I finished before wrestling my hands out of his and left a sulking teen boy sitting in his room as I headed down the stairs. And, not three seconds after I had descended, the phone rang and a female voice called my name from the living room.
A little perplexed since Ethan's parents were out, I timidly poked my head into the doorway of the room but sighed and entered once I saw that it was just Shannon sitting beside Josh who had an arm lazily around her neck and a cordless phone in his other hand. "You've got a call." She said as she looked over to Josh and rolled her eyes. "This idiot over here took the phone away from me."
"I wanted to be one to hand you your first official call as a resident of casa de Littman." Her boyfriend answered as he threw me the phone, which I barely caught, being caught off guard by it.
I sent a death glare Josh's way and he hid behind an amused Shannon as I exited the room with the phone to my ear. "Spencer speaking."
"Hey, Spence."
I stopped in the middle of the hallway. "Dad." I rested against the wall, "Is there something you need? Still going to try and convince me to come back home and move with you and your wife to New York?"
There was a lengthy pause with just the static from either line filling it. "No." he said, "Um, you left a few boxes and other things and your mother and I were wondering when you were going to come and get them."
I blinked. "Oh. Tomorrow, I guess."
"Oh."
I cocked my head. "I'm sorry, is tomorrow not good?"
There was another lengthy pause.
"Well, it kind of is. Your mother and I are going to NYC – or New York City – to look at the new home."
"I know what NYC means Dad." I retorted as my nerves started to build but that was probably his plan. My dad was great at a lot of things. He was excellent sales executive, a decent enough father (though I'd never tell him) and as I have been led to believe, a great husband. But if my dad was excellent at any one thing, it would have to be getting his way. And his weapon of choice? Psychological Warfare. "How about the day after."
"That'll be great." He chuckled smoothly. "Oh, and your mother wants to know what color should she paint her new study room."
I paused. "What study room?" the last time I checked this house only came with four rooms, 1 guest and 2 bathrooms (besides the other regular rooms). There was never a mention of an additional room.
"Well, since you're staying here, she's decided to convert your room into a study and whenever you decide to visit on what holidays you can, you'll stay in the beige guest bed."
My mouth opened and closed; a response was aching to be heard but, whenever I started to form the sentence, it would fall apart at the beginning. For the first time in a long time, I was flabbergasted and had not one single witty retort in my caliber.
"Is that a problem?" Dad asked, still with his soft – dare I say, amused – tone of voice. "Because if it is, we can leave your room alone."
"W-where are you getting the money to even do this room? You told me that you weren't going to spend any more than you had to."
"Well, since you're not attending the Prep school here, we had some money to do something with the house and I thought your mom should use it to create a room of her own." I scoffed to myself. "You know, so she can work on her novel."
My eyes opened wider than the moon and my jaw came unhinged. "You guys are using the money for my school fee so that mom can write a novel that she's been working on from before I was born?" There was no way to explain my facial expression at the moment. "There's going to be more plot holes and inconsistencies than in an amateur teen novel. She might as well post it online."
"Well, you're not coming. Oh, and she said it's going to be Chick-Lit and that she's naming it Chick-Lit ironically."
I choked on a breath. "She can't name her book after the genre of the book!" I spat. "That's not irony, it's stupidity. That's like me writing a romance novel about two people falling in love and calling it Just Friends. It's stupid and you already know what the plot's about." I started fanning myself.
"Oh, and to attract the younger kids, she wants to add in a few pop culture references and she wanted me to ask you if The Big Bang Theory is supposed to be unfunny."
I nearly fainted. "I hope she finds it funny when I shove my foot up her – no," I just realized what he was doing. "I'm not falling for this. I know all is fair in love and war but attacking one of my favorite shows?" I scoffed, "You might as well shoot me in the face and rape my boyfriend."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't play coy, dad." I spat. "You know exactly what you're doing."
"Spencer Littman, are you accusing me of trying to persuade you into coming to New York with us?"
"No, accusing suggests that there's a chance that I'm wrong. I'm downright telling you that you're trying to get me to move in with you and did you just call me Spencer Littman?!"
"Oh, apologies. I just assumed that since you moved in with them that you'd adopt there Christian name. Or, perhaps they call it surname?" he pondered. "They always came off atheist-ey to your mother and I."
"This isn't going to work."
"Well, I've got to go; Kai is coming over to pick out blinds for the living room."
