44. Ethan
forty-four
Ialready knew showering with Grace was up there in the top most sensuous experiences. Now I’m discovering it’s also highly entertaining.
Grace sings in the shower. Loud. Totally off key. And totally hilarious.
There’s a theme to her repertoire, and I’m not sure if I should be worried. She wrapped up “Hit the Road, Jack” while I was shampooing her hair, and now she’s on her knees, lathering my balls to some song about a girl carving her name in the leather of some dude’s car, and not as a sweet memento of their undying love.
“You sure ‘bout that song?” I ask.
“It’s Carrie Underwood!” She looks at me like that should settle it. “It’s a classic!”
Oh well, if it’s a classic, then…
We rinse, then she trots out the bathroom, bellowing the lyrics while doing some sort of line dancing routine.
Fucking adorable.
I follow her and tag my jeans from the floor. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” She eyes me top to bottom. “’s long as you don’t wear anything other than those… sinfully-hugging jeans.”
I grab her by the waist and pull her to me. “Sinfully-hugging?”
She smirks and blushes, then shrugs my question away. “It’s in a book I read. Made me think of you.”
I kiss her forehead and let her go, or else we’ll end up in bed again. Not that I mind, but I promised Mom and Dad we’d come spend time with them today. “What kinda books you read, beautiful?”
Another shrug. “Uh, you know, nothin’ serious.”
“Like, what’s the title.”
Her throat bobs and her eyes dart to her night table for a fraction of a second, then she starts making the bed. “I dunno, it’s on my Kindle.”
Taking the other side, I follow her cue of smoothing the fitted sheet, then pulling her fancy duvet up. “So what if it’s on your Kindle?”
“Once you start the book, you don’t see the title. I never know what I’m reading.”
We fluff way too many pillows on top of the bed, then pull up a cute throw. “Well, let’s find out.” I stomp to her side and open the nightstand. “Oh. I didn’t know Kindles came with actual flip pages made of actual paper and glossy thick covers and shit.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, they call it the Krinkle. It just came out.”
I flip through the pages of the paperback, then zoom in on the cover, a slow smile taking a hold of me.
She continues, “People are over the digital stuff. They want to touch the paper, smell it… ya know.”
“Krinkle it.”
“Exactly, krinkle it.” She swats the paperback from my hands and goes to put it back in the drawer.
The model is bare chested, leaning on the door jamb, looking at the camera with sex on his mind. I frown. “This the guy with jeans that hug him?”
“I guess so.” Her eyes don’t stop to look at his abs or the V revealed by jeans that are clearly lacking in the hugging department, seeing as they’re about to fall off him. She closes the drawer and turns her back to me, lifting her hair off her neck. “Can you tie this up please?”
I fumble with the ribbons holding her summer dress, a part of my brain registering that this dress needs to stay up all day but also come off real quick tonight. “You think of me when you read that book?” I’m not sure how I feel about that, and I don’t say this in a way that suggests I don’t approve. I’m just… at a loss. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? A neutral thing? An I-don’t-give-a-fuck thing? Probably the latter. The truth is, I have to admit, I feel fucking jealous of this paper guy because he gets to stay next to Grace while I’m gone.
Fucking shit. I’m pathetic.
“Yeah, I do think of you.” Dress tied up, she goes to her closet.
Okay. Shoulda kept my mouth shut. I don’t want to hear how she makes up for my absence.
Or maybe I need to grow a pair and listen—understand—what her pain is like because of me.
She comes back with a hamper. “I think about how lucky I am.” Stopping in her tracks, her eyes darken as they set on me. “That I have my own happy ever after now. That I won’t ever be without you again.”
Emotion floods me and I pull her against me. She lifts her face. “What kind of books do you read?” she asks me.
“Second World War. Spy books. That kinda stuff.”
She makes a little sound in the back of her throat, boops me, then bends over to the floor. I catch her wrist in my hand. “What are you doing?”
“Just… picking stuff up,” she says, dropping my dirty sock in the hamper.
Fuck. I’m a pig. But no way is Grace picking my dirty socks off the floor. I take the hamper from her and go about picking up the rest of my clothes. I am missing one sock, though.
“I cleared some space for you.” She opens the closet door wide again to reveal half the shelves and rods empty now, her clothes packed tight on the other side. Before I can say anything, she’s opening up drawers that are all empty.
