Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 75th cycle. Now cycle 76!

"Faking & Facing"
Grace (OC), Nora (AU!Beth), Emily (OC), Francesca (OC), Ethan (OC)
Sunshine Girls 2 series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

His name was Ethan, and he did not actually go to McKinley. He went to an all boys' school, but he lived on Emily's street and his parents were friends with her aunt and uncle, so she got to see a lot of him. She hadn't even considered him for this search of a boy for Grace until very late into the search, but then as soon as Emily had thought of him, there had been no other viable option in her head.

That was what she'd told Grace before sending her off on this date.

Grace knew why she'd told Emily to find her this guy, remembered it very well. Part of her wanted to counter with the fact that, since she'd made this request, 'things' had happened. Namely, she had kissed Nora in her basement, would go so far as say she'd made out with her. The memory had been playing at her head ever since, where she would remember it, and it would make her smile, and blush, and warm up… but then she would think about how much she might have provoked the exact kind of trouble she had meant to keep Nora away from, and then she felt guilty.

So for however much she could try and complain about these 'things' that had happened, she would immediately tell herself that it was no excuse, and nothing – as far as she knew – had changed. They had not talked about 'it,' her and Nora, and there had been no talk of Nora and Francesca breaking up, so this incident, this dalliance, this impulse… could not happen again.

In the meantime, there was Ethan, and for how much Grace felt herself unprepared for this, she agreed for the match up. It had ended up being not on the immediate Friday but on the one after this that he came and picked her up and they went out.

She couldn't fault him as far as who he was. Emily had vowed that she would look on this match with the strictest of scrutiny, and she hadn't missed the mark. Ethan was handsome, clearly good hearted, and when he first saw her, he actually looked breathless. She'd taken this with a humble smile, and with a decision that she would at least try and enjoy herself on this date.

And she did, for a while. They made it to the restaurant, and they got a table. They started to talk, and he of course inquired about her accent, where she was from, how long she'd been here, whether she missed Scotland, and so on and so forth. She found out in turn that Ethan had been meant to go to McKinley with them when he and his family had moved to Lima a couple years back, but then due to some issues over the summer that was to precede his entry there, his parents had instead registered him to the boys' school.

All was well, and they were making friends, and then Ethan had excused himself to go to the bathroom, and she was left alone, just her and her thoughts.

There was a couple sitting a few tables away, two men sitting across from one another, looking for all the world to see like there was no one more in love than they were, and Grace caught herself staring at them, just… wondering. If two people could love each other like that, so easily and without issue, then why did it have to be so complicated for her? Uninvited, the thought of that moment in Emily's basement, of Nora's lips on hers, of tongues nipping and tempting, of arms snug around her back, of hearts beating a duet, filled her head and all her senses.

When she caught herself looking at the couple at the other table, she caught herself on the rest, too, on the remembering of everything, of the feel of her touch, the scent of freshly washed blond hair, the meeting of those blue eyes…

Who was she kidding? Here she was, on a date with a very nice guy, who clearly fancied her already, who was interesting and attentive and everything she should want, and she couldn't stop thinking about her best friend, who she was realizing more and more how much she loved, even though she wasn't available. No matter what she did, all roads always took her back to Nora, and it didn't look like it would ever change. She wasn't ready.

If Ethan realized at all that she was distracted for the rest of their date, he played as though he didn't see a thing, and it felt more like two friends hanging out more than anything. He hid his disappointment well, and despite all the other things, they did have a good night.

He was driving her home when she heard her phone's message tone and pulled it out of her pocket. She thought it might be her mother checking to see when she'd be home, or Emily to see how the date was going, or Nora…

It was none of those three, and when Grace read it to herself, she felt a knot in her throat as she tried to wrap her head around what she was supposed to do.

"Can you drop me off somewhere else?" she hesitantly asked Ethan as they were stopped at a red light. She lied and said a friend had texted her in crisis mode. It's that much of a lie. So he changed his turn signal so that they would go the other way, and he drove her where she asked.

"Do you want me to wait for you?" he asked when they arrived.

"No, I'll be alright," she told him, and for a moment they sat in silence in his car. "I did have a good time," she told him with a shy smile. "Maybe we could hang out again sometime." He let out a breath, then nodded.

"I'd like that," he told her. She smiled again, and she got out of the car. She heard him slowly drive off as she came up to the path to the door. She'd barely made it there that the door opened. Francesca was all but recovered from her illness at this point.

"Thank you for coming."

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!