Ethan shows up at our door when Ella and I are about to head out of the hotel room the next morning. I've been waiting for her to finish her makeup for the past twenty minutes but his presence is a nice distraction.

"Hey!" He says and looks up. I do the same and I'm mostly relieved that there's no mistletoe hanging above us this time. "So er, I just came to... to get y'all for breakfast."

"Oh, are we late?" I ask. There's an awkward pause and he just stares me straight in the face. It's making me nervous. "Ethan?"

"Yeah, um, you guys are a little late. Janet's downstairs already and she's getting a little antsy." He clears his throat and looks away from my face. I release a small breath. "Um, so I gotta talk to you about something too. If that's okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, what's up?"

"We can talk about it later." He dismisses quickly. "Oh! And I gotta give you your Christmas present; it's the twenty ninth and you've already gone a few days without it."

I smile. He smiles too. And then we're smiling at each other, until Ella comes out of the bathroom, her face of makeup finally done. She gasps loudly and pushes me out of the way slightly.

"Ethan! Did you come check on me?!" She asks, fluttering her eyelashes.

I roll my eyes and move out of the way. "He came because you were taking too long getting ready." I say bluntly.

Ella frowns and looks at me. "I was?"

I send her what I'm hoping is an exasperated look but she ignores it. The three of us head downstairs for breakfast and join the others, who are scattered around a huge table. David winks when he sees us coming in and whispers something to Janet who gasps. The two of them high five and I roll my eyes. My mind's still on what happened last night and I'm happy we kissed but I kinda wish they didn't orchestrate or see it happen. It's embarrassing.

Ethan sits next to David, with Ella between us. I pick up a bread roll and nibble on it nervously. Janet smirks at me as I sit next to her. I pretend not to see her because it's beginning to get on my nerves.

"So what's the plan for today?" Anthony asks.

"I wanna go shopping." Ella says briskly. "I wanna get a diamond ring from Tiffany & Co. – Ethan."

Ethan looks up from his phone. My phone vibrates and I realise he's sent me a message. "Yo?"

"Could you help me pick out a ring today?"

"A ring for what? What are we picking out rings for?" He squints while I sneak a peek at my phone. He's sent me a picture of myself edited with mouse ears and whiskers. I almost chuckle out loud but realise people would ask me why so I just sneak a picture of him. I do the same, only this time I add cat ears and sharp teeth.

"Alisa? What did you want to do?"

I look up and lock my phone. Everyone stares at me expectantly and I lick my lips, wondering what the hell they were talking about. "What were the options?"

"David wants to go sightseeing, I want to go shopping." Ella explains. She looks at me expectantly. "You coming shopping too?"

I consider the day. "I don't really have anything to shop for and I wanna see the Statue of Liberty."

"Sightseeing?" David asks. I nod and he reaches over the table to high five me. "Okay, so that's me and Alisa, anyone else?"

"I wanna go shopping too." Anthony says. "I wanna get a new pair of basketball shoes for my brother."

"I'll go with y'all." Janet says. "We can split, three-three?" She looks at Ethan, who just shrugs.

"That's fine by me." He says languidly. "I know this real cool arcade in Manhattan that we could hit up too."

"Wait, I think I might go sightseeing too –" Ella starts but she's interrupted by Janet, who looks like she's plotting something.

"Oh don't worry, Ellie boo! Me and Anthony won't be too couple-couple, we'll sit you between us when we get lunch!" Her eyes widen and begin sparkling. "Oh my God, you can be our mock child! We can take photos with Santa!"

"Janet, Christmas was four days ago. Santa's gone."

-

Traffic bites us in the ass after we get to the Empire State building. We sit in an overpriced yellow taxicab and complain about how cold it is, much to the amusement of our taxicab driver who finds us pretty hilarious if I do say so.

"You know, if I get into Julliard, I'd have to move to this city." I say out loud. It's mostly to myself but the others pick up on it of course.

"No shit Alisa." Ethan says. I look at him and he sticks his tongue out.

"Shut up." I mumble, feeling my cheeks heat up.

David turns around from the front seat. "What's this? A lover's quarrel?"

"Shut up." Ethan and I say at the same time. He glances at me but I don't do the same back, mostly because my blush is getting progressively worse by the second.

He taps me. I ignore him but he does it again. "What?"

"Can we talk later?" He mumbles quietly.

"What was that? I can't hear the vein of this new conversation!" David hollers.

"I was asking her when we were finally ditching you."

"Oh, so y'all can run away and –"

"I dare you to finish that sentence." Ethan says, sounding borderline scary. David contemplates this: he opens his mouth and a breath comes out before he decides it's not worth it.

We get out at a little arcade not too far from Central Park and go in, curious to see what we'd fine. Immediately, the boys start geeking out over the retro Pac-MAN machine and leave me to wander around by myself. I try out the claw machines while they play and check my phone aimlessly. A call from Janet comes through when I'm sat playing this old school She-Ra game on an old console.

"What's up?"

"So tell me," she says with a low voice. "How did it feel having Ethan's tongue down your throat?"

"Janet! Could you – why do you know about this?!" I hiss, blushing. She cackles over the phone and squeals with glee. "Aren't Anthony and Ella with you?"

"Oh, she's in Victoria's Secret, we're eating crepes." She dismisses. "And David told us! It was all part of our plan to get y'all together, I'm so glad it worked!"

"You guys are some mother-"

"Who are you talking to?" I spin around and Ethan leans up from behind me, a slight smirk on his face. I stare at him, very alarmed while Janet makes noise over the line. "So?"

"So what?" I ask, very dumbfounded.

"Who's on the line?"

I blink and remove my phone from my ear, hanging up immediately. "Oh, it was Janet."

"Huh. You done?" He leans against the wall next to me and smiles. I nod, wondering what he wants. "Can we talk now?"

"Where's David?"

"He's really into his game right now. He won't bother us if we don't holler for him or something." He says. "So about yesterday..."

I look down and lick my lips, dreading this conversation. Truthfully, I thought it'd be best if we just pretended this didn't happen; that way I don't have to live through the embarrassment whenever someone reminds me that it happens. Plus, it means that I can look Ethan in the eye and not feel like a tomato.

"Yeah, yesterday was weird." I mumble, sure he can hear me despite my lowered voice. "Can we not..."

"I just wanted to...talk about it." He interrupts. "We kissed last night."

I squirm. "We did."

"Because of the mistletoe."

It sounds like a statement but the way he looks at me makes me wonder if he's asking me a question. Either way, it dampens my mood a little. Is he saying this to try and ward me off? David said he liked me back but maybe after 'sticking his tongue down my throat', he realised that he was just horny or something stupid.

"Because of the mistletoe." I repeat.

"That's all it was... right?"

He's going above and beyond to tell me all this. I look away at the Pac-MAN machine where David is pretending to play his game. He catches me and puts his thumb up. I am tempted to show him a thumbs down.

"Right. It was just because of the – the mistletoe." I say clearly and look back at Ethan. Ethan stares at me with an unwavering gaze that I'm pretty sure was designed to ruin my life. In more ways than one.

"Cool. I'm glad we cleared the air, buddy." He says and pats my shoulder a few times. Then with a slight smile, he walks away from me.

... Buddy.

Well shit.