Even with all my stuff that’s somewhere in transit until I know where I’ll end up, I don’t own one-tenth of the clothes needed to fill all this. But that’s not why my vision is getting blurry.
“I’ll go make coffee while you settle in,” she says, fleeing the bedroom like maybe she did something wrong.
I clear my throat, set the hamper in the closet, unpack my duffel bag. I only have a couple of days here before I leave. I don’t need to unpack. But I want to.
She’s talking nervously to Damian, singing some other country song that just about rips my heart out. Something about tomorrow maybe never coming.
Fuck this shit.
I’ll find the other sock later. I need us to be happy for the short time I’m here. “Babe,” I say as I come into the kitchen where she’s fighting with the coffee machine. “Lemme handle this.”
She seems happy to let me take over, and then her sad face lights up. “Oooh! I have something for you.” She dashes away, then returns holding a small packet all wrapped up with curly ribbons and bows.
“Let’s go outside first,” she says as she pours cream and maple syrup in two cups, then fills us up with coffee.
I start tearing the gift open once I’m settled on the outdoor sofa. “I like this little couch, babe. Perfect size for the two of us.”
She wiggles against me, careful not to spill any coffee. “I know. That’s why I got it.” She blows on her coffee and slurps her first sip. “You like it?” she says, smiling huge at the gift sitting on my lap.
I unwrap it clumsily, letting it fall on my lap. It’s a mumble jumble of little things hooked together.
The outline of the state of Vermont.
A heart.
The name Grace.
A key.
And a ring to hold it all together.
Her key.
She gave me her key.
“Grace,” I start, speechless. It’s the most thoughtful gift she could have gotten me.
“It’s kinda girlish, I’m sorry. But it’s not like you’re going to be using it when you’re in Brussels. Matter of fact, you should just tuck it in your travel bag and leave it there, so you have it when you come back. So you don’t lose it.”
“I’m not gonna lose it.” My eyes water. “You gave me your key.”
She sets her coffee on the floor and turns to face me. “I didn’t give you my key. I gave you your key.”
I wrap her in my arms and kiss her softly, then deeper.
She straddles me, then breaks the kiss, her puffy lips and hooded eyelids making me re-consider my plans for the day. “Aren’t we going to the farm in a few minutes?”
“Yeah…” I drawl as she wiggles off me and snatches her coffee from the floor.
I look at the key nestled in the palm of my hand. “No one ever got me a keychain. It’ll be in my pocket all the time.”
“But it’s… goofy.”
“No it’s not. It’s sweet. And caring. And loving. It’s everything you.” I turn the name Grace in my fingers, running my thumb over each block letter in a soft pink. Sweet like her lips, her kiss, her love.
Then the heart. It’s black. Like death and mourning. Surely they had red hearts. Why did she choose black? Reading my thoughts, she says, “I thought that’d be less girly, but you know what…” She huffs. “You can just... You don’t have to… I’m sorry.”
The outline of the state is a predictable green, but it’s also the color of our town, and it means something to me, now.
“What are you sorry about?”
“It seemed like a good idea. It seemed funny. It’s really nothing. I don’t know why you keep looking at it like that. It’s really nothing.”
“It’s everything to me.”
“Ugh!” she pretends to mock moan. “I should have gotten you something nicer.”
“Come here,” I say, pulling her back into me. “It’s the nicest thing you could have gotten me. Seriously. You gave me the key to your house.”
“I didn’t give you the key to my house, Ethan.”
“Oh.” Now I’m embarrassed. “Sorry,” I chuckle awkwardly. “I just—I assumed…” It does look like her front door key, though. “So…?”
“I gave you the key to your home.”
My heart stops beating as I crush her against me. I’m so overwhelmed, words refuse to form in my brain. I’m just a mess of feelings right now. This is all I ever wanted. Just because it didn’t happen the way I planned or wanted or hoped for, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
We’re happening, and that’s all that counts.
This time, she doesn’t protest about going to the farm with me. We take her car and not the bike, because there’s a chance of rain—that hurricane coming up the coast that bought me a few extra hours with her.
Grace stays tucked against me the whole time we’re at the farm. Logan and Hunter hug her tight when they come in for a quick lunch, their smiles huge. I get a slap on the back but no stupid jokes, and I don’t even need to scowl at them or issue death threats.
