The definition of awkward should be changed to this: sitting in a posh restaurant with a boyfriend you are planning on dumping insisting on putting his arms over your shoulders and with your ex-boyfriend for whom you suspect feelings have been rekindled who just happens to be dating your boss.
Why did I ever think this was going to be a good idea?
The wine was so expensive I couldn't even get properly drunk to make the evening go by faster.
Ethan and Kathryn had hit it off. It was actually kind of embarrassing to see my current boyfriend do engrossed in conversation with a gorgeous blond who never skimmed on the cleavage. They were talking about anything – and I mean, anything. From healer trainer, to the new shoe collection Ulysses Hooper was creating for the spring to the upcoming EuroCup Quidditch championship in August. It was quite disenchanting and also amusing. Oliver and I were having a hard time concealing our laughter whenever Kathryn pretended to understand Quidditch talk (during which, of course, Oliver couldn't help but contribute) or Ethan appeared genuinely interested in shoes and sandals.
I don't think I said more than three words throughout the evening. I was having too much fan twirling my pasta around my plate, and measuring how much wine I had left over in my glass (a pitiful amount). Oh, and sharing concealed smiles with Oliver whenever our respective partners began a particularly funny topic of conversation.
"I forgot to tell you, Eliza," Kathryn's voice caught me unawares toying with a cut mushroom .I put my fork down and looked up at her, hoping to conceal the fact that I wasn't paying attention. "I received a memo from Miranda today, regarding the article you wrote for the new column."
I tried hard not to choke on my own saliva. We had been sitting here discussing how to tell the difference between female and male goblins for two hours and she remembers this just now? "Wha-what did it say?"
Kathryn smiled and took a deliberate long sip of her wine. My nails were digging into the napkin strewn on my lap. Hurry up woman! "She said there were more entries than they had expected," that's not good. "And that the quality was simply astounding."
"Kathryn-"
"You made the cut for the next round," I stopped mid-sentence to stare at her. I made the cut?
"That's fantastic, Sarah, congratulations."
"What are we talking about?" I jumped, remembering that Ethan was sitting beside me. I seemed to forget about that quite often this evening. I turned around to answer, but Kathryn beat me to it.
"You didn't tell him Eliza? Tsk tsk," she giggled. "Witch Weekly is creating a whole new department to answer the need of our readers for more thoughtful material, no that I don't think fashion isn't thoughtful, but readers want more input on current events and thoughts. Our chief editor, Miranda Winterstorm, has already appointed the head of the new department and they are looking for full time copy editors, fact checkers, even writers. Eliza here sent them a heartwarming piece and has been selected."
"How many?" I asked at the same time as Ethan spoke.
"No, she didn't tell me this," I gave him an off glance before focusing back on Kathryn. She was smiling, clearly enjoying being both the bearer of good news and seeing the tension between Ethan and me. She picked up her wine glass and placed her other hand on Oliver's shoulder.
"I can't tell you that, Eliza, it would break confidentiality," she squeezed Oliver's shoulder. He was looking out of the window, not paying attention. "But I am surprised you haven't told Ethan. After all, being an editor is your dream, is it not?"
"I didn't know that either," well hell. In close to three months did he learn nothing? I stopped my eyes from rolling mid-roll, and instead mimicked Kathryn's posture by squeezing his shoulder with fake affection before I changed the subject to something else, mainly asking Oliver about Puddlemere's next match against the Wimbourne Wasps.
He looked at me oddly; like me, he was only paying attention to half of the conversation. I raised my eyebrows at him and he opened his mouth into a round 'o' before taking up the offered topic. Soon Kathryn jumped in, discussing the clashing colour of the Wasps' robes and engaged Ethan in a chat about the amount of medical injuries Quidditch players normally dealt with.
That took care of the rest of the night.
"I had a lovely evening," Kathryn said more to Ethan than to me, even though she was hugging me. I patted her back, thanking my lucky stars it was ten o'clock and we were done. Oliver too didn't seem too sad about cutting things short; he was waiting for his date to finish schmoozing mine with his hands inside his trousers' pockets. It had been Oliver's remainder that he had training early in the morning that had cut the night short. Otherwise I think Kathryn and Ethan could have gone on talking until dawn.
"Ready to go?" Ethan asked, grabbing a hold of my hand. I tried to smile and nodded. He brought me close to him, and I felt my breathing being cut short but not for any good reason. I looked up at him seconds before we disapparated and wondered at what point I had ceased to be attracted to him. There really wasn't any major flat in him – good complexion, warm hazel eyes, some temper and jealousy issues, but no bloke is perfect.
We arrived to my flat. Ethan let go of me, but remained close enough that I could smell his cologne. It wasn't the usually wooden scent; this one seemed more floral and less appealing. "Do you want to come in?" I asked after I realized he wasn't going to simply say goodbye and walk down the stairs.
Besides, he wasn't going to chuck himself either.
His response was a wiggle of his eyebrows that made my stomach churn. I opened the door, hoping that Adrian and Corey and maybe Gwen would be home – but the living room was deserted. I called out to them, and no one answer. "Treacherous little buggers."
