Chapter 12
Ethan drove my car the way he did everything, with an ease that suggested he'd been doing it his whole life and a recklessness that suggested he didn't care if the whole thing ended in flames.
"Your check engine light is on," he said.
"It's been on for a month now."
"Cool. Love that for us."
The BMW headed north out of Ashford. I watched the campuses disappear in the rearview.
My lips still felt warm. From last night.
From Liam leaning in and pressing his mouth against mine and saying you better fucking not like it was a threat and a prayer at the same time.
I'd barely slept. Not from anxiety but from the memory of it.
The heat of his shoulder under my hand. The way his body relaxed into me for three seconds before he pulled back and walked out the door.
He'd left it open. That was something.
Ethan had the radio low. Some indie station that kept cutting in and out as the hills swallowed the signal. He hadn't asked me anything yet. I knew him well enough to know that he was waiting for the right mile marker.
We passed Brattleboro. Vermont opened up around us. Steeper hills, barer trees, the sky flat and gray like someone had pressed all the color out of it.
"So," Ethan said. Mile forty. Right on schedule. "You broke Marcus's face."
"Yeah."
"In the library."
"Yeah."
"And there were witnesses."
"A couple."
"And then you got suspended."
"Yep."
He nodded. Drove for another few seconds. "So I was right."
"About what?"
"You thought it was Braden and I said Braden wasn't smart enough." He glanced at me. "It was Marcus the whole time."
"Yeah. And I probably wouldn't have done it if he didn't send try and send the photo. I just got pissed."
"Good."
I looked at him. "Good?"
"He called Remy a faggot right to his face." Ethan checked his mirror, changed lanes. "So yeah. Good. I hope it hurt."
"It hurt my hand," I said holding up my busted knuckles.
"I meant his face."
"Well… I got that too."
Ethan laughed.
"You look good in the photo, for the record. Liam too." He glanced at me. "Poor lighting but good in a weird voyeurism kind of way."
I stared at him. He kept his eyes on the road, completely straight-faced.
"Did you just compliment the photo that ruined my life?"
He reached for his coffee. "Your life's not ruined, Alex. Your life was fake. Now it's real."
"It's an absolute mess."
"I'd go with liberated but sure. Mess works."
We drove. The hills getting steeper. Small towns appearing and vanishing — a gas station, a church, a general store with a CLOSED FOR SEASON sign. The radio found a classic rock station and held it.
He checked his phone at a red light in a town whose name I missed. Whatever he saw on the screen made his face do a thing I'd never seen Ethan Grant's face do. A sweet expression. The same expression I probably got when I saw a text from Liam.
"Who's that?" I said.
"Nobody."
"You're smiling at your phone."
"I'm not smiling."
"Your ears are red."
"My ears are cold."
"Ethan."
He put the phone down. Drove through the light. His ears were absolutely, unmistakably red.
"Is it Remy?"
"We're not talking about this."
He was quiet for a full mile. Which, for Ethan, was basically a confession.
"He called me the night the photo went out," Ethan said. Finally. Staring at the road. "Not about the photo. I mean, he knew about it, obviously, I texted him about it. But he didn't call about that. He called because he wanted to know if I was okay. Because he knew I'd be worried about you."
"That's—"
"And then we talked for two hours. About—" He stopped. Adjusted his grip on the wheel. "About stuff."
"Stuff."
"Shut up."
"Two hours of stuff."
"I will drive this expensive ass car into a tree."
I let the silence sit for a beat. "I like Remy, Ethan. He's a good coxswain."
Ethan exhaled. "I know. He's—yeah. He's good." A pause. "He asks questions like he actually wants to hear the answers. And he remembers. I told him about this one artist in Berlin and a few days later Remy sent me a link to the guy's exhibition in Munich. He'd looked him up. On his own."
"That's—"
"Don't make it a thing."
"I'm not."
"You're making a face."
"This is my normal face. I just think that—"
"Your normal face doesn't have that look on it." But he was smiling now. Smiling in the driver's seat of my BMW because a five-foot-six coxswain from Riverside remembered an artist's name.
We drove. The radio cycled through songs I half-recognized. Ethan tapped the steering wheel with his thumb.
"So," he said. With the tone that meant trouble. "Have you two done it yet?"
"Done what?"
He gave me a look.
"We've — there's been — we did stuff in the shower at—"
"I don't mean stuff. I mean it. The main event. Full send." He gestured vaguely. "Butt stuff."
"I'm not having this conversation."
"You absolutely are having this conversation. I gave you a detailed and comprehensive youtube guide—"
"You told me to buy lube and go slow."
