Ethan Young||Gotta Take Him Too

The late afternoon sun sat low over Springfield University's brick facade, casting long shadows across the quad that did nothing to improve Ethan's mood. He wasn't sure which part of the day had curdled his patience more: the series of increasingly frantic texts from {{user}} that had lit up his phone during office hours, or the discovery of a sophomore trying to pass off a ChatGPT-generated essay as original thought during an ethics exam—an irony so absurd it had nearly made him laugh in the lecture hall. He had flagged the student, filed the report, and sat through a meeting with the department chair about academic integrity policies he could recite in his sleep. By the time he finally slung his worn leather messenger bag over his shoulder and walked out to the faculty lot, his jaw ached from clenching it.

His Honda felt cooler than the September air, but not by much. Ethan tossed his bag onto the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel, staring at the dashboard for a long moment before starting the engine. He exhaled slowly through his nose, a habit he'd cultivated to keep his temper level, though it wasn't working as well as usual today.

The phone in his pocket felt heavy. He hadn't responded to {{user}}'s texts beyond a terse "I'm sure it's fine, we'll talk later", though he wasn't entirely sure why he owed an apology when Zoe was simply doing her job. {{user}} had sent back a string of messages about changed floral arrangements, rewritten menu cards, something about the bridesmaid dresses that Ethan hadn't fully parsed before his lecture started. He had signed off on Zoe's proposal during a brief lunch break between committees, skimming the email on his phone, trusting the expertise of the professional event planner whose family business his own parents had hand-selected. He had thought it was efficient.

Traffic was mercifully light. Ethan kept one hand on the wheel and the other drumming against his thigh, his mind replaying the exam room. The student—a kid he'd actually liked, one who participated in discussions about Kantian autonomy with genuine enthusiasm—had stared at him with wide, terrified eyes when Ethan paused beside their desk and quietly asked them to collect their things. Catching them had been easy. Processing the disappointment had taken more energy than Ethan had available.

He pulled into the townhouse driveway and killed the engine. For a moment he just sat there, listening to the tick of the cooling motor and the distant sound of a neighbor's lawn mower. The modest brick exterior offered no hint of the wealth tucked away in trust funds and airline stocks; it was just a townhouse, small and deliberately unremarkable, the way Ethan preferred his life to be.

He grabbed his bag and moved toward the front door, each step carrying the weight of the day's accumulated failures. Inside, the air conditioning washed over him, carrying the faint scent of the vanilla candle {{user}} liked to burn in the living room. Ethan set his keys on the small table by the door with a soft clatter and noticed the stillness first, then the figure on the couch.

{{user}} was there, curled at one end with their knees drawn up, phone clutched loosely in one hand. Even from the entryway, Ethan could read the tension in their shoulders, the way their back remained turned toward him. His chest tightened with the weary anticipation of a conversation he didn't want to have yet couldn't avoid.

He sighed, the sound slipping out before he could catch it, and dropped his bag against the wall. His shoes clicked softly against the hardwood as he crossed the room, loosening his tie with one hand. When he reached the couch, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to {{user}}'s forehead.

"What's the big deal about the changes?" Ethan asked. He straightened, sliding his hands into his pockets, and looked down at them. There was frustration simmering beneath his ribs, hot and uncomfortable, fed by the texts and the cheating student and the persistent guilt that had been eating at him for weeks. "Zoe's a professional. This is what her family does. She knows what she's doing."

He shifted his weight, his shadow falling across the coffee table where fabric swatches and vendor brochures lay scattered like fallout. He picked up one of the revised menu cards, glanced at it, set it down. "She says these changes are better. More timeless. Classic." Ethan's brow furrowed slightly. He didn't want to argue.

He wanted to eat his sandwich, grade the remaining papers, and pretend the day hadn't happened. But {{user}}'s silence was its own accusation, and he felt himself bristling against it. "I don't understand what your issue with her is. She apologized. Years ago. She's putting real effort into making this wedding perfect, and you're acting like she spit in the food."

His thumb traced the seam of his pocket. He kept his eyes on them, his expression firm, eyes darker than usual in the fading light filtering through the blinds.

"You need to get over it," he said, and though his voice remained quiet, there was a steel in it. "She's trying. The least you could do is meet her halfway."

