Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
ETHAN
T he first licks of morning light are like being bathed in Nana’s rank slobber.
One glance at the digital clock is the only impetus Ethan needs to shoot up. He’s overslept. Woof. His head spins, and his mouth is dry. Mixing beer and wine was a bad move. His clothes seem unimaginably far away.
Over his shoulder, Taylor sleeps on his stomach. The cleft of his ass peeks out from beneath the top sheet and the quilted comforter. His hair splays in tendrils across the cream-colored pillowcase. A light droplet of drool shines on the edge of his lips—the very same lips Ethan explored with vigor last night.
Last night, despite everything, did not feel like an ending.
A part of him thought bottoming for Taylor would seal off their connection, encase it in amber to be preserved, but never thawed for fear of the ramifications. Christ, he’s seen Jurassic Park too many times.
But as the sunlight shifts through that new window to his left, maybe the damage has already been done. His heart, it’s clear, won’t ever be the same. But those are words he needs to keep to himself because today is Samara’s birthday and tomorrow, Taylor leaves for good.
He needs to get himself dressed and get back to the cottage with enough time to screw his head back on straight, so he can be clear-minded and present for his daughter’s big day.
Hoodie, keys, shoes. Check, check, check.
He’s almost out the door without waking Taylor when a voice hits him from only paces away. “Ethan?” The question mark is there, sure, but the accusation behind it is what wallops Ethan most.
He shuts the door too hard behind him, and it bangs in its frame.
Ethan curses under his breath before letting his hood fall so he can look up.
In the early-morning light, he faces Amy.
She’s wearing a white, long-sleeved button-down shirt, a tan vest, tan slacks and a light jacket. Her hair is up in a bun, but it’s her shoes that draw his eye: bright red, the color of her blood—which he can practically hear boiling. “What were you doing in there?”
“I was, uh, checking on the roof issue,” he says, finally meeting her eyes. They’ve gone black. In her hands, she holds a clipboard and wedged inside the clip is a pencil. The bold text on the top of the page reads: RESORT INSPECTION. Why is she double-checking Taylor’s work? And so esoterically at that?
She cocks an eyebrow. “The issue with the roof was with Taylor’s cabin?” she asks, then doesn’t wait for him to answer. “Why were you here so early? And why are you checking the issue in last night’s clothes?”
This is what a wild bear must feel like right before the cage walls of a trap fall in around him. “Amy,” Ethan starts. “Don’t make me say it.”
“Don’t make you say it?” Amy asks. Her words are dart pins and he’s a wall of water balloons. “Don’t make you say that you’re sleeping with my assistant?”
The creak of the door behind him only serves to make the situation worse. Taylor’s heard the kerfuffle and come to see what’s happened. The worst of it is that when Ethan turns to find him there, he’s wearing Amy’s old robe. Stupidly, Ethan must’ve packed it in Taylor’s suitcase when he hastily cleaned out the guest room.
Amy’s head looks like it’s about to bobble right off her neck. “This is outrageous and unprofessional on every level.”
“Amy, I—” Taylor steps out, holding the robe closed.
“You’re fired,” she says.
Ethan holds up a hand. “Let’s not be hasty.”
“You don’t have a voice in this conversation,” she says, shutting him down.
Taylor, red-faced and breathing audibly, steps farther onto the porch. “Amy, please, I’m sorry. You have every right to be upset with me—”
“Thank you for your permission to feel what I’m feeling,” she says, stock-still and fuming.
Taylor jostles a bit. “I…only meant that I deserve to be fired.” He chokes a bit. “But Samara’s party is tonight. Her special day doesn’t deserve to be ruined over this. I still have to—”
“You have done more than enough. Your services are no longer needed here,” she says with icy venom. “Pack your things, but first bring me the iPad so I can book you the first flight out of here.”
Whatever fight Taylor had in him evaporates like the morning dew. He hangs his head and slinks back inside the cottage, leaving the door half-open as if he doesn’t even have the energy to shut it.
Hating the downtrodden expression on Taylor’s face, Ethan’s voice drops to a quiet, piercing place. “You’re acting like a teenager.”
“And you’re sleeping with one.”
“He is twenty-seven years old , Amy.”
Her thumbs are punching at her phone. “Maybe he should act like it. What was he thinking? What were you thinking? Do you really dislike me that much? Is this some act to spite me for moving on with my life and the business?”
Ethan can’t control the laughter that starts low in his gut and falls out in a surprising wave. She looks at him with pure disgust. Once the fit subsides, he says, “It might be hard for you to believe, but this—” he waves back toward the door of the cottage “—had nothing to do with you. This was about me and him. Him. He is a wonderful, empathetic and intelligent man who is passionate about your company and these resorts, and you are squandering him as your errand boy.”
“You know nothing of what he does on the daily. He is not some latte-getter. He has responsibilities,” Amy huffs without looking up. Whatever she’s trying to do on her phone, she’s struggling to accomplish it.
