12. CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
ETHAN
“ O h, God. Don’t stop!” Jules shrieks as I rock into her again. I chuckle and grin at the pleasure I’m able to pull out of my girlfriend. Her arms and legs are wrapped around me as our naked bodies grind against each other on her dorm room bed. I nip her neck, then abruptly pull out.
“Noooo,” she protests.
I twist her body, and she willingly flips over. Once she’s face-down, I give her hips a yank so she comes up on hands and knees, then line myself up with her entrance and slam in.
“Ah!” she cries.
Swirling my hips a few times, I pull out and push back in. She braces herself against the headboard as I thrust into her repeatedly, panting and cursing and moaning. When she tightens around me, I give it to her harder, feeling myself teetering on the edge as well. “That’s it, Jules. Let me have it.”
She screams and collapses onto her elbows as my hips jerk and I crumble along with her.
We lay in a heap, sweaty and breathless, after going at it nonstop since I got into town yesterday. The long-distance relationship has been hard, but we’ve managed this first year since I enlisted. We text and call and video chat all the time. And any chance I get, I come to see her.
Jules is sweet and silly. And uncomplicated.
“That was … holy shit.” She tries to catch her breath.
“Yeah. Ditto.”
“I’m gonna need to consume a lot of calories to make up for all the sex. I mean, seriously, the average 2,000-calorie-a-day diet isn’t enough for this level of activity.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing we’re headed to dinner with Fonz. He should be here in about—” I’m interrupted by a knock on the door of her suite. “Speak of the devil!”
Jules groans and rolls off the bed, and I follow. “I thought you told him to come at six.”
“I did.” I slide my pants on. “It’s after six.”
“Oh, shit.” She fastens her bra behind her back.
“Yeah, we’ve been at it for a while.”
We share a grin before there’s another knock.
Once we’re both decent, I answer it. “Oh, good. I was beginning to think you gave me the wrong address,” Fonz says as he approaches with his arms spread wide. I meet him with the same approach, and we squeeze the daylights out of each other. “How is my brother from another mother?”
“Good. Glad I could get away for a night while you’ve got a long weekend.”
“Me too.”
Jules comes out from the bedroom as we separate, greeting my old friend. “Hey, Fonz.”
“Hey, Jules!” He gives her a hug. “Sorry to crash your party.”
“Nonsense! I’m glad you and Ethan get to see each other. I know it’s been a while.” She heads over to the wall where our coats are hanging and takes hers off the hook, slipping her arms into it. “Where to, boys?”
***
We’re about three beers in and I’m starting to feel bad we’ve spent the whole night talking about all the training I’ve been doing at Fort Moore in Georgia, but Fonz and Jules seem interested.
“I know you’ve still got three years left, but do you think you’ll re-enlist?” I wonder if Jules is asking because she wants to know how long we’ll have to do this long-distance thing, or if she’s just genuinely curious.
“No, actually, I think I’ll be done after the four years.”
Fonz’s eyes shoot up. “Really? That bad?” He’s on one side of me and Jules is on the other, the three of us squished into a booth.
“No. Not bad at all. I think I just like civilian life better.” I knew early on that, while I don’t mind the Army—hell, I love this body the training has given me, and I’m able to work toward a degree in graphic arts—I just don’t want to do it any longer than I have to. Plus, I’m lucky that right now the world is calm and I haven’t had to deploy for active duty.
Truth is, I don’t know what I want to do. I miss my hometown, and even my parents, oddly enough. But college wasn’t really my scene. And apparently, neither is the Army. Where that leaves me, I’m not sure.
Fonz disrupts my thoughts when he pulls out his phone. “You know what time it is!” he says in singsong, holding his phone up and slinging his other arm over and around me, grabbing Jules by the shoulder and pulling us both in under his wing. “It’s time for a selfie!”
Jules and I both moan.
“Say cheeeese !” Fonz hits the screen, taking a picture.
“Dude, something is seriously wrong with you,” I say.
“Whatever, you know you want me to send it to you.”
“Of course.”
Chuckling, he mumbles, “It’s on its way.”
A moment later my phone buzzes, letting me know I received the photo he texted. Except, when I open it up I get a shot right through the chest as I stare at a picture of Fonz and a familiar red-headed spitfire. Someone who, although she looks just like her old self, also looks like a young woman. And that’s definitely Fonz from a recent time, not from back when he and I were in high school. My mouth goes dry, my ears ring, and my heart knocks around erratically in my chest.
“This, uh …” I have to stop and start over again. “This picture, Fonz, that’s um …”
“Hmm?” He looks away from his own phone to see what I’m talking about. “Oh, shit! Sorry, I must’ve sent the wrong one. Damn fat fingers. Here, let me try again.”
