Chapter 25: I win!
Chris was reluctant to let Ethan go that night. They'd had such a good date and he didn't want the day to end. Trying to prolong their date for as long as possible, Chris walked Ethan to his door. With only the porch light to help them see, Ethan and Chris lingered in front of Ethan's house. The interlocking of their fingers as they held hands was the only point of contact between the two of them, and it was nowhere near enough for Ethan. As they vaguely discussed their plans for the week, Ethan imagined closing the distance and holding Chris there until he couldn't breathe. The only thing holding him back was the knowledge that his parents could pop in at any second.
As if summoned by Ethan's inner thoughts, Barnett Sterling pushed open the front door. Ethan and Chris hadn't been standing that closely but still put even more distance between them when Ethan's father came bustling out.
"Oh! It's you two!" Mr. Sterling exclaimed, the wide grin on his face making his crows' feet more prominent. "I saw a strange car outside and thought I would just check it out but it's just you and your friend."
Mr. Sterling had to tilt his head up to look at Chris since he was the same height as his son. The bright older man gave many of his physical features to Ethan, like his thin lips, nose, and blond hair, which Mr. Sterling let fall to his shoulders.
Ethan looked happy, smiling and chuckling along with his father's story, but he a bit miffed. If it wasn't for his father's curious tendencies, he would already have his tongue shoved down Chris's throat.
Ethan's dad then went up to Chris, shaking his hand energetically.
"It's good to see you again, Chris." He told the younger man warmly. "I hope you and Ethan had a good time today. You went to dinner right?"
"We did, sir. The food was excellent." Chris replied politely. Ethan was discreetly rolling his eyes at how formal Chris sounded. Excellent huh? Ethan mentally repeated with a chuckle. "Even Ethan wouldn't stop raving about it."
"Hm, yes, my son can be a bit picky." Mr. Sterling added, quickly shooting a teasing smirk. Now Ethan made his eye roll obvious.
"Dad, just because I don't want to eat every single one of your food experiments doesn't mean I'm picky."
Chris laughed audibly hearing Ethan's defence. The image of Mr. Sterling bringing in dish after dish to Ethan only for Ethan to spit it all out was really funny. Barnett considered fighting back, but he feared he would just seem silly if he didn't say the right thing.
Instead, he focused back on Ethan's kind friend. Mr. Sterling had been trying to spend some more time with his son, but the kid wasn't always eager to hang out with his parents. But, maybe if one of Ethan's friends was attending, all parties would be happy.
"Hey, Chris, why don't you come over this weekend?" Mr. Sterling asked suddenly, surprising both Ethan and Chris. "We could play some board games. I haven't done that with Ethan in forever."
Ethan's cheeks tinged pink from embarrassment. His mind reeled with assumptions about how Chris wanted to run far away from him and his family because of his dad. He'd always known that his father was embarrassing, but this was taking things to a whole new level.
"Dad, I don't think Chris wants to spend his weekend on Scrabble and Monopoly." Ethan said darkly, glaring at his father. Chris frowned slightly, seeing the tension in Ethan's shoulders. He wanted to get his hands on Ethan, working out the stress personally. But, he couldn't do that in front of an unknowing parent. Therefore, the next best thing was to let Ethan know he could relax.
"It's fine, Ethan." Chris told him warmly before turning back to his father. "Actually, I happen to be great at Monopoly. What time should I come over?"
Mr. Sterling wore the most triumphant smile imaginable, poking at Ethan's ego slightly. For some reason, Ethan was emotionally interpreting this as a loss, although he knew he'd love having Chris over for board games.
"Try to be here around noon on Saturday so we can have lunch." Mr. Sterling said confidently, making Ethan suspect that he'd been planning this all along. 'Maybe I can serve you one of my experiments."
At the mention of those odd flavour combinations, Ethan's face scrunched up in disgust.
"God help us all."
—————
It was several days later when Chris brought up these plans with his parents. The three of them had never been especially close. Most days, they didn't know where he went or who he went with and Chris just assumed that if he didn't see them, they were working. Now, they are having one of their usual dinners where they caught up with what everyone else had been doing.
