Ethan’s jaw began to ache with how tightly he had his two rows of teeth clenched together. Mr. Rodriguez was drilling him and his classmates for not having perfected their newest technique when they had only learned it a couple of days prior. These things took time, and Mr. Rodriguez wasn’t a very good teacher if Ethan was being frank. 

And what right did he have to judge when his example hadn’t looked much better than the piece he had blown up over? This, on top of his teacher believing that their students had to copy their art style, was starting to get on Ethan’s last nerve.

“This is the third unit that you all have been lacking in.” He complained, a frustrated scowl on his lips. “I have tried and tried again to show you how to get his right, and instead of learning, you just go off and do your own thing. And now this?! Do any of you even know how to do art?!”

Ethan’s hands made a thundering noise as they hit the table in front of him. He rose, not even realizing what he had planned until the words started leaving his lips.

“Isn’t art supposed to be a form of expression? An outlet where one’s thoughts, feelings, or visions-”

“Quiet!” He screeched, eyes narrowing at Ethan’s defiance.

“. . . can be shared?” Ethan didn’t stop, and instead, let his voice grow steadily louder. The opportunity to finally share his thoughts was getting to him, and he pushed on. “Who told you that you could start screaming at us for using art as it is supposed to be used?!”

“I said quiet! Or you are going to end up ‘expressing your feelings’ in detention.” Mr. Rodrigeuz walked through the rows of tables, coming up to where Ethan sat near the back. He leaned down, his sour breath falling onto Ethan’s poor nose. Mr. Rodrigeuz grinned. “Do you want to test me?”

Ethan didn’t lean back, despite the putrid stench, and sent Mr. Rodrigeuz a smile of his own.

“Sure. Then we’ll see if you pass it.”

—————

Ethan huffed loudly, taking the mop harshly and rolling it along with the cleaning tray away from the Assistant Principal. He didn’t want another look at their smug face knowing they were so happy to see him going to clean some smelly bathrooms.

He kept his head ducked down, not meeting the eyes of any students who walked past him in the halls. After he passed by the third person in less than thirty seconds, he sped up to reach the first bathroom even faster. 

When he stepped in, he cringed when he saw a Grade 9 kid standing at the urinal to piss. Although Ethan had wanted to start quickly to get the whole ordeal over with, he was forced to lean against the wall, turning so that he wasn’t looking anywhere near the still peeing man.

Gosh, how much water did he drink? Ethan wondered when the stream was still going. The 9th grader finally tucked himself away and washed his hands before leaving in a hurry. As Ethan saw the boys’ bleached locks move further away, he chuckled.

“I guess he didn’t enjoy peeing in front of me either,” Ethan muttered with a smile. After listening for a second and not hearing any noise, he pulled out the yellow sign to keep other students from entering the bathroom.

The loud splat from the mop hitting the tiled floor was disgusting, but Ethan found himself grinning slightly from the noise. So while Mr. Rodrieguz was still able to get him punished, he managed to talk himself out of detention and talk the AP principal into giving Mr. Rodrigeuz an evaluation to see if he was still a good fit for the job.

Ethan prayed that he gets fired.

Ethan took a while to clean the first bathroom, figuring out how and when to do what and which methods worked best. But by his third bathroom, he was moving swiftly and efficiently. Although this wasn’t a skill Ethan planned to use much in the future, he felt proud of how good he was getting at mopping floors and wiping pee stains off of ceramic.

Ethan made quick work of the third bathroom and went to do his fourth. While Ethan watched the last man leave the bathroom, a grin grew on his face. He was nearly done, he just had to finish this and one more bathroom and he would be able to call it a day on his punishment. 

Acknowledging his momentary pride, Ethan felt the need to remind himself that he wasn’t happy with having to do this punishment in the slightest. It was lunch and instead of chilling with Aiden and hearing how his revised plans have been going, he had to quickly scarf down his food in the Assistant Principal’s office before getting to work. 

But, if Ethan worked fast, he may be able to get a couple of minutes of break to talk to Aiden. With that new plan in mind, Ethan began to rush through his work. Of course, his pride didn’t let him not be thorough about it, but he was sure that he was moving through the tasks faster than before. Ethan finished washing his hands since he had just dealt with this bathroom's pee stains when he heard someone walking in.

His first instinct was to tell them that the bathroom was off-limits but he turned around first and his brain short-circuited. There stood Chris, in all of his tall dark, and very handsome glory. His head was bent down, focused on the phone in his hand, but he looked up when he nearly hit the cleaning cart.

The look of surprise on his face when he saw Ethan had the shorter man turning red. Chris beamed and Ethan struggled not to implode.

“Oh, hey Ethan.” He smiled widely, his pearly whites catching the gleam from the bathroom’s fluorescent bulbs. Ethan’s eyes went wide, but he managed to lift his hand in a very awkward and tense wave. 

“Hey, Chris.” While Ethan’s voice was only just slightly wobbly, he was internally freaking out.

Oh my God, I look like a mess. My hair is probably messed up, my skin probably looks disgusting, and I’m still wearing this stupid cleaning apron! Why do I have to talk to him like this?

Chris laughed, his head falling backward and the thick column of his throat lying exposed for Ethan’s greedy eyes. Once Ethan was able to zone back into what was happening, his head dropped, embarrassed. Was Chris laughing at him? Making fun of him?

“Sorry, your outfit just threw me off,” Chris told him, still laughing through his words. Ethan deflated further and tried to count the stitches on his shoes. “I don’t think I ever imagined a guy like you cleaning but here you are. It looks so . . . domestic.”