"Did you say something?" I jumped at Ethan's words, not realising I had been speaking out loud.
"Nothing, nothing," I fumbled with the buttons in my coat. Ethan clasped my hands in him and unbuttoned them for me. My cheeks were flushing. I shrugged the coat out and was going to hang it when Ethan took it from me. Defeated, I walked towards the kitchen to steal some of Adrian's liquor. That's what I needed: liquid courage.
Ethan was already sitting on the large sofa when I came back with a bottle of Elf Wine and two glasses. He took them form me and poured them, ignoring my angry glare. He even offered me a glass. I yanked it from him and gulped the contents down. He arched his eyebrows. "Thirsty?"
"Parched."
He took a smaller sip of his own wine and didn't say anything. Neither did I, so we just sat at opposing ends of the sofa facing each other. The only sound that could be heard was the clink-clink of my nails against the glass.
"Would you stop that?"
"Stop what?" clink-clink-clink.
He waved his hand. "That noise with your nails."
"Oh. I didn't know it bothered you," clink-clink.
"Did you regress back to age five? Stop that," he snatched the glass from me, spilling wine over my shirt. "Shit."
I glared at him and palced the glass on the coffee table where it left a mark. "Who's regressing now?" I stood up and went searching for my handbag, where I had stuffed my wand.
"If you had stopped when I told you to , this wouldn't have happened."
I rolled my eyes, even though I knew he couldn't see me. "I don't have to do anything you tell me," I muttered while pointing my wand at my shirt. "Evanesco," most of the stains disappeared but I couldn't quite be bothered with what was left. I'll give the shirt to Corey – he was rather adept at this kind of cleaning spells. Not when it came to household surfaces though, he sucked at those.
"Do you want to talk like an adult, or should we leave it for another day?"
I turned around as slow as I could, my arms crossed tightly against my chest. I leaned against the wall. "What do you want to talk about?"
Ethan run a hand through his mop of hair. "Whatever's got your knickers in a twist. You've been avoiding me like I have a bad case of Spattergroit." He had me there. So I just shrugged and kept my lips sealed. "Or the fact that you've been hiding things from me."
I snorted. "Hiding what?"
"Your bid to become an editor at Witch Weekly."
"I wasn't aware you needed to know all the minutiae of my attempts at furthering my career," I said rolling my eyes.
"It would be good to share."
"Escaped my mind."
"That seems to happen quite often. Kathryn doesn't know that you live under the same roof as her boyfriend, does she?"
"Need to know basis."
"That's lying, Elizabeth."
I stared at him, deadpanned. "Are you here to give a talk about your sense of morality?"
"I'm here to find out what's gotten inside that barmy head of yours-"
"So I am barmy now?" I unpeeled myself from the wall and began walking towards him, doing circles just behind the sofa. "I don't tell you what my career aspirations are or to my obsessed boss that her boyfriend lives with me and suddenly I am barmy?"
"Elizabeth-"
"Don't Elizabeth me. You are not my father."
"I am your boyfriend," he had stood up and was towering over me. There were lines in his forehead where it was knitted. I stopped dead on my tracks, holding my ground with only the sofa for shield. "How are you planning on managing a job as an editor when-" he racked another hand through his hair, pulling on it. "If you want to be a respectable writer, why are you even bothering with Witch Weekly? No offense, but everyone know it is crap."
I wanted to slap him. "Because it's been my dream since I was a ruddy child."
"Maybe you need grownup dreams if you want to be taken seriously," he spat back. "And once we get married? Have kids? How are you going to handle a bloody editor job? That takes time and so does raising children and-"
Woah. "Who says we are getting married and having children?"
Ethan looked genuinely confused. He lowered his hands from where they were plucking his hair. "I'm twenty-eight Elizabeth, at my age I don't just date. I want to know things will move forward."
"By telling me what I can and cannot do with my life?" I snorted. "What a wonderful husband you'll make."
"You don't get it," he walked around the sofa towards me. I backed up, renewing the distance between us. "Once you get a real job, you'll have no time for family or anything else for that matter. Playing around, being Kathryn's assistant and pretending to be a writer is all fine, but at the end of the day you don't need to work because I'll take care of you."
"And then what? Throw it in my face every time I ask you for gold to buy anything?" my lips curled over my teeth. This was bloody unbelievable, it was.
"What kind of git do you take me for?"
"The one you are proving yourself to be!" I screamed, waving my arms widely in front of me. My face, my body, was heated up with rightful anger. "You accuse me of manipulating the truth, but you want t control my life."
"I want to make you happy, give you a good life-"
"Listen to yourself! We've been together for less than three months, Ethan-"
"If you are not ready to commit-"
"Of course I'm not bloody ready. I'm twenty-two," twenty-three in a week, "I am not thinking of marriage and children. And if I were, you wouldn't be the husband or the father."
Ethan was breathing just as hard as I was, but unlike me, he seemed to want to retrain his urge to yell and slap me senseless. The only thing keeping me from beating his head against a wall to draw some sense on it was the fact that I was too angered to move. I had not escaped an arranged marriage to end up a trophy wife. That was not what I wanted – and that was not what I would end up with.