“Manning your schedule, booking your meetings, overseeing your travel, heck, he even oversees our daughter .” That might strike below the belt, but fighting fair isn’t exactly his top priority right now. “He wants to work in hospitality, not under your thumb. Heck, you give him one speck of responsibility and you’re double-checking his work.” He nods derisively down at the clipboard in her left hand. She has the gall to slide it behind her back as if placing it out of sight will make it disappear.
“The way I run my company and delegate tasks to my employees is none of your business because, guess what? You forfeited any say in the business when we finalized our divorce. You’re lucky replacing you here would be a nightmare, otherwise I’d fire you,” she says, finger waggling, but never fully committing to the point.
Is that what the divorce was to her? Her firing him from the position of husband?
His nostrils flare, but he holds his ground. “I am lucky, but not for that reason. I’m lucky because I was present when you sent Taylor out here all by himself to put together our daughter’s sweet sixteen—something that, in my mind, shouldn’t have been outsourced—but we were both lucky it was outsourced to someone like Taylor who cares deeply about the people he loves.”
At the end of Ethan’s speech, he’s startled by Taylor clearing his throat behind them. Taylor’s shed the robe and is wearing his normal clothes now. The sandals and tie-dyed hoodie. A uniform Ethan is going to sorely miss. There are tears rimming the edges of Taylor’s eyes as he says, “Here.” He passes the almighty tablet to Amy.
She grabs it from him without looking him in the eye. He retreats, but then she says in a gentler voice, “Taylor.” His posture shifts when he pivots. “I can never remember which app it is for the airline points.”
He slumps over. “It’s this one.” He taps the screen on her behalf.
Ethan stifles his snort of disapproval. This scene is spectacularly pathetic. They are three adults. They should be able to hash this out as such, but that seems impossible when the outside air is clouded with a thick smog of misunderstanding.
Taylor slips back into the cabin without another word, Amy stomps off in the direction of The Castle and Ethan is left standing there, alone, surrounded by the mucky fragments of his own heart.
TAYLOR
He can barely see through the tears as he packs his suitcase.
He doesn’t know what’s making him cry more: that he got fired or the sweet, loving words Ethan said about him.
Nobody—and he truly means nobody—has spoken about him that way before. Not even his siblings. His burden in childhood was an invisible one. From the time his older brother abandoned the family, Taylor took the extra responsibilities, strapped them to his back, and ignored the stress pains it caused him.
Because it’s easier to accept his lot than waste energy wishing for a different one. Life doesn’t miraculously start doling out kindnesses because you’ve suffered. The only way to excavate the good in the world is to dig through the bad.
“Please stop packing. Don’t go,” Ethan says, appearing in the doorway that, try as it might, can’t contain the grandness of him. Not just the scope of his incredible body, but the hugeness of his heart. The one Taylor can almost see stitched to his sleeve right now.
Taylor’s hands continue to move on autopilot. “You heard Amy. She doesn’t want me here anymore. I’m not needed.” His selfishness has charred his career to a crisp. So long to any chance of working in the hospitality industry ever again. He wouldn’t be surprised if Amy had him blacklisted or something of the sort.
“That’s not true. Samara needs you here. Her friends need you here. I need you here.” His voice pitches upward as Taylor’s heart tunnels down, down, down into the floorboards.
“Thank you for everything you said. It all means a lot to me,” Taylor says, feeling a second swell of tears coming on.
“But not enough to stay? Even though I’m asking?” Taylor can’t help but liken Ethan’s pleading eyes to Nana’s when she doesn’t get any dinner scraps from the table. He reserves the impulse to reach out and smooth the hair behind Ethan’s right ear.
“Ethan,” Taylor says, followed by a sigh. “Family comes first. Samara only gets one sixteenth birthday. I won’t be the reason there’s tension or unhappiness on her big day. Let me go, okay?”
Ethan must understand this because he leans back and his head thunks against the door frame. “When this is over, I can call you, though, right? We can see each other again, can’t we? Friends call each other and see each other.”
“I think…” Taylor begins, but then gets choked up, emotions forming a lump in his throat. “I think this has shown me that I have some work to do on myself. A lot of work, actually. And I’m just not sure I have room enough in my life for a friend as important as you right now.”
He’s spent his whole life putting other people’s needs first, and for one week he got drunk with the newfound pleasure of selfishness, a word he no longer finds repugnant. It has true merit in his life. He must find a balance without Ethan on standby. Otherwise, he’ll be too tempted to stage-manage the fallout with Amy, temperature check Samara and ease Ethan into long-distance friendship. A clean break feels like the only kind way to reduce harm for all involved.
Ethan’s hand swipes down his face. “Right. Of course. That makes sense. I’ll leave you to finish up, then.”
“Wait,” Taylor says, hand finding a thin square inside his suitcase. “Can you make sure Samara gets this?”