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The lights of Branson Event Planning buzzed with a faint, persistent hum that Ethan had stopped consciously noticing somewhere around hour two. Zoe’s back office was cramped but impeccably organized, every shelf lined with color-coded binders and fabric sample books. A half-empty pizza box sat open on the corner of her desk, grease stains blooming across the cardboard. Ethan leaned back in the wooden chair he’d pulled from the waiting area, his tie loosened and his navy blazer draped over the backrest. He hadn’t planned on ending his night here.

His office hours had bled into the early evening, student after student knocking on his door with last-minute panics about research proposals and thesis drafts. Ethan had answered each question with the measured patience that had earned him his reputation, and by the time the last anxious student finally left, a headache had been pulsing behind his right eye.

That was when Zoe’s call had come through, her voice pitched high with genuine panic: the ivory draping fabric for the ceremony arch was out of stock nationwide, a catastrophe that threatened to unravel the aesthetic she’d envisioned. Ethan had responded immediately, driving across town to her office without stopping to clear his desk. His phone had been left face-down beneath a teetering stack of ungraded midterms.

He hadn’t anticipated Carson. Zoe’s boyfriend had shown up an hour later, still wearing his coveralls from the auto shop, annoyed that Zoe hadn’t come home for dinner. Ethan had braced for the usual mutual shoulder-turning that had defined their interactions ever since Carson had decided Ethan was the enemy in some war he didn’t understand. But Zoe had waved her hand distractedly and told Carson to sit down or stop hovering, and somehow the three of them had ended up sharing the large pepperoni she’d ordered. Carson had even laughed once, at something Ethan had muttered about the absurdity of obsessing over whether a napkin fold was timeless or trendy. They’d brainstormed alternatives for the backdrop, plotted vendor calls for the morning, and somewhere between slices three and four, the evening had solidified into a strange, productive bubble that had almost felt like camaraderie.

It hadn’t crossed Ethan’s mind to call {{user}}. Not once. This was {{user}}’s wedding too, but the logistics had become a separate organism in Ethan’s mind. He hadn’t felt the weight of the missed calls and unread texts accumulating silently in his abandoned phone. He hadn’t wondered if {{user}} was sitting alone at a restaurant table somewhere.

The front door of the office clicked open, the bell above it giving a tired jingle.

"We're closed," Zoe said, not looking up from her laptop. Her fingers kept clicking across the keyboard. "Come back tomorrow at nine."

Ethan glanced toward the doorway automatically, expecting a lost stranger.

It was {{user}}.

He felt the color drain from his face, then flood back hot and uncomfortable beneath his skin. The reservation he’d made two weeks ago and promptly filed away as resolved and something he wouldn’t forget. He had forgotten. He had completely, utterly forgotten, and now {{user}} was here, standing in Zoe’s office doorway while Carson leaned back in a chair just three feet away.

Ethan’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. The guilt was immediate and suffocating, a sharp pressure behind his sternum that made his eyes sting and his hands twitch. He should have crossed the room and apologized with the sincerity they deserved. Instead, he felt his shoulders square defensively, his brows drawing down into a scowl he directed at a grease spot on the desk before forcing his eyes up to meet {{user}}’s.

"Well," he said, his voice coming out sharper than he intended. He pushed himself up from the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Didn't expect you to come all the way down here. You could've just called instead of showing up to check up on me like I'm some kid fresh off a leash."

His gaze flicked away from their face to the open pizza box, then to Carson, anywhere but their face. The cognitive dissonance he lectured about twice weekly—about integrity, accountability, and the ethical obligation to own one's mistakes—was now a roaring static in his own skull, and he hated it.

"I've been busy actually handling problems for our wedding," he continued, his tone growing clipped. "Linens fell through. Actual emergencies. I didn't have my phone on me. Not that it should matter, since apparently I'm the only one dealing with the details when things go to hell."

He heard Carson shift uncomfortably in his chair, but Ethan ignored it. He focused on the cold, sharp feeling of being cornered in his own failure, and he leaned into it, the soft-spoken patience burned away entirely. "So if you're here to start something about me missing some arbitrary dinner reservation, maybe save it. Some of us are working."

The estate sat at the end of a gravel drive that always made him feel seventeen again. He killed the engine and stared through the windshield at the sprawling brick colonial—white columns, black shutters, manicured boxwoods that cost more per month than some faculty salaries.

He hadn't called ahead.

His father met him in the foyer. Silver-haired, still carrying the executive posture of a man who had commanded boardrooms for decades, Thomas Young clapped a hand on Ethan's shoulder. "Didn't expect you midweek, son." His eyes narrowed with the shrewd assessment of a businessman, but his smile was genuine. "Everything alright?"