" . . . so I'll be meeting with him next week and hopefully get him to sign on as a new client." Harvey Davis finished proudly. His thick eyebrows usually helped to close off his deep-set eyes, but his dark brown eyes were further hidden when he smiled. Currently, they were barely visible. The man kept his appearance professional with his beard and head constantly shaved since he had high-profile meetings every other day.
"That's amazing honey." Chris's mother, Deb, said with a smile. "Won't he help connect you to more companies in China?"
"That's the plan." Mr Davis agreed, hiding his grin behind his wine glass as he took a sip."
Deborah Davis had a pleased smile on her face as she looked down at her plate. Everything on it, from the pan-fried chicken to the collard greens, were things her mom had taught her to make. Sometimes, the older woman wondered if her mother would be proud of what she'd done with her life. She'd created the perfect family with a stable husband and a strong son. She had a well paying and respectable job and kept herself groomed to fit it. She'd taken to keeping her hair shaved to more easily switch between her wigs and only wore the most professional and conservative clothes, just as her mother taught her.
"If you want to be respected by white folk, you must make them forget that you aren't one of them." Her mother used to tell her. Now, Deb could only hope that she was making her mother proud.
Seeing that his wife wasn't fully present, Harvey decided to continue the conversation himself.
"So, Chris, has anything interesting happened to you this week? You're still keeping your grades up, right?"
"Yes, my grades are fine." Chris told them firstly. They wouldn't relax until Chris assured them of this, fearful that he was avoiding it on purpose. "My week has been pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Chris purposely didn't mention his dinner with Ethan. His parents probably wouldn't think anything of it, but the thought of talking about their date like any other meal seemed wrong. So Chris didn't talk about it.
"Alright then." His mother muttered followed by a soft sigh. Chris knew the look she was now wearing on her face well. She was disappointed, assuming that his silence came from not wanting to let his parents into his life. The ensuing guilt came immediately. Chris racked his brain for something to say to lift her expression once more.
"Um, I'm going to a friend's house tomorrow." Chris blurted out. "The four of us will have lunch then play some board games."
Unsurprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was what he'd been obsessing over for the past few days. He had conversations with Ethan's parents on several different occasions because of how often he went to the Sterling home. This, however, was the first time he would be hanging out with them. Knowing that they were the parents of the boy he was crazy about made it a big deal.
"Four? Your friend is inviting other people?" His father asked, picking at his vegetables.
"No, his parents will be playing with us. His father was the one who invited me." Chris explained with a soft smile.
"The boy's father invited you to play board games?" His mother asked incredulously, a laugh threatening to bubble out of her throat. "How childish!"
Chris's smile dropped. A relaxed meal suddenly felt suffocating as his mother continued to laugh.
"I . . . I think it's nice." Chris added meekly. He wanted to defend Ethan's dad, but he had little confidence his words would help.
"Of course you would think it's nice. You're not even out of high school." His father said dismissively, chuckling at his son's words.
"Some of these white parents really surprise me." Deb said to her husband who was nodding along in agreeance. "You're supposed to make your children grow up, not stoop down to their level with stupid games."
Chris's jaw jutted out as he bit down, eating his food with far too much force. The way his mother ridiculed Barnett Sterling was bringing up bad memories of her ridiculing him. Do more. Do better. This is not enough.
Not thinking anything of her son's blank expression, Mrs. Davis turned to him with a smile as if she was about to laugh at any moment.
"Anyway. Chris, enjoy your board games." She told her son teasingly. The patronizing tilt to her voice made the statement disingenuous. Chris wondered if he would be able to enjoy the games tomorrow with his mother's laughter playing in his head.
—————
Ethan was having more fun than he expected. The day had started out a bit awkwardly with lunch. It was the first time Chris was spending an extended period of time with Ethan's parents and the four of them had to try to work out the new dynamic. But, as Ethan's sure his parents expected, Chris fit in perfectly. Chris surprisingly knew a bunch of random things, like the issue with insurance rates for homeowners, and kept having these very intricate discussions with Ethan's parents, leaving Ethan to watch curiously. And, if Barnett Sterling accidentally started talking about something that no one in the room understood, Chris still listened attentively.