“Who’s that?” Jules’ looks over my other shoulder at the photo.
I’m speechless, but thankfully Fonz jumps in. “Oh, that’s a friend of ours from way back. She stopped by the other day unexpectedly to visit so, obviously, we took a selfie. It was the most recent pic on my phone and I must’ve selected it by mistake when I went to send you the one we just took. Here, I’ll send the right one.”
Fonz is blubbering on and not looking at me.
“Do you know where she lives now?” I ask, trying to keep my cool.
“Did she move away or something?” Jules asks.
“No. Well, I mean, sort of. She lived right next door to me, and she had an abusive stepfather and had to go to foster care. But, for years we played together and hung out as we got older.” I decide to try something. “I think she’s a senior in high school now?”
“She graduated last year,” Fonz answers without hesitation. Then freezes. Busted ! He’s definitely been talking with her.
“Uh, anyone else want another drink?” he asks, shaking his empty glass in gesture.
“I can get another round!” Jules cheers, scooting out of the booth.
I turn to Fonz. “Spill it.”
He curses under his breath as he rests his head face-down on the table. “We went to dinner the other day,” he mumbles against the wood.
“That was the first time you’ve seen her?”
“Yes?” Fonz offers pathetically.
“Bullshit!”
He lets out a long, heavy breath, then sits back upright. “You really want to know?”
I lick my lips, then nod.
“You sure?”
“Oh, for hell’s sake, Fonz.” I rub hand down my face and glance over to see Jules at the bar, talking with some fellow students. “Yes! I want to know!”
“She still lives in the neighborhood. You know, with …”
My eyes almost bulge out of my head. “What?! Since when?”
Fonz looks up at the ceiling. “Oh, I dunno, since about four months after you moved away.”
“Wh— You told me you hadn’t seen her. You told me she was still in foster care.”
“She begged me not to tell you.”
“She what!? Why?” Why the hell wouldn’t she want me to know where she is? Why doesn't she want to hear from me? And how could my best and oldest friend not tell me?
Anger swells in my veins as hurt and betrayal curl in my gut. This whole time Ari has been reachable through Fonz. This whole time! I spent so long crippled with bottled up emotions, wondering where she is, if she’s OK, what she’s doing. And he’s had the answers.
“Fonz, you gotta fill me in. How is she? Is Axel still there?”
His non-answer is answer enough. I swallow the lump in my throat and lean my head back, looking up at the ceiling. “Is he as bad as he used to be?”
Fonz is unmoving. “She doesn’t talk to me the way she used to talk to you, so I’m not sure. I’ve seen bruises and gotten vibes off her, but she hasn’t shown up looking too bad, you know. But I don’t know what she may be hiding.”
Jules’ laughter over at the bar steals my attention momentarily, then I look back at my friend. And it must be a look of hate because I see Fonz’s face fall as I grit my teeth and nearly spit, “You were supposed to be my best friend.”
I go to push out of the booth, but his words stop me.
“No, she was your best friend, Ethan. And you were hers. And you both did what you had to do to make sure the other got out of that crappy situation.”
“But she didn’t!” I yell, then lower my voice. “How could you let me walk around thinking she disappeared? Or that she was happy and living with a family that took her to fucking Disney World or some shit? Fonz, I gotta talk to her. You have her number? Give it to me.”
He shakes his head.
What.The.Fuck?
“Dude, if you value our friendship even the tiniest bit, you will do this for me.”
“Do you love her?” The question stuns me, and I pull back my head and my breath catches. He just stares at me and asks again. “Do you love her, Ethan?”
“Yeah, of course I do. You know I do. Or, I did … Yeah, I still do. I always will.”
Fonz pulls his lips into his mouth and releases them. “You weren’t the only one who was devastated after everything went down. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was broken. I saw it. I saw her on her runs, crying as she tore down the road. I saw her far-off gazes while she rode in the passenger seat of my car. It was that way for a long time. Hell, sometimes it still is. But she’s getting her feet under her now. She’s working at the pub with Lena, and she has a plan to move in with her friend—someone she met in foster care. They’re going to get a place in the city. She’s trying to pick back up the pieces of her life and if you resurface, I don’t know what it will do to her.”
Jules comes bouncing back over, carrying three pints of beer in a triangle between her two hands. “Sorry that took so long,” she mumbles. “I got to chatting with those guys about an assignment. Anyway, what are we talking about?”
“Nothing,” I say, passing Fonz’s beer down, grabbing my own and downing half of it in one gulp.
My mind is everywhere but here as Jules and Fonz make small talk about music or pop culture, or God knows what. All I can think about is Ari and the life she continues to endure, and how all I ever wanted was to protect her, but I failed.