Twenty-Eight
TWENTY-EIGHT
ETHAN
T he voice message must be the Gen Z version of a butt dial.
That’s all his mind can supply as he avoids listening to Taylor’s message through brushing his teeth, making himself toast, letting Nana out back to pee. Frankly, he couldn’t stomach listening to Taylor driving in the car and singing along to one of Samara’s playlists or talking to one of his many siblings about his joblessness.
Yes, he sent the book away with an inscription about Taylor’s dulcet tones, but that’s the thing. He can already manifest Taylor’s voice in his mind at will. Against his will sometimes! Hearing the real thing on accident would be an extra blow he couldn’t recover from. Taylor already didn’t respond to the book gesture, which felt deeply personal.
To torture himself, he goes through his whole workday without listening, which turns out to be the wrong move. He spends the day distracted—sending housekeeping to the wrong cabin, misspelling names on over-the-phone reservations. Everything is fixable, except one major thing: he doesn’t want to be here anymore .
For the first time in a decade, his brain has caught up with his emotions. The restlessness and discomfort that have been pounding away at the door of his subconscious have finally been let in.
The timeline still needs fixing, but he’s on a path toward a different tomorrow.
“Youths today. Always staring at their phones,” says Gabriel, coming out of The Thirsty Goat where he reupholstered some of the booths. Ethan noticed them fraying a few weeks back during that big dinner by the fireplace.
Ethan sets his phone in the drawer he usually keeps it in and sighs. “I got a weird message from Taylor last night at four a.m.”
“You got a ‘You Up?’ text. Damn, when did you get so hip?” Gabriel teases, flashing a good-humored smile.
“He’s on the other side of the country…” Ethan remarks with a shake of his head.
“There’s this newfangled invention. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s called sexting and—”
Ethan holds up a hand. “It was a voice memo with no context.”
“What did it say?”
“I haven’t listened to it.”
“Then how do you know it’s weird?”
“Good point,” he says, realizing latently how wishy-washy he’s being over his feelings. They are alien—that’s probably why. All the people he’s dated since the divorce have been rest stops on a long road. Suddenly, Taylor showed up and the big green Welcome to Your Future sign appeared out of nowhere, catching him completely off guard.
Gabriel sidles over. “Why don’t you let me listen to it for you? If it’s a mistake, I’ll delete it for you. If it’s real, I’ll give you the SparkNotes, and then you can decide how to respond.”
Ethan readily agrees, passing his phone across the counter. He needs to be rid of this electronic torture.
Gabriel is gone longer than expected. Ethan paces behind this plank of wood, hands digging so deep into his pockets that they might funnel right out the other side. His heart is a missile the moment Gabriel returns. “Well?”
His face contorts in what appears to be confusion. “I think it’s best you listen to it yourself.”
“That bad?” Ethan asks, taking his phone back.
“No, but it’s weird. You had that right. That’s for sure.”
Ethan intends to hit Play, but Gabriel stops him. “Maybe wait until you get home. Before bed.” Ethan opens his mouth to ask follow-up questions. Gabriel just shakes his head. “Trust me on this one.”
If there’s one unfaltering thing in his life, it’s his trust in Gabriel, so he suffers until he’s in his sleep pants, tucked under the covers, with Nana in her dog bed across the way, to finally listen.
“Little Red Riding Hood… Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl.” Ethan’s heart jolts up into his throat as he’s thrust back to the night they first kissed. Preserved here, complete with a husky, suave wolf voice, is Taylor’s interpretation of this classic tale for Ethan’s ears only.
Well, Nana’s, too. Her head bobs and her ears perk up at the sound of Taylor’s voice. To not disturb her sleep or confuse her further, he pops in his earbuds, shuts out the light and listens until the end. He’s not sure how many times he replays the voice memo, but it gets into the double digits before he’s letting out yawns, which are bordering on wolfish howls.
Come morning light, Ethan decides he needs to record his own.
On his lunch break, he jets into Calico to procure his own copy of the collection. That evening after dinner, he sets himself up on the couch in his coziest pajamas and a mug of tea. He even warms up his voice the way he learned to do in a public speaking class in college before choosing “Briar Rose” to share.
Unable to listen back to his own voice, he selects his third take, which was the most natural thanks to knowing the story better, and sends it off with one simple red heart emoji.
An hour later, his phone pings with a text: You make an excellent prince
Those five words are enough to make Ethan break out with an inextinguishable blush.
Hours later, Taylor sends him “Pinocchio” to enjoy.
In a way, these voice memos of words by the long-dead Grimm Brothers say more than any specific communication could.
At the end of his recording of “Rumpelstiltskin” Ethan says sweetly into the microphone, “Good night, Taylor.”
For a moment, he imagines kissing Taylor’s lips again.
