10. CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
KINSLEY
W hen I open my eyes, it’s dark, though there’s a dim glow just beyond the open doorway. I blink, willing my eyes to adjust, and try to remember exactly where I am, though I find nothing to grasp hold of.
Music plays in the distance—the soft chords of a guitar, the low hum of a voice. I peel back the covers from an unfamiliar bed and breathe out a sigh of relief when I see I’m still wearing my dress.
I follow the sound outside, where the salty ocean breeze tousles my hair.
One step from the door, I freeze. I’m on a boat. A houseboat, I think. What the hell? With a hand on the doorframe to steady me, I close my eyes and rack my brain for a memory that would explain how I got here. I remember putting on this dress. Tessa’s news. Jill and Carter and Ethan. Drinking. Lots of drinking. And… Ethan. The memory of our kiss floods over me, drowning out all other thoughts. His warm hands. His desperate lips.
The low and mellow tone of the guitar starts up again. Carefully, I follow it, padding along the side of the boat.
At the back of the vessel, Ethan sits beneath a string of lights. His back is straight. He holds the neck of the guitar in his left hand with the base resting on his thighs.
He strums effortlessly with his right hand while the fingers of his left work the frets with skill, as if he were born to play the guitar. The scene is so foreign. Teenage Ethan despised the idea of having to learn the instrument.
The melody shifts, and my breath catches at the sound of his voice. It’s soft and rough and hollow.
I close my eyes as his words draw me into memories of our youth. When we had our entire lives ahead of us. Images of him and Tessa and me at the beach. Tessa’s high school boyfriend throwing her into the ocean. Ethan kissing me for the first time when he thought no one was watching. Tessa waving at me, grinning brightly, after our lips parted.
The richness of Ethan’s voice mixes with the rise and fall of the melody, sending hot tears spilling down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, I fold my arms and brace myself against the hull of the boat, soaking in the sound, letting it anchor me.
When the song comes to an end, I blink away the dampness. Ethan is looking at me, his focus so intense, I know he’s also reliving the past.
After a few seconds, when the silence is almost too much to bear, he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I tighten my lips and duck my head. Needing a distraction, I point to the guitar. “You learned to play.”
Ethan surveys the instrument, then focuses on me again. “I did,” he says, but he doesn’t offer up any more than that. “Do you want to sit?”
Do I? Yes. But I don’t know if I’m ready to be near him again. Getting too close means talking, and I don’t even know where we’d begin.
Ethan moves first, shifting to make room for me on the worn white wicker love seat.
In the glow of the string lights, the creases below his eyes are deep. His jaw is tight and his posture rigid.
I think about the song. About the words he sang. This Ethan knows how to play the guitar. We’re practically strangers. What else don’t I know about him?
I inch my way toward him. When I’m a few feet away, he leans forward and scrunches his face.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, running a hand along the side of my kneecap. His touch sends a warm shudder up my body.
At my physical response, he pulls back, leaving me with a feeling I can’t quite explain. Surprise, yes. Discomfort, no.
“I’m sorry. Let me grab you something to clean that up with.”
When he gets to his feet, I finally look down at my knees. There are a few cuts and scrapes, but the blood has long dried.
Where the heck did they come from?
When Ethan returns, he hands me a warm rag, careful not to make contact with my skin again. Though when we sit, there’s only so much room, and our thighs brush.
Ethan’s discomfort is palpable, which hurts more than I’d like to admit, but I ignore the ache in my chest and focus on wiping at my bloodstained knees.
The silence drags on, and the air between us grows awkward, so I clear my throat and force out a question. “When did you start singing?”
He presses his lips together, avoiding eye contact. “A few years ago. I don’t really sing though. It’s just that one song.”
“You’re good,” I murmur. “Your voice, it’s beautiful.”
“It’s not my voice. It’s the words. You can’t not feel something when you hear Johnny Cash.”
His words are etched with pain. The same kind of pain I see in his eyes, but I don’t dig. Instead, I change the subject completely, freeing him from whatever is weighing him down.
“So,” I say, cringing, “do you want to tell me how I ended up in your bed, or is it better left unsaid?”
Snickering, Ethan rakes a hand through his hair. “Tessa’s version or the truth? Because those are two very different things.”
Still hunched over with the washcloth pressed to my knee, I frown over at him.
He laughs again. “Your harebrained idea to make her think we were into each other worked better than I could have imagined. Please tell me you remember at least some of it.”
I think back to the moment in the back room at the restaurant when I asked him to play along. It would be subtle and low key. Just enough eye contact and flirting to give Tessa what she wanted. Ethan agreed. If I was lucky, I’d convince her that he and I would go on a date.
But then we kissed. That was not in the plan. I was just so excited about her news, and he was there, and his warm hand was already on me.
After that, I pulled away, and he disappeared back behind the bar. So I drank and stewed over the kiss and how soft his lips felt on mine. Then I drank some more, laughing but not listening to my sister or her friends as they conversed about topics I didn’t care about.