Ethan had to actively keep himself from staring too long at Chris for no reason. He and his parents were quite close so even though they never talked about dating, he was worried that they may catch on.
His parents, wanting to accommodate the guest Ethan suspected, let Chris and Ethan pick out the board games while they washed the dishes. Ethan led Chris over to their board game corner, a stack of five or so games that Ethan used to play with his parents when he was younger. His father had always insisted that it was for bonding. When Ethan went through his 'embarrassed by parents' phase, he'd made a huge fuss out of being forced into the games, even though he enjoyed them. He had a warm, sentimental expression on his face as he and Chris started sifting through the games.
"Maybe we should do Codenames." Ethan suggested, holding up the smaller purple box. "We bought it but could never play it with just the three of us."
Chris chuckled, smiling at the thought of them keeping a random game they couldn't use. Suddenly, Chris's jaw dropped, a soft 'oh' falling out of this mouth.
"Catan. I loved this game." He commented brightly. He looked a bit child-like to Ethan with the sudden shot of energy he seemed to exude.
"Then we'll play it. It shouldn't take more than an hour anyway." Ethan stated, a firm command as he pulled the thick rectangular box out of the pile and onto the floor behind him. "Let's pick one more."
Chris and Ethan immediately started looking over the pile again, taking in their options. They were completely silent as they did this, oddly earnest about picking the board game.
"I kind of wanted to play Monopoly because your dad had mentioned it yesterday, but it takes forever to play." Chris commented, sighed at the flat, dark box.
"It really does." Ethan agreed in a soft murmur. He then perked up, reaching for a large and flat red box. " What about Apples to Apples?"
"You mean 'PG cards Against Humanity?'" Chris joked, sending Ethan a cheeky grin when he rolled his eyes.
"Sure." Ethan began, a warning look on his face as he pointed at Chris. "As long as you understand that no matter how many times you come over, we will never play Cards Aginst humanities with my parents."
"So we're going to do this again?"
Ethan's expression fell. He was surprised. He hadn't expected Chris to be so vulnerable all of a sudden. Chris had looked more self-assured confessing to Ethan than he did asking if he would be invited over again. It was such an odd sight forEthan, but he tried not to make a big deal out of the moment.
"Chris, I'd bet my left butt cheek that my dad will try to organize this again before you leave the house."
Chris burst into laughter, shocked by Ethan's random comment.
"Why your left butt cheek?" Chris asked, still laughing from behind his hand.
"It was the first thing that came to mind," Was Ethan's simple answer. Ethan smiled as he watched Chris continue to laugh. He much preferred to have Chris laughing like this than worried.
"Have you guys picked out the games yet?"
Ethan and Chris turned abruptly, a bit surprised by Loretta's sudden presence in the room.
"Yup," Ethan replied, smoothly standing up with the three boxes in his hands. "We picked out some shorter games so we'll probably have time to do other things if we feel like it."
Mrs. Sterling suddenly got an excited gleam in her eye.
"Like Just Dance?"
Ethan groaned, annoyed but not surprised that she'd brought it up.
"Mom, you already spend all of your free time playing that."
Loretta shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the reality of her obsession. Chris watched the interaction silently, smiling to himself. The moment was cut off by Barnett entering the room loudly.
"Who's ready for board games?!"
Ethan's favourite part of the night, hands down, was watching his father lose. His dad was truly like a child the first couple of minutes after losing. His smile would fall, replaced by a large pout, and he wouldn't say a word. Then, he would suddenly recover like nothing happened. Ethan assumed that he was just putting on an act but for some reason, it amused Ethan nonetheless.
Playing with his parents and boyfriend, Ethan thinks he actual forgot how fun these games are. The four of them couldn't stop laughing. And Ethan loved to see Chris's competitive side. Chris was definitely the more mature one in their relationship and was so selfless. Ethan surprisingly got great satisfaction at seeing Chris want something to the point of being selfish. Compared to their friends, or even Ethan's father, Chris wasn't that extreme but Ethan saw the difference.