"It's the two most important things! Did you watch the video?" He was grinning now.
"I really haven't had the time…"
"Right. You're busy beating down homophobes. We need more gays like you."
I laughed. "Oh God."
"That's what you're going to be saying when you finally let Liam in."
I raised my eyebrows and then Ethan started making the most obscene sex noises. "Oh god. Liam—yes Liam. Please more."
I punched Ethan in the shoulder. "Ethan stop."
All he did was laugh. "I can't wait until you finally do it."
"We've been a little busy getting outed and suspended and having our lives implode."
"Excuses. Liam's out now. You're out now. The hard part is literally over." He glanced at me. "And I say this with respect — Liam is really hot. Like, objectively. That jaw? Those arms? If you don't lock that down, someone else will. He's out on campus now. People are going to notice."
"Thank you for that anxiety, Ethan."
"I'm just saying. The clock is ticking. Get your man."
"I hate you."
"I'm the best and you know it." He reached for the donuts he'd brought — a gas station bag from Ashford, already half empty. "Donut?"
"No thanks."
"Life is short. Have a donut."
I took a donut and the powdered sugar fell all over my jacket. I didn't care.
The road straightened out for a long stretch. Open farmland, stone walls, the occasional barn. Vermont in November — stripped down and bare.
And then the radio caught a signal and the opening riff hit the car like a fist.
Guitar. Raw. Building. The drums kicking in underneath.
"Gimme Shelter."
My hand stopped halfway to my mouth. The donut suspended. The song filling the car the way it had filled the car two months ago when Liam had found it on the radio and turned it up and his whole body had changed. He sat up straighter, drummed on his knee, and was grinning like a kid.
"Oh, hell yes," he'd said. "This is one of the greatest songs ever recorded."
Ethan glanced at me. "You good?"
"Liam loves this song."
Ethan looked at the radio, then looked at me and turned it up.
The bass filled the car. Mick Jagger's voice tearing through the speakers. Ethan drummed on the steering wheel — completely off beat, not even close — and then he started singing.
"Oh, a storm is threat'ning—"
"Ethan. No."
"My very life today—"
"You don't know the words."
"I know enough of the words." He cranked it louder. "If I don't get some SHELTER—"
"You're butchering it."
"Then help me." He looked at me. Grinning. "Come on. This is your Liam's song."
"I'm not singing."
"Alex. You are in a car in Vermont and nobody from your entire life can see you right now. Sing the song."
The guitar solo was building. The road was empty. Ethan was looking at me with one eye on the highway and one eye daring me.
I opened my mouth. The chorus came around.
"Gimme shelter—"
"THERE HE IS."
"Yeah I'm gonna fade away—"
"LOUDER."
Somewhere between the second chorus and the bridge, the thing let go. The composure. The performance. The careful modulation of every sound that left my body. It just released.
I was singing. Badly. Loudly. Ethan was worse. Two twenty-year-olds screaming Rolling Stones in a BMW on a two-lane highway with the bass rattling everything that wasn't bolted down.
Ethan pounded the steering wheel. I was hitting the dashboard. Neither of us could carry a tune. Neither of us cared.
The song hit the final stretch — the guitar climbing, Mick Jagger howling — and I was laughing.
The song ended. The DJ came on. And all that was left was both of us breathing hard and Ethan wiping his eyes.
I turned the radio down.
"It's going to be fine," Ethan said. Not looking at me. "You both are."
"You don't know that."
"I know that you just lit up like a Christmas tree because a Rolling Stones song came on the radio. That's not a guy whose life is over. That's a guy who's in deep." He started eating the last donut.
Then the town appeared around a bend. Hartwick. Brick buildings on a main street. A bookstore. A coffee shop with a chalkboard sign. And the theater — the marquee with plastic letters.
HARTWICK INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 22-24
Ethan parked. Stared at the marquee.
"That's my name," he said.
"Yeah."
"My film is playing in a theater."
"Yeah, Ethan."
He sat in the driver's seat with his hands on the wheel and for three seconds he wasn't the confident, sarcastic Ethan who had a comeback for everything. He was a twenty-year-old kid whose art was about to be seen by strangers for the first time.
Ethan had been such a good friend and now he was making a big move in his life. He was presenting his work out into the world. And I was proud of him. This was a whole other level of coming out. And I could only imagine what was going through his head.
"It's going to be great," I said and I put my hand on his shoulder. "I'm here for you like you've been here for me."
Ethan looked over, his hazel eyes, fear turning to relief.
He exhaled. Nodded.
"Alright. Let's do this."
"Lets."