I was going to be sick. "Goodbye, father." I hung up and shook my head of all the things that dad had said.
I wasn't going to cave or succumb to his will. If he wanted a war, he was going to get one. Because like the old saying went, 'The apple didn't fall far from the tree' and I was just as skilled as my dad was in the art of manipulation and mind games. He wasn't he only war veteran in this family and, I was prepared to do everything in my power to stay with the Littmans.
"Spencer!"
I huffed as Ethan's loud screeching voice echoed from all the way upstairs. With a heaving and tired sigh, I rested the phone down on one of the tables that lined the hallway and headed back upstairs to his room.
And much to my annoyance, the room was still in a state of complete chaos. My bags were still scattered across the carpeted floor of a room that was soon to become our room instead of just his own.
A half-eaten burger still sat on top of the night stand and that smell was still in the air; despite Ethan's attempt to cover it up with a few sprays of what smelled like Old Spice. The only thing that wasn't exactly in the same spot as I left it was the culprit himself.
"Ethan," I grumbled, "all I asked you to do was clean this damn room up." I huffed. "Is that so damn hard to do?"
He was nowhere in sight but I was sure he was somewhere in the room. The smell of his unwashed armpits was still strongly lingering in the air. I blew out a hot breath and stepped fully into the room and slammed the door behind me.
"I'm so not in the mood for playing hide n seek, Ethan." My eyes flew to every corner of the tight room in the attempt to find where exactly he was hiding, but as they moved from one cornered end to the other, my mind went into hyper speed. Was I actually ready to move in with a boy who was still so immature? I loved Ethan and that's why I usually put up with his childish disposition and attitude but, living with him was different from spending a night or a week. What if we did end up fighting all the time? Where would I go if we did? Who would I call? What would happen if we broke up?
Those thoughts led to one very scary revelation:
Either this was going to be a disastrous mistake that would end up hurting everyone involved.Or...
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Ethan's bedroom." A deep voice echoed, knocking me out my thoughts before I could finish it. "Stuffed Animals, ants and potentially dead pet cats,"
"Ethan," I huffed, "where the hell are you?"
The closet door broke opened and out walked Ethan – clad in just an overly sized white T, long socks that stretched up to the bottom of his kneecaps and by the looks of it, no underwear. "Let's give a healthy round of applause for the new resident of casa de Littman: Spencer."
"Ethan."
"Liam."
"Ethan."
"Haynes!"
"Ethan!"
He jumped slightly and frowned a bit, "What's the problem?"
I growled. "I told you to clean this room up! Can't you just do this one thing for me? Is this how it's going to be?" he looked caught off guard by my yelling at first, but somewhere in between me insulting his intelligence and pointing out that the tip of his manhood was peeking from under his shirt, a smirk had appeared. "I'm sorry," I grunted, "is there something freakin' funny?"
"You are." He chuckled and span around to head back into the closet, bending over and giving me a full view of his backside. And, just as I was about to blast him again, he stood back up with a guitar – his guitar in one hand and something wrapped in patterned black and white wrapping with the other hand.
That sort of melted my temper down a little, even if it might have just been temporary. "What are you doing?"
He didn't speak. He just smiled and crept closer and closer until he was close enough to extend the squared box so that it would poke me in my gut. Hesitant that it was either a bomb or his missing pet cat, I slowly took the box out of his hands and gently unwrapped it.
What I found inside was something that I hadn't expected. "Is thisTaylor Swift's newest CD?"
"Yup." He snickered. "I bought it when it came out last week for you."
"I don't even like Swift."
"Oh please, Spencer." He said with an eye roll. "I know you wanted to buy it when it came out but was too chicken to." He mocked and I scoffed at the accusation. I wasn't afraid...per say. "I also bought you a pet gerbil but apparently you're not supposed to put them in boxes so I had to return it."
I raised a brow. "You returned a gerbil that suffocated to death?"
"Well, uh, I don't think the suffocation is what killed it." I cocked my head and waited for a response. He started fidgeting. "I sort of tried to give it mouth to mouth once I noticed he wasn't moving and I think I pressed too hard on his chest and he...sort of exploded."
I blinked. "Okay." I blinked again. "What's the guitar for?"
"Oh!" he boomed, scaring me just slightly with the suddenness. He took the guitar into both of his hands and looked at me. "Well, one night when you were in the shower, I overheard you singing one of the songs from the album over and over and over and over-"
"I get it."