At some point, Ethan was at my side again, his hand on my back, his fingers tracing patterns along my flesh. He asked me to dance when a slow song came on. Then slipped my fingers between his and lifted me from my seat and led me to the other side of the restaurant, where a small dance floor was set up.
With a hand on my waist, he led. As the song played, he inched his hand lower until he was almost cupping my ass.
I could have stopped him, but the alcohol flooding my veins liked it. Wanted more of it. So when he whispered, “Lean into me, they’re watching,” I pressed my body so hard against his, I felt his erection pulse in response.
My memories from there are a blur, but I remember Logan swooping in at some point. Or maybe it was me swooping up to him. He was carrying wineglasses, and, of course, they fell and shattered across the floor.
“I remember Logan. That’s when I fell, right? Oh my God, I broke a heel, didn’t I? Tessa is going to kill me.” I press a palm to my face.
“I don’t think your sister cares about those shoes. She was more concerned about you enjoying yourself. And,” he adds with a hint of a grin on his face, “she was fully invested when you said you wanted to go home with me.”
Mortification washes over me. “I’m so sorry. For everything. This isn’t like me. I don’t drink and make out with ex-boyfriends. And I certainly don’t go home with random men.”
“Random?” he laughs again, as if he’s getting a kick out of my embarrassment. “I wouldn’t say I’m some random man. But if it’s worth anything, I think it worked. If I hadn’t known better, I would have been convinced too.” He holds my gaze for a beat and then looks away. “It’s been a while since I’ve had that much fun.”
We sit like this, our attention on one another, unmoving, for what feels like an eternity. The spell is only broken by the sound of a phone vibrating.
“I think that’s yours,” Ethan says, standing. He moves to the wicker table a few feet in front of us and snatches my phone off its surface.
When he holds it out to me, I open the text message from my sister and laugh. Then I show it to Ethan, who presses his lips together and shakes his head in disbelief.
Tessa: Girl, I know it’s late, but I need details .
“It is late,” he agrees. “You should get some sleep, or you’ll feel terrible in the morning. I don’t have to work, so you can sleep as late as you want. Then I can take you back to her house.”
I blow out a breath, thankful for the reprieve, but an instant later, when it dawns on me that I was sleeping in his bed, my stomach sinks.
Ethan tilts his head toward the door. “C’mon. I left a bottle of water on the nightstand. You can lock the door, but no one is out here tonight, and I’ll be on the couch just in case.”
It’s still dark when I’m awoken by a low noise. I hold my breath, listening, but when I don’t hear it again after a few seconds, I roll over and burrow into the mattress. But a moment later, the noise returns. This time, I hear it more clearly. It’s a low moan.
I fling the covers off and climb out of bed, but just as I make it to the door, a loud clatter startles me.
“Ethan,” I call, my heart taking off at a gallop.
The only response is another deep moan.
Holding my breath, I push open the door.
The inside of the boat is small. Aside from the bedroom I’m sleeping in, there’s a tiny living room attached to a kitchen and then a bathroom on the other end. Ethan said he’d sleep on the couch, so if someone has broken in, he’s surely heard.
But when a tall shadow moves only a few feet away, panic rises in me, and I stumble back. I throw my arms out, blindly searching for anything I can use as a weapon. When my hand lands on a small table, I find a pen. Maybe a pencil. I clutch on to it.
“No. No, no, no.” The words are so loud, they echo off the thin walls of the boat. Then there’s a crash.
Heart pounding, I flip the switch on the wall. I have to squint as the overhead light illuminates the room. Ethan stands in the center of the space, staring in my direction, though he doesn’t blink or acknowledge me. A thin layer of sweat trickles down his bare chest, and he’s breathing heavily.
“Ethan,” I choke out.
He doesn’t move.
“Ethan, what’s going on?”
I sidestep out of his line of vision, but his eyes don’t follow me. He’s still sleeping.
He groans again, moving his arms at his sides in a haphazard pattern.
I’ve always heard you should never wake a person in the middle of a nightmare. I’ll see if there’s any validity in it once I find my phone. For now, I’ll wait this out.
I make my way around him, keeping as wide a berth as I can in the small space, and sit on the bench near the door. As I’m getting settled, a thick, rugged scar catches my attention. It trails down his back and is surrounded by what looks to be smaller, more circular marks that indent into his skin. My blood goes cold, and a gasp threatens to escape me, but I choke it back and remain silent.
Ethan is now busy trying to work something out in front of him. He leans forward a few times and then speaks. The only word I can decipher is “no,” and he says it more times than I can count.
Though it feels like an eternity, the event lasts about three minutes. Still unaware of what’s really going on, he shuffles to the light switch where I was standing just moments earlier and flips it off. Then he goes into his room and lies down in the spot where I was sleeping, as if nothing happened.
My mind drifts to the conversation I had with Ramon. Is this episode linked to his time in the Marines? And do those scars have anything to do with this nightmare?
I curl up on the couch. Ethan clearly needs his bed more than I do. Then I stare at the ceiling until I can’t keep my eyelids open any longer.