Ethan takes the wrapped record from him. “There’s no card or tag.”
“It can be from you,” Taylor says, on the brink of losing what little voice he has left. He’s parched and aching to leave here before he causes any more destruction for the Lu-Golding family.
“Are you sure?” Ethan asks with a tone that conveys he’s not only asking after the record.
Through a scratchy throat, he says, “I’m sure.”
Shoulders rolled forward, Ethan walks out the door of the Snow White cottage and out of Taylor’s life.
* * *
The last thing he did before leaving the Snow White cottage was trash the half-eaten bag of mint Milanos still sitting on the counter. Such a waste, but he couldn’t bear to bring them as a car snack on the long drive back to the airport.
After dropping the Honda off in the designated rental car area, Taylor made his way through security, tail between his legs like he’d seen Nana do after she tracked mud in through the living room the day after the storm that launched a thousand kisses. Taylor elbows away memories of bathing her with Ethan in the bathtub and how silly she looked, all huge and sopping wet.
The unforgiving overhead lights, the glass-and-chrome structures and the harried travelers in the terminal serve to dizzy Taylor further as he steps onto the moving walkway toward his gate. The airport is crowded, but he locates a seat near an outlet far enough away from others and pops his headphones in. He’s just about to press Play on the new playlist Samara had sent him when a phone call rings in.
“Sorry for not returning your call sooner!” Sasha’s voice unspools some of his stress. “I’ve been prepping for this major exam and my phone has been acting up. I finally traded in that piece of crap and got a new one to reward myself for acing it.”
“Hell yeah, congrats.” Taylor says, though it’s strenuous to gather up his excitement right now. “Which exam was this again?”
“It was for my pain management course, which you know has been a pain in my own ass.”
“Surprised you didn’t call me while you were studying, threatening to drop out,” Taylor says jokingly. It’s their special routine. He knows she only ever half means it, and he’s obscenely proud of her despite how awful he feels.
“Growth! Even I’m capable of it,” she says in her usual self-deprecating way.
He smiles as he watches a plane take off through the floor-to-ceiling glass window. “Congrats, Sash.”
“Enough about me. What’s the situation with hot-single-dad? Still having an ethical crisis?” she asks. Even though she’s phrased it as a joke, her concern floats out through Taylor’s phone and hugs him.
Taylor clears his throat, overcome once again. “Not exactly.”
“Oh, thank God. I’m glad you’re allowing yourself nice things for once,” she says. “I’ve seen pictures of that man, and he is not just nice, he is fiiiiiiiine.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like, then?” she asks, concerned.
He blinks back inconvenient tears to no avail. “I’m waiting on an airplane to take me home.”
“Wait, sorry. Color me confused. Aren’t you supposed to be My-Super-Sweet-Sixteensing today for your boss’s daughter, or do I have my days mixed up?”
His lip quivering makes it impossible to answer. In his head, images of the barn all set up for the shindig swipe through like a slide show. He won’t be there for Samara’s grand entrance in her short poufy dress or for the mousse cake or for the candle lighting ceremony. What Ethan said to Amy was true. He does care deeply about Samara, and he wanted to be there to celebrate. It was nice of Ethan to ask him to stay, but he refuses to be the barf in the middle of the dance floor—everyone swaying around the mess until it can be dealt with.
Taylor has made it his life’s mission to not need to be dealt with. His parents, despite all their flaws, taught him to accept the consequences of his actions. Isn’t that why they read him all those fairy tales? To drill in that lesson?
“Sash, I got fired,” he says.
“Oh, shit. Your boss found out? I’m so sorry, Tay.”
“It’s fine. It’s just—” He starts blubbering then. Good thing he’s in the corner and facing away from the rest of the seats so he can’t view anyone’s reactions to his undoing.
“Aw, Tay. It’s just what?” she asks, airdropping care to him clear across the country. He could use a real tight hug right now.
“It’s just…” he says, but the sentence falls off again. Because what’s he supposed to say? IT’S JUST THAT I COULD SEE MYSELF FALLING IN LOVE WITH HIM . There’s no way he could admit that because it’s ludicrous. Who falls in love with someone over little more than a week? That’s the part of fairy tales his parents didn’t promote.
Whatever he was feeling was probably just excitement or newness or the forbidden nature of it.
A boarding call sounds out through the gate area, and Taylor tries his best to pull himself together. “We’re getting ready to get on. We can talk when I get back.”
She sighs. He can tell she wishes she could teleport there to comfort him on the long flight home. A sappy rom-com with two hot straights on the in-flight TV will have to suffice. “Call me when you land, please?”
“Will do,” he says, shoving a crumpled tissue into his jogger pocket.
“Love you lots,” Sasha says.
Every time he pushes that word down it pops back out like a broken jack-in-the-box. “Love you, too, Sash. See you soon.”