"And-over-again." He said quickly, "And, I guessed it was your favorite. So, I took to the internet to learn how to play it." He smiled timidly. "Can I, uh, can I play it for you?"
"Fine." I huffed and he squealed with excitement, cleared his throat and fixed the guitar in its right position; strapping it to him and eyeing the chords to seemingly make mental notes of the strings, or perhaps to recall what chords to strum first and when.
He started tapping his feet. And then he started tapping the glossy, wooden part of the guitar. At first it sounded chaotic and messy but, as he went on, the tapping and knocking became more fluent – more rhythmic.
Soon, the knocking picked up in speed and in intensity. Ethan had started swaying slightly and laughing and damn was his laugh contagious. I couldn't help chuckle as his hips swayed from side to side. He licked his lips as he started to get ready to sing, and I mentally prepared myself for some screeching.
As he started to get use to the chords and the melody , it became quite clear what he was about to play and it unconsciously made me grin. His hand struck a chord. "I was reminiscing just the other day, while having coffee all alone and Lord, it took me away. Back to a first-glance feeling on New York time. Back when you fit in my poems like a perfect rhyme." he sang and it came out horrible but I didn't care. It was just too hilarious watching a teenage boy singing a Taylor Swift song with the largest grin I may have ever seen on his face.
He jumped on top of the bed and started thrusting to the beat, "Took off faster than a green light, go. Hey, skip the conversation when you already know. I left a note on the door with a joke we'd made, and that was the first day."
He jumped up of the bed and ran over to me, still playing, sweating.
Smiling.
He stood in front of me, not two inches away from my face, lips to lips and eyes connected. Huffing and puffing. "And darling, it was good," he had stopped playing and his voice was much softer, "never looking down. And right there where we stood was holy ground." Narrow eyed and biting back a chuckle, he started vigorously playing again. Backing up with a few hops and started spinning around. "Spinning like a boy with brand new sneaks, we had this big wide city all to ourselves."
He jumped back onto the bed and pointed at me, keeping the music going with his free hand and hips still moving to the music. I took that as an invite to sing. One that I 'respectfully' declined with my left middle finger. "Oh, come on babe! You sing it in the shower! Just pretend you're naked!" he chuckled. "You know you want to."
I really didn't. But, he looked so happy this and knowing him, he'd probably stay on that bed pointing down at me with his penis fully exposed until I did. I sucked in a breath. "We blocked the noise with the sound of 'I need you'."
"You can do better than that!" he teased and I rolled my eyes again.
"And for the first time I had something to lose"
"Louder!" he shouted.
"And I guess we fell a part in the usual way,"
"Almost got it!" he snickered and jumped down off of the bed and started closes the space between us.
"And the story's got dust on every page," I sang, louder – better. Eyes closed, inhibitions gone as I really started to get into the song. "But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now. And I see your face in every crowd."
I didn't get another lyric out. The feeling of a chest pressed up against mine, hair tickling my forehead and a breath that smelled like a sandwich had caught me off guard.
I reopened my eyes only to connect with Ethan's pair. His dark orbs scanned my face; tracing the entire outline from my forehead straight down to my chin until he tired of that and closed what little gap remained between us.
Stronger than ever and more heated than he's ever been, Ethan's lips looked to devour my own. The sound of the guitar dropping to the floor rang through my ears as his hands started in my hair, pushing me backwards and knocking over a curling iron on a desk that I made a mental note to question him about later. My back hit the wall not a second after and he moved his hands to my hips as mine raked down his back. Sadly, he needed air and pushed back, breathing heavily. After he had regained whatever senses he had, he took the shirt off, throwing it to the side and licked his lips as he looked me over.
Sweating and stark naked, he pointed at me and then to the mattress behind him. "Bed. Me. You. In." He breathed shakily and stepped backwards until he fell onto the bed.
It was then that it had occurred to me that maybe I was being a bit too negative about this entire thing. And, maybe my dad and our friends were partly responsible for that – and they were with good reason. But, I loved Ethan...he loved me. And who's to say that this couldn't work?
Sure, like I said, this could be giant mistake that I'd live to regret, or-
"Hey," Ethan boomed "Are you going to stand there and have a mental conversation with yourself like some book protagonist, or are you going to take a ride on the Littman Express while it's still at the station?"
Or it was it was going to be the best decision I'll ever make.