who merrick & @ethanford when december 30th / evening where on the rocks
somerton had a strange way of bringing people back into her life; chloe had been by far the most surprising, but when she ran into ethan a few months after he apparently moved in, she felt, almost, somehow, like it was a certain kind of fate. she’d known him from her days in the city - her friends and her would crash the bars downtown with investment bankers and stock brokers, looking for men to dote on them and appreciate them and tell them how hot they looked while paying the bill. but ethan hadn’t been that - he’d turned into a friend, someone she came to trust, someone she cared about.
( someone, if she let herself, she knew she could fall for. he understood the pressure of having someone always expect the most out of you - it was something she had spent her entire life bucking, but he had only just begun. but she was a child then, and she was sure he still thought of her as a child now.
still. )
meeting up at the bar every other week or so was a new thing for them - he was still new to town, and merrick took advantage of any chance to be out of her studio apartment. and if she got to flirt with him, even if he didn’t reciprocate - well, it was more the fun for her.
“sorry i’m late,” she greeted, kissing his cheek briefly before shrugging out of her coat as she settled down at the stool next to him, a jack and coke already waiting for her - she had never once been on time, and she was grateful ethan never made a fuss about it. “i would give you an excuse, but i have none. i was watching netflix and i fell asleep and didn’t notice until the dominos guy was knocking on the wrong door.”
