Speak of the devil, Salvatore peeked his head back in. “Word of warning, you’re about to have a bad night.”
Willow and Ethan both frowned, but Salvatore ducked back out, clearly uninterested in sticking around.
Which became more understandable when, a moment later, Willow heard Lauren’s voice, thick with panic. “Willow!”
“Fantastic,” Ethan muttered, quickly retrieving his shirt from the floor and yanking it on. He didn’t get it buttoned before Lauren and Ashlynn burst through the door, wearing complementary expressions of terror and fury.
“What was he doing here?” Lauren asked, before her gaze fell on Ethan and her eyes widened. “And what is he doing here?”
“I think we know what he’s doing here,” Ashlynn stated, her gaze piercing Ethan’s fingers, quickly working at the buttons of his open shirt. Her face paled a shade when she got to Willow, wearing a T-shirt and panties, but too afraid to walk away from Ethan to go retrieve more clothing.
Ethan fought the urge to push her behind him, out of their view. Despite his rational comments earlier, he wasn’t entirely sure how they would react to catching him with their daughter again.
He had no idea what to say. Ideas of things to tell them preemptively flew through his mind, but he couldn’t seem to push any words out of his mouth.
“He was just leaving,” Willow finally said.
Ashlynn’s eyebrows rose, but Lauren’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
“He… he….” Lauren shook her head, overcome with bewildered rage. “What about Brian?”
There was no point keeping up that charade. Swallowing, Willow admitted, “We broke up.”
Lauren looked from Ethan back to Willow, mouth working, but seemingly at a loss.
Deciding to speak up, Ethan said, “Listen, I know you don’t like me. I understand that. I hope in time you’ll change your opinion when you see how well I treat your daughter, how happy I make her, that I’m not the slimeball you think I am.”
“I’m calling the police,” Ashlynn stated.
“No!” Willow shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Stop it. Would you just…?” Trailing off, she shook her head, unsure what to even ask. When she had tried to reason with them before, it had been a failure every time. She’d used every argument she had at least three times and none of them worked.
“I’ll leave,” Ethan stated, wanting to keep the peace… and also wanting to get the hell out of there.
“We’ll be issuing a restraining order against you tomorrow,” Ashlynn stated.
“That’s fine; Willow generally comes to my place anyway,” he stated.
Ashlynn’s eyebrows rose, clearly not expecting that response.
Willow grimaced, also not expecting that response.
Ethan continued.
“You can try to get a restraining order against me—I say try, because it’s not very l
ikely you’ll be able to get one. Your daughter is an adult dating another adult you don’t like, and that isn’t illegal. I haven’t threatened you, and regardless of what happened in Chicago when… I met Willow, there are no charges against me. I understand that’s shitty and unjust in a lot of ways, I understand that you have valid reasons for wanting to punish me, but trust me, I’ve faced consequences. Not in court, but I couldn’t sleep at night, reliving the horror of what happened there, how I hurt Willow. I lost my home, my family, the respect of most of the people I considered friends. I won’t come to your home again. You won’t hear from me again if you don’t want to. But I will see Willow. Any attempt on your part to get in the way of that at this point will fail. I’m not saying any of this to piss you off or disrespect you, but I love the hell out of your daughter, I think she’s amazing, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone get in the way of that.”
“Not even your wife?” Ashlynn asked snidely.
“We are in the process of divorcing. I deeply regret the position I put Willow in concerning all that, I regret hurting her, I regret hurting my wife, I regret all of the pain that resulted from it. I’ve felt the pain, too. I never wanted any of this. I’ve lived with the fallout every day of my life since then, and all of it without Willow. Now that I have her by my side, I’m not letting her go unless that’s what she wants. You can take her phone or car or college fund, you can take the very roof over her head—I can provide every one of those things if you do. What I can’t provide is a supportive relationship with her parents; only you can offer that. Just what I’ve seen from a distance, it seems like your relationship has already suffered from all this. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a point of contention in your relationship. I want Willow happy, I want harmony in every area of her life. I don’t want to be the cause of anymore stress or pain. Whatever you think of me, I love your daughter, and her happiness is important to me. Assuming you feel the same way… maybe you can find it in your hearts to be just a little open-minded about me—I only need a sliver, I’ll earn the rest in time.”
“Time,” Lauren repeated, looking a little skeptical.
“I know how this could look,” Ethan acknowledged. “It isn’t that. Willow’s age, honestly, is more a drawback than any kind of ego stroke.”
Encouraged by his speech, Willow laid a hand on his shoulder, leaning closer to him. That successfully drew her parents’ attention. “I hate the way things have been between us these last few months. I hate avoiding you and lying to you and living my whole life separate from you. It was never like that before, and some things that have changed in the course of all this may never change back, but that doesn’t have to be one of them. Don’t you want me to be happy? Don’t you want to be a part of that instead of an obstacle in the way of it? Because Ethan is right—I’m going to be with him, with or without your support, but I would really prefer to have it.”
Her parents didn’t immediately respond, and the moment of silence seemed to stretch on forever.