“I’m hungry too, you know. And I can’t eat while I’m driving.” Ethan said as soon as we were on the road again.
He eyed the food in my hands as its delectable aroma spread throughout the car. He licked his lips and turned back to face ahead.
“I know. I’ve an idea. Let’s go to the cliff where we used to go when we were kids.”
“You want to eat there? I don’t know, it’s gotten dark now.” He said, looking out his window at the setting sun and dark clouds.
“You took me there on my birthday at four am.” I deadpanned.
“We weren’t there to have dinner that night.”
“Doesn’t matter. Take us there.”
“As you wish, master. Any other orders?”
I lightly shoved his shoulders, enough to not distract him while he was driving. “Hey, I never ordered you.”
“Well you sounded pretty demanding.”
“Fine.? Please, take us there. I want to go there tonight.”
“Now that sounds a lot nicer, doesn’t it?”
“Oh whatever. Are you taking us there?”
“Of course.”
When we arrived at the cliff, Ethan parked and left the headlights on when I told him to. We took two extra towels we had to use as a blanket to sit on.
We laid out the food and drinks in front of us and sat next to each other. I knew this was a good idea, an extension to our date. We had a perfect view of the brightly lit up city we lived in and above we had an ethereal picture of a dark sky twinkling with a million distant stars and a half hidden moon bathing us in its soft white glow. We had an additional source of light in the form of the headlights of the car which we had left on.
We unwrapped our burgers which had thankfully managed to stay warm and took a bite, marveling at the taste. We were completely famished by our adventurous day and eating warm burgers under a night sky on a cliff overlooking a city abuzz with life was the perfect end to the date.
We were so hungry that our conversation was limited to moaning about how good the food was or how beautiful the sight was. When we finally finished, we were full. We cleaned up the garbage and put it in the car to throw away later when we got home. I happened to check my phone for the first time in hours and I knew I was in trouble when I saw that there were a few missed calls from Olivia and a ton of messages and missed calls from Dad and Mom.
Ethan glanced my way and looked into my phone on seeing my troubled expression. He took away my phone.
“I know we’re going to get scolded when we get home so let’s not worry about it right now. Will you do that for me?”
I nodded. “God, I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
“It’ll be alright. You don’t have to worry. I’m the one who should be worried. I’m the one who kidnapped you without telling your parents. I’m the one who started dating you without asking proper permission from your parents and I’m dating you right under their roof.”
“They’re not going to throw you out for this.” I did say that but I wasn’t sure.
“Really? Because I have my bags packed in case I got kicked out.” He laughed.
“You’re right. Let’s not worry about this right now.”
I took him by his hand and led him back to the towels. We laid down on it. Now the only thing in front of our eyes was the blanket of stars and the moon above us. The city disappeared down from our view and his hand found mine.
“This is nice.” He said.
I hummed my agreement.
“Juliet, do you think we should make it official?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to properly ask your dad for permission to date you. And if he says yes, should we reveal it to the media too?”
I sat up straight. “This is a little sudden. It’s only been a few days since we started dating. And this was our first date. Don’t you think we should wait?”
He shrugged, drawing patterns on my hand. “I want to be able to date freely without feeling like a criminal. Honestly I should’ve asked your dad first but things happened out of order. And if the paparazzi gets a whiff of me dating after the thing with Heather, it’s only going to be hard for you.”
“You don’t have to ask him. I told you that he said he didn’t mind us dating.”
He smiled and brought my hand to his lips to place a soft kiss on its back. “Yes, but I want to still ask him. It’s only good manners.”
“Come on, I can date whoever I want.”
“Of course, but he’s a little overprotective of you now. I’m sure he just wants to make sure I’m not like Vince and you won’t run away again. He’s right to worry about it.”
Now realizing where he was coming from, I nodded in agreement. “I guess you’re right.”
“You don’t have to be so worked up right now. I won’t do anything until you’re ready.”
He patted his arm and I laid back next to him, resting my head on his extended arm.
“Tell me if my head starts to feel heavy.” I muttered.
We stayed like that talking for some more time and thankfully the conversation moved to other topics.
Once it was ten at night we decided to head back. The ride back was silent, both too tired to speak much.
When we arrived a little after eleven the mansion was still brightly lit. Clearly everyone was still awake.
When we walked into the living room, we saw my dad and mom sitting on the couch, watching a movie.
The sound of our footsteps alerted them of our presence and my dad shot out of his seat to turn around and give us a furious look. “Where have you two been?” He meant to sound angry but it came out more as concerned which he probably was more than being angry.
“Sir, I’m sorry I took Juliet without informing you. I thought we’d be back before evening but our plans got extended unexpectedly.” Ethan answered.
“You two going on dates is fine by us? but you could’ve at least informed us.” My mom said, yawning at the end. She didn’t seem as fazed with our disappearance as her husband was.
“We thought you ran away again!” My dad exclaimed with wide eyes. “I was about to inform the cops until I got a call from his assistant that he had taken the day off.”
“Honey, let’s not do this right now. The kids are tired. They are safe and that’s all that matters as of now. You can talk to them tomorrow morning.” She said, putting a hand on his arm then turned to us. “Have you two eaten yet?”
“Yes, we did.” I told her.
She nodded. “Let’s go to bed.” She started pulling Alistair back.
“Fine. But I’m going to have a word with you two tomorrow, especially you Ethan.” He said warningly. I gulped. I hoped he’d cool down by tomorrow.
“Yes, sir.” He said.
“Good night, you two. Don’t go running away somewhere in the middle of the night.” Charlotte said, giving me a pointed look.
“We won’t.” I said defensively.
Once they were gone, I released a sigh of relief. “Well that wasn’t so bad.”
“It’s not over. He’s going to talk to us tomorrow, especially me.”
“But hey, you aren’t getting kicked out tonight.” I said to remind him of the brighter side.
“Let’s hope it’s not tomorrow either.”
“You won’t. Seriously. I won’t let him. Now let’s go get some sleep, yeah? I’m so tired.”
Once we reached in front of our rooms. Ethan paused.
“Should I sleep in my own room tonight?”
“What, why?”
“I don’t want to give your parents any more reason to hate me.”
I rolled my eyes. “They don’t hate you and it’s not like they’re going to come check on me.”
“I don’t know. I think they might after what happened today.”
“You’re sleeping in my room.” I looped my arm around his and started pulling him towards my room.
“Okay, okay. Slow down. You seem a lot excited today to get me in bed.”
“Shut up.”
After I had taken a shower and brushed my teeth, I went into my room. Ethan was already sitting on my bed, watching a sports channel. He smelled nice. He had taken a shower before me.
I climbed on my bed and wrapped an arm around his waist, resting my head on his shoulder. I suddenly wanted to cuddle.
He seemed surprised but chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, caging me in.
“Let’s go to sleep.” I murmured into the side of his neck.
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” With that he pressed the button to shut the TV off.
He started showering my face with kisses, settling on my lips after he made sure my whole face had been kissed.
“I didn’t switch off my bedside lamp.” I grumbled between kisses.
“Screw it.” He murmured against my lips.
“No, I need to switch it off. I can only sleep when there is complete darkness.”
“I’m giving you two seconds to get back,” He said as he released me. He sat up himself to take off his shirt.
I turned over and stretched to reach the switch but my hand stilled when I caught sight of a figure standing outside my slightly parted door in my peripheral vision, their eyes trained on us.