Ten
TEN
ETHAN
I t’s not until the next day, as Ethan’s approaching the leaf-dusted shed where he keeps the archery equipment, that he remembers his hand. Still injured. Freshly wrapped. How’s he going to teach like this?
Nobody else at the resort has the skills to lead this workshop. Panic bubbles up from his gut as he struggles to slide the first of many targets out into the grassy field with his good hand.
It’s too late to cancel. There are chatty guests cresting over the path already. Kids are racing away from their parents, excited by an activity to let off steam.
“What’ll we do, Nana?” Ethan asks his companion, stumped by this conundrum.
That’s when, among the gathering crowd, Taylor appears. His hair is curling up at the ends. He must’ve showered and left his hair to air dry. At least Ethan wasn’t around to rush in on him again.
Truthfully, he’s giving Taylor some space since Amy’s phone call interrupted their dinner last night. Amy’s ringtone broke the inviting spell he was under. The hot, decadent Vietnamese food satisfied his cravings, and their conversation made him forget the very clear-cut reasons he can’t fall into anything with Taylor. His job and his age are nonstarters.
Last night, snuggled up with Nana in bed, he spooled back through the conversation and realized just how much life experience he has on Taylor and just how far away from his Amy-induced heartbreak he’s gotten. Opening himself up to the charms of the twink staying in his guest room and living off his ex-wife’s payroll would undo years of hard emotional work. Not to mention give Amy new reasons to think ill of him.
But there Taylor is, standing on the edge of the clearing, waiting for the beginning of Ethan’s class. And Taylor seems ready and willing to jump into almost anything.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming out today for this afternoon’s archery lesson,” Ethan says to the group. Miraculously, Taylor is wearing sneakers instead of his usual socks and sandals, which means he can participate. Without asking, Ethan announces, “Unfortunately, I had a bit of an accident over the weekend, so Taylor here is going to be my hands for the day.”
Appearing surprised but not uncooperative, Taylor joins him in front of everyone. Ethan offers Taylor an appreciative smile before instructing the first ten participants—mostly children between the ages of eight and thirteen—to line up across from the targets.
“Sorry to keep needing you like this,” Ethan whispers to his impromptu assistant.
“Don’t worry about it. I like being needed.” A pink flush swishes over Taylor’s cheeks, which he hides well by picking up one of the bows. Ethan wants to color-match that pink and paint his bedroom walls with it. “Shall we start?”
Ethan resurfaces from his fantasy and explains how the class is structured, trying to make it sound as engaging as possible. Next, he breaks down the rules.
“Boo!” one kid shouts while shifting from foot to foot. If Ethan’s remembering correctly from check-in, this kid’s name is Gus, and he had a similarly antsy vibe when they arrived.
Gus’s mom tries to shush him from the sidelines, but Ethan steps in because he’s personally experienced this exact feeling before from grown-ups in his own life who didn’t know how not to shame him for his brain’s natural impulses. “I know. Rules can be frustrating, but they’re here to keep us safe. I promise once we power through them, we’ll get to pick out our own bows and quivers. How’s that sound?”
Gus’s energy shines in his eyes. “Good.” He shoots Ethan a thumbs-up.
Ethan rattles off the basics—always inspect your bow and arrow before loading, make sure your path is clear, shoot only when instructed to do so and only at the target. He may have said these things a million times before, but he always imbues them with the importance they deserve. Sure, the parents signed waivers, but in this day and age, you can never be too careful.
After explaining dominant eyes to the group, Ethan has Taylor take up the position in the center of the field about five yards from the target. Normally, Ethan adopts a do-as-I-do attitude. However, today, he’s going to need to get hands-on in a very different way. Or hand -on given his injury.
“Isn’t he too close?” Gus asks out of turn, breaking the flow as Taylor slides on the arm guard. Some kids shoot Gus weird glances. Others are completely uninterested, but their parents are perky and taking plenty of pictures to post on social media later, which is good business for Ethan.
“That’s a good question, Gus,” Ethan says. The praise and use of his name seems to engage him further. “Beginners should always shoot close to the target. It’s more about form and practice than it is about distance.”
Taylor comically takes another step closer, clearly making a show out of not wanting to embarrass himself in front of an audience. “My aim’s not so great,” he admits.
“We’ll work on it,” Ethan says to him and him only. It’s alarming how, with Taylor, he can already focus like there’s nobody and nothing else around. “Now, as I said before, my friend here’s name is Taylor. Who can tell me what letter the name Taylor begins with?”
Every kid in the line raises their hand except for two—the youngest girl of the bunch, Lara, and of course Gus. “T!” Lara and Gus shout in near unison.
“Hey, that’s not fair! I knew that, too,” says Paul, a kid wearing glasses and a gray coat.
Ethan doesn’t call attention to it. While he empathizes with Paul, reprimanding Gus or Lara isn’t the way to go. “That’s on me. I didn’t say anybody needed to raise their hands. From now on, we’ll wait for our turn to be called on before answering, okay?”