Two weeks go by trading voice notes. They come to the end in the children’s volume, so they send links to different fairy tale collections back and forth. They settle on a chunky, complete edition replete with sketchy, borderline creepy drawings. From this, they start again.
A month goes by.
Still, they’ve not reached the end of their story-sharing, each growing more confident with their character choices and silly background noises. Ethan swears he could become a Foley artist for movies at this rate—clanging pans, rattling change in a can and getting Nana to bark on cue.
Between voice notes, they send life updates.
Did I tell you I’m taking archery lessons? Taylor includes a video taken by his sister of him practicing in a studio somewhere in Encinitas. Ethan’s heart takes on the quality of the raindrops pitter-pattering against his windowpane.
The next day, he has Gabriel video him shooting archery, as well. He captions the video: Back in action!
Taylor writes, And looking good doing it.
The ducks! They’ve arrived! Ethan types some weeks later, embracing the June sunshine along with a photo of the pond. He sends the same one to Samara and asks: Which one do you think is Donnie Ducko?
On stressful days, Taylor will send: Rough one. Nana pic, please?
Ethan’s whole camera roll is photos of Nana sleeping, fetching, walking and one very silly picture of her tongue lolling and her head tilting when he tells her who the picture is for. Taylor makes one of them his lock screen and sends Ethan the proof.
Their connection, regardless of distance, revives itself in the digital sphere, becoming resplendent and near constant. Ethan goes to bed with a smile on his face after saying good night to Taylor and wakes up with a grin on his face, thinking about the story he’s going to read aloud later.
By late June, Taylor calls with exciting news, “I’m the Story-book Endings Lake Tahoe location activities coordinator!”
They celebrate over FaceTime, each with their own bottle of the wine that Ethan stockpiles in his garage. No glasses necessary. The virtual cheers they do is satisfying, except for the fact that Ethan wants to haul Taylor up, wrap his legs around his waist and kiss him silly for this amazing accomplishment.
“We’re opening right after the Fourth of July. Will you come?” Taylor asks softly. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to burst the bubble of what’s developed between them since they’ve been apart. Maybe it’s best kept pixelated, intangible.
Ethan hears the emotion underpinning Taylor’s question and says, “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He marks his calendar, he books his flight, and the night before, he packs his bag with new clothes, plenty of sunblock, and a new collection of fairy tales for Taylor.
After dropping Nana off with Gabriel and Giselle, he heads south toward New York and then west toward the formerly impossible.
* * *
The plane touches down at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport just shy of 6:00 p.m. PST. Amy texted to let him know she arranged a car for him, which was a nice gesture. They’ve been keeping up a friendly text thread—mostly about Samara—but they’ve settled on biweekly calls to discuss life, business and the major change Ethan is pursuing. The one he can’t wait to tell Taylor about in person.
With his suitcase rolling behind him to the pickup area, he may not have to wait long at all. A familiar tie-dyed hoodie sticks out among the crowd. A smiling, floppy-haired guy holds a whiteboard that says E. Golding . Taylor’s freshly bronzed skin makes his teeth look impossibly white, and he’s ditched the socks with his sandals out here. No joggers, either. Just a pair of borderline scandalous running shorts. He hopes this reunion goes as smoothly as he’s been dreaming because he can’t wait to slip those off Taylor’s waist.
“Are you Mr. Golding?” Taylor asks, playing up this chauffeur charade.
“I am he,” he says. All those hours in recirculated air made his throat go dry. Though maybe that’s just the effect of seeing Taylor again after all this time.
“Right this way then, sir,” he says.
Ethan preens at the word sir as he follows Taylor out to the short-term parking. Taylor pops the trunk on his car and stows his luggage. “No, no. Allow me.” He gets the passenger door for him.
As they pull out, robotic directions chirping from Taylor’s phone, Ethan grabs the handle above the door, needing the support to start this conversation. Yet as soon as he opens his mouth, Taylor beats him to it. “You’re probably drained from travel. We’ve got plenty of time. No need to talk now.”
Ethan confided over text that he doesn’t sleep well on planes, so he’s grateful to be let off the hook here. He unstraps his neck pillow from his backpack, tunes into the Samara-made playlist and dozes until they reach their destination.
He wakes up just in time to see the replica of the ONCE UPON A TIME… sign leading up to the lakeside resort. For once, he concedes that the high density urethane was a good move.
As they venture past The Castle, around the back where the staff parking is, Ethan wakes up fully.
“Don’t I need to check in?” Ethan asks as Taylor leads him away from The Castle.
“Already done. Your chamber awaits,” he says.
Ethan stumbles a tad as he stands before a faithful recreation of the Snow White cottage. As Taylor turns the key in the knob, he swears he catches a smirk ghosting over his face in the front light.