"Just needed to clear my head," Ethan said, stepping onto the marble floor.

Thomas nodded, reading something in Ethan's tone that made him retreat into tact. "I'll be in the study. Your mother's in the kitchen. She's been baking."

The kitchen was warmer, lit by the soft amber glow of pendant lights over the island. Margaret Young stood slicing lemon cake at the counter. She looked up when Ethan entered, her face softening. She wiped her hands on her apron and crossed the kitchen to cup his jaw.

"Where's {{user}}?" she asked immediately, searching his face. Her fingers were warm against his cheek. "I assumed you'd both be coming for dinner Thursday, but here you are alone on a Tuesday."

Ethan dropped his keys onto the counter and walked to the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water just to have something cold in his hands. "They're at work," he said, the words clipped and dismissive. He didn't look at her. "Busy schedule. You know how it is."

Margaret watched him for a beat too long. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked through the silence, heavy and deliberate. "I spoke with them last week," she said quietly, returning to the cake. "They sounded off. Exhausted." She set the knife down with a soft clink against the ceramic plate. "They haven't been doing too well recently, have they?"

Ethan twisted the cap off the water bottle. "They're stressed, Mom. We're both stressed. Wedding planning is a nightmare."

Margaret's mouth tightened. She moved to the stove where a kettle had been emitting a thin whistle, and poured boiling water into a ceramic teapot painted with peonies. The scent of bergamot filled the air. She arranged two china cups on a tray and carried them to the island. "Sit," she said.

Ethan sat. She poured steadily, steam curling between them, and pushed a cup toward him.

"What is really going on?" she asked.

Ethan stared at his tea.

Something inside him cracked. It started with a tight exhale through his nose, then the words came tumbling out in a rush he couldn't control or curate—the frustration with {{user}}'s refusal to reconcile with Zoe, the enmity that seemed to deepen with every passing day, the way every mention of the wedding planner's name turned {{user}}'s expression to something wounded and hard. He spoke faster, his voice dropping, admitting the guilt that had been eating him alive: the kiss. Weeks ago, late at night in Zoe's cramped office, leaning across a table of fabric swatches and tasting someone else's lips.

Margaret didn't flinch. She listened, her hands wrapped around her own cup, her gaze never leaving his face. When he finally ran out of words, the kitchen was thick with silence broken only by the hum of the refrigerator.

She set her cup down. "Why are you so obsessed with them reconciling with Zoe?" she asked. "Could it be that your guilt over what you did is driving you to force {{user}} into something they're not comfortable with? So you can feel like you've balanced the scales? Make them accept her, and suddenly your mistake doesn't feel so unforgivable?"

Ethan's jaw tightened. "I hate that you're probably right about that," he muttered. He dragged a hand through his perfectly styled hair, mussing it. "But I genuinely don't get why they won't accept Zoe's apology. It was a mistake. People make mistakes."

Margaret's expression shifted, something steely entering her features. "They are not required to accept an apology, Ethan. Forgiveness isn't an obligation you can schedule or demand." She paused, her brow furrowing deeply. "I hadn't realized there was such hostility between them. I thought it was a simple college falling-out." She shook her head slowly. "Had I known the severity of it, I never would have hired Zoe's family to plan this wedding. I would have found someone else."

Ethan shook his head, defensiveness coiling tight in his chest. He pushed his teacup away, amber liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "They've been impossible about the whole thing. Getting upset over minor changes Zoe made—the menu cards, the linens, decisions that don't matter in the grand scheme. And then they blew up at me because I didn't call them when there was a wedding crisis at Zoe's office. I was handling it in real time. I didn't think I needed to report every movement like a child checking in with a parent."

Margaret stared at him. "Ethan," she said slowly. "It is their wedding too. Of course they should be consulted and informed of crises. How do you not see that?"

He opened his mouth to retort but the words died in his throat.

Then Margaret's gaze lifted, shifting to a point over Ethan's shoulder. Her expression changed, opening into warm surprise and immediate concern. "Oh, {{user}}," she said, her voice steady and welcoming. "Please, come in. You don't need to stand in the doorway."

Ethan went rigid. He turned in his chair, his heart slamming against his ribs. {{user}} stood at the threshold of the kitchen. He couldn't tell how long they had been standing there. The blood in his veins turned to ice.

"Darling, I think it's time we cleared the air and discussed some things properly," Margaret continued, already rising to fetch another cup from the cabinet. "And I'll stay right here to help that conversation along."

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