Back on track, Ethan explains how their bodies should mirror the T shape when drawing back the arrow. “That means we gotta push our front arm out and keep our back elbows up. Can everybody show me their letter T poses?”
Taylor’s the only one with a bow, so after inspecting the lineup, he offers Taylor an arrow.
“Already?” Taylor asks.
“Practice makes perfect,” Ethan says.
“Feels a bit like trial by fire.”
“Which is something you know how to make now.” Ethan lifts his eyebrows, awestruck by how they’ve known each other for four days and he’s already comfortable making jokes with him. That can’t be good…
Taylor places the bow and tries to assume the position. Ethan makes suggestions, but can already tell that the strong tension of the bow being pulled back is causing Taylor some trouble. “May I?” Ethan asks, holding up his left hand.
“Please,” Taylor says in a strangely breathy whisper that stirs inside Ethan.
Ethan approaches, aware that he hasn’t touched Taylor since Taylor bandaged his hand at the kitchen table. There was an intimacy to that moment, unmatched and still blazing somewhere in Ethan’s sternum. He squelches that thought for the sake of the class, until his hand wraps around Taylor’s at the front of the bow.
Taylor’s slightly smaller hand, soft to the touch aside from where his rings rest, fits so well inside Ethan’s larger, calloused, powerful one as he instructs him how to nock the arrow.
“What now?” Taylor asks, words compressed as Ethan circles around behind him. He can’t help but feel like a predator out in the wild stalking his prey. The primal quality of his unwelcome attraction to Taylor shreds at his already tattered resolve.
“When you draw back, you want to anchor. Touch your face. Consistency is key in getting the hang of the sport.” Taylor does as he’s told, and Ethan yearns desperately to be the bow gently grazing Taylor’s smooth cheek.
“Like this?” Taylor asks.
“Almost.” Ethan steps close, maybe too close, mirroring Taylor’s stance from behind. He adjusts the lower limb and Taylor’s elbow. From afar, it probably looks like they’re preparing to begin a ballroom dance routine. Momentarily, he wonders if Taylor has rhythm in those hips of his. “Before you let go, remember to keep your stance, your eye on the target, and to follow through. That means keep the elbow up and back. Gentle release.”
Christ. What Ethan would give to experience gentle release with the likes of Taylor Frost.
Whiz. The arrow slices through the air and hits the target with a slap.
“Pretty good for a first try,” says Ethan, stepping away and waving his hands. Almost as if he’s clearing the air free of feelings and ridiculous fantasies. “The first arrow is always the scariest.”
Taylor lowers the grip and turns to face Ethan. His eyes have expanded, and his smile is the size of a billboard. “It’s like I’m Katniss Everdeen.”
“It’s a cool feeling, right?” Ethan asks. It’s an overriding high that’s never left Ethan since he was eleven and was gifted his first archery kit from his father. From the moment he drew back on that tense bowstring, exalting in the gooey contraction of his back muscles, he was hooked. The riveting sensation has only ever been matched by one other activity in his life. The one synonymous with “gentle release.”
“Way cool,” Taylor says, locked in place with his jaw half slung down. His gaze rests still upon the target. Is he still processing the thwack of the arrow’s impact? Is he craving his next go?
Ethan suddenly remembers the line of antsy tweens behind him, eager for their own turns. He clears his throat and throws his professional mask back on. “Who’s next?” he asks as every hand flies up.
* * *
An hour and some change later, as they put away the archery supplies and the class disperses, Taylor asks, “How did you get so good at archery?”
“Practice,” Ethan says matter-of-factly. Then goes hot in the neck. “What a nonanswer.”
Taylor chuckles. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t ask the right question. How did you get into it?”
The drug-like high that fuels him after a well-attended archery lesson swirls down the drain at this question. “My dad.”
They’re inside the cobweb-crusted shed. The wood walls are dark, and the canopy of trees above blocks the sunlight from leaking into the corner where they set the target amid various other pieces of sports clutter. The shadowiness of the space without the overhead bulb pulled on makes Taylor’s expression inscrutable, yet Ethan can feel his curiosity. Taylor’s palpable interest prompts him to share the more painful aspect of his lifelong hobby.
“He was—my father, I mean—a champion archer. He almost went all the way to the Olympics one year. Great man. Great dad. He taught all three of us boys to shoot. I’m the only one who stuck with it,” he says, voice drowning in a sepia-toned memory of his father. Broad-shouldered. Tall-standing. More at home sitting in the dirt of a campground than in an armchair in the family room.
“That must mean a lot to him,” Taylor says, audibly catching his breath.
“More now that he’s in a wheelchair.” Every time this fact crosses his mind, his nervous system zips into overdrive as if cowering in fear over what might be. “He was diagnosed with MS when he turned thirty-eight.”
A single beam of light cuts through the nearby pane of glass. Taylor steps into it, his face a mask of sympathy that charges the air with importance. “I’m really sorry to hear that. That must be tough.”
“He is the strongest person I know.” Emotions tower up inside Ethan’s throat, but he swallows them back like a cup of cough syrup. Easier down than out. “He takes everything in stride.”