In the kitchen, we help ourselves to Mom’s chicken salad. Grace knows her way around here better than me, and she’s who pulls out our glasses for lemonade. We sit on the porch, bowls in hand, no set table, taking in the peaceful scenery. A sudden burst of wind runs through the woods. A shutter clatters somewhere.
“Good thing you took the car,” Mom says. “They’re saying we might get an inch of rain, starting this evening.”
Dad looks at his radar app on his phone and grunts. “Not looking good.”
Then he asks about my next steps, and I feel Grace’s hand snake tighter around my waist, and her face lifts to me.
“I need to report back in forty-eight hours,” I say. “Actually, thirty-six now. Waiting to hear what my posting will be.”
Grace leans her head against my shoulder and squeezes me tight. “Fingers crossed he gets Brussels.”
Looking down at her, I see only pride and true happiness. No doubts, no fear, no regrets. She’s all in with me, and she supports me no matter what. My free hand goes straight to my pocket where her keychain is—correction: where my key to our home is.
When we leave, Mom’s eyes get a little wet, but I know it’s happiness.
“I talked to my C.O. about potentially staying stateside. There could be opportunities in D.C. or Florida,” I say once we’re in the car. We’ve been too busy pawing at each other to talk about the future—or maybe we’ve avoided that conversation.
“I thought you wanted Brussels?”
“I did. I changed my mind.”
She takes her foot off the gas to look at me. “Please tell me that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“And what if it did?”
“I don’t want you giving up your career because of me,” she says.
We pull up to her house. Our home, I should say. Once we’re done with this conversation, I need to talk to her about sharing costs. Why do I think this isn’t going to go easy? But one thing at a time.
Right now, she’s ranting about Brussels as we walk up to the front door. “Brussels was your dream posting. Your career goal. Like, just weeks ago. I don’t want you giving up on that because of me.” Her fists are on her hips.
I pull out my key, a stupid grin locking in place while my heart drums a crazy, wild beat. I unlock the door and step aside to let her in while she’s going on about me making rash decisions or potentially resenting her for god knows what. “Your career is everything to you,” she insists.
I stop, key in the lock. “No, it’s not. Not anymore,” I say with enough force to make her stop in her tracks and look at me. She’s already inside the house, kicking her shoes off. I point to the key in the door, to Damian greeting her. To her bare feet that’ll hook behind my hips in the next few hours if I have anything to say about it. “This. This is everything to me. You and me.”
“Ethan,” she whispers, setting her soft hand against my chest. “I understand that. It’s the same for me. But-but-but your job, your career, is important too.”
“Not as important as you.”
She shuts her eyes for a brief moment. “You can have both. You can have Brussels and me.”
I need to tell her. Brussels? Not a lot of off time. And it’s close to impossible to just visit for the couple of free days I’ll have here and there.
“I been thinking,” she says, pulling me inside. “I can plan to take a week off from the spa each month. You know once… once the dust settles with the building, and I’m relocated somewhere, and everything is smooth sailing again. I could totally block off a week each month to visit you in Brussels. My staff can handle themselves for a week without me. And I looked at miles and stuff for the airfare. It’s doable.”
I shut the door and put the key back in my pocket. She stays against me, snaking her hands up to my neck, pulling my mouth against hers. “You can have it all,” she whispers against my lips.
“I already have it all.” I burrow my face in her neck. “You gotta understand. Brussels meant somethin’ to me before, because that was all I had. Now I have you, and my family, and my friends. Everything I thought I’d lost was just waiting for me to get my head out of my ass. So if I tell you I don’t give a shit about Brussels, you better believe it. Now, I still need to make a living, and I’m good at what I do, and that can’t happen here, but believe me when I tell you, I’d drop the Air Force in an instant if I had a solid plan B here.” Matter of fact, I’ve been toying with ideas about said plan B, but I’m not sharing those with her yet.
“Ethan King, don’t you dare leave the Air Force because of me or even Emerald Creek,” she declares, leaving my arms.
Yup. Not sharing plan B just yet. Especially given that the only clear part about Plan B is ‘I wanna stay here,’ and that’s not a fucking plan at all. “I’m not leaving the Air Force.”
“Good. Now let’s kick back and sit outside before the rain starts.”