Wedding Ruin: Part 4

Three months later I stood outside his apartment with a plastic test in my purse and no real plan for what came next.

The building was nicer than I expected—quiet street, brick exterior, the kind of place that matched the controlled way Ethan carried himself. I had gotten the address from a mutual friend under a weak excuse. Now that I was actually here, the courage that had carried me across town felt thinner.

I knocked before I could talk myself out of it.

Footsteps approached on the other side. The door opened. Ethan stood there in a dark T-shirt and jeans, hair slightly damp like he had just showered. Surprise flickered across his face, followed quickly by something hotter and more complicated.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

We looked at each other for a second in the doorway. The last time I had seen him was at the airport the morning after the wedding—polite, distant, both of us pretending the bridal suite had never happened. We had not texted. We had not called. The silence had been mutual and deliberate.

Until the silence stopped being an option.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

He stepped aside. I walked into a clean, sparsely furnished living room with large windows and a kitchen that looked rarely used. The door clicked shut behind me. The sound felt louder than it should have.

Ethan leaned against the back of the couch and studied me. His eyes moved over my face, my body, the way I held my purse a little too tightly against my hip.

“You look good,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I didn’t either.”

The quiet stretched. I could still remember the exact weight of him inside me, the way the bed had creaked, the muffled music from the reception below. My body remembered it too. Even now, standing in his apartment with months between that night and this moment, heat flickered low in my stomach.

I reached into my purse, took out the test, and set it on the coffee table between us.

Two clear lines.

Ethan stared at it for a long moment. His expression didn’t change much, but the muscle in his jaw tightened once.

“It’s yours,” I said. “In case you’re wondering. There hasn’t been anyone else.”

He let out a slow breath and dragged a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

He walked to the window, then back again, like the room had suddenly become too small. When he looked at me next, the surprise had hardened into something more focused.

“How long have you known?”

“Four days. I took three tests. They all said the same thing.”

“And you came here instead of calling.”

“I didn’t trust myself to say it over the phone without sounding like I was blaming you.” I shrugged once. “We were both there. We both skipped the condom. This is on both of us.”

Ethan was quiet for another stretch of seconds. Then he crossed the space between us, stopped in front of me, and reached up to brush a strand of hair away from my face. The touch was careful. It still sent a familiar current through me.

“I’m not going to disappear,” he said. “Just so we’re clear.”

Something tight in my chest loosened a fraction. “Okay.”

“I mean it. Whatever you want to do—keep it, not keep it, figure it out as we go—I’m here. I’m not the guy who fucks his best friend’s sister-in-law at the wedding and then pretends the consequences aren’t his.”

The bluntness of it made my mouth tilt. “That’s a generous summary of events.”

“Accurate, though.”

He was standing close enough now that I could smell the clean soap on his skin. The same heat that had lived between us in the bridal suite stirred again, slower this time but no less present. His eyes dropped to my mouth, then lower, then returned to mine with deliberate control.

“You’re still attracted to me,” he said quietly. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“Even after showing up with that.” He nodded toward the test on the table.

“Especially after showing up with that, apparently.”

A rough, almost unwilling sound left him. His hand settled on my waist, thumb brushing the edge of my shirt. The contact was light. It still made my pulse jump.

“This is a terrible time to want to fuck you again,” he muttered.

“I know.”

“Doesn’t seem to be stopping either of us.”

“No.”

He kissed me.

It was slower than the first time in the suite, but no less hungry. I opened for him immediately. His hand slid under the back of my shirt, warm against bare skin, and pulled me closer until my body aligned with his. I could feel that he was already hard. The knowledge sent a sharp pulse of need between my legs.

When he broke the kiss he rested his forehead against mine.

“We’re going to talk about all of this,” he said, voice low. “Properly. Options. Logistics. The fact that your sister is married to my best friend and this is going to be messy as hell.”

“I know.”

“But not right this second.”

“No,” I agreed, already reaching for the hem of his T-shirt. “Not right this second.”

He walked me backward toward the hallway that led to his bedroom, mouth on mine again, hands already pushing under my clothes. The positive test stayed on the coffee table behind us, two pink lines quiet and irreversible in the afternoon light.

We left it there.

There would be time for consequences later.

Right now there was only the same reckless pull that had started in a quiet hallway at my sister’s wedding—and the clear, mutual decision to give in to it one more time before the rest of the world caught up.