The inside is painted with lighter shades and the kitchen is faintly larger. There are mint Milanos and a bottle of his favorite wine on the counter, and on the nightstand is Taylor’s copy of the fairy tale collection they’ve been working their way through. He thumbs the pages. “In case you need a bedtime story,” Taylor says, so innocently he must not be aware of how much of an innuendo it comes across as.
Heat spreading through his body, Ethan hauls his suitcase onto the luggage stand and sets his backpack down. “I have something for you, as well,” he says, unzipping his bag.
“Hold on to that thought,” Taylor says. “I thought I could light a fire for us.”
By the time Ethan makes it outside after unpacking, the fire is roaring, and the wine is flowing into glasses. Taylor sits in the glow of the campfire, under the stars, looking like perfection made manifest. Ethan hands him a wrapped present with a bow tied around it. “For you.”
“Thanks,” Taylor says, setting it in his lap so he can hand Ethan some wine. “I wanted to wait until we were together in person again to say this, but I’m sorry for telling you I had no room in my life for you. I thought it might be easier for us to move on, then I realized, at least for me, there’s no moving on from this.”
“Me neither,” Ethan says, nervously swirling his wine. “Open your gift.”
Taylor peels the wrapping with care as if he plans to save it for reuse at Christmas. He sets the bow on the ground by his feet. His face shines like the sun invading this milky purple night when he lays eyes on the fairy tale book. “Perfect. We’ll have a book ready and waiting for when we finish that doorstop inside.”
Ethan shakes his head, amused. “Open it up.”
Taylor palms his forehead. “You know, I didn’t do that at first when you sent me the original back. Would’ve saved me a bunch of heartache if I had.”
Ethan smiles warmly at him. “Go ahead, then.”
Ethan watches Taylor’s perfect lips as they mouth the words he inscribed there:
Care to write our own?
It’s his cheesy way of asking Taylor to be his boyfriend. He’s forty. Is he too old for boyfriends? Is partner a better, more mature term? None of that matters because Taylor launches off his seat and into Ethan’s lap, answering him with the best kiss he’s ever received.
“I’d love to,” Taylor whispers while running his fingers gingerly through Ethan’s beard. His forehead presses into Ethan’s temple. What a tableau they make for the other guests strolling by. He couldn’t care in the slightest. “Does this mean you want to do long distance?”
“For now,” Ethan says, ready to show the hand of cards he’s been holding close to his chest for weeks.
Taylor tilts back. “Are you moving out here?”
Ethan shakes his head. “I couldn’t up and leave my parents, nor the resort, like that. But…if you’re interested, I happen to know in about a year and a half, a general manager position may be opening up at the Catskills location.”
Taylor’s mouth drops open. “You’re retiring?”
A chuckle bursts forth from Ethan’s throat. “Christ, how old do you think I am?”
“You know what I mean!” Taylor punches him lovingly in the meat of his shoulder. “I meant from hospitality. What will you do next?”
“I’ve been looking into opening an archery camp for kids and teens,” Ethan says. “Not just archery—hiking, fishing. A camp for outdoor kids. I love teaching, and I love what I do at the resort. This seems like the best of both worlds. Building longer term relationships and teaching skills and discipline.”
“You’d be amazing at that,” Taylor says.
“Thanks. I’ve got a long road ahead of me with locations and certificates and inspections. Amy is going to help me with all of it.”
“That explains the secrecy she’s had about me seeing her laptop screen,” he jokes.
“If in a year and some change, you’re looking to move up and across the country, I know a guy who’ll put in a good reference for you.” He casts his gaze down and intertwines their fingers on Taylor’s lap. “That’s far from now, I know. I just wanted you to be aware that I believe in your potential and your future. Just like I believe there’s strong potential in a future for us.”
Taylor toys with the one curly hair constantly flopping onto Ethan’s forehead. “Me, too. I already said yes.”
“I just wanted to hear you say it again,” Ethan retorts.
“I’ll say it a million times. I’ll say it ’til you get sick of me.”
“Never,” Ethan says, leaning in for a wine-tinged kiss. The heat from the fire infiltrates his body and grows unignorable in his pelvis. “So, Mr. Activities Coordinator, what do you have on the agenda for us?”
Taylor’s eyes go soft and dreamy. “For tonight? You—” he kisses Ethan’s sensitive neck “—me—” he kisses Ethan’s scruffy jaw “—bed—” he kisses Ethan’s waiting lips “—now.”
Gallantly, from sitting, he hoists Taylor up into his arms like a princess plucked from a tower and carries him across the threshold of the cottage, eager for their first night banked toward a sweeter tomorrow.
And as he lays Taylor down on the cloud-like bed and kisses Taylor’s lips with everything he has, he’s okay that ever after isn’t guaranteed because everything that happens next, every moment with Taylor, will be a moment captured happily.