Ethan perked up at those words, looking at Chris curiously. He grinned, thinking about testing the waters between the two of them.

“Do I not seem domestic to you?” Ethan asked, his hands resting over his hips and his head tilting to the side. Chris's eyes widened a bit at the teasing response before grinning.

“I don’t know, maybe more of a get-into-trouble kind of boy,” Chris replied cheekily, his arms crossing over his chest and his thick biceps flexing a bit with the motion. Ethan’s nose shot up and he responded based on Chris’s words and not the wonderful sight Chris made before him.

“For your information, I am a man, not a boy. At least a man-boy if I must be demoted.” Chris burst out laughing but Ethan acted as if he didn’t hear it and continued. “Secondly, you are not wrong about the ‘trouble’ thing, but I can totally be domestic.”

As Chris stepped closer to Ethan, his laugh was still dying off and a glint shone in his eyes.

“Yeah, I think I can see that,” Chris replied, his eyes trailing down Ethan’s body. Ethan didn’t even glance down at the apron that rested at the front of his chest, thighs, and around his hips, but he knew it was what Chris was referring to. Chris was still smiling and Ethan found himself smiling along. “So, why exactly are you being so ‘domestic’ and cleaning the bathroom?”

Ethan snorted and went to start packing away the supplies. Chris was quiet, silently watching Ethan as he worked. Ethan began to get uneasy at the attention, becoming hyper-aware of everything he did. Was his hair alright? Was he bending over weird? Were his pants stuck up his ass? Oh God, his pants were totally stuck up his ass!

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ethan asked, speaking to get the attention away from his butt. Whether Chris had actually been looking at it or not, Ethan couldn’t give him another opportunity to see that. “It’s a lunch punishment. A step up from the detention I was supposed to get since it won’t stay on my record.”

“Wow,” Chris said, a look of surprise on his face. “You weren’t kidding with the whole troublemaker thing.”

Ethan had to laugh at the idea. Trouble maker? If anything, he was a bad attention grabber, getting the class’ attention in the worst way possible at the worst times possible. But he rarely got in trouble. How could a teacher punish someone for being cringe?

But Ethan didn’t say any of that, he stuck with shrugging his shoulders and leaning against the cleaning cart. 

“I guess I wasn’t.” Ethan hummed, his voice dropping lower into a mutter. Without meaning to, his focus had shifted from Chris's eyes to his lips, which were currently being gnawed on. It was a very tempting sight, and his eyes glazed over a bit as he continued to stare. 

Chris looked away from Ethan, continuing to bite at his lip in thought. Ethan watched him, curious as to what he was thinking about. Chris looked back at him, and Ethan blushed a bright red. He didn’t seem to realize that Ethan had been staring, but Ethan felt as if he had just been caught.

Chris chuckled while he still had a bit of a nervous look in his eyes. Ethan ducked his head but peaked up at Chris a bit, still curious about what he would say. Chris scratched the back of his neck and grinned down at Ethan.

“I have to go back to lunch. Aaron wanted to vent about the Scarlett situation and I came here to get a break, but he’ll get suspicious if I take any longer.” The smile that had danced on Chris's lips fell off, and his eyes widened comically as he realized what he said. “Shit, I wasn’t supposed to say that. I really have no idea why I just told you about that, I’m sorry.”

Ethan shook his head, chuckling at the slight panic on Chris’s face.

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t mind,” Ethan told him, his smile widening when Chris seemed to relax. “And I won’t tell anyone else either.”

“Thanks.” Chris sighed in relief, his eyes meeting Ethan’s thankfully. “So, could I get your Instagram? I don’t know if I would remember to ask later.”

Ethan’s mind reeled, his brain sputtering with all the new information. Chris wanted his Instagram? Like, to follow him. He was so close to telling the darker-skinned man when he remembered what his Instagram was like. Elementary photos, gross things he saw on the street, his face covered in his mom’s face mask-

“I don’t have Instagram!” Ethan’s eyes went wide the moment the words left his mouth. He had blurted them out because of panic, but he couldn’t take the words back now. Chris deflated slightly, and Ethan wanted to curse himself from two seconds ago. 

“Oh, I see,” Chris replied, a disappointed but understanding smile on his face. Ethan mentally screamed. He had just screwed up his chance to be in contact with Chris Davis. What in the world was he thinking? Ethan was about to create a list of all of the things he could do to at least get Chris’s Instagram, but Chris was speaking again. “Can I have your phone number, then?”

Ethan couldn’t say yes fast enough. Ethan rattled off his phone number so quickly that Chris had to ask him to repeat it two times. The third time, he just had Ethan type it in himself. Chris quickly sent him a text, and Ethan beamed at the idea of seeing a text from Chris when he got his phone back from the office.

Chris looked up from his phone and smiled kindly at Ethan. Ethan ate up the attention like a sponge, enjoying this interaction far too much. Chris was moving closer again and Ethan’s body went rigid at the proximity.

“So, I guess I’ll see you later,” Chris said, speaking softly as he looked at Ethan from under his curly lashes. As Chris said this, he reached out to nudge Ethan’s arm, the space that his hand reached burned into Ethan’s mind. 

Chris began to walk away and Ethan just barely managed to whisper bye as the black man left.

Ethan waited for several moments. When he was sure that Chris wasn’t close enough to hear anything that he said, he screamed. Ethan was jumping up and down and punching the air for a solid minute before he abruptly stopped. He adjusted his shirt and hair and fixed his face into a cool expression before he left the bathroom. 

Ethan didn’t finish cleaning early that day. Despite his best efforts, he became terribly slow because all he thought about Chris the entire time.