"Okay, you guys better come up with something good." Loretta told her husband and son as a warning. "If Chris gets this card, he'll win the whole game."
Ethan looked over at Chris who was grinning evilly as he shuffled his cards. It was the first time in Ethan's life that he was scared of Chris Davis.
"Okay, the card is exhausting." She told them, placing the green card down on the floor. "Synonyms are wear out, deplete, and tire."
With the cards extremely close to his face, Ethan looked through his options. 'Sunday brunch' wouldn't work because his mom would probably feel energized after a meal and his 'Martin Luther King Jr.' card would just be completely out of pocket. He paused when he got to 'yoga.' In his experience, even when it was supposed to be relaxing, he still found himself struggling to keep up and with some sweat in his armpits. It was the most obvious choice, and much better than 'mom jeans' or 'news reporters'.
Ethan took the 'yoga' card out and placed it face down on the floor, next to the green card. He was a bit surprised that he was the first to put a card down. In previous rounds, Chris was quick to put down a card. Maybe he'd done it out of confidence, knowing that his card worked perfectly with the prompt. That would explain why he was already so close to winning. But, now that he was hesitating, Ethan thought that he might have a good shot of winning this card.
Eventually, his dad and Chris put down their cards and Ethan's mom started reading them aloud.
"Okay, so we have 'car salesmen', super pushy, 'yoga' oh I can never finish one of those videos, and 'waiting in line,'" Loretta announced with a hum, staring down at the three cards. "These are really good you guys. I don't know . . . "
The three of them waited with bated breath. Ethan and his father kept glancing over at Chris. Watching him wouldn't help either of them win, but they still felt compelled to do so, knowing that Chris was so close to victory.
"Waiting in line wins."
"Yes!" Chris cheered, standing up from the floor to dance. It was a an awkward shoulder dance but Ethan couldn't pull his eyes away until he stopped.
"Loretta, I thought car salesmen was pretty good." Ethan's dad whined, pouting at his wife. Hearing that his father was protesting Chris's win, Ethan felt inclined to plead his case.
"Why didn't you pick yoga? You agreed that you couldn't even finish a video because it is exhausting." Ethan argued, making his mother scrunch up her face in thought.
"Yes, but in comparison, waiting in line is just an entirely different experience, I can't stand waiting in long lines." She reasoned in return. Ethan could see how upset she was about waiting in line by the stone-cold expression on her face. Chris saw this as well, giggling happily at the thought of his win.
"See, this is why I won. I can read souls." Chris claimed cheerfully, trying to appear mysterious.
"Shut up." Ethan laughed, lightly hitting Chris on the shin.
To recover from the shock of his third loss, Ethan's dad took any cups or bowls they had lying room and took them to the sink. Ethan wanted to give him his privacy, but he wanted another drink. So, Ethn found himself alone in the kitchen with his father.
Ethan expected to go in and out, not sharing a word with his dad. But, before his hand could reach the drink, his father was sparking up a conversation.
"You've been hanging with Chris a lot recently, huh?" His dad stated, washing the few cups and bowls in the sink. Ethan's eyes narrowed. He was confused as to where this was going and his shoulders came up instinctively, as if to protect himself.
"Yeah, I have." He said slowly, watching his father carefully. "Why." To Ethan's frustration, his father shrugged.
"Nothing much. I can just tell that you boys are close." Ethan's father finally looked back at him, smiling softly. "You know, I was never good at making friends as a kid. I spent most of my time scared that people would get tired of my energy."
Ethan listened to his father speak solemnly. He'd heard some of these words before when his father explained why he would put Ethan in summer camps over the summer or the one time his parents suggested he play a sport. They saw so much of Barnett in his son, and they feared that Ethan would have a similarly lonely youth. His father paused for a moment, his hand stopping as it held a soap sud covered cup.
"You know, your uncle Colt was the exact opposite of me but he also didn't have close friends." His father said, eyes glazed as if he were reliving the memory. "He would bring a bunch of guys around who he called his friends, but they were much like acquaintances that got to see his room. I can tell that you and Chris can actually . . . open up to each other. I'm happy for you."