My life won't turn out so damned ironic.
"Is this because of Adrian Pucey?"
I choked on my saliva. "This is about you, and your old-fashioned, chauvinistic -"
"Go ahead, call me a sexist pig-"
"Then stop acting like one!" my throat burned with the strength of my yell. My chest was heaving and it was getting difficult to get enough oxygen to continue with my rant. "You want me to be your little wife, but you don't get that it isn't me – that I want more than that."
"What has gotten into you? I thought we were on the same page."
"Ethan, we never spoke about this because we've been together for three bloody months. That's not enough to get to know another person and decide you want to be with them until death do you part," my breathing was still erratic, but my voice was even. Ethan didn't say anything, so I continued. "We want different things, and you want to get on with your life so just go and find a girl that will want to be pampered and taken care of because I am not her."
He blinked. "Are you breaking up with me?"
I tried hard not to roll my eyes. "Yes."
"You drunk too much, you'll change your mind in the morning."
The urge to slap me came over me again. "I am perfectly capable of deciding without your help, Ethan," to keep myself from hexing him I walked towards the door, unhooked his coat and opened the door to the hallway. "You can go now."
He didn't move. "You don't mean that."
"Don't test me, Sweeting," I wanted to throw his coat on the hallway's flood and jinx him out, but decided this break up needed an adult to supervise it. I motioned with my head that he should leave. Ethan stumbled, seeming confused, before he shook his head and marched forwards. He seized his coat from my hands with more force than necessary and stomped out.
"I hope you and Pucey are happy," I slammed the door close in his face and strode back towards the coffee table. I poured a hefty amount of wine in my glass and drank without stopping to breathe. I heard the door creak and realised with a jump that I hadn't locked it. I slammed the glass back down on the coffee table, chipping the bottom and yelled. "Get the hell out you creep-" when the door opened to a flabbergasted Corey and Adrian. "Oh, it's you lot."
"Always nice to see you, Lisa," Adrian said with a mocking grin. He ushered Corey inside and closed the door behind him. "Who were you being so nice to?"
I threw him a contemptuous look and flopped on the sofa, leaning my head against it. "Ethan."
"Ah, the beau," I heard them removing their coats and walking over. "What did he do now, pray tell?"
I closed my eyes. "He's a pig."
"Besides that."
Adrian sat down beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Corey perched on the arm rest and offered me a refilled glass. "Well…." The story spewed from my like lava sauntering down a volcano's side. I told them about dinner, how he had spent most of the time talking to Kathryn. Then the fight the moment we arrived at the flat, him wanting me to be his pretty little wife, telling me my dreams were childish, that he could take care of me like I am nothing but a china doll. "And it bloody hurt, you know," I was onto my third glass of wine since they arrived. Corey had to charm the bottle for the wine not to run out. "Witch Weekly can be more than just shoes and handbags, I know it. It can be more literary or respectable and it will be and I will be part of it dammit!" I slammed the glass again, chipping it once more. Corey sighed, but didn't say anything.
"And then he thought we are together," I leaned against Adrian who caught my wrist and steadied me so I could lay my head on the crook of his shoulder. My eyes were closing. The win was flowing freely through my veins, reaching my brain and making me drowsy. "That's ridiculous."
"Indeed it is."
I reached a hand forward to play with his black hair. Adrian was smiling. "You are pissed drunk." I didn't deny it. "Come on, I'll take you to bed," he pushed me and stood up, offering me his hand. I took it and stumbled right on top of him, almost making us fall against the coffee table. Hands grabbed my shoulders and steadied me.
"Thanks Corey-"
"I'm not Corey, but you're welcome," I hiccupped. My vision was getting blurry, but I knew that Scottish accent and that outline of broad, comforting shoulders. Oliver. I wanted to tell him something, there was something that I knew was imperative he heard but I couldn't remember what it was. So I just smiled and allowed the two of them to help me walk towards my room.
"I'll take it from here Wood," Adrian said, putting a hand on my stomach to keep me from lurching forward. Oliver's hand on my shoulder faltered before he let go.
"Let us know if she needs anything," that was Corey. Right? It sounded like Corey, you know, like a chirping bird. The door opened in front of me, and Adrian steered me towards my bed. He pushed on my shoulders to make me sit down. Things were a bit blurry, and I don't remember charming my bedroom to have it spin in tiny circles.
"Put this on," Adrian threw a large shirt on me. I held it up, trying to see which way the front was, but managing to only get dizzy and fall backwards on my bed. I heard him sigh, and a moment later I felt my body being levitated. Two hands were helping me remove my stained shirt. I told him something about it, but he brushed it off, pulling a new garment over my head. "You'll sleep with your bra on because I am not touching that."
I giggled.
"Merlin, this is just like when you broke up with Higgs," he muttered, pushing me downwards on the bed. I hooked my arms around his neck and pulled him down. "Blimey, watch it woman, you almost kneed me."
I giggled again. Adrian rolled off of me and pulled on the sheets before placing them over me. I cuddled against my pillow, burrowing my face in it. It was quiet now and when I closed my eyes the world stopped spinning.
If only I could remember what I wanted to tell Oliver…