“Does he live close by?” Taylor asks.
“Only a few towns away with my mom. I stop by a couple times a week to bring them groceries and make dinner,” he says. They are the most important trips of his week and not even his ADHD could knock them out of his mind.
“I’m sure they appreciate that.”
“Not as much as I do, I think.” He laughs to himself. “The older I get, the more I visit, and the more my mom says, ‘Ethan, we love you, but we’re managing fine. We don’t need more organic carrots. We’re going to get carotenemia.’”
“What’s carotenemia?” Taylor asks.
“Sounds fake, doesn’t it? She read somewhere that eating carrots too much can cause discoloration of the skin.” Don’t even get him started on the number of e-mails he got from her on the topic after she brought it up. Links to WebMD. Reddit threads. The works. Despite their silliness, he reads them. Every single one. And responds in kind. His mom cares. Maybe too much. But that’s not such a bad trait, is it? “I think when your partner gets sick the way my dad is, you become hypervigilant about everything else. The littlest change in the body becomes an alarm bell.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“I’ve asked her a dozen times if she wants to see my therapist, just to have someone to talk to about the anxiety she’s feeling, but that’s a moot point,” he says, shaking his head to himself.
“I’m sure it’s a generational thing.”
That statement shocks Ethan into another age-based realization. He and Taylor are of two entirely separate generations, yet here he is confiding information that he rarely brings up with anyone, even Gabriel, his closest friend. He won’t even touch the fact that his closest friend is also his employee which runs red tape around a lot of what he already shares about his personal life. He sighs. “We should finish cleaning up.”
They go back out to the now-empty field and collect the bows and arrows and discarded finger protectors. When everything is properly stored, Taylor asks, “Would you be interested in joining me for dinner tonight in The Thirsty Goat? My treat. I’ve been eyeing the fish and chips on the menu since I arrived.”
Ethan’s mouth waters at the thought of devouring a plate full of fried cod with tartar sauce made by Antonio, the best cook the resort has ever had. But it’s one thing to eat together in the privacy of his house. It’s another to be seen together by the guests in the restaurant. That’s not the kind of talk he wants circulating. “I try not to dine in here often except for special occasions. It’s not the best look for management.”
“Oh, right. Sure. That makes sense. How about I grab us takeout like—” He stops short, but Ethan infers he meant to add last night . Last night when Amy’s call disrupted another bout of oversharing. A ringtone hauled Ethan right out of that sweet, domestic simulation he was too happily partaking in.
If they’d finished the meal, he imagines they’d have done the dishes together. Hot, soapy water filling up the sink basin and splashing onto Taylor’s shirt. Taylor peeling it up and over his head unself-consciously…
Ethan pops that fantasy with a pin before it bubbles out of control.
Just because he and Taylor are sharing a house doesn’t mean they should be playing house as well. What if he becomes too accustomed to Taylor’s presence, conversational skills, and openly handsome face?
If Ethan were to spread his arms right now, he’s certain the tips of his middle fingers would grace the worn wood on either side of this shed. And if Ethan were a bolder man with less propriety, he might take advantage of their close proximity. Unclench his fists and offer them up for Taylor to take.
Because, well, that look on Taylor’s face when the arrow met the target was so attractively unguarded that it might appear on the insides of Ethan’s eyelids when he tries to fall asleep tonight. The memory of that expression is only surpassed by the pleasing anticipation traced in the upward curve of Taylor’s eyebrows now, which is enough to make Ethan lose his breath, but not his control.
“I forgot I have plans tonight. I won’t be around for dinner. Please help yourself to whatever is in the fridge or pantry. Pans are under the drawer with the utensils. There’s a spice rack by the mugs and…” He rambles on, unable to stop himself from basically detailing every corner of his kitchen. Despite wanting distance, he can’t avoid the need for Taylor to be as comfortable as possible. As Gabriel reminded him, it’s been so long since he’s hosted someone in his home.
Taylor rocks back on his heels. “All good. Thanks. I should probably start putting together the welcome baskets for Samara’s guests. I originally only came to observe for a minute or two. I didn’t expect to be in the middle of the archery action.”
“Thanks again for doing that. I would’ve normally asked Kerry—one of my managers—to assist, but she’s out for a few days,” he says, then freezes. “Which reminds me, she usually does Tuesday night dessert story time for the kids. She’s our best reader. I guess I’ll have to fill in for her, even though I’m terrible at it.”
“What if I did it?” Taylor asks, voice brightening.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’ve helped me out enough as it is.”
“Please, it would be no trouble at all. I used to read stories to my siblings all the time. I liked it. I’m even good at the voices,” he says, followed by various impressions ranging from Mickey Mouse to Kermit the Frog.
Ethan bites his lip to temper the full range of the smile the voices elicit. “Those are pretty good. Are you certain?”
“Absolutely. Is there a story already?”
“No, it would be yours for the choosing.”
“Excellent,” Taylor says before dipping his chin to his chest and wiggling his fingers together. In a voice reminiscent of an evil queen, he repeats, “Eeeeeeeeeexcellent.”