Ethan's first thought was how his father was way too cheesy. Then, he felt reassured. Even though his father did not know that he was dating Chris, hearing him say that was still validating their relationship, giving them his blessing. And after all that, he thought about middle school. Back then, he'd been like his uncle. Until he met Aiden, he'd never gotten close to any of his friends. It was much easier to keep them at a distance, only letting them hear how funny and energetic he was and not letting them know how insecure he truly was. Now, in grade 11, things were so different.
Ethan's eyes started tearing up. He couldn't imagine what it was like for his father since it was probably even worse than the loneliness he felt. With a sharp swallow, Ethan held the emotion back. This all had a happy ending. Ethan was very familiar with his dad's friends because those people were like family to him.
Ethan audibly cleared his throat and grabbed a can of iced tea.
"Thank you, Dad."
As Ethan left the kitchen, a sudden thought came to mind. Did everyone around them assume that they are close, or was his dad especially dense. The most hair-pulling part of that question was that Ethan could never find out the answer.
Ethan entered the living room to find his mom turning on the Wii to put on Just Dance 2017.
"Mom, are you serious?"
Ethan's mother pointedly ignored him as she set up the game. Chris walked over to Ethan, letting his shoulder brush against Ethan's.
"Ethan, you had no chance of stopping her." Chris told him confidently, a playful smile on his face. "She is determined to show me the Ariana Grande dance. She says it's super good."
"Of course it's super good. All of the 2017 dances are super good. It's why she loves it so much." Ethan easily explained, stating his opinion as if it were a fact. The two of them stood side by side quietly for a moment, their shoulders and arms the only points of contact. Ethan then looked up at Chris. His hair had grown a lot longer, now standing half an inch above his head all the way around. Seeing the smile that hadn't left the taller boy's face, Ethan spoke. "Are you having fun?"
Chris looked down at Ethan with a bemused smile.
"I can't believe you even asked me that." He told Ethan through a chuckle. Ethan took this as, of course I'm having a good time, idiot. "At this rate, I won't want to leave. You know what, Ethan, I'm going to have to move in."
Ethan laughed loudly, starting to lean his body weight against Chris.
"I wouldn't mind."
Ethan had whispered that last phrase, peeking up at Chris from under his lashes. Chris's expression grew serious, his stare connecting intensely with Ethan's.
"Okay, now you're distracting me." Chris muttered, his eyelids drooping sexily. Chris's gaze was suddenly falling to Ethan's lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan saw Chris's Adam's apple bop with his swallow. "We have to keep up the straight facade in front of your mom, remember?"
Ethan took a step back, now, creating some well-needed distance between the two of them.
"I got it. I just . . . " Ethan suddenly had the urge to say something that had been on his mind all day. Board games had always been something he did with his parents, a family event. Yet, Chris had fit into that dynamic so naturally. Ethan stared down at his hands, somewhat trying to hide from Chris as he spoke. "I feel like I can see you becoming a permanent part of my family."
Chris forgot to be straight. He pulled Ethan into a hug, taking in a large lungful of his scent and shampoo. He desperately wanted to do more and celebrate Ethan saying something so long term. Still, Chris tried to make that the strongest, short hug Ethan had ever experienced. When he stepped back, his eyes were a bit shiny as he smiled at Ethan.
"I can see it too."
Unaware of the intimate moment her son and his boyfriend were sharing across the room, Loretta clicked through the list of Just Dance songs. A minute later, she arrived at her favourite dance.
"Chris, I found the song!"
———————————
It feels like a dream to be finishing this Chapter. For that last section, I was using a laptop that was reloading every half hour and was writing half asleep.
I really hope you guys liked this. It's lowkey just a manifestation of my desire to play some board games again. It's been too long.
Anywho,
I already have the rest of the chapters of Part 1 planned out and I am so excited to write them, though you guys may not be as excited to read them.
Anybabe,
Vote, Comment, Share, Follow, anything else you can do with this book and I will see